The Urban Pantheist

I want to make a proper lj post but the next ones I have queued up are about stilt bugs and moldy mushrooms--doesn't seem fair after you guys were so generous kicking in to renew my paid account.

I suppose I can say a little something about my podcast "The Species of Least Concern." The most recent episode I talked about the tiger bee fly and the cross orbweaver. Haven't seen the bee flies lately, though I saw a bunch in the week before I recorded the podcast. But I've been seeing cross orbweavers everywhere--don't know if it's because now I know what they are so I'm more tuned to noticing them, or if there are more of them around than there used to be.

My podcast has a website: http://speciesofleastconcern.com/
And if you'd rather download it than stream it you can do that here: http://soundcloud.com/urbpan/species-of-least-concern-2

Oh, I heard an story on NPR today about West Nile Virus: there is a lot of it going around this year. When they asked the expert why that was so, he said that it could be because of how mild last winter was or because of how hot this summer has been WITHOUT MENTIONING ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE. I mean, okay, you're a scientist and you make hypotheses you don't jump to conclusions, but come on dude. At least mention the fact that since temperatures are going up, that conditions for the mosquitoes that carry WNV will continue to be favorable, and the disease is likely to get worse and spread further north.

Not to alarm anyone.

Maybe I should mention that in my podcast and then enter my podcast into the Voices for Climate contest, whatever that is.

In conclusion, puppy makes me sleepy.

Thanks again for donating! I'll get you back when your time rolls around.

Is the United States the only nation where large numbers of literate people don't believe in man-made climate change? I believe in man-made disbelief of science, which is almost as scary as large-scale famine caused by droughts and floods. I did meet a nice Australian lady on my trip to Greenland who had her doubts about man-made climate change, and I wondered if the fact that her husband worked for the mining industry had informed those doubts.

If we are the only country that has a large influential population of climate change deniers, I think a little national shame is in order.

Speaking of which, human rights watchers may raise an eyebrow at Denmark, which has passed laws essentially allowing the arrest and detention of protesters who LOOK like they might start trouble.

It has become a fashion in our day, to notice short weather patterns and blame them on Global Climate Change. To be sure, by definition, Global Climate Change is a factor in every meteorological event. But it is specious reasoning to cite, for example, the fact that this winter in Boston was unusually warm, as a trend that we can blame on "global warming." The danger is that there is still a subset of "skeptics" (a strange breed of skeptics who are skeptical of science, which itself is the work of skeptical inquirers) who doubt that Global Climate Change is a reality, and if we take the warm winter as evidence of it, then if next winter is colder than average, that will be taken as evidence to the contrary.

Nonetheless, while I was walking on the snow this morning, I wondered if Global Climate Change was going to result in more ice, less real snow for the future of Boston. We have had two serious storm events this winter, and both of them have left us with this durable ice-foam rather than snow. During the course of each storm, the temperature rose and then dropped, melting and then freezing the accumulated slop into this stuff. You can't really play with it. You can slide around on it a little (it would be good for a light kid in a saucer sled) but you can't make a snowman out of it (the snowman I posted yesterday had to have been hastily erected while the slush was still malleable), you can't make snowballs (but you can hurl icy chunks that would give your target a gash) and walking on it is dangerous--whether you will punch through, slip, safely trod on top of it varies with every step. You could build with it if you were highly motivated and had the proper tools. You could use a steel shovel (not a snow shovel--those things are worse than useless with this material) to chop it into blocks and lift them out, and build yourself an igloo or a heavy wall.

In any case, the stuff is unpleasant, and if you don't shovel it off the sidewalk or out of your parking spot quickly, it will harden into epoxy and make life difficult and hazardous. Is this the substance of future winters? I have three more winters to find out.