Environmental Talk

“Oh ….”

I was reading the Letters to the Editor section of the morning paper and was shocked to find yet another potential victim of global warming.

We all know that temperatures have gone up a whopping full degree Celsius over the past 100 years and we’ve lost a couple of species over that time. We’ve lost a number of rock music icons over the same period, also.

If you extrapolate those figures over the next hundred years, you’d expect another one degree temperature rise, a handful of species extinctions and a few more lead singers to overdose.

None of which explains why the news is constantly full of stories projecting massive rises in sea levels, articles about pestilence and disease of Biblical proportions, and “statistics” that forecast a 50-75% species extinction rate.

An unidentified source (which is either me or the voices in my head) said Rolling Stone is planning a green issue that will blame global warming for the death of Freddy Mercury.

It’s very possible I was asleep when they covered extrapolation in my college math class, but I don’t remember reading about how a gently upward sloping line suddenly goes exponentially vertical … “all else being equal.”

So you can imagine how concerned I was to learn that a common, everyday species is threatened with extinction. I was both surprised and impressed that an average citizen would take the time to write to the paper about it in the same way I’m surprised and impressed when the evening news has a feature about a kid who set up forty thousand dominoes in the shape of a hamburger to call attention to the obesity epidemic.

Anyhoo … here’s the powerful warning editorial sent into the Democrat & Chronicle by Dick Gretzinger:

‘Zero’ is on the Endangered List
More often than not when telephone numbers, street addresses, etc., are quoted in radio and TV ads, the letter “O” is substituted for the number zero. Perhaps it is laziness — it’s one syllable versus two. With the use of computers it is obvious that numbers and letters are not interchangeable — in fact, there would be serious problems if one were substituted for the other. This is not limited to radio and TV — in daily conversations many people use the letter “O” in place of zero and when corrected, don’t seem to understand the difference because it has become so commonplace to use the letter “O” in all number statements.
DICK GRETZINGER

I think you’ll agree, we must take decisive action now.

If this trend is allowed to continue, our children will pay the price for our “laziness” and refusal to act. An entire generation will grow up believing that SpaghettiOs have zero taste because of our inability to tell the difference between letters and numbers.

Campbell’s Soup Company has further blurred the line by adding numbers to their alphabet soup. There can be no explanation other than they are trying to hide something by their refusal to refer to it as Campbell’s alpha-numeric soup.

Our very future as a species is at risk. Think of the ramifications of a whole generation of teenage girls maturing into womanhood not realizing there’s a difference between the achieving the Big “O” and a big zero.

If this is already the case in your situation, it’s not climate change’s fault — you just need to find a new boyfriend.

So, won’t you please join Mr. Getzinger and other Dicks in saving the zero?

Send your tax-deductible* contribution to me at:
I Want to be a Zero Hero
P.O. Box 00-OO
New York, NY 10017-1OO3

Make the check payable to “Mark Jabo” (that’s J-A-B-the letter “O”) and please, start with a “1″ and add as many zeros as you’d like after it.

Not to pressure you, but the number of zeros after the “1″ should reflect your commitment to save the planet.

Please, act now, before it’s t00 late ….

*- Contributions are only tax-deductible to the extent you are able to include it on your return and not get caught. Always consult with your accountant about deductions and countries that don’t have an extradition treaty.

global warming, climate change, species extinction, Cambell’s Soup, SpagehettiOs, Freddie Mercury, Rolling Stone,

“You mess with the bull … you get the horns.”

The following clip contains enviro-tips and a slightly scary glimpse of the future from Will Ferrell and friends over at Funny or Die.

Warning: Clip contains strong language and other stuff that Mitt Romney prolly would object to.

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’ll know I haven’t always been a big fan of the United Nations.

Upon occasion, I’ve taken exception to the graft, corruption, fear-mongering and politicizing of science that characterizes this group of career bureaucrats.

Throw into the mix the fact that repressive dictatorships are given both political cover and a veneer of legitimacy, and you can see why I had a bit of a negative bias when it comes to much of what goes on in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

I’ve even taken a few potshots at both former Secretary General Kofi Annan as well as the current head of the U.N., Ban Ki-moon.

