Our Times Will Get More Interesting

Today's Spokesman Review has an article about a report on global warming and the effect and expected effects on the United States. I'm still working my way through the section that focuses on the Northwest (PDF), but while I was digging around I noticed these key points (PDF) about the science. Then check out the questions about climate change (PDF).

1. Although climate changes in the past have been caused by natural factors, human activities are now the dominant agents of change. Human activities are affecting climate through increasing atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases and other substances, including particles. 

2. Global trends in temperature and many other climate variables provide consistent evidence of a warming planet. These trends are based on a wide range of observations, analyzed by many independent research groups around the world. 

3. Natural variability, including El Niño events and other recurring patterns of ocean-atmosphere interactions, influences global and regional temperature and precipitation over timescales ranging from months up to a decade or more. 

4. Human-induced increases in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases are the main cause of observed climate change over the past 50 years. The “fingerprints” of human-induced change also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.  

5. Past emissions of heat-trapping gases have already committed the world to a certain amount of future climate change. How much more the climate will change depends on future emissions and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions.  

6. Different kinds of physical and statistical models are used to study aspects of past climate and develop projections of future change. No model is perfect, but many of them provide useful information. By combining and averaging many models, many  clear trends emerge. 

7. Scientific understanding of observed temperature changes in the U.S. has greatly improved, confirming that the U.S. is warming as expected in response to global climate change. This warming is expected to continue. 

8. Many other indicators of rising temperatures have been observed in the U.S. These include reduced lake ice, glacier retreat, earlier melting of snowpack, reduced lake levels, and a longer growing season. These and other indicators are expected to continue to reflect higher temperatures. 

9. There have been observed trends in some types of extreme weather events, and these are consistent with rising temperatures. These include increases in: heavy precipitation nationwide, especially in the Midwest and Northeast; heat waves, especially in the West; and the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. These trends are expected to continue. Research on climate changes’ effects on other types of extreme events continues. 

10. Drought and fire risk are increasing in many regions as temperatures and evaporation rates rise. The greater the future warming, the more these risks will increase, potentially affecting the entire U.S. 

11. Summer Arctic sea ice extent, volume, and thickness have declined rapidly, especially north of Alaska. Permafrost temperatures are rising and the overall amount of permafrost is shrinking. Melting of land and sea-based ice is expected to continue with further warming. 

12. Sea level is already rising at the global scale and at individual locations along the U.S. coast. Future sea level rise depends on the amount of temperature change and on the ice melt around the world as well as local processes like changes in ocean currents and local land subsidence or uplift.

Mount Spokane Snow Shoeing

Kathy and Barb wanted to hit the fresh powder on the mountain so I took a day off to join them. For two and one-half hours it was beautiful and quiet, except for the racket our shoes made crunching through the snow.

Helping With Homework--Not!

Stephanie: "Dad, what do you know about stoichiometry?"

Me: (blank look)

Stephanie: "Never mind."

Heading Them Off With The Second Amendment

Spokane City Councilman, Mike Fagan, also of the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, has decided to take a proactive approach and dissuade any state legislator from the notion of addressing gun control which he immediately conflates to infringing on Second Amendment rights. The problem is that our legislature isn't quite sure what it will do yet. Nevertheless, Mike Fagan is not about to wait for what he considers to be an inevitable assault on the Second Amendment.

Below is Mr Fagan standing on a United Nations flag during a protest back in March of 2010. 

Just because his conspiracy theory fears are not credible doesn't mean they're not valid.

I remember that night very well, mostly for it's hilarity. Who would've guessed back then he would be elected to the city council. Here's the notice for the protest he led that night.

Please plan on joining members of Spokane Patriots, the action driven Tea Party, as they converge on the Spokane City Hall plaza with spot lights and flash lights, in opposition to Mayor Mary Verner's proclamation of "Earth Hour" at 8:30 PM Saturday, 27 March.  

