or: We interrupt this blog for a small rant
Early this morning at about 4 am, Avi came into our room and crawled into our bed. This does not happen too often anymore and usually we wither don’t even know because we stay asleep, or we just let him come in the bed, roll over and go back to sleep. This morning was one of those times when I woke up. It seems that around this time there were some major thunderclaps in our area.
Thunder in winter? Say it ain’t so! Whats going on here? Until this winter I cannot recall any thunder in the winter. Apparently, thunder needs a warm area in order to form. The cold ground and snow usually make it almost impossible. According to wikipedia, there are approximately three reported instances of thunder snowstorms each year and they usually are around the Great Lakes.
So what is up?
The powers that be in the united states seem to want to, at best, ignore climate change, and at worse deny its existence. I think that the evidence is quite hard to ignore or deny, but our politicians (with some exception) seem to do just that. I realize that “An Inconvenient Truth” is alarmist and shows worse case scenarios, but even with more conservative estimates, our planet is warming and if we do not make major changes right here, right now, there will be terrible consequences in the future.
Obviously we all can do our part. Change to fluorescent bulbs, recycle better, stop using petroleum products in our home etc. Did you know that most dish detergents are petroleum based? Clearly it is impossible to stop all petroleum use, but we can slow it down. If every American family switched to cfl bulbs, we could reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds.
Unfortunately, while this helps, and will push the inevitable farther into the future, it is up to us as responsible people to make sure our government is doing the right thing. We all know that science has eradicated smallpox and people generally do not get polio anymore. Why not fix global warming? I have no doubt in my mind, that science can do almost anything, given the proper time and funding. What we need is leaders who understand that what they do today will truly impact the future. When it is time to vote in November, I hope that most Americans will keep this in mind.
This has been a short rant. We now return you to regularly scheduled blog.