3:00 snapshot #668

[urbpan]

Things at work have calmed down a bit, with some of the hospital cases soon to be resolved, some of the quarantine animals discharged. I like to recharge my pest control program in January, take stock of what's worked and what needs to be changed, and for a while it seemed like the hospital was going to be full all winter and there would be time for nothing else.

Last night while we were walking the dogs my asthma started acting up, and by the time we got back to the house I could barely breathe. I think it was the cold dry air; tonight wasn't bad at all. I never seem to have an inhaler around when I need one. I was so wiped out that I actually got into bed around 7:45, put on an episode of the Simpsons, and was asleep a little after 8. Since I've been getting up at 5:30 (about 3 years now) I've been going to bed earlier and earlier. I love sleep more than almost anything else now.

A friend of mine from high school has been posting Climate Change Denialist screeds on Facebook, and I've let it get to me. I should just ignore it, but it makes me mad to think that someone on the "wrong" side of the culture war is so close to me. He tries to engage me in exchanging sources and research, but I don't really feel like spending all my free time trying to defend the scientific consensus. (He's a conspiracy theorist/libertarian, and is convinced that Climate Change is a scam to cause governments to create Carbon Taxes.) I posted two links on my own page, that I got from Twitter: A New England Cable News
story about the weather records this year broke, and a story about scientists studying why people don't believe in anthropogenic climate change. I'm hoping the argument can take place there without my continued involvement.

Comments

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Urrrgh. Climate Change Sceptics give me the shits. Tell him to come over here to Australia, where he can experience the Ozone Hole for himself....

[audacian.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that guy.

[deathling.livejournal.com]

Oh we have those scales at the hoppital!

[weofodthignen]

This appeared on my f-page right after a post from a friend who calls one of her kids Panda, in which she talked about getting the kid to like lentils . . . so I looked to see the lentils. I need to wake up :-)

Politics infuses everything, these days. I have a hardened global-warming skeptic on my f-list, intelligent and educated, who bases his skepticism on his undergrad degree in geology. I'm pretty sure there have been big changes in that field since; he's a contemporary of mine and I remember the received wisdom back then that we were in an ice age, just as I remember things that dominated in my field. I think he's clinging on in a reactionary spirit and because it's scary to think of a chunk of one's education as outdated. But one has to evaluate things - including changes in received wisdom - without judgmentalism. I'm afraid my friend with his education and influence is making his small contribution to retarding implementation of changes that could make things easier and more survivable. But then under "survivable" I include non-human animals and trees.

M