Learning about Climate Change

 

#12 August 4:  Venice is one of my favorite places on Earth.  The art, the warrens among the bridges:  all is breath-taking.  Scientists predict that Venice will be completely under water by 2100.  That means the Abbie and Ella’s grandchildren will probably never see it.  Climate change is real.  8/3

#13 August 5:  And keeping with climate change, a recently released Maris poll found that almost ¾ (72%) of Republicans said the economy should be given priority at the risk of ignoring climate change.  This despite that the majority of respondents, 53%, said addressing climate change should be given priority even at the risk of slowing the economy.  (80% Democrats, 54% Independents).  Look at Venice and the money we are spending on fires, heat, and disasters.  This is not going away.  Fire, heat, and disasters should not be politicized.  8/3

#14 August 6:  Dave just got a countertop dishwasher for his kitchen downstairs. He fills it from the sink, and it washes about 1/3 of a load of my "big" dishwasher upstairs but works great in his small kitchen. The best part is how little water he uses. He said when he fills it from the sink; he noticed it takes the amount of water he usually "wastes" waiting for the water to get hot. (Yeah, I know there are ways to save that water!) Go Dave! Save water! Save the planet! Sometimes gadgets are helpful in big and small ways. Economically, the $200 he spent on the dishwasher will never be re-cooped 1 gallon of water at a time, but see August 5. 8/4

#15 August 7:  A headline in today’s paper said, “Gravity varies around the world.”  I’ve never really thought about gravity.  The article explained that due to plate tectonic movements.  But it also talked about how climate change is also contributing to differing gravity pulls, due to the ice melting and shifts in where ground water can be found.  I also learned a new word, “geoid”.  The earth is not a round smooth sphere, but id lumpy, bumpy and irregular shaped.  I guess I intuitively knew this, but never had a word for it or thought about it and its implications.  As the Lawrence Ice sheet and Greenland’s glaciers melt, they equated it to pushing your finger into bread dough.  Eventually without the added weight of the ice, the land will return to its original shape, but may take 1000 years.  However with climate change this is accelerating.  8/7 (I’ve caught up to the calendar, which means I need to do some serious reading and observing.)

#16 August 8:  Would planting a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) trees reduce 2/3 of the emissions created from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution till today, as Speaker McCarthy said in Ohio in June?  Planting trees is good, right?  Yes it is, but the research McCarthy cited is fraught with errors and had to issue an “erratum” (another new word for me!) Planting that many trees while, not necessarily a bad thing, is “too little too late.”  First it would only decrease the rise of the earth’s temperature by 1.5 degrees (we’ll take any progress!) and would take 20-30 years (We don’t have that much time.), and the land mass it would take could threaten plants and animals not adapted to forest ecosystems (African savannas).  So like many initially good ideas, it’s face value and hype does not live up to its execution.  (In the Republicans’ defense, planting trees is not the only way they propose we fight climate change. (Another thing I learned from this article – Republicans have a climate change plan!) They also propose expanding nuclear power, accelerating the permitting process for energy projects (whoa!  Coal, gas?) and bolstering supply chains for critical minerals used in electric vehicles and other green technologies.  The article said the “young Republicans (and Dems) demand work on climate change and older folks are finally realizing they must court them. 8/7