Are you planning a huge barbecue for the Fourth of July? Will it be in the backyard? (The kids are hoping for a pool.) Will it be at a state park or beach? (Send the teens early to hold down a grill and several picnic tables.)
Wherever it happens, if the crowd is large enough, you’ll notice some age-based segregation. The old folks will sit in lawn chairs in the shade and visit. The teenagers will disappear. The bulk of the work will fall to the parents in their 20s and 30s. Some will keep the small children supervised while the others work the grills and set out the cold salads.
Of course, there’s the children’s table. Park all those first cousins together and let rules about table manners slide for one day or at least pretend not to notice. The kids can dash back to their play and the adults can eat in peace.
All of this depends on not being rained out, which is a mighty big depends if you live in the northeast. It’s been a very rainy spring this year and is in fact overcast and muggy as I type. (Great word, “muggy.” Just typing it makes me feel damp.)
Warmer and wetter is the forecast for this part of the country if we fail to stop global warming. The wetter part may sound good to folks living in the arid west, but it’s hardly a boon.
Wet springs mean farmers can’t get into the fields to plant their crops or the crops get washed out and need to be replanted, as happened to cabbage and broccoli crops this year. If hay is too wet to cut in its optimal window, it loses nutritional value. If it stays wet, no hay gets cut at all.
The above is anecdotal, but earlier this week, I was looking at rainfall figures. In some parts of America it is getting wetter. Other places are getting the same amount of rain, but it is falling in short bursts, which do not soak into the ground the way a long, gentle rain does. Instead, most of the water runs off quickly, carrying topsoil and causing erosion.
All of which leads back to the midsummer children’s table. Before it broke for the holiday, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, its first significant piece of global warming legislation. It will go to Senate committees next week and perhaps see Senate floor action in September.
Or not. There are a number of people who don’t take global warming seriously and too many of them are in the Senate. Which may not be the worst thing in the world. The bill passed by the House is so weak and riddled with loopholes and giveaways that it will not get the job done in any case. (OK, now there’s a torrential downpour outside.)
The nations of the world will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. The United States, the greatest contributor to global warming, has taken no meaningful action to address this problem, which lets other problem nations – like China – off the hook.
We can’t seem to get global warming from the children’s to the adults’ table. Certainly the economy and health care are important issues, but global warming is not just important. It’s urgent. If we don’t act now, we’ll forever lose the ability.
Unfortunately, it’s human nature to disregard hazards until they become crises. Even more so if addressing the hazard is uncomfortable and reducing carbon emissions in an oil-based society is way uncomfortable.
So we’ll wait until the next crisis hits – another hurricane wipes out a city, a heat wave kills thousands. (The first happened in the US, the second in Europe.) Then a brief window will open in which we can do some good. Chances are we’ll need a cluster of catastrophes to land at once if we’re to be shocked into sufficient action.
But by the time it gets that bad, it’ll be too late.
The Children’s Table
Are you planning a huge barbecue for the Fourth of July? Will it be in the backyard? (The kids are hoping for a pool.) Will it be at a state park or beach? (Send the teens early to hold down a grill and several picnic tables.)
Wherever it happens, if the crowd is large enough, you’ll notice some age-based segregation. The old folks will sit in lawn chairs in the shade and visit. The teenagers will disappear. The bulk of the work will fall to the parents in their 20s and 30s. Some will keep the small children supervised while the others work the grills and set out the cold salads.
Of course, there’s the children’s table. Park all those first cousins together and let rules about table manners slide for one day or at least pretend not to notice. The kids can dash back to their play and the adults can eat in peace.
All of this depends on not being rained out, which is a mighty big depends if you live in the northeast. It’s been a very rainy spring this year and is in fact overcast and muggy as I type. (Great word, “muggy.” Just typing it makes me feel damp.)
Warmer and wetter is the forecast for this part of the country if we fail to stop global warming. The wetter part may sound good to folks living in the arid west, but it’s hardly a boon.
Wet springs mean farmers can’t get into the fields to plant their crops or the crops get washed out and need to be replanted, as happened to cabbage and broccoli crops this year. If hay is too wet to cut in its optimal window, it loses nutritional value. If it stays wet, no hay gets cut at all.
The above is anecdotal, but earlier this week, I was looking at rainfall figures. In some parts of America it is getting wetter. Other places are getting the same amount of rain, but it is falling in short bursts, which do not soak into the ground the way a long, gentle rain does. Instead, most of the water runs off quickly, carrying topsoil and causing erosion.
All of which leads back to the midsummer children’s table. Before it broke for the holiday, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, its first significant piece of global warming legislation. It will go to Senate committees next week and perhaps see Senate floor action in September.
Or not. There are a number of people who don’t take global warming seriously and too many of them are in the Senate. Which may not be the worst thing in the world. The bill passed by the House is so weak and riddled with loopholes and giveaways that it will not get the job done in any case. (OK, now there’s a torrential downpour outside.)
The nations of the world will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. The United States, the greatest contributor to global warming, has taken no meaningful action to address this problem, which lets other problem nations – like China – off the hook.
We can’t seem to get global warming from the children’s to the adults’ table. Certainly the economy and health care are important issues, but global warming is not just important. It’s urgent. If we don’t act now, we’ll forever lose the ability.
Unfortunately, it’s human nature to disregard hazards until they become crises. Even more so if addressing the hazard is uncomfortable and reducing carbon emissions in an oil-based society is way uncomfortable.
So we’ll wait until the next crisis hits – another hurricane wipes out a city, a heat wave kills thousands. (The first happened in the US, the second in Europe.) Then a brief window will open in which we can do some good. Chances are we’ll need a cluster of catastrophes to land at once if we’re to be shocked into sufficient action.
But by the time it gets that bad, it’ll be too late.
© Mark Floegel, 2009