both, i suppose. i actually shed a few for hillary yesterday, reading the inevitable postmortems on this fine, 100-degree june morning; felt just like the late august dog days of my childhood. today will be more of the same, another record-breaking day in what i predict will become a record-breaking month, just as last october was the hottest ever recorded in nyc history, just a year and change after our record-breaking snowfalls.
not that we’re trying to show off or anything. DC broke records in february, when it hit 73 degrees, and vegas did it with 104 in may.
I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE INTERESTING to get an idea of what average temperatures were back in the day, say a hundred years ago, but i couldn’t find that. NASA states the warming in terms of temperature increase over time, which is not the same as telling me how hot it was on 6/9/1957 (or 6/9/1857 while we’re at it). after quite a bit of digging, i found currrent “averages” (though no information on how those averages were determined), but even for these i had to scroll down and select the averages and records tab on that page — and they’re only available for the present day.
i’m no conspiracy theorist (the government is far too incompetent to execute any meaningful conspiracies) but i did find the fact that the only way you can get this information is to pay a LOT of money for it somewhat daunting. the climate change psychology blog is excellent, but even they don’t seem to have the old-time records that i would have expected to easily find in the public domain that is the internet.
OR IS THE INTERNET REALLY A PUBLIC DOMAIN? according to bill moyers it isn’t. free speech, both in print and online, is narrowing every day, not because of any conspiracy but because the media has largely rolled over and played dead in the face of corporate and governmental pressure.
getting back to hillary (i know, you were wondering when i’d work her back in), the the nutcracker doll is a perfect example of inappropriate journalistic silence — the same kind of silence i have found this morning, in my search for some pretty basic information on how regional temperatures in the US have changed over time. i’m sorry, but endless articles that amount to “hot enough for you?” and “drink plenty of water” simply aren’t enough. the planet is going down in flames and all we get from the so-called mainstream media is an unfunny version of denis leary’s asshole.
WE ARE NOT WITHOUT POWER IN THIS BATTLE, despite the size of today’s media conglomerates and the ignorant fascists in the white house. but we need to keep the pressure on. do not remain silent in the face of journalistic silence — blog, shout, write letters to the editor, make calls to congress. join the elecronic frontiers foundation (EFF), which has been working for years to keep speech free on the web.
and don’t count on me to inspire you. instead. let 40 minutes with the brilliant and fearless bill moyers do that, as it did so very well for me:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Y0r71L7cojE&hl=en]
Recent Posts:
{ 2 comments }
I very much like your blog. Thank you for your comment on mine.
It’s depressing to me that “climate change”–a blandly Republican-coined term that was part & parcel of their denial of global warming–continues to gain traction as the accepted term. Even though everyone–(even the Republicans)–by now seem to acknowledge that Al Gore was correct and that “global warming” is indeed upon us.
Comments on this entry are closed.