Climate Change Enlightenment - At Taco Bell

I first noticed her when the guy behind the counter at Taco Bell mentioned something about her motorcycle while she placed her order. Still mildly attractive in her mid-thirties (or so I assumed), she sported a backpack and was dressed as though she had just come from the gym. I was intrigued by the fact that she had arrived at Taco Bell on a motorcycle but brushed it off as I ordered my food.

I ended up seated about three tables down from her so I figured incidental conversation was out of the question. I couldn’t help but wonder why she chose to ride a motorcycle on a day such as this.

As I got up to leave, I had to pass by her table to discard my tray. As I passed, I decided it was time for an exploration into to society’s psyche. What better vessel of exploration than a complete stranger?

“Is that your bike out there?” I asked her. I knew it was. But I did also realize that I was talking to a stranger and that was the best ice-breaker I could come up with.

“Yeah, it is.” Her quizzical look made me wonder if she thought I was hitting on her. Hell with it, I thought. Her tone didn’t have “Screw you” behind it so I figured I’d go for it.

“You mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

“Umm, sure,” she replied hesitantly. I imagined she was thinking 'What is this freak up to?'

I launched right into it. “It’s kind of a crappy day out there.” True, it had been raining earlier and the remaining humidity was keeping the streets from drying much. “Why are you riding a bike on a day like this?” This was obviously not a well thought out series of interview questions.

She looked at me rather quizzically. “Umm, because I like to. It’s summer,” she said with what I thought might be an air of annoyance. ‘Wow,’ I thought. Even I realized the absurdity of the question. She might as well have followed up her answer with, “Here’s your sign, Dumbass!”

I recovered without missing a beat. “Well, what I meant was…I mean, I…” So much for recovering. Get it together man!

“I’ve been doing research on public opinion of climate change and economics.” That was a bit of a stretch but hell, what did she know? So what if she was the first test subject, I was still doing research. “I was just curious if your choosing to ride a bike on a day like this had anything to do with your thoughts on either of those subjects.” It had taken a while to get to the point but she handled it well. “With fuel prices like they are and what everyone says about fuel and climate change…”

“Oh…yeah.” She finally realized where I was going with it and went along with it. “Actually yes, that is a bit of it. My other vehicle is a truck. With a V8. It’s a gas hog I know. That’s one of the reasons I bought the bike. That, and I like to ride of course.”

“Then you buy into the climate change thing? Do you believe climate change is actually happening?” I feared with as politicized as the subject had become as of late that I would lose her with such direct questions. Turns out I was wrong.

“Actually, yes,” she replied confidently.

“Then do you believe the effects of climate change are potentially as bad as they say they might be?” Now it’s getting deep. How long is she going to stick this out I wondered. I still wasn’t completely convinced my questions weren’t going to shut off her willingness to talk.

“Yes.” Again, confidence. But then I wondered how much she knew of the predicted effects of climate change. I decided pushing for details wasn’t necessary. If she had ever watched the news, she knew enough. I wanted to know more. She was a prime candidate to describe how the general populace felt about the subject and I wanted to explore deeper.

“So then do you think that we…humans…can do something about it? Do you think our actions can have an effect on a global scale?”

“Yes. Absolutely we can do something about it. After all, we are the cause of it.” Holy shit, I didn’t even ask for it. The human side of the issue – often the most contentious part of the ‘controversy’ – addressed, and apparently accepted by this motorcycle-riding female at Taco Bell. “Actually, I’ve been reading ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – the condensed version. I don’t see how we can deny it,” she added.

I had nothing more. I knew what I wanted to know. We chit-chatted some more, but not about anything really important. I had discovered someone who saw things as I did and who wasn’t a part the science community. Maybe this is starting to catch on. Maybe the public is accepting that unless we do something now, we may not have a 'later' to procrastinate to. Maybe there is hope afterall.

Then again, maybe I should stop spontaneously interviewing random strangers at Taco Bell.

From a shelter on the beach in Jacksonville, NC

Arrive at beach at 5:50 am.
5:54 am, four pelicans sail overhead with a brownish-looking sea gull in tow.
5:55 am, five crows fly by going the other direction. First people arrive at beach.

The sun has not even broken over the horizon and already there is more activity around than I care to listen to. I guess I should have risen sooner - when the chorus of the local wildlife, what little there seems to be, declared that today's sunrise had already been summoned.