I’m here to tell you that I take it all back.

I don’t want to go into a whole long explanation of the reasons. Let’s just say a personal letter from a certain former Secretary General made me see the light.

I was very impressed with the sincere desire of the U.N. to apologize for past slights. Oh, and also their desire to give me a large sum of money - although due to one of the many typos in the letter, I’m not sure whether I’ll be getting five hundred thousand dollars or fifty million dollars.

In the end, it didn’t really matter. It’s the thought that counts. And the thought that Kofi Anan would personally take the time to write me a check really touched me.

The fact that he was willing to drop the second “n” in his last name just made me realize how truly sincere he was.

To be honest with you, it’s not about the money. I would have changed my mind for 250 grand.

This is all about doing the right thing.

I thought it would be nice to share the heartfelt (but not spell-checked) letter I received:

ZENITH BANK COMPENSATION UNIT, IN AFFILIATION WITH THE UNITED NATION. Send acopy of your response to official email: glomax20@yahoo.com

ATTN: Sir/Madam,

How are you today? Hope all is well with you and your family?,You may not understand why this mail came to you.

We have been having a meeting for the past 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the former secretary to the UNITED NATIONS.

This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$ 500,000,00 This includes every foriegn contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.

We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.

You are advised to contact Mr. Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/ International Bank Draft of USD$ 500,000,00 This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice.

Therefore, you should send him your full Name and telephone number/your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you.

Conatct Mr. Jim Ovia immediately for your Cheque:

Person to Contact Mr. Jim Ovia
Email: glomax20@yahoo.com

Thanks and God bless you and your family.Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft.

Making the world a better place.

Regards,

Mr. Kofi Anan
Former Secretary (UNITED NATIONS).

The best part? The letter was e-mailed from kofianan250@hotmail.com, which means Kofi and I can now IM each other. He’s my new BFFL!

Just so you know it’s not all about fame and political clout, I’ll make this offer: Anyone who sends me a check for half a million dollars can be in my Top Five.

I’ve already sent my name and bank account number to Kofi but haven’t heard back from him. He must be busy with holiday plans.

Wait, … do they even celebrate Thanksgiving in Nigeria?

Try to be a little flexible ….

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Did you think just because you bought all your food within a 75-foot radius of your house, wore clothes made out recycled water bottles and only went online when you could find a friend to share the same monitor that you’d be immune from the global warming police?

Think again, Planet Killer.

Over at Eco-Fabulous, they remind us no one is safe. No one.

As you chant your mantra, ponder the inter-connectedness of all living things and risk pulling a groin muscle, you should know that your yoga class is part of the climate change problem.

Wait, … what? How is my Warrior Pose at war with the Earth’s delicate temperature balance? Is there a glacier receding on my Mountain Posture or something?

Relax. It’s not you, it’s your equipment. That mat you’re using? Probably PVC, polyvinyl chloride. Sure, at $10.99 it’s cheap … but so is an illegal handgun.

And your mat is almost as deadly. You can tell by all the people who are just lying there, lifeless, in yoga class. They’re either dead or just meditating … but do we really know for sure? And do you really want to take that chance?

The solution? Make sure your yoga mat is made from biodegradable natural rubber.

Like all good green products it’s only seven times more expensive than the killer PVC mat you’re using now but you’d have to be a real downward facing dog to put a price on saving the planet for your children and your children’s mutated children.

I know you’re probably saying, “They’ll get my yoga mat when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.” Or maybe you’re one of those people who think that if yoga mats are illegal, then only Buddhists will have yoga mats.

It’s time to move beyond simple bumper sticker or henna tattoo slogans.

Statistics don’t lie. If everyone in the country who stuck with yoga for more than six months threw out their mats, it would be enough to cover the lounge area of your local Starbucks.

Imagine the ecological carnage. We could see 30-50% of all coffee house posers become extinct over the next 50 years.

Before you exhale, you should know it’s not just your mat that’s the problem.