Earth Hour is a global event to recognize "Climate change", "Sustainability", and conservation. After issuing the proclamation, the Mayor will turn off all the lights in city hall for one hour. Spokane Patriots and many others already support and practice conservation. The fact that the Mayor will be using city resources to perpetuate the falsehood of "global climate change" to advance her sustainability agenda is an outright lie and a slap in the face to the citizens of Spokane.  

When the lights go out, Spokane Patriots and others will be shinning their spot lights and flash lights on city hall in search of the truth. So bring your flashlights! And feel free to make and bring signs too.  The Spokane Patriots will rally at the gondola ticket office at 8:00 PM and then march across the street to the city hall plaza on Post St. 

Mayor Verner and the city did not turn off the lights at City Hall at all that night. 

Mr Fagan posted a draft resolution on his Facebook page today, thus adding his voice to the din that's trying to overwhelm any effort at reasonable legislation to address gun violence. The next time you hear about a shooting of any kind, it's important for surviving family members and friends to remember that the shooter is well within their inalienable Second Amendment rights and people like Mike Fagan are working hard to protect those rights. 

Why do we never engrave the monuments and memorials of the slain with statements showing our reverence for Second Amendment rights?

Have a great day indeed.

Shootings, School Safety, And The Real Problem

A couple days ago, the Spokesman Review published an article about school districts looking at how to make their schools safer.

Safety and security are at the forefront of parents’ and school administrators’ minds since a gunman killed 20 students and six adults in an elementary school last month in Connecticut.  

“That day pretty much shook American schools to their core,” said East Farms Elementary School Principal Tammy Fuller, who led a community meeting at her school Thursday.  

Districts throughout the region are using varying approaches to address safety.

We are allowing ourselves to be overcome by the "it could happen here" fear. When something happens elsewhere it is easy for us to imagine that the same event could repeat itself. Instead of explaining to parents and students how safe schools are and how unlikely a shooting--let alone a mass shooting--is, we allow our imaginations to run wild and fear to be our guide. And we ignore the real problem.

According to the US Department of Education our country has 67,140 elementary schools, 24,651 secondary schools, 5,730 combined schools, 1,296 special education/alternative schools, and 33,366 private schools. We have 4,495 degree granting schools and 2,247 non-degree granting schools. That's a total of 138,925 schools in our country.

One hundred and thirty-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five schools.

America has a long history of school shootings, but when you compare them to the number of schools you'll find that despite the incessant keep-you-up-to-date-on-all-the-speculation coverage by the media when a shooting occurs, our schools are safe. Fifteen to thirty shootings every decade for over one hundred thousand schools does not mean we have a school safety problem.

According to the US Census Bureau (PDF), thousands of people in America are murdered by firearms every year. The four columns below are for the years 2000, 2005, 2008, and 2009 respectively.

Two-thirds of murdered Americans are killed by firearms. We have a gun violence problem and sometimes that gun violence problem shows up at a school. Our gun violence problem was recently recognized by Spokane Police Chief Straub in another article recently published by the Review.

The homicides in 2012 included a mixed bag ranging from the suspected murder-suicide of an elderly couple and a fatal domestic dispute to a gang-related homicide and a recent shooting where police say a drunken man pulled out a gun at a party and unintentionally shot a young woman in the back of the head. 

But much of the carnage has at least one common link: people who decide to use guns to end disputes.  

“It’s a scary statement about where we are as a nation,” Straub said. “We are settling too many disputes by shooting each other. Going forward, we are not going to tolerate a weekend like this.”

The responsibility for addressing gun violence does not lie with school administrators or the police. It belongs to our legislators and to us as citizens.

It is possible to protect our Second Amendment right to own weapons and decrease the amount of gun violence if we would work together towards those goals. Sadly, that doesn't seem possible in today's political climate.

So instead we make our children fearful at school.

Found On Google Maps

Hey! Google is watching us.