I hear cries of excitement from the people on the beach and look up to see a red sun inching its way up, peeking over the horizon. They immediately draw their digital cameras and begin snapping pictures. I do likewise but I can't help but wonder how many sunrises these people will see from hereforth that aren't printed on paper or displayed on a screen.

I've heard the ocean described as having a calming effect on people - peaceful, serene. After sitting here for a bit, I ardently disagree. I find little peace in the ocean, especially at its water/land interface. It seems to be perpetually bereating the land, futilely attempting to make its point. What that point is, I don't know. And the shore, much like a stereotypical teenager, appears to ignore these messages. I find it hard to feel peace when the water seems so perpetually angry, constantly crashing into the shore, over and over and over again.

At about 6:15 I vacate my post in the shelter by the beach. Many people are astir now and the gnat-like bugs are detracting from whatever serenity this site potentially had to offer.

On the walk back to our cabin, I hear a group of military men chanting down the beach. The sun is gaining much intensity now so I'll resort to swim trunks soon and join the ranks of the other tourists in playing in the water. I'll try to forget how much I miss the calm and quiet of a midwestern sunrise.

Hang on Texas, here comes another one

Today the east coast of Texas is bracing for Hurricane Dolly. Until today, Hurricane Dolly was only a tropical storm but it was recently upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it set its sights on Texas’ coastal region. All over the news are reports of residents running to Home Depot to stock up on plywood and flashlights. Government officials have prepared for a mass exodus from the area much like they witnessed during Hurricane Rita – an exodus that brought major highways to a standstill in the heat of summer.

This storm is expected to resemble that of 1967’s Hurricane Beulah which dumped more than 36 inches of rain in some places in south Texas and spawned more than 100 tornadoes. In the years since Beulah, the levees holding back the Rio Grande have been steadily deteriorating and officials suspect that there will be little chance of them holding back the 15 inches of rain this hurricane is expected to dump on the region.

Déjà vu. Didn’t I hear something like this back in…say, 2005? Yes. Yes I did. Twice actually. Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina. Three years ago. Rita, the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico caused $11.3 billion in damage. Katrina was the most expensive and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the U.S. It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever and the third-strongest hurricane on record that made landfall in the U.S.

Both hurricanes struck in the same year.

Now here I am, religiously watching the news, waiting to see how bad this one is going to be. Already this year, we witnessed Hurricane Bertha set the record for the longest lived pre-August Atlantic tropical cyclone. I can’t help but feel like I’m watching a NASCAR race at Talladega simply to see the big wreck. I just find it so disturbingly amusing that nature seems to be giving the finger to the climate change skeptics that still remain...albeit violently.

Hang on, Texas. You’ll get through it. And certainly now after the second 500-year flood on the continent’s largest river, FEMA will be there to help when it’s all said and done…won’t it?

From atop the Chimney Tops Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Aldo Leopold wrote, “[Mountain] peaks have trails, and trails have tourists.” He was right. But what Leopold didn’t mention was that mountains have valleys and valleys have highways and highways have cars and the most visited national park in America has lots of cars – especially on a Saturday in the middle of summer tourist season.

I hiked over two miles and climbed 1,700 feet up this trail in an effort to escape the crowds. All I found at the summit was a dozen tourists and the sound of the highway below.

I understand especially well now what Leopold meant when he said, “I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood.” I’ll admit this is a neat experience and the view is almost breathtaking. But the highway in the valley and the tourists around me only serve to solidify my appreciation and love of the Mississippi river, its backwaters, and the oft-forgotten rural Midwest.

I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m a Native American arriving at this place for the first time. I try to pretend I’m alone and there is no highway below. Oh what this must have been like! Soaring over the valley (at a lower altitude than my current perch atop this rock) I see a hawk and can only imagine the degrees of solitude he knows here in the mountains. Surely there is at least one peak far removed from humans. I wonder how far he must soar to escape the sounds. I look at the map and question whether he even can at all. I watch him soar effortlessly over the valley and envy such freedom as more tourists approach. “What good are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” I cannot help but wonder if the hawk muses the same thing.

This particular peak existed for millennia without any human disturbance. At some point it awakened to a morning filled with the sound of road builders. I wonder if inwardly it shuddered at its inevitable popularity. I doubt it knew of its impending fate and stoically watched as human civilization encroached deeper and deeper into its smoky valleys. Not long after, the first few tourists tread their way across this very same rocky peak. I wonder if then it knew or could predict what was to come. How could it? Besides, what are a few footsteps to a mountain that had weathered millions of years of storms?