What did you think those foam support blocks are made from? That’s right, Tantric Dan — old dinosaurs, black gold … oil, that is.

You’ll want to go with an environmentally friendly block made of bamboo.

This way you’ll be purchasing a carbon offset for when the fire department comes with the jaws of life to extricate you from the lotus position.

global warming, climate change, yoga, downward facing dog, Starbucks, warrior pose, mountain pose, Beverly Hillbillies, fire department

Hey, there’s a Blog Carnival going on over at The Gonzo Papers. Stop by, check out the sideshow and give Kilroy a high-five on his second blogiversary.

-

“On the day I was born .. The nurses all gathered ’round .. And they gazed in wide wonder ….”

There was a lamb born today in Sunderland, England.

It must be a slow news day over in Britain, because somehow this event made it into the afternoon paper.

The headline to the story read: Lamb Born as Mother Nature Confuses Autumn for Spring

So, it could be the story is just part of the ongoing effort by the media to tie everything in the world to global warming.

It’s like that game where you link everyone in Hollywood to Kevin Bacon … except nobody’s proposing we restrict new Kevin Bacon movies back to the levels they were in the 1980s.

Although, now that you mention it….

Anyway. Back to the story —

It takes a female sheep three to four months to give birth to a lamb. Most lambs are born early in the year but it’s rare to have a lamb born right before Thanksgiving. As the article noted, Farmer Will Weightman was “stunned” to come out to the barn and find one of the ewes with her baby.

Farmer Will explained, “It’s very unusual … sometimes you get lambs in late January, early February but hardly ever in November. It has to be because of climate change.”

You have to admit, this is pretty weird. Farmer Will doesn’t know enough biology to realize the sheep was pregnant but all of a sudden he’s got a science as complex as global climatology figured out.

The article continues, “The lamb, named Breeze after it was discovered on a windy day, is quite a miracle, and Will has hardly ever seen anything like it.”

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the city, but I think it’s creepy to give a name to an animal you could be serving with rosemary and mint jelly a couple weeks from now.

Will speculated on how the pregnancy may have occurred. “Hercules in the pen nearby must have snuck over the fence, done his business and then snuck back again.”

That seems like a perfectly logical explanation until you look real close and notice the lamb has Will’s smile.

I’ll bet you ten bucks Mrs. Farmer Will was away for a couple of weeks visiting her mother back in July.

Why does everyone consider it so unusual that Hercules might have gotten horny in the middle of summer? It’s beach season and you’ve got all the ewes parading around in bikinis with their Brazilian waxes. They’re practically asking for it. A studly ram buys them a couple of drinks and it’s only a matter of time before nature take it’s course.

Big deal. Hercules climbed over a fence to get laid — like none of us have ever done anything like that before.

Back in high school, I once climbed fourteen stories up a fire escape to get with Mary Ellen Boccichio.

And she didn’t even shave her legs that week.

While we’re at it, can we lighten up on the hyperbole a little bit here and stop referring to the birth of a lamb as a “miracle?”

Animals pretty much give birth all the time. They usually do it in a field and, amazingly, manage to do it without an epidural.

Even more amazing, the birth is totally covered by their insurance without a co-pay.

When a reporter starts tossing around terms like “miracle,” it makes it sound like he can’t figure out why a farm animal giving birth in a barn hasn’t been made into an episode of Grey’s Anatomy yet.

What were there, like, 30 million lambs born last year? If something that happens 30 million times a year is a miracle, then guys watching porn on the Internet has to be the modern-day equivalent of Moses parting the Red Sea.

What would really be a miracle was if there’d been a star overhead and three wise ducks showed up bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But I think that’s already been done on The Muppet Show.

global warming, climate change, lamb, lamb chops, Muppets, Grey’s Anatomy, Hercules, Brazilian wax,

“Here we come … walkin’ down the street … we get the funniest looks ….”

We’ve got it pretty good here in the United States.

Sure, we can complain about taxes, rush hour commutes and reality TV. We can be disgruntled with politics, religion and the ever-decreasing size of airline snack packs.

