Weather, Water, Energy 9-22-06

I realize that, at a time when the Dems are completely worthless protecting our nation's values (even the usually reliable Steve Soto lets me down with "it would be fatal to protest" the torture approval--uh, Steve, the Dems are terminal already, this one turned off the machine), this little item may seem petty to bitch about, especially when, objectively, it's good news. Still, it brings heartburn since it's one more proof that the Dems' timidity and cupidity when real needs that the public wants action on are in front of their eyes and they still can't move. This issue should have been owned by Dems since Bill "sell out to be reelected" Clinton, and now it's shifting to the Repubs and certainly short-circuits any effort to hang Bushnev's idiocy on global warming around Repub necks. It also short-circuits the PR Gore's getting on the topic, even his role in the Virgin contribution yesterday. Just add it to election fraud, energy conservation, international human rights, F__KING TORTURE!!!!, and all those other highly needed and highly supported issues they've punted on while dittoing Repubs on how tough they are to Hugo. Jeez, Looooeeezzzzz. . . . At first glance, you'd think a story on how upper ocean levels have cooled, not warmed, in the last couple of years would cheer the nay-sayers on global warming. Until you realize that those ocean levels are still rising, which means the cooling comes from the ice sheets melting. Oops. Remember this if you get into an argument in a restaurant with someone citing the cooling. Or just drop an ice cube into their coffee. . . . A LA State U study in Science says that we can thank hurricanes, not rivers, for most of the sediment that state marshes there need to remain healthy, which makes sense but overturns a lot of that old favorite "conventional wisdom" (to our shock, I tell you). . . . SC and GA folks are meeting to coordinate contesting views of how to keep shared water resources (the Savannah River and Upper Floridan aquifer) viable without resorting to lawsuits. Or civil war. . . . Gotta love this one. Britain's foreign secretary has advised the US president to quickly get involved in global warming policy, that is, the NEXT US president. Time is short, she warns, and annoyingly backs up her case with evidence. If you don't like the Kyoto Treaty, she says, then "get involved with the next one, and the earlier, the better." Isn't it cute how she thinks there actually will be a NEXT president? . . . Finally, study of NASA satellite photos is showing enhanced deforestation of Brazil's part of the Amazon and poor follow-up land use. I don't have to tell you what that means by this time, do I?