But today this particular peak feels millions of synthetic rubber-soled feet every year and breathes the fumes from the exhast pipes of the million-plus cars that pass through its valleys. Its rock faces are carved with hundreds of initials of people who I doubt gave much thought to the mountain’s past. And I doubt the initial-carvers, in their effort to leave a timeless mark on this peak, gave any thought to the fact that, millennia from now, these same rocks will lie in creek bottoms thousands of feet below here. I can’t help but find a touch of humor in this, the mountain’s version of poetic justice.

I am jostled from my introspective musings by an inordinately shrill voice. I hear the newly-arriving teenage tourist say breathlessly to who I suspect is her mother, “We climbed all the way up here for this?” then proceed to open her cell phone to text message someone who I suspect is every bit as ecologically illiterate. The mountain is indifferent to the remark but I shudder. Maybe that is the way my species is – Irreverent, unappreciative, and uncaring. I imagine that these same people will go spend a month’s salary in nearby Gatlinburg on the human-created tourist attractions – none of which will be here in a hundred years, let alone a millennium. Maybe an appreciation for the natural, more permanent things is missing from society today. I’m glad that in such matters, I’m different from most. I must agree with Leopold, “For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."

God Save Us!

They’re calling it a five-hundred year flood but it’s the second one in a mere fifteen years. And this flood comes on the heels of a hundred-year drought. Last year, crops burned; this year they’re drowning. Up and down the Mississippi river, new high water marks are being etched on what few trees remain in the floodplains that once gave the river a place to go when it carried more water than its normal banks would hold. Those floodplains, once filled with potholes and flood water-absorbing vegetation, have since been levied off and drained for crop production and riverfront communities. The largest and mightiest river in the continent has been channelized, dammed, and forced between earthen embankments so we can grow more and more corn and beans. Land that once sequestered and buffered flood water now lies barren and laden with chemicals.

When levies broke and land flooded during the first five-hundred year flood, our answer was to build taller levies. The river responded by reaching new heights and blowing out taller levies. And yet we act surprised and pity the poor river communities built in the flood plains. “How can this be happening again?” we ask. Surely it has nothing to do with our propensity for attempting to beat the earth into submission so we can feed the world and, now, fuel our cars which, in turn, pour more pollutants into the atmosphere. Yet we refuse to accept that our actions cause detrimental reactions from nature. Wake up people!

I’ve heard people blame God (or whatever deity they choose to believe in) for the natural disasters we keep experiencing. Maybe God is mad at us but if that’s the case, how can you hold that against him (or her, or them...)? How would you react if a group of hoodlums vandalized a church? Say they took livestock manure and poured it all over the floors, burned the pews, relieved themselves in the holy water, and took all the money from that morning’s offering. Say they did this in broad daylight, in front of the youth choir, and then when they were apprehended they couldn’t understand why they were being punished. Imagine the outrage from the local community! Imagine your own outrage. It would almost be inconceivable how those kids could defile a holy place such as that, right?

But the fact is that the church those kids defiled was simply a building built by man. Those kids could have burned that church to the ground (imagine the outrage then!) and it could have been rebuilt in a short amount of time. Yet here we are in the conservative, God-fearing Midwest, pouring inordinate amounts of chemicals – manure included – to land we’ve stripped of native vegetation, levied off, drained, overcropped or overgrazed for decades, paved and developed. We crop every inch of land we can get our plow dipped into and pay no mind to the New Jersey-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that has developed as a result of all the chemical and sediment the Midwest is sending downstream every year. Every day, we’re defiling that which was built by God. Is it no wonder that we’re being punished for it? Why are crop-destroying natural disasters such a surprise? Do you see the parallel here? When are we going to wake up and realize that we can only beat the earth into submission without repercussions for so long?

A couple record setting floods and a hundred-year drought all in fifteen years should be indication enough that its time to start respecting the earth that we rely upon to supply us the necessities of life. If even half of what the science community says is true about climate change, we’re poised to witness weather catastrophes unlike any we’ve ever seen before. Be skeptical all you want on the subject but the proof that things are in bad shape is right before our eyes: The west is experiencing more wildfires with greater intensity than ever before; This winter, major tornadoes touched down in the south while the north recorded record snowfalls; the Midwest fried for the last two years and has record-breaking floods this year; Hurricanes and tropical storms are pummeling the coasts more than ever (the first hurricane this year - Bertha - was the longest-lasting on record). Both northern and southern Ice caps are melting so much that there is a 50/50 chance the north pole will be ice-free this summer.