But at least we’re not subject to random monkey attacks.

Over in India, they’re having a major problem with rampaging primates. And they don’t even get the WWE on cable. The weird thing is that the problem is not in some remote village in the jungle, but in the capital city of New Delhi.

It seems there are hundreds of thousands of chimps roaming all over the city. Before you jump (swing?) to the conclusion that Keeping Up with The Kardashians is filming over in Asia, you should know that monkeys have long been a problem in India’s capital city because of religious and environmental concerns.

Devout Hindus view the monkeys as “an incarnation of Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolizes strength.” Environmentalists view them as a part of Nature, the goddess who symbolizes power and government grants.

Both groups maintain that killing the marauding monkeys is unacceptable.

Animal control officials “often use langurs, which are bigger and fiercer monkeys, to scare away the smaller macaques or drive them into cages.”

This is a lot like using Dick Cheney to get rid of Dan Quayle. I’m not sure it really solves the underlying problem.

The recent death of the deputy mayor of New Delhi has been attributed to monkeys. According to his family, “he was on his balcony reading a newspaper when four monkeys appeared. As he waved a stick to scare them away, he tumbled over the edge and died in hospital from head injuries.”

Meanwhile, somewhere in a small cemetery in the Galapagos, Charles Darwin rolled over.

All I’m saying is, it seems a bit of a stretch to blame this guy’s death totally on the monkeys.

Marauding Monkees were once a problem in America…
-

According to Beitbart News,

In the latest incident in Delhi’s low-income Shastri Park area, residents reported the monkeys appeared late Saturday and rampaged for hours.

“I was talking to someone at my door at around 11 pm when a monkey appeared,” Naseema, who goes by one name, told the Times of India. “As I moved inside, the monkey followed and sank its teeth in my baby’s leg.”

This should be a lesson to all of us. We’re not defined so much by our differences as by the experiences we share.

In India, they have monkeys coming to the door and biting children; here in the States we have to deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

You say “po-tay-to,” I say “po-tah-to.”

This all goes to prove there are both positives and negatives to coexisting with nature.

On the plus side, I suppose it could create a demand for a sequel to Planet of the Apes.

On the other hand, I think my chances of getting someone at tech support who speaks English just went down.

global warming, climate change, Kim Kardashian, hot monkey love, chimps, gorillas in the mist, Hindus, environmentalists, government grants, Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney

Soldier saluting coffins on a plane
-

It’s Veterans Day.

Take a moment to thank a veteran for all they’ve done for you and your family.

If you get a chance, stop by Medal of Honor.com and take the time to read some of the stories of ordinary men who performed extraordinary acts of bravery in service to their fellow soldiers and their country.

While you’re at it, take a few minutes to reflect on all the veterans who have served. Men and women who were scared out of their minds as they entered a thatched hut in Vietnam, a farmhouse in France or a bombed-out building in Iraq … but went in anyway.

Each and every one of these people took a stand, conquered their fears and did what they thought was right for themselves, their country and their families.

In doing so, they gave the rest of us a gift of the most valuable assets they had - their time, their individual talents and their youth. They did it to protect the valuable birthright of freedom that makes so much of what is good about our lives possible.

Unfailingly, they’ve left America and the world better off - both through victory and through a better understanding of the costs involved in protecting the most noble country ever conceived and the ideals upon which it was founded.

By nearly every measurable standard, human existence has improved whenever and wherever freedom has flourished.

Every veteran and every member of their family owns a piece of that success. They’ve paid for it with blood, birthdays missed and countless tear-filled hours.

This is their day. Honor them.

They’ve earned it.

“Fear? That’s the other guy’s problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness….”

Let’s try a little test. When I say, “Wall Street,” what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

“Socially conscious,” right?

Not hardly. At the end of the day, no one on Wall Street cares if Warren Buffet recycles his cans, as long as his company still makes a profit.

This goes a long way toward explaining the attraction of oil and gas stocks over the last couple of years. Investors bought these stocks because the companies made a profit.

