If the Creek Don’t Rise!

Wasn’t that a Tennessee Ernie Ford song?... Oh, well, it was something like that. Remind me! And, the President was remarkable in the Miami heat yesterday, laying it all out for us so clearly. Yet, the House of Representatives, the Koch brothers, the Tea Party and the U.S. Senators from the traditional southern states will disagree.
by Charlie Leck

As a young man, I was a Tennessee Ernie Ford fan. Oh, my, but the man could sing. He had a weekly television show (black and white) and he always closed it out by saying: “See you next week if the good Lord is willin’ and the creek don’t rise!” Since I hadn’t heard one of Ernie’s songs in so many years, I had to hunt one down on the internet. When Ernie sings How Great Thou Art, a guy almost wants to fall to his knees in devotion – almost! (Hear him sing the great hymn here.)

The creek rose this week here at Native Oaks Farm and it rose up with a bit of ferocity. It took the bridge into our farm with it – the only civilized way to get into the place.

The weather events of the last week have seriously tested my devotion. I looked up to the heavens and shouted out my question: “What the f-bleep is going on here?”

My wife is devastated. This is really her farm and not mine. She’s lovingly poured the last 33 years of her life into this place, working most days from early in the morning until late into the evening. We’ve had our disagreements about the time and energy she puts into this place and the time and attention that I don’t get as a result. Yet, I’ve always admired the love she’s had for this farm and how devoted she's been to it.

Well, the weekend storm, a week ago, was a little too much for our wonderful spot on this earth to handle. The lovely, little creek that meanders through it turned into a bit of a monster and kept on rising over the weekend and also even in the week following the storm as the run-off water leaked into it.

A bridge – maybe 70 or 80 years old – was the main victim of the rising creek. It’s quite amazing how we get attached to such things. I liked that old bridge and didn’t want to see it go.

I’ve told myself a couple dozen times to stop feeling sorry for myself. “There are people with real problems,” I’ve said, “ – real problems! You’ll awaken in a cozy bed tomorrow and there will be orange juice awaiting you and a wonderful, hot cup of coffee. It isn’t the Earth’s fault – all these problems – but it is just that we don’t know how to plan properly for special times like this. I’m sorry that I snapped at you, Earth. You are wonderful and your abundance sustains us!”

This isn’t really a blog about our little bridge or our farm…
Did you listen to the President’s speech in Miami yesterday? Now, those are real problems that the man is outlining for us. Within 50 to 100 years, Miami may be considered America’s Atlantis. Most of the city is only five feet above sea level. The current pace of global warming will mean that Miami would be totally disabled in the near future. Still folks won’t believe it! We simply won’t learn to get along with this precious Earth.

Those phenomenally wealthy Koch brothers don’t agree either. They call the president “Chicken Little.” The creek simply won’t rise they tell us; and it seems like many Americans are willing to gamble on that.

Well, the president may be lots of things, but he isn’t chicken. The actions he announced in Miami yesterday will put both his reputation and his legacy at stake. Faced with a Congress that will not act, the president is trying to use the power of the executive office to initiate environment actions to save the earth. In my opinion it rivals President Lyndon Johnson’s brave actions surrounding the Voting Rights Act (to which SCOTUS* did great damage yesterday).

As I sit here, in my wonderful tree-top study, I can look out at the rising creek – higher and wider than I have ever seen it -- higher and higher and higher.

"And God said, 'Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, 'Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.'  And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." [Genesis 1:9-13]

  

SCOTUS = Supreme Court of the United States

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GOP Ignores Global Warming

                  God, as I imagine Her!

I swear to God! I really do. She shakes her head also,
unable to believe the stubbornness of some people  – 
unable to believe the risks they’re willing to take with
the lives of future generations. I swear to God.

I spend considerable amounts of time contemplating
what she might look like  –  God that is – and how
she can be so patient with us.

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As Andrew Sullivan says on his blog (The Dish*), “…the Republicans in Tampa either ignored climate change or flat-out mocked it.”
by Charlie Leck

There wasn’t any mention in the speeches in Tampa, from the Republicans, of global warming – neither yea or nay!

Andrew Sullivan, on his very popular blog, goes on to list “what else the party has ignored.”

