33 F. high temperature at KMSP Tuesday.
25 F. average high on December 22.
38 F. high on December 22, 2014.
December 23, 1996: Heavy snow accumulates across much of southern and central Minnesota. Snowfall totals included 6 to 8 inches across the Twin Cities metro area, 10 inches in Jordan, 8 inches at Cambridge, Forest Lake, Hutchinson and Montevideo, and 6 inches at St. Cloud, Glenwood and Redwood Falls.
December 23, 1983: The Twin Cities experience a bitterly cold high of 17 degrees below zero.
December 23, 1833: A ‘warm spell’ is reported at Ft. Snelling. The temperature reached 45 degrees.
Parade of “Slop-Storms”. Record Warmth Brewing Out East
“Paul, what the Sam Hill is going on?” People want answers. “You have access to Doppler, weather satellites and supercomputers!” I shrug and tell them what experts are telling me. A majority of the warming we’re now observing is part of a broader, longer-term trend, worldwide. The World Weather Attribution Initiative estimates only 10 percent of the warming is coming from El Nino.
Hundreds of records will be set out east Christmas Eve, possibly the warmest ever recorded from Georgia to