By contrast, conventional wisdom has been that “green” companies were generally assumed to be nice places to put your money if you wanted to make some kind of social statement but you shouldn’t really expect to make a whole lot of money off your investment.

With the growth of exchange traded funds (ETFs) over the two years, it has become even easier to select stocks that mirror a particular industry sector.

ETFs take some of the guess work out of trying to pick individual stocks by building a portfolio of stocks with similar characteristics. ETFs generally trade round the clock, allowing for greater liquidity and diversification than you might be able to get from just owning an individual wind power company, for example.

If you wanted to make a bet at the beginning of this year that oil companies were going to continue to profit from higher prices, one way to have done that would have been to buy one of the available of the oil sector ETFs back in January.

If it didn’t bother you to be involved in a carbon-based industry, you would have done very nicely.

A look at two of the more popular oil ETFs show that the United States Oil Fund and Oil Service HOLDRs were up 45.7% and 41.9%, respectively.

There’s a reason Jed Clampett and his family didn’t move to California by putting up solar panels on their shack.

Of course, maybe the reason the Beverly Hillbillies was canceled was because the clan wasn’t environmentally conscious enough for this day and age.

To settle the debate, the curious financial types over at CNBC thought it would be a good idea to see how “green” energy companies compared with the more traditional “black” energy companies this year.

The results would make Al Gore proud … and, probably, richer.

If you’d invested in the Powershares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF or the Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy fund, you would have done even better than your obnoxious carbon-based investing cousin. Powershares is up 46.7% on the year and Market Vectors is up 43.4%.

So, maybe it is possible to be socially conscious and profit conscious at the same time.

And just think … with all that extra cash, now you can afford to eat organic.

At least for the next couple of weeks.

global warming, climate change, investing, ETF, Al Gore, whole foods, Jed Clampett, Beverly Hillbillies, Jethro, Ellie May

Needs to write a global warming novel ….

There’s a new book out by two British authors entitled, Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth.

The book covers a number of scares that have occurred over the past two decades including salmonella in eggs, the Y2K Millennium Bug, bird flu and global warming. Authors Christopher Booker and Richard North conclude that there are five stages every scare goes through.

Some famous lady (whose name I should know but don’t), came up with a similar classification for the seven stages in dealing with death. If I recall correctly the first five were anger, denial, pride, gluttony and sloth. The last two were acquittal and collecting the insurance money.

Or something like that.

Booker and North have written a book outlining the five stages of a good scare. Scares usually start off with a random correlation that becomes fodder for a plausibly catastrophic story. Stage two occurs when the story is elevated, through some kind of publicity, to what the authors refer to as a “ruling orthodoxy.”

In the case of global warming, the formation of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) marked the beginning of the rapid rise of global warming as a mainstream media issue.

Stage three is characterized by governments committing to taking formal action. In the case of global warming, the authors cite the Kyoto Accord as a sign post the world had entered this phase.

The massive redirection of resources is a hallmark of stage four of a scare. Many governments have ratified the Kyoto Accord and are taking action. Schools, local government and international organizations are all urging ever more drastic actions.

Stage five of a scare is usually when people calm down, look back and wonder why they were so scared of an over-hyped fairy tale. Obviously, we’re not at that stage yet.

The say those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. If you’re dealing with an ex-girlfriend, she may repeat it a whole bunch of times to her friends. This can happen even if the “problem” only occurred one time and even if that one time she got a really nice back rub out of the deal.

But I digress.

In addition to a fresh perspective, Scared to Death, reveals some new details you probably didn’t know about the various scares. Al Gore has often mentioned studying under renowned oceanographer Dr. Roger Revelle. What you won’t here mentioned as frequently are Gore’s attempts to “suppress an article co-authored by Dr Revelle just before his death. Gore didn’t want it to be known that his guru had urged that the global warming thesis should be viewed with more caution.”