The time to act is now. We must put the earth’s health at the forefront of our minds and act as stewards of this planet rather than conquerors of it. We can’t take and take from this earth and not give anything back and expect it to keep providing. It is ignorant to think that it will. Look at it this way: If climate change isn’t occurring and this generation steps up and develops an ecologically sustainable society, we will have done nothing worse than leave our children with a better life. But if we do nothing and find out that climate change is real, then we’ll leave our children with nothing more than famine, floods, droughts, fires, social disorder, war, and a planet on its way to being uninhabitable by humans. The choice seems obvious. If you want to serve a God - and keep him happy - let’s stop defiling that which he built us and start respecting the earth.

That Takes Balls

As I spent hours today surfing the web and reading up on my favorite blogs about climate change, I came across a refreshing write up on someone in the political world (not in D.C. of course) that actually stood up against the dirty coal industry and denied them permits to build new plants solely on the basis of their being too hard on the environment. Wow! That took some balls! Most governors would have just rolled over and collapsed under the pressure from the state's legislature. Not this governor. No siree. This governor had the cohones to take a stand.

I know what you're thinking and no it's not Ahnuld. We'd expect the Governator to put up a fight like this. He's been waging the environmental war for quite some time.

This governor has balls, yes...but only in the figurative sense. You see...pause for effect...the governor in question here is actually a woman. [Gasp!!]

I don't know what set Kathleen Sebelius off but that is one woman's scorn directed in a positive direction. The article I found (Found in Grist, titled, "What's not the matter with Kansas") cited how Governor Sebelius (D-KS) thrice vetoed legislation that attempted to permit the building of coal plants that the state environmental officials denied granting permits to (interestingly, this legislation was presented AFTER the legislature had consequently stripped the officials of their power to deny permits).

I have to give Governor Sebelius props for standing up to an industry that is slowly but surely losing its grip on this nation's genitalia. We need more politicians like her in this country. Maybe someday we'll get someone to stand up to the oil industry like she did to the coal industry. One can only hope...

Digging Deeper

"And then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel...is just a freight train coming your way." -Metallica's "No Leaf Clover"

Gas is $4 a gallon. Actually, today I found that the national average set a new record at $4.11 a gallon. It now costs $20 to mow my damn yard. I'm not the only one who feels the "pain at the pump" I know. Turn on or log on to any newscast and I guarantee that will be one of the stories. And justifiably so - fuel prices are the basis to everything. You can't buy eggs or milk or bluejeans or any Chinese-produced item from Wal-Mart without paying for the fuel it took to get it there or paying for the fuel it took to get YOU there. Fuel is the basis of our economy. Run fuel prices up and everything must follow.

But its okay. Our government has a solution. President Bush just lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling here in the US. Granted, it now takes the same action from Congress to make it official, but surely we Americans will put enough pressure on our elected officials to follow suit. After all, there is an estimated 18 billion gallons of oil off our shores. That's a lot of oil. Unfortunately, it is going to take several years of drilling to get it to the surface. But that's okay because surely that 18 billion gallons will be enough to bring fuel prices down, won't it? If it wasn't such a great solution, we wouldn't be all for it....right?

That depends on who you believe. Candidates and other politicians, notoriously known for feeding the public whatever line of crap they need to to get elected (or re-elected), would like us to believe that lifting a moratorium to offshore drilling will help our situation. On the other hand, scientists, educated people, realists, and those not pushing some political agenda see things differently. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) doesn't believe that offshore drilling here at home is going to help a whole lot. Even drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a place many politicians are just dying to open up because of the "huge" reserves there won't make much of a difference. According a report [PDF] by the EIA:

Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States.

The report goes into a description of potential price impacts of the added production. Taken at face value, the numbers almost seem significant until you extrapolate the savings per barrel to savings at the pump - a whopping two cents!

There are plenty of potential solutions out there but digging deeper and in more places for oil just isn't one of them. We will never be energy independent if we keep relying on oil. So be careful who you listen to. I'm still guardedly confident that there is a light (or two) at the end of the tunnel. My question is when are we going to start derailing the freight train that it currently is?

“Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.” – Michael Shermer, in Scientific American: The Flipping Point

One Step Closer

“What do you mean she can’t have a hunting license?!” asked an indignant, middle aged father.

“I’m sorry sir,” the twenty-something store clerk said from behind wire-rimmed glasses. “It’s a new policy; I can’t do anything about it,” he added dryly. This was obviously not his first outraged customer of the day.

