What goes around...

Interesting turn of events. My new year's resolution has become part of my job. My assignment is to monitor my agency's contribution to the effects of climate change, and facilitate activities with the intent to change. Despite my interest in climate change, I didn't see this coming.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. A new section is added to chapter 43.20A RCW (Department of Social and Health Services)
to read as follows:

(1) The department shall evaluate its activities and their effect on the climate in terms of the total amount of greenhouse gases produced.

(2) The department shall report to the legislature every two years, beginning in 2008. The report must include, but is not limited to:

(a) The total amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide;

(b) How the department is incorporating the effects of climate changes into its programs and activities;

(c) The interest groups involved with aiding the department in climate change issues; and

(d) The adaptations, activities, and technology used to reduce the effects on climate.

Bush is almost a believer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush will outline a policy on global warming next week in his State of the Union speech but has not dropped his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House said on Tuesday.

"It's not accurate. It's wrong," White House spokesman Tony Snow said regarding media reports suggesting that Bush would agree to mandatory emissions caps in an effort to combat global warming. Such caps could require energy conservation and pollution curbs.

"If you're talking about enforceable carbon caps, in terms of industry-wide and nation-wide, we knocked that down. That's not something we're talking about," Snow said.

Britain's "The Observer" newspaper reported on Sunday that senior Downing Street officials, who were not named, said Bush was preparing to issue a changed climate policy during his annual State of the Union speech on January 23.

U.S. allies such as Britain and Germany have pressed for a new global agreement on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Bush withdrew the United States from the protocol in 2001, saying its targets for reducing carbon emissions would unfairly hurt the U.S. economy.

"We'll have a State of the Union address in a week and we'll lay out our policy on global warming," Snow said when asked whether British Prime Minister Tony Blair had persuaded Bush to agree to tougher action to combat global warming.

Bush has pushed a series of initiatives aimed at encouraging the development of alternative energy sources such as hydrogen and ethanol. That theme is expected to be emphasized in his speech.

Germany is hosting the Group of Eight summit later this year and German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to make the fight against climate change a top issue on the agenda.

Meeting with Merkel at the White House earlier this month, Bush said he was committed to "promoting new technologies that will promote energy efficiency, and at the same time do a better job of protecting the world's environment."

The topic of climate change also came up on Tuesday when Bush met with new U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon. Ban raised the subject, according to a U.N. source.

"This is a global problem that calls for global leadership," the source quoted U.N. secretary general as telling Bush. According to the source, Bush said that those who sign on to protocols like Kyoto need to live by them.

EVOLVING
Bush administration stances on global warming and other environmental issues appear to have evolved over the last year, starting with the president's 2006 State of the Union address, when he called U.S. addiction to foreign oil a serious problem that required more spending on new technologies.

After years of skepticism and calls for more research into the causes of global warming, Bush acknowledged last summer that humans exacerbate the problem.

His administration also is considering designating polar bears, whose icy habitat has been melting in recent years, as an endangered species. That could pressure the government to impose tougher measures to avoid global warming.

Snow suggested the president was sticking to his emphasis on voluntary steps to curb emissions.
"The president believes in doing everything in our power to use innovation and the power of innovation to achieve people's goals of having cleaner energy and abundant energy," he said.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Zabarenko)

Climate Change for the Global Warming Poopooers

For those who debunk the concept of global warming, this should gladden their hearts.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A storm blamed for at least 39 deaths in six states spread into the Northeast on Monday, coating trees, power lines and roads with a shell of ice up to a half-inch thick and knocking out power to more than half a million homes and businesses.

Ice-covered roads cut into Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances from Albany, N.Y., to Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, where officials also canceled Gov. Rick Perry's inauguration parade on Tuesday because another round of ice was expected during the night.

The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs and took down power lines, knocking out electricity to about 135,000 customers in New York state and New Hampshire.

Even in Maine, a state well-accustomed to winter weather, a layer of sleet and snow on roads shut down businesses, day care centers and schools.

In hard-hit Missouri, the utility company Ameren said it would probably not have everyone's lights back on until Wednesday night. Overnight temperatures were expected to drop into the single digits. As of Monday afternoon, about 312,000 homes and businesses still had no electricity.

Missouri National Guardsmen went door to door, checking on residents, and helped clear slick roads.

About 106,500 homes and businesses blacked out in Oklahoma, some of them since the storm's first wave struck on Friday, also were still waiting for power Monday. Ice built up by sleet and freezing rain was 4 inches thick in places.

