I just read a posting on an email list to which I belong, and I come away from it a little concerned. The email was sent from an individual to a friend, which was then passed through a couple of other friends until it ended up on my list. This individual, let's call her Barb, was flying to her high school reunion and struck up a conversation with the man next to her. We'll call him Fred. It seems Fred was on his way to present a paper on global warming, but Fred isn't a field scientist -- he's a theoretical mathematician. I want to say right off the bat that I have nothing against theorists in general, but I do have a problem with those who discount observational data without giving any clear reasons WHY the data are incorrect. Fred appears in Barb's personal account to be completely enamored of his computers and his calculations, but his conclusions rang an alarm bell for me. Let me explain.

First, Fred said that today's predictive models of global warming " . . . are simply not sophisticated enough to take into account all the positive and negative feed-backs that might be important. The computers can only solve simplified versions of the equations that
exclude most of the complexity." OK, I'll grant him that, but that is true of most predictions of natural systems. When Barb asked when we might expect equations that can make accurate predictions, he responded that if computer technology continues to advance as it has in the past (to which I ask in the 1950s or in the 21st century?), we won't see any accurate models for at least one hundred years. Fred continued by saying that he believes that the Earth and her systems have "attractors" that keep everything in balance. After much lengthy discussion, the conclusion Barb makes is this: " . . . the appropriate policy toward climate change is probably not to try to prevent it, because it is so unpredictable, and we simply don't have a good understanding of the laws of cause and effect as they apply here, but rather to prepare for whatever may come, by developing our capacity to respond to crises, building responsive and competent institutions which could handle whatever the future may bring to minimize its impact on human society."

These conclusions, drawn by someone who doesn't know much about global warming or science in general, probably mirror the conclusions any John or Jane Q. Public might make after hearing Fred speak, and THAT, my friends, is what scares me. So many people want to cram their heads in the sand up to their buttholes and pretend that humans are having no negative impact on the Earth, or if we are -- "It won't happen in my lifetime, so why should I worry about it?" There's still oil for our cars right now, so why try to develop electric cars? There's still gas to heat our homes, so why try to efficiently extract energy from wind and solar sources? Global warming may not be really happening, so why try to limit carbon dioxide and particulate matter emissions? Let's just deal with the problem when and if it really happens. Competent institutions? By whose standards?

This kind of attitude really pisses me off. When you build a house, do you wait until after it rains and soaks your bed to put on a roof, or do you put on the roof before the rain to prevent your bed from getting wet to begin with? Most folks see people starving in a third world country and think it's perfectly alright just send them food rather than stop deforestation so their soil won't become infertile. Those few thousand trees are just so friggin' important. Yes, yes, I know -- there have been great strides in the last twenty years or so in sustainable farming and responsible logging and yada yada yada. How many decades of fighting by large-scale environmental groups and grass-roots environmental movements did it take to get people to take those steps? And just how long do you think it would take for companies to revert to those older, "easier" ways if given the excuse? When America starts feeling the "pinch" of less oil coming out of the Middle East, does it band together and say, "Hey, let's think of an alternative so that we're not dependent on foreign oil sources"?? You'd think so, especially considering how xenophobic most Americans have become the last couple of years. I don't think I'll ever be able to figure out why people find it so much easier to react to a problem rather than take a couple of small steps to prevent the problem in the first place. Are lower emission cars more expensive than higher emission cars? No. Is recycled paper more expensive than brand-spanking new paper? No. Is electricity from wind sources less reliable than that from fossil fuels? No. Do vegetables sprayed with pesticides and meat treated with butt-loads of steriods and antibiotics taste better than those that aren't? Quite the contrary. Yes, these last ARE more expensive, but so was recycled paper until it was widely distributed and made available to everyone.

Come on, people -- let's pull our heads out of the sand. We only have one home, so why not take preventative care of it now rather than reactive care of it later? We just might save ourselves a lot of trouble.

Personal tragedies seem to abound in my personal care attendants' lives. Of the four I have, three have experienced deaths in their families in the last week. The latest was just yesterday evening, and this one affected me the most, not because I would have to reschedule my own personal needs still further, but because I knew the lady. I had only met Mrs. Ruth Paxson (Aunt Ruthie to my best friend Anita) twice, but she was a truly beautiful soul that I feel I will miss very much. The first time I met Mrs. Paxson was at the funeral of Anita's uncle Dale (whom I have mentioned in my Musings) last October, and she fell in love with my assistance dog Reba. This love precipitated my second meeting just this last Sunday. Mrs. Paxson had been in the hospital for more than a week, and every day she would ask her granddaughter Marian (my attendant) how Reba was doing. I offered to take Reba to the hospital after she was feeling better from her surgery, but Marian asked if I could take her on Sunday to get her grandmother's mind off her triple bypass/valve replacement surgery the next day. Apparently it worked, because Anita told me that night that Aunt Ruthie had been telling everyone that Reba the sweet dog had come to visit and snuggled with her. Rest in peace, love, and light, Mrs. Paxson.

To keep myself from getting too depressed, I've been losing myself in my books. I just finished the fifth installment of Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" novels. Full of zombies and vampires and werewolves, oh my, the books are fast and generally entertaining reads. Sometimes Anita (the character, not my best friend, hee hee) is a little too perfect (she is considered a master in the vampire community and an alpha in the werewolf community without becoming either -- come on!), but I can let it go when the action gets moving. Suspension of disbelief truly can be a wonderful thing. I've also started the classic Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which puts a new (at least at the time it was written) spin on the Arthurian legend by telling the story from the women's point of view. I've also been told that my book club is reading Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven, so that will be three books I'm reading simultaneously after I start it and the next Anita Blake. Busy busy busy.

I've noticed over the last year or so that I have become less patient with books than I used to be. In the not too distant past, I would stick with a book to the very end, struggling through hundreds of pages, not wanting to give up on a tome that critics consider a "masterpiece." I would think I was just missing something and if I just kept dog-paddling, I'd eventually get it. I likened it to a marriage, that I had chosen to commit to this read and would stick it out no matter what. Somewhere along the line (in fact, it was last summer when I tried to read Barbara Taylor Bradford's The Triumph of Katie Byrne) I gave up on that. I give a novel 30-50 pages, and if I'm not hooked or at least still mildly curious by then, the tale goes in the box to be sold at a used bookstore. I've added a couple more "masterpieces of fiction" to that box in the last couple of months. I was feeling especially generous with The Crimson Petal and the White and gave it almost a 100 pages, but it still ended up in the For Sale box. I think I agree with Barbara Kingsolver when she says that she considers those first few pages as dating -- if at the end of 30 pages the book isn't talking "til death so us part," the relationship is over. Time is too precious and there are too many good books out there to waste sticking around with a sleeper.