“I want to talk to your supervisor!” The father could barely contain his outrage.

The clerk sighed, paged a manager, and busied himself shelving items from a shipping tote behind the counter. A few minutes later an overweight manager arrived wearing half a smirk. The father could tell he was not the first person to have called the manager to the counter that day.

“How can I help you sir?” asked the manager half-heartedly. He knew he couldn’t actually help the girl’s father any more than he could help himself buy his own teenage son a hunting license. Nevertheless, he was paid to follow protocol.

“I’m trying to buy my daughter a hunting license and this…this…” the father paused, torn between using the word he wanted to use and the word he knew he should use in an effort to maintain some semblance of diplomacy, “…this kid here tells me that because of one of your policies, I can’t. He gave me some crap about some special firearm user course she has to take.”

“Sir, I understand your frustration but it’s not our policy. We’re simply following the law. Until she has her registration card that shows she’s taken the course, we can’t sell her a license. The course is required of everyone between 16 and 40.”

“What are you talking about?!” The father was now raising his voice causing other customers to take notice. “You can’t do that! She’s been hunting since she was four years old and never needed a damn gun user course. She has her hunter safety card right here. That’s all she needs.”

“Sir, I know what you’re saying,” the manager strained his voice a bit as if he thought that if he talked lower, it would encourage the father to calm down. “I’m not happy about it either but it’s a new law. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“New law?!” The manager’s lowered voice apparently had no effect. “Since when? And who the hell passed that law? I damn sure didn’t vote for it.”

“Actually, you probably did.” The manager’s patience was running thin now, evident in the way he snapped out the phrase. He took a deep breath, remembering his own frustration at the policy two days earlier. “The policy was started as part of the ‘Safer Streets’ legislation.”

It all clicked then inside the father’s mind. He remembered reading about this landmark legislation that was guaranteed to ‘clean up the streets’ by giving municipalities and local governments power to ‘crack down on criminals’ by pretty much any means necessary. The law offered federal funding for neighborhood watch efforts, more patrol cars on the streets, better lighting, and more after-school programs in addition to harsher penalties for convicted criminals. It was a popular bill for sure. It had gained so much media attention and rave publicity that he didn’t take the time to fully understand every aspect of the bill. In fact, it was so popular that when the issue came across his county’s ballot, he voted for it.

He did not realize that his vote would give local legislators supreme power to enact legislation without a vote under this ‘blanket policy’.

The policy-makers knew that passing a law requiring everyone between 16 and 40 to take a government-sponsored ‘firearm user course’ as a prerequisite to purchasing a hunting license would be met with fierce opposition from the pro-gun and sportsman’s community. But under the guise of the new legislation, they could practically do what they wanted. To justify the new policy, they simply had to claim that the majority of crimes were committed by people between the ages of 16 and 40, thus the policy was simply ‘an effort to keep the streets clean’ by educating the public and was well within the powers granted to them by the legislation.

Granted, the course was simply one more step in a long pathway to complete gun removal from the public’s hands. If it was difficult to purchase hunting licenses, they figured, then it would be easy for some to just give up on hunting and give up on their gun ownership. For those that stuck it out and took the course, they’d be required to prove proficiency with every gun they own. In so doing, they would be forced to register each gun. Then, as future policies were enacted, those guns would be tracked down and confiscated – all in an effort to 'make the communities safer'.

“Sir…Sir?”

The father snapped back to reality. “Huh? What?”

“Would you like to register your daughter for the course? We have the registration forms here. There’s a course being offered next week. Just in time for the season.”

The father exhaled, defeated. He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, turned, and walked her slowly away. By the end of the isle, he was able to finally speak again.

“How do you feel about moving to America?”

A notebook hard to lose

I enjoy writing. I'm also a packrat. When I get the urge to write, it's like an addiction I must feed. So I grab whatever is available to scratch my thoughts on to. Random notebooks, post-it notes (the big ones with lines), margins of a newspaper...whatever. I also feel it is important to keep as much of my writings as possible. Unfortunately, I have a habit of losing the things I write on. Even when I put it down in a notebook, the page get buried among other, less important pages and I forget what notebook I wrote a particular thought process down on. I faced this harsh realization last night when I couldn't find a whole stack of my writings that I had hoarded away in some 'safe place' only a few months ago.

Thus I realized that maybe a blog provides that centralized storage medium that I need. Always accessible from practically anywhere. It's much harder to lose a computer than it is a notebook.

...And I never need to find a pen that works.