Power came back on yesterday. Ah, life is almost back to normal. Still some clean up to do, put away storm panels, service the generator, help neighbors who fled the storm clean up theirs, and so on. But we have lights, refrigerator, and Internet. Life is good.

Yes Bob, the biggest problem is with the tropical rain forests. But we all can help with a tree or two,

And I respectfully disagree. I don't think the US is doing fine. I've seen hundreds of miles of trees bulldozed over in Florida and elsewhere for housing developments that replaced the trees with lawns.

That's a lot of CO2 not getting converted to O2.

I'm a believer that if a lot of people, each does a little, the end result can be huge.

When I bought my house, which used to be in a mixed scrub-oak, sand pine, sabal palm, and palmetto forest there wasn't a tree on it. The previous owner didn't like the leaves falling.

There are remnants of the forest, and it was thick.

Now I have over a dozen live oaks, 11 sabal palms, 4 royal poincianas, 3 gumbo limbos, one neem, a few sea grapes, and one ficus that the birds planted. And a few carrotwoods have also volunteered. 27 years later, I'm back in a 1/2 acre forest.

My yard is cooler and the shade is welcome. It no longer needs to be watered and fertilized, and I have ferns and other ground cover plants to minimize what I have to mow.

I live near the Indian River Lagoon on the East coast of Florida. A former Riverkeeper came to my house to borrow a PA amp, and he said my yard was perfect for the health of the lagoon and the fish that spawn in it (and I like to eat fish).

The way I figure it is if >97% of peer-reviewed, published, climate scientists agree, and a few dissenters have been found taking million dollar bribes from oil and coal companies, that there is at least a 97% chance that humans are either causing or accelerating the global warming. So I'll go with that. If I erred, I've erred on the side of caution, and if I'm right, my children and grandchildren will know I've done what I can.

The seas have risen so much around here that Miami Beach regularly floods at high tide. Even the Republican Mayor who was a climate denier has turned around. Miami is consulting with people from The Netherlands about how to keep the water out.

Las Olas area of Ft. Lauderdale (The Venice Of America) suffers the same fate. I grew up there, and never-ever saw the tide overflow the banks until the late 1990s. Now it covers Las Olas Blvd frequently.

Salt water intrusion has happened up to 6 miles inland to what were fresh water wells.

Of course less than 3% of peer reviewed climate scientists say this is natural, but I choose to go with the over 97%.

I know there are a lot of fake news exaggerations on both side of the coin, and they often look very convincing and have credible sounding names. (They did the same thing with tobacco smoke.) But if you look at the peer reviewed scientific journals, the vast majority of climatologists think there is no question about the human contribution global warming.

And although it's very difficult to say, one super-storm Sandy, or Irma, or Katrina is the cause of climate change, looking at the total weather extremes seem to fit the predictions that the climatologists as far back as the 1950s predicted.

Add the sea level rise, the Arctic melting, the glaciers receding, and the permafrost melting, I think we need to all do something.

And yes, China is a big polluter, but they are also installing Solar and Wind at a pace that dwarfs our efforts. When I was there, they were damming the Yangtze river, relocating millions of people, moving historic structures, and the people I talked with all seemed to agree that the cost was severe, but worth it to get better air (and the air in China was bad). So if it is a Chinese Hoax, they are spending zillions of dollars on that hoax. Rush Limbaugh who said Irma was a liberal climate change hoax, he evacuated his Florida home.

Still, it's impossible to prove with 100% accuracy, and the "Merchants Of Doubt" hired by the oil and coal companies capitalize on that fact. So we all choose to believe who we want to believe.

So I will continue to go with the 97% of peer-reviewed climatologists. I hope my children and grandchildren and all the others in those generation have a better world for our efforts. And if we are wrong, we haven't hurt anything. If the "other side" is wrong, the next generations will suffer.

I guess I'm still not over peace, love, and all that hippie philosophy.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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