“The thunderstorm and tornado swarms of early 2011, including the monstrous Joplin, MO., disaster. Hurricane Irene, which inundated much of the Northeast. The worst heat wave in Russia in 1,000 years. Record-shattering heat and drought in much of the United States this year. The lowest level of Arctic sea ice ever measured. The melting of virtually the entire ice sheet of Greenland, something not see in 30 years of satellite measurements.

“And yet climate change is barely a blip on the political radar in this year’s campaign. The topic appears in the Republican convention platform only in one passage berating the Obama administration for elevating climate change to a ‘severe threat’ equivalent to foreign aggression.”

I swear to God! I really do. She shakes her head also, unable to believe the stubbornness of some people – unable to believe the risks they’re willing to take with the lives of future generations. I swear to God.

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It's my birthday today. My goodness! 72 already. The image of God (above) is a birthday treat to myself today. It's a computer drawing I did that was based on an image I found at a web site called loverne.com, a site that I'm not too sure is entirely reputable; however, one probably ought to take a chance or two on one's 72nd. Don't you think?

*You can find Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Dish, at http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com 

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Send a Message about Global Warming

Don’t sit on this because too much is at stake for your grandchildren and mine!
by Charlie Leck

In all the time I’ve been blogging, I don’t think I’ve ever asked my readers to send a vital and important message, via email, to all their friends and contacts. This morning I am asking just that. I think everyone should read the column by James E. Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies about global warming.

The column appears in today’s (Saturday, 4 August 2012) Washington Post.

For too long we’ve allowed the arguments against the dangerous warming of our planet by unqualified fellows like Rush Limbaugh to influence the majority of our nation’s citizens. Limbaugh is an uninformed rube [i] when it comes to matters so important as the survival of the human race. Somehow we’ve got to get people to take seriously the much more informed scientists of our nation.

“When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

“But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

“My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.” [James E. Hansen]

Hansen says that it is not good enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather; it has! He says “there is virtually no other explanation!” He points to examples in America and around the world that indicate our climate has changed.

I can see being willing to gamble on a lot of things and I do all the time; however, to gamble with such possibilities as the warming of the planet on which we are blessed to live is a preposterous game of chance. For, if I am wrong, at the age of 71, it will have no consequence for me personally; but I have little ones who romp out there in Oregon and in the Chicago area who are going to grow up and establish their own independent lives on this very planet also. I have a responsibility to them not to allow us to gamble on a bet suggested by one as pompous [ii] and self-absorbed as Rush Limbaugh. The chances are 100 to 1 that Limbaugh is wrong, wrong, wrong!

For God’s sake (and I mean that), who would you rather listen to on a matter of such magnitude – an entertainer and buffoon [iii] like Limbaugh, or a man of science like James Hansen?

Hansen argues that the weather patterns we are seeing today are NOT changes that result from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. He reminds us that we will still see some occasionally cooler than normal summers and some extremely cold winters, but we mustn’t allow such events to fool us.

Significant and peer-reviewed studies show that “the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.”

Such extremes “will become even more frequent and more severe.”

Our only hope is that (Hansen assures us) “there is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious[iv] time.”

Honest to God! Honest to God!

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[i] Rube: an unsophisticated person from a rural area; hick. A male given name, form of Reuben. “The bigotry has softened somewhat, but nobody wants to be considered a rube.”

[ii] Pompous: characterized by an ostentatious display of dignity or importance (a pompous minor official). Inflated, Pretentious, Turgid, Bombastic. “Limbaugh is a pompous, ignorant bastard who gambles with my grandchildren’s lives.”

[iii] Buffoon: a person who amuses others by tricks, jokes, odd gestures and postures, etc.. Jester. Clown. Fool. Boor.

Compare to buffa puff of breath, buffare to puff, puff up one’s cheeks. Buffoonery. Buffoonish. “I’m sure you must realize that Limbaugh is a buffoon.”

[iv] Precious: Very valuable or costly (a precious child; a precious fool). Valuable, Costly. “If you could spend but a moment with this grandchild of mine you would understand just how precious all grandchildren can be!”