"Emergency responders are having a hard time getting to residents where their services are needed because of trees and power lines in the road," said Pittsburg County, Okla., Undersheriff Richard Sexton.

The Army Corps of Engineers dispatched soldiers from Tulsa to deliver 100 emergency generators to the McAlester area. Fifty additional generators were being sent from Fort Worth, Texas, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. About 127,000 customers were without electricity Monday in Michigan.

More than 160 flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Before dawn Monday, a car slid into the path of a dump truck on an icy New York highway in Sennett, 20 miles west of Syracuse, killing the car's driver and two passengers.

"It was very icy, rainy, a snow-sleet mix, so definitely the road conditions had a lot to do with this," Sheriff David Gould said.

A wave of arctic air trailed the storm and was expected to push temperatures into the single digits in some areas. Oklahoma officials strongly discouraged travel, saying the frigid weather would refreeze slush and water on roads.

Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday had been blamed for at least 15 deaths in Oklahoma, eight in Missouri, eight in Iowa, four in New York, three in Texas and one in Maine. Seven of the Oklahoma deaths occurred when a minivan carrying 12 people slid off an icy highway Sunday and hit an oncoming truck.

In California, three nights of freezing temperatures have destroyed up to three-quarters of California's $1 billion citrus crop, according to an estimate issued Monday. Other crops, including avocados and strawberries, also suffered damage.

The newest version of the same

BAGHDAD - Washington's top general and diplomat in Iraq conceded on Monday that past experience might breed doubts about a new U.S.-backed Iraqi security plan for Baghdad but they insisted this time will be different. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, announced the plan a week ago and President Bush has pledged 21,500 extra troops, most for Baghdad, saying the plan's success will "in large part determine the outcome in Iraq."

I don't think anything the US does will determine the outcome in Iraq. All it will determine is how long it will take them to drive us out. Eventually, despite our worst efforts to keep them from getting to do this, Iraq will determine their own future.

Nigerian president calls for international action on climate change

Nice to see our president is focused on killing Iraq while other countries, even some in the third world, are figuring out the "climate change" controversary. Maybe they need ExxonMobil to help them focus on what's important, like they did for Bush.

ACCRA (AFP) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has called for international assistance to help Africa deal with the devastation caused by climate change.

Speaking at a conference on German-African partnership in the Ghanaian capital Accra, Obasanjo called late Saturday on all nations to adhere to international protocols the environment.

He said deforestation was having a detrimental effect on the continent's ecology and called for urgent action to prevent Lake Chad, a shallow lake providing water to millions of people in several African countries, from drying up.

"We have to do something about the lake so that about 10 million people will not be out of water," Obasanjo warned.

Lake Chad borders Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Water levels have been falling in recent years due to climate change and increased human usage.
The conference, hosted by Ghana's President John Kufuor, was being attended by German President and former International Monetary Fund head Horst Koehler during a four-day visit to Ghana.

Also attending were presidents and 50 youth leaders from 18 African countries, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare.

Koehler used the event to call earlier on Saturday for the European Union to change its attitude toward Africa and address double standards in areas such as trade and human rights.

"It is inconsistent that we in Europe demand justice while closing our eyes to injustice in Africa. This also means that we in the north must change our behaviour," he said.

Alternate plan for Iraq

Why isn't the alternate plan for Iraq leaving Iraq? Having served in Vietnam, I know first hand how occupying a country that hates all of us does not work for "democracy," not even Bush' s version. The United States cannot rule the world, or even an oppressed country, if the people in the country don't want them to. The only way we can "win" in Iraq is kill everyone. Is that what we really want?

Leaving Iraq. Admitting we can't determine everyone's destiny for them and ram it down their throats. Admitting we are just another country on this planet. Working to rebuild, like with Vietnam, when Iraq ready. The sooner we leave, the sooner stability can come. Yes, people will continue to die until the country determines it's own fate. But what are people doing now?

Unseasonable Weather Jolts Northeast

No one mentions global warming anymore....Not.

By JOHN KEKIS, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - As Marie Goff drove up the muddy access road to the top of the bobsled track at Mount Van Hoevenberg on Saturday, the thermometer on the dashboard caught her eye.

"Unbelievable, 51 degrees," said Goff, a driver for the Olympic Regional Development Authority.

"Thank goodness it stopped raining and thank goodness the track is refrigerated."

