RE: [Paddlewise] are we warmer, maybe, can we change our environment, yes

Mike, I hear your passion and believe I understand why you disagree with what society is trying to do about climate change, maybe things aren't as clearcut as any of us would like.
Are we as humans in our activitiws changing things, probably, do we definitively understand cause and effect, probably not. If the data was published, how many of us are capable of analysis of multi variant data that probably has a lot of holes, probably not very many.

I think that in general our systems of managing things are pretty good, but since we have such a difficult time assigning  cost to the use of common resources such as air amd water, we will always struggle to do things as well as we can. We can get about 30% more power out of coal than we currently do, it would save our society money and create less pollution, but since it reduces profitability in the power industry because of the way our regulations are written, we don't do it.

Fear of climate change may have some similarity to fear of the rapture in religion. Some things will be argued based on fact, some will be argued based on belie, some believers will tend to bend the truth. Others will figure out how to bend the facts to increase their power or their wealth, that's human nature. Can parts of the world grow colder, while the world overall gets warmer?, probably. Is oil one of our societies most valuable assets in terms of increased standard of living, definitely, high energy content, easy to transport, good infrastructure to utilize it. Do we tret it as such, not really.  Does our high consumption rate have many poorly tracked impacts, yes. Could we be better off if we matched our consumption to our utilization, probably. All we can do is make a sincere effort to tread lightly to try and minimize the disruptions we cause so that those we love can enjoy a life like ours. 

On your second series of thoughts on the impact of our regulations on our economy, they're real. Would deregulation make them better, make us more successful and China less so, would you want to live in that world. It's pretty easy to find out just spend a couple of months in China. The advantages rhey get include power imbalances between classes, pollution, cheap labor, an almost communal belief in the rightness of their society, lack of IP protection (say goodbye to wealthy architects, engineers and inventors).

Do politicians do stupid things out of malice, sometimes, do they do stupid things out of stupidity, definitely.

All that said, it's ime to get in our kayaks and enjoy this wonderful world of ours. I'm off for a bicycle ride through Budapest tommorow and a snowshoe and a paddle in Seattle with friends  next week. While my house is insulated, I still haven't turned on my heat yet this year and while it's less conienient than driving, I took my bike and the bus to work evert day last week. Let's go paddling.

Another west coaster who thinks we can make this an even better place.  ~ Saul

-original message-

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:57:18 -0800
Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Thank you global warming

Craig, All interesting local facts, observed and documented.

How about

October snow in the Sierras, the usual is hope for snow by Thanksgiving? Two
or three years ago winter lasted 7 months, from a friend who lives there.
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