Middletown, Connecticut

Saturday, December 29, 2007

The "Silver Lining" in Global Warming....


The "silver lining" in Global Warming, the Destruction of Conservatism in America....

Far left reporter Dave Lindorff (Wesleyan '71) writing in the Baltimore Chronicle (12/22/07) opines:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.....The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.....

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.....So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics. (emphasis added)

This is nutty stuff folks. This is the most extreme form of climate change alarmism and clearly illustrates the underlying political agenda i.e anti-capitalism and destruction of conservatism, United Nations usurpation of our national sovereignty, and other far left nostrums. There is recent, albeit limited, evidence that Global Warming has actually ceased. Astrophysicist David Whitehouse writing in "The New Statesman" (U.K.) 12/19/07) states:

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.....For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

Dr. Whitehouse does not reject the CO2/Greenhouse Gas science. Clearly CO2 emissions are rising but CO2 comprises only an extremely tiny fraction of the earth's atmosphere. It's present concentration is roughly 390 ppm up from 315 ppm in 1960 when accurate measurements of this sort became feasible. To visualize the quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere, imagine the atmosphere as a 100 yard football gridiron. On this scale Nitrogen (78%) would occupy all of the field down to the 22 yard line; Oxygen (21%), would bring us to the 1 yard line where Argon (1%) would bring us to the final inch line of which only a small fraction of that would signify the volume of CO2! This comparison is mentioned in Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"; a similar example, using stadium spectators instead of the gridiron, itself can be found here.

An extended discussion of the CO2 problem and related matters can be found at the EcoWorld website. Here, in an interview titled "Beyond Global Warming", climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. throws much light on the subject. He says to blame all of the perceived changes in climate on CO2 emissions is wrong. Important factors being overlooked and/or underreported are changing patterns of land use and land cover. He says:
With respect to extreme weather, a much more important issue than how greenhouse gases are altering our climate is society's greatly increased vulnerability to extreme weather events - a direct result not of changes in weather but of increased settlement by expanding human populations into low-lying coastal regions, floodplains, and marginal arid land.

Roger Pielke Sr. is a retired professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, and a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Since July 2005 he has written and maintained Climate Science, a blog that serves as a scientific forum for dialogue and commentary on climate issues. With William R. Cotton, he is the co-author of Human Impacts on Weather and Climate (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Also please see our recent posting on ConservaCity "Global Warming Hoax Losing Ground"

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Coginchaug River Cleanup 9/29/07



About 20 folks assembled this beautiful September morn for the annual cleanup of the Coginchaug River in Middletown CT. This effort is sponsored by the Connecticut River Watershed Council and other organizations. We found carpets, mattresses, tires, and shopping carts just to mention the larger items. Other assorted trash filled scores of large garbage bags. The city supplied materials handling supplies and trucks to haul away the debris.

This post also appears at http://conservacity.us
I apologize for earlier photos here which did not render properly for all viewers.







Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Wild Rice, Arrowroot, and Swallows (8/23/07)

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It was a picture perfect, autumn-like day on the Connecticut River yesterday with just enough headwind to test the paddlers' arms as the flotilla of canoes and kayaks gathered for the Floating Meadows Tour sponsored by The Jonah Center for Earth and Art. I paddled in the media canoe with Peter Marteka of the Courant whose column. The Path Less Traveled appears in the paper on Fridays. In the photo below Peter interviews Jonah Center executive director John Hall.

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John Hall explained early on that because of the wind some folks might find the going difficult but only one crew had a problem, capsizing near the launch area. Once in the Mattabesset things were much calmer. John Hall explains:
It was, at first, a strenuous paddle into a stiff 17 mph breeze as 25 paddlers departed from Harbor Park and headed upriver, but the wind abated from that point on and we were well-rewarded for our effort. The Floating Meadows are in their glory at this time of year, with wild rice high and bright green, arrow root in purple bloom, swallows darting overhead, and the river water clearer at this time of year than at any other.

IM000074.jpg picture by johnbrush

Last boats in at sunset ending a beautiful day!

Lots more photos here.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

The Hidden World in Our Neighborhood

That so stunningly magical a place as "The Floating Meadows" can exist unnoticed, under our very noses, is exposed today in Peter Marteka's excellent column in the Hartford Courant. Marteka writes a weekly piece called "The Path Less Traveled" and this weeks offering is an account of his, mine, and a couple dozen others' journey into the Mattabesset River and a hidden world of Wild rice, Arrowroot, and Swallows.

Marteka'a column begins.....
When I first decided to journey up the Connecticut and Mattabesset rivers, I had visions of my canoe tipping over because of strong currents, slapping away mosquitoes the size of blimps and paddling around half-sunk refrigerators and washing machines rusting in the murky water. Not even close.



Peter Marteka is pictured below as we near the bridges between Middletown and Portland.

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