SCIENCE!

Good morning, Hylebos! It's been a busy week, with preparations being made for a day that shall be known as Hylebos Day. More on that later. We've been working with the city of Federal Way's fine Parks Dept. on ways to improve management of the park known as the West Hylebos Wetlands (Why am I writing like that? Not enough caffeinne.)

Today's news sift starts with truly disturbing news. Long-beaked syndrome, a deformity of birds is being found concentrated in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Take down the we address. If you spot birds with this tragic deformity, contact the group.

Hey, we've had snow and strange hale showers in the past week. When is that global warming going to start? Guess what? A new study, featuring the newfangled discipline known as SCIENCE, shows that the American West is getting hotter, faster than the rest of the country. (by the way, the ALL CAPS, was supposed to simulate the sound of my voice shouting like Thomas Dolby in his famous song, "She Blinded Me With Science." Go listen to the song and then re-read if you have to.)

So, those of you who keep calling me when it snows and saying, "It's snowing in March, Chris. Whatever happened to that global warming you talk about." Just stop.

Oh, and speaking of helpful contributions to solving global warming, one of our own Washington dams is part of new climate exchange, selling investments in carbon offsets. I'm actually rather skeptical about this one. Even more studies, featuring SCIENCE (I'll bet you got it on that one) have shown that dams can produce more greenhouse gas than they offset in energy production. Dams produce greenhouse gases in two way. When they're first built, in the destruction of trees and vegetation more on this.

Finally, in the CITY THAT RECYCLES, the mayor has declared that consumers shall pay a 20 cent fee on all plastic grocery bags used at grocery and drug stores. I'm definitely in favor of action of plastic bags, but feel ambivalent about that taxation approach, particularly when its pointed at the consumer.

First, making environmental protection painful should be a last, last strategy. Yes, there are times when taxes and regulations are needed. I'm just not sure the benefits of sticking a finger in every consumer's eye every time they buy food fro their family is a great marketing strategy. It may work in Seattle, though, granted.

Second, it's a tax. And it's a regressive tax. And it's a regressive tax that hits families at a place they can't avoid - that is, if they want to feed their families.

The fee could prove a struggle for low-income consumers, advocates say.

"It is an undue burden," said Mike Buchman, a spokesman for Solid Ground, a nonprofit that serves families dealing with hunger and homelessness. While he applauds the mayor's environmental policy, "there are a lot of hungry people in our community, and every dime that can go to nutritional food is important," he said.

Buchman said more than half of seniors and residents in Seattle public housing have been unable to buy food at some point because of insufficient resources. The one bag the city intends to provide is not enough to hold groceries for a household, he said.

Perhaps there are some different strategies, short of a tax and short of trying to ban the bag. Hmm. Maybe someone will write about this...

Comments

[Scott]

Basing so much on a lie is ultimately going to seriously damage the Environmental movement.

Why must you drive things through fear instead of rational science?

Here is the truth about Global Warming.

http://video.google.com/vidlay?docid=3928695593212006635

http://video.google.com/videlay?docid=-3309910462407994295

Even the creator of the Weather Channel says that Man Made Global Warming is a lie.

[Ted]

Wow the arrogance of it all thinking we can even determine what weather patterns should be when we are talking about centuries.

When you think in terms of earth processes our lifespan is analogous to that of a fruit fly. If a fruit fly was born after a sunny week and it started raining, rain would seem unusual, out of the ordinary, even supernatural and if say the fruit fly had some kind of written history he could look back what would be several generations and still not see this strange phenomenon known as rain.

How long have we kept detailed temperature readings? One hundred years? Perhaps a little more than one hundred years? A mere eye blink in the terms of earth processes. And just how accurate were those early readings compared to today’s technology?

The truth is despite the lack of detailed readings we can look back a little further. Although these are not detailed records we still have historical records that suggest what the climate might have been several centuries ago. And also through techniques like tree rings and ice core samples we can go back thousands of years with some general accuracy. Several thousand years still, when thinking in terms of earth processes, is merely like a moment but it is interesting what one finds.

And what does one find? That even looking back as recently (in the perspective of earth processes) as a couple of thousand years the earth’s climate has been hotter and colder than it is now.
Greenland was called Greenland for a good reason. From the tenth century to about the fourteenth century indeed Greenland was green and people actually lived there due to the fact that the climate was warmer than it is today. There were vineyards in England.

More recently, there was a “little ice age” ending around the mid nineteenth century. In Britain during the winter they would have “frost fairs” where during the winter months people would go out to the frozen river Thames and have fairs. The weather indeed was colder then and therefore if we are coming out of that, wouldn’t it make sense for our climate to be increasing in temperature.

What we have learned from our study of historical climates is the one thing you can say about it is that it is ever changing. Will the climate be hotter in the next few centuries? Perhaps, as it has been quite recently in the geological past. It is equally as possible that it will be colder. But regardless, a century or so of detailed records is hardly enough to base a prediction. Even a few thousand years of information is still too short of time to get any real indication of the normal weather patterns of our planet.

Hotter or colder? Whatever it will be it won’t be due to man. For again the climate has gotten hotter and colder in the past when there were no fossil fuels being used. You know what the most likely cause of climate change is? The Sun. Imagine that, the sun affects world climate patterns.

By the way, a generation or so ago the big talk was how we were moving into an ice age. Many, many prominent scientists came out supporting this idea. Just like now there were people pushing fear as science to forward some political agenda.