...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
The Rattlesnake and Scorpionby Ruth Yoshiko Okimoto
Said the Scorpion to the Rattlesnake,
"What manner of commotion is happening here?
The sawing of lumber and pounding of nails,
black tarpaper falls and covers my trail.
Tall fence posts pierce deep into the ground
securing chainlink fences and barbed wire from town."Said the Rattlesnake to the Scorpion,
"Indeed, huge pipes obstruct and crisscross my path,
and loud swishing noises disturb my sleep.
Why, I went foraging for food and found
my favorite hunting ground vanished today
and more will dwindle, I've heard them say."Said the Scorpion to the Rattlesnake,
"And worse even yet, small human fingers foolishly grab
my sisters, brothers, cousins, and all,
and drown them in jars filled with alcohol."
"How foolish, indeed," replied the Rattlesnake,
"Don't they know of your sting, my venomous bite?"Said the Scorpion to the Rattlesnake,
"What kind of human would dare intrude into our sacred place?
We've lived on this land for centuries, I'm told,
so, why do they come here to ravage and destroy?
We've lived in peace, both you and I,
with no intent to hurt or annoy."Said the Rattlesnake to the Scorpion,
"Some humans, I'm told, regard those who differ in skin
or thought with what they call 'justifiable' hate."
"As you know," continued the Rattlesnake,
"humans are the most dangerous animal of all;
they kill with lethal weapons ten feet tall."Asked the Scorpion of the Rattlesnake,
"So what do you think they are building here,
in the midst of our desert home?"
Answered the Rattlesnake with a somber voice,
"It's something menacing, and I fear
portend of dangers yet unclear."
Followup from yesterday, where the administration is admitting greenhouse gas warming;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/09/AR2007010901949.html?sub=AR
"People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there's a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change."
The center said there are indications that the rate at which global temperatures are rising is speeding up.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/science/10climate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
“A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases,” the release said, emphasizing that the relative contributions of El Niño and the human influence were not known.
A link between greenhouse gases and climate change was also made in a December news conference by Dirk Kempthorne, the secretary of the interior, as that agency proposed listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Still, the climate agency’s shift in language came as a surprise to several public affairs officials there. They said they had become accustomed in recent years to having any mention of a link between climate trends and human activities played down or trimmed when drafts of documents went to the Commerce Department and the White House for approval.
James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the release reflected longstanding views within the administration.
“It’s helpful for them to describe what is a question in many people’s minds — what is the human factor, what is the El Niño factor,” Mr. Connaughton said of the NOAA release. “From our perspective, what was in the press release was a direct reflection of what the president and folks in his administration have been saying for some time.”
Mr. Bush has made two speeches on climate. He first expressly accepted that humans were contributing to global warming in a news conference in Denmark in July 2005 on the way to an economic summit in Scotland, saying, “Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem.”
But the government’s scientific bureaucracy, where public affairs officials and scientists as recently as last year complained that findings pointing to climate dangers were being suppressed, has taken time to catch up.
“There’s been some sensitivity to the fact that some people have complained that NOAA and other parts of the government haven’t been as open as they would like them to have been on this,” said Jay Lawrimore, a climatologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., where the temperature trends are compiled. “Now NOAA is making an effort to be clearer on some of the influences.”
Mr. Lawrimore said there was no way to account for the trends, be they the melting of Arctic sea ice or the warming of winters, without including an influence from heat-trapping gases.
“Year after year as we continue to see warmer temperatures,” he said, “there are more and more converts convinced that it’s not just natural variability and not just something that’s going to return back to temperatures we saw 40 or 50 years ago — that in fact we are doing something to the climate.”
Posted by: will on Jan. 10, 2007Will, that comment belongs under the GW post.
Posted by: annika on Jan. 10, 2007Ok, it's copied over, might as well clear these three out.
Posted by: will on Jan. 10, 2007