The balmy winter, which has sap running, the buds on the trees are sprouting, and dogs are shedding their winter coats, has been unlike any other in Goff's memory, and she's 83.

The National Weather Service reported record or near-record temperatures across the region Saturday after a long warm spell.

Albany International Airport hit 71 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The temperature at Boston's Logan International Airport was 69 degrees at about 2:30 p.m. In New Jersey, all-time records set in 1950 were broken in Newark, Trenton and Atlantic City. And in New York City's Central Park, the thermometer hit 72, tying January's all-time high. The city, and much of the region, has seen no snow this winter.

"I can remember a thaw at Christmas many times, but not for the length of time we've had this year," said Goff, who was ferrying passengers at the Chevrolet Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge, a competition on ice by racecar drivers.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projected a December, January and February about 2 percent warmer in the Northeast than the 30-year average, citing both the oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific, or El Nino, as well as long-term climate trends.

A cold front coming into the Northeast was expected to begin lowering temperatures Saturday night, said Neil Stuart, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Eight of the 12 warmest years on record have happened since 1990, and the big culprit for the overall trend has been global warming, said David Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist at Rutgers University.

"You can't explain this without including the enhancement of greenhouse gases," Robinson said.

The weather is bad news for some businesses. Kelly Belli, 34, a secretary at Aero Snow Removal's office in Newark, N.J., said worrying wasn't going to solve the lack of business, she said.

"You can't change the weather," she said. "It is what it is."

Where's the snow?

One good thing about climate changes, some places are getting better? Battered west coasties can vacation in NY, where the highs today are in the 70s. NYC has no snow yet this winter, a new first (January 5) in recorded history. What will summer bring? For snow lovers, Denver has had three years worth of accomulated snow in the past three weeks. Guess they are getting NY's snow.

Wonder if some day Malibu Beach will become Malibu Desert, Denver will be Antarctica, and NY will be the Riviera. Not to worry, everyone knows Global Warming is a myth.

LOS ANGELES - A major wind storm has blacked out thousands of customers, boosted the danger of wildfires and whipped up a dust storm linked to two deaths.

Strong Santa Ana wind is customary in Southern California in December and February, but this storm, which was continuing Saturday, is one of the fiercest in years, meteorologists said. Gusts to 62 mph were reported late Friday in the Malibu hills, and wind was measured at more than 80 mph in some mountain passes.

The National Weather Service declared a red flag warning for fire danger because of the wind and the Los Angeles County Fire Department stationed 100 additional firefighters in vulnerable areas.

A minivan hit a tour bus during a dust storm Friday near Barstow, killing a 56-year-old woman and her 13-year-old grandson, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Arnswald. Several others were injured in the multivehicle wreck.

"When I came through (after the crash), the visibility was nonexistent. There was just sand everywhere," Arnswald said. "I had been there just 20 minutes earlier, and there was no sand and everything was clear."

The wind also downed scores of trees and utility lines, knocking out electrical service Friday to more than 100,000 homes and businesses.

Switched to the new version

So, what's different?

Climate Change in W Washington

This is from the National Weather Service

Consider this message as a heads up.....looks like we are going to get a major change in the weather pattern next week.

You are welcome to forward this message to other interested parties.

Impacts of El Nino are starting to take hold in the Pacific Ocean weather pattern. A Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) has crossed into the western Pacific tropical region and is heading east. For you weather junkies and those who have not attended our fall media/emergency management workshops in the past, much more about the MJO is available from the NOAA/NWS Climate Prediction Center at:

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjo.shtml

As the MJO heads east toward central America during the next week or so, the weather pattern across the Pacific and for that matter, the northern hemisphere is forecast to shift dramatically. Bottom line for our area is that a major ridge of high pressure is forecast to set up south of Alaska with lower pressure over the western U.S., pushing the storm track south into California and the inter-mountain region.

So what does that mean? After we get by this weekend with yet another wet and windy storm, the storm track will shift from a general west to east pattern to a north-south orientation in the Mon-Wed time frame and a colder air mass from the interior of western Canada is anticipated to descend into western Washington and much of the western U.S.

The transition from our current pattern to the new weather pattern may involve some lowland snow mid-week. Temperatures will cool into the 20s and 30s in our region by Wed or Thu. In the longer term, this MJO may finally initiate the long-awaited El Nino weather pattern with the storm track predominately across the southern tier of the U.S. Until that occurs full-time, we will have to endure a period of below normal temperatures.

