First "quick hits" post of the New Year:
- Now ClimateProgress is hailing Hell or High Water, the new book following The Weather Makers and An Inonvenient Truth, giving it not just one but two posts. We can only hope it generates this kind of excitement and discomfort generally.
- What we don't know may hurt us, the calling card of a complex adaptive system, such as one built on the interconnections of weather, water, and energy. Here's a good case. We've just figured out that mineral-laden dust from Chad (the country in Africa, not that annoying frat boy you knew in college) is essential to the health of the Rainforest (that's across an ocean). And, of course, the amount of dust will depend on weather patterns over Africa, which will depend on things like . . . the rainforest. Don't you just get the feeling that, if we do pull our dumbasses out of this mess, it will be by accident more than intelligence?
- An interesting article on a couple of research efforts to monitor the world's oceans for changes in color and temperature so we can do a better job relating those changes to what's happening in our weather. Promising and long-term. Would have been nice a couple of three decades ago or so but still good to have it going.
- The Oxford Farming Conference in Britain is trying to bring farmers, major contributors to and victims of global warming, into some intelligent planning there. Let's see if it takes and they can take on US farmers.
- Three warm stories--an ice-free Baltic for New Year's, the warmest Oslo year in almost 70 years, and the warmest Vienna New Year's in 155. I'm beginning to sense a pattern.
- The state that prospered most from auto building now sees the handwriting and wants to become the one that prospers most from alternative fuel research and development. Maybe if they get rid of their idiot Congressman Dingell, we'll start to take them seriously. Maybe.
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