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The Relentless Advance of Global Warming

Paul Douglas is a Republican meteorologist out here, who is famous for his work and innovation in predicting the weather. He is very concerned about the warming of the globe and wishes his political colleagues would wake up to the reality of global warming before it is too late.
by Charlie Leck

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors… we borrow it from our children.”
                                                                                    [Native American saying]

Don’t believe in global warming?
I find it hard to believe that so many people are running around scoffing at those scientists that warn us about global warming. It doesn’t add up. From around the globe we are hearing from weather scientists of the highest caliber about how the globe is warming as the result of human activities.

Paul Douglas is our community’s leading weather reporter. I’d be the first to admit that Mr. Douglas has blown a forecast or two. Neverthess, he basically knows and understand weather and what it’s up to at any given moment better than any man I’ve ever listened to. I urge you to read his comments on the Huffington Post about the relentless advancement of global warming. He wonders why Republicans, of which he is one, are so stubborn about this weather phenomenon. He proposes that such obstinacy is putting the planet in great danger. Douglas explains that 97 percent of published, peer-reviewed PhDs “see the thumbprint of climate change.” He argues that this 40 percent jump in greenhouse gases leads to a warmer and more tempestuous planet.

“..and the weather maps I'm staring at are making me very uncomfortable. No, you're not imagining it: we've clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern….

“A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, more fuel for floods, while increased evaporation pushes other regions into drought.

“Here's what I suspect: the patient is running a slight fever. Symptoms include violent tornado sneezes, severe sniffles of flooding and raging rashes of jaw-dropping warmth. It's 85 in March. What will July bring? It's as if Mother Nature seized the weather remote, clicked America's seasons on fast-forward, turning the volume on extreme weather up to a deafening 10. This isn't even close to being "normal". Weather Underground's Dr. Jeff Masters put it best. "This is not the atmosphere I grew up with."

“We fiddle,” Douglas writes, “while Rome burns!”

You know, we've got some kind of responsibility to start nagging people about this. We’ve got to nag, nag, nag! Don’t let people off with lame, uninformed little answers to the warnings of scientists from around the world who specialize in this field. What if we alarmists are wrong? We’ll have spent time and money on nothing and people can later point and wag their collective finger at us. But, what if we are not? What if we’ve nailed it and nothing is done to stop the onrush of damage to our only place to live? They’ll be no need for finger-pointing!

These are my grandchildren and their children that I’m talking about. We mustn’t leave an unhealthy globe to them. Start nagging!

“This is a moral issue,” Douglas reminds us. “…Someday your grand kids will ask what did you know… when… and what did you do to help?”

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Global Warming is Inconvenient!

In 2011, President Barrack H. Obama mentioned global warming only one (1) time in public!
by Charlie Leck

Global warming will not be a big subject in the 2012 presidential election. The Republicans will bring it up only to pooh-pooh it; and the Democrats will try to avoid the subject so they don’t alienate those who don’t believe such an environmental phenomenon is taking place. All of this at a time when the evidence proving global warming builds to a cacophonous level while the percentage of Americans who do not believe global warming grows.

It makes me want to scream!

What good would it do if I so lost my composure? The disciples of Rush Limbaugh would just laugh at me as I go on worrying myself silly about the kind of world we are leaving my grandchildren. I have two brothers who think I’m crazy to believe so fully in the word of the world’s finest atmospheric scientists.

These scientists overwhelmingly argue that global warming is not only happening, but it is happening at a faster pace than previously believed. The number of scientists who don’t go along with the theory is very small and almost all of them are not highly regarded.

I watched a 44 second video the other day made by a genuinely silly man in Provo, Utah. The video showed a heavy snow storm in late April. The cameraman and narrator (same guy) was screaming that he was recording evidence that global warming is a lot of nonsense. Some science! This guy, of course, is a follower of Rush Limbaugh.

On the other hand, watch this very calm and rational video (23 minutes) that comes out of Yale University. It follows immediately below or you can watch it on You Tube by clicking here.  It is an interview with Bo Ekman, the founder and chairman of the Tällberg Foundation

Should we be hiding our heads in the sand, hoping these scientists are incorrect? It seems that the general public would rather bet their chips on Rush Limbaugh than on places like Yale University. This is very exasperating.

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