Bottom line - consider this message as a heads up and to watch NWS weather forecasts and any statements closely through next week via our web site at

http://www.weather.gov/seattle/

Another quite interesting feature on our web site is our area forecast discussion issued every 6 hours, where forecasters discuss the upcoming weather pattern and confidence - kind of reading between the lines of the forecast. The area forecast discussion (AFD) can be found at this link:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sew/forecasts.php

The latest 6-10 day outlook is at the following link, demonstrating the confidence in colder than normal temperatures for the Pacific NW. In addition, I added what the upper level weather pattern may look like mid-week next week (flow moving from north to south into the western U.S.) at this link.

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/610temp.new.gif

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/
analysis/namer/gfs/12/images/gfs_500_156s.gif

Group: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public

Thought this was interesting, including the link between EM and cigarette disinformation.

WASHINGTON - ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain's leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the scientific advocacy group's report.

Many scientists say accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks are warming the atmosphere like a greenhouse, melting Arctic sea ice, alpine glaciers and disturbing the lives of animals and plants.

ExxonMobil lists on its Web site nearly $133 million in 2005 contributions globally, including $6.8 million for "public information and policy research" distributed to more than 140 think-tanks, universities, foundations, associations and other groups. Some of those have publicly disputed the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

But in September, the company said in response to the Royal Society that it funded groups which research "significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company." It said the groups do not speak for the company.

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or cherry-picking facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

The other side of the fence

Or the middle anyway.

Finding a middle ground in the debate on climate change
By Andrew C. Revkin Published: January 1, 2007

NEW YORK: Amid the shouting lately about whether global warming is a human-caused catastrophe or a hoax, some usually staid climate scientists in the usually invisible middle are speaking up.

The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, including the former U.S. vice president, Al Gore, and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.

Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.

A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.

They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging.

"Climate change presents a very real risk," said Carl Wunsch, a climate expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It seems worth a very large premium to insure ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios."

"Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with any degree of skill seems equally stupid," he said.

Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all climate extremes while building public support for a shift to nonpolluting energy sources.

They have made their voices heard in Web logs, news media interviews and at least one statement from a large scientific group, the World Meteorological Organization. In early December, that group posted a statement written by a committee consisting of most of the climatologists assessing whether warming seas have affected hurricanes.

While each degree of warming of tropical oceans is likely to intensify such storms a percentage point or two in the future, they said, there is no firm evidence of a heat-triggered strengthening in storms in recent years. The experts added that the recent increase in the impact of storms was because of more people getting in harm's way.

There are enough experts holding such views that Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist and blogger at the University of Colorado, Boulder, came up with a name for them (and himself): "nonskeptical heretics." "A lot of people have independently come to the same sort of conclusion," Pielke said. "We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?"

This approach was most publicly laid out in an opinion article on the BBC Web site in November by Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Britain. Hulme said that shrill voices crying doom could paralyze instead of inspire. "I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama," he wrote.

Carbon Dioxide

Interesting, who is one what side. Reminds me of a group of important people who said taking Iraq would be "shock and awe." I'm curious to know how well passing a law that says we aren't in global warming will affect global warming.

Supreme Court takes up issue of carbon dioxide emissions
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is defending its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new motor vehicles in the first case about global warming to reach the Supreme Court.

The Environmental Protection Agency lacks the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, the administration said in court papers. Even if it had such authority, the EPA still would not use it at this point because of uncertainty surrounding the issue of global warming, the administration said.

Global climate change is "a controversial phenomenon that is far from fully understood or defined," trade associations for car and truck makers and automobile dealers said in a court filing signed by former Solicitors General Theodore Olson and Kenneth Starr that backs the administration position.

Twelve states, mainly along the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as three cities, a U.S. territory and 13 environmental groups are arguing that the EPA ignored the clear language of the Clean Air Act. Under the 1970 law, carbon dioxide is an air pollutant that threatens public health and the EPA must regulate it, they said.

The case is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning.

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, are burned. It is the principal "greenhouse" gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to a warming of the Earth and widespread ecological changes. One way to reduce those emissions is to have cleaner-burning cars.

"There are compelling reasons for the court to join the issue now," Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly said in a brief on behalf of the states, cities and environmental groups.

A federal appeals court in Washington, in a fractured decision in 2005, upheld the administration's position. The Supreme Court decided to take the case in June and is expected to rule before July 2007.