Maybe this book won’t change anyone’s mind about global warming, but the authors’ thesis that there’s nothing new under the sun when it comes to scaring people is an attempt to lend some historical perspective to an hysterical debate.

global warming, climate change, Scared to Death, Christopher Booker, Richard North, Al Gore, Roger Revelle, history, scares, Y2K, Millennium Bug, seven stages of dealing with death

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a sign showing his official campaign slogan …

I have to admit, I don’t pay much attention when Harry Reid talks. If you asked him what his favorite Halloween candy was, he’d tell you George Bush isn’t doing enough to fight the obesity epidemic and he’d find some way to blame the creation of the fun-sized Butterfinger on Dick Cheney.

Reid is one of the new breed of politicians and political pundits on both sides of the aisle who choose to rely on political rhetoric in place of any attempt to think about an issue. Any time there’s a photo op or a microphone, you’re liable to hear some crazy interpretation of the day’s events.

After all, the politician or pundit in question can always claim later that he or she (giving Ann Coulter the benefit of the doubt), was taken out of context.

As Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

Harry Reid has been going without pants for awhile now and he continued to demonstrate this latest fashion with his statement last week that global warming caused the recent California wildfires.

Within days of Harry Reid’s proclamation, this nonsense had been picked up by a variety of other outlets.

Before the flames had even died down, the idea was being repeated by Bill Maher on his HBO show, Real Time, on CNN’s promotion of their global warming special and in a segment on 60 Minutes that suggested we are living in “the age of the mega-fire.”

A few days later officials confirmed that the fires had been started by kids playing with matches.

So, unless they were working on a school assignment trying to duplicate the effects of climate change, it seems like a stretch to blame this on global warming.

The really silly part about the whole debate is how easily the thesis ascribing droughts and forest fires to global warming can be disproved.

As noted by Steven Milloy over at Junk Science.com, data from the federal National Climatic Data Center (a source you would think 60 Minutes might have thought to check before throwing out accusations) shows the following:

During the period 1900 to 2005, moderate-to-severe drought conditions occurred in Southern California during 34 of those 106 years — about one-third of the time.

Comparing the southern California drought record against the global temperature record reveals the following:

— During the period 1900-1940, when most of the 20th century’s one-degree Fahrenheit temperature increase occurred, there were 7 years of moderate-to-severe drought.

— During the period 1941-1975, when global temperatures cooled, giving rise to concerns of a looming ice age, there were 11 years of moderate-to-severe drought.

— During the period 1976 to 1990, when global temperatures rose back to the 1940 level, there were 8 years of moderate-to-severe drought.

— Since 1991, when global temperatures rose slightly past the 1940 levels, there have been 7 years of drought.

So, in the period of the greatest temperature warming and carbon dioxide growth during the first half of the 20th century, droughts occurred less than 18% of the time.

During the 34-year cooling period around the middle to third quarter of the century (which, by the way, was a time when the planet cooled, despite rising carbon dioxide levels), droughts happened at a rate that was virtually identical to their hundred year average.

In the past 18 years, the first half of which Al Gore was in the Senate and served as Vice-President, droughts have occurred at a rate slightly above the 100-year average.

If there is some kind of trend here, Bill Maher and Harry Reid are way better at math than I am.

With a little research we can come up with a much better correlation if we examine the time frame from the early 1980s to the present.

For example, the increase in large fires since the early 1980s coincides quite nicely with the growth of rap music. Clearly, Tupac and Death Row Records are responsible for the bulk of California’s natural disasters.

Can’t you see we’re at a tipping point where it’s necessary to drastically curtail the production of rap music? Otherwise 50 Cent and Missy Elliott will destroy the planet.

Quick. Someone tell Harry Reid and then go find a camera crew ….

The whole wildfire news cycle is eerily reminiscent of the global warming hurricane scare stories that were so prevalent after Katrina. Remember how Al Gore and others suggested hurricanes were going to increase in frequency and severity?

Two years later, after two of the mildest hurricane seasons in recent memory, it is generally acknowledged that there was no data to support the hurricane claims.

And even fewer reasons to listen to Harry Reid.

global warming, climate change, California, wildfires, increased severity, Harry Reid, baseless claims, Katrina, Bill Maher, Real Time, CNN, 60 Minutes, Winston Churchill