The court's decision could have far-reaching effects. A separate case involving the EPA's claim that the Clean Air Act similarly does not give it authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants also is making its way through the federal courts.

Together, U.S. power plants and vehicles account for 15 percent of the world output of greenhouse gases, said David Doniger, counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group involved in the Supreme Court case.

An association of electric utilities, the Utility Air Regulatory Group, opposes greenhouse gas regulation. But two individual power companies, Calpine Corp. and Entergy Corp., are on the other side.

"This case makes for strange bedfellows," Entergy said in its brief. The company said it has to be able to make plans 25 years in advance, and that the EPA's current rules will not "stand the test of time."

Michigan, home of the U.S. auto industry, and eight other states are backing the EPA.

Presidents of the United States

Despite our history books, George logs in at number 17.

The following served as the President of the First Continental Congress:
1. Peyton Randolph (September 5, 1774 – October 21, 1774)
2. Henry Middleton (October 22, 1774 – October 26, 1774)

The following served as the President of the Second Continental Congress:
3. Peyton Randolph (May 10, 1775 – May 23, 1775)
4. John Hancock (May 24, 1775 – October 31, 1777)
5. Henry Laurens (November 1, 1777 – December 9, 1778)
6. John Jay (December 10, 1778 – September 27, 1779)
7. Samuel Huntington (September 28, 1779 – March 1, 1781

Note: Samuel Huntington continued as president from the President of the Second Continental Congress to the President of the United States in Congress Assembled with only a title change.

The following served as President of the United States in Congress Assembled: (maximum one year terms)
7. Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781 – July 9, 1781)
8. Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781 – November 4, 1781)

Note: Thomas McKean was the first to use the title of President of the United States.

9. John Hanson (November 5, 1781 – November 3, 1782)
10. Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782 – November 2, 1783)
11. Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783 – October 31, 1784)
12. Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784 – November 6, 1785)
13. John Hancock (November 23, 1785 – May 29, 1786)
14. Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786 – November 5, 1786)
15. Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787 – November 4, 1787)
16. Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788 – November 2, 1788)

The following served as President of the United States under the current US Constitution:
17. George Washington, 1789-1797
John Adams, 1797-1801
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
James Madison, 1809-1817
James Monroe, 1817-1825
John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841
William Henry Harrison, 1841
John Tyler, 1841-1845
James Knox Polk, 1845-1849
Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850
Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853
Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857
James Buchanan, 1857-1861
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-1877
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881
James Abram Garfield, 1881
Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885
Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
William McKinley, 1897-1901
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923
Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945
Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953
Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001
George Walker Bush, 2001-

Global Warming vs. Climate Change

I've noticed in the past twenty-four hours that "global warming," the term, has been replaced with "climate change" by those in the know. Maybe it is a Republican thing, kind of like replacing "Christmas" with "Holiday Season" is a Democrat and governcrat (formally called bureaucrat) thing.

Watched Al Gore's "An Inconvient Truth", which used both terms, and ABC's "The Last Days on Earth", which stuck with climate change. Interesting that climate change was the number one concern of the seven most deadly potential calamities:

I think this was the order:
1. Climate Change
2. Manufactured Pandemic
3. Nuclear War
4. Asteroid Collision
5. Volcanic Activity
6. Intelligent Machines
7. Altering DNA

However, the Mayans, who had a calander ending December 21, 2012, may have discovered a castrophy ahead of the asteroid heading toward us in 2029 and again even closer in 2037.

Of all of the potential happenings, the climate change one is easiest to notice and just about the only one I can do something about, even if in some very small way. It is happening here, as Western Washington becomes warmer and with more severe weather.

When I grew up, we skated on Kitsap Lake in the winters of the 1950s. People even drove cars on it. Kitsap Lake has not frozen over in more than 20 years, not even once.

When we visited Mt. Rainier in the summer, we used to stop and play in the Nisqually Glacier caves next to the road. Those caves are now twenty-year-old trees and what little there is left of the glacier is no longer in sight.

November was the wettest month in the last 100 years, and a day in December the wettest day. 2006 was the sixth wettest year and that was with four months of zero rain. Eight of the 14 wettest years have occurred in the past ten years. We had the strongest windstorm since 1962.

We are in the midst of a climate change in Washington.

Worldwide, the ice is melting; the world is warming.

I remember the time when important people in suits would say smoking cigarettes didn't kill. Now important people in suits dispute global warming. I wonder if they are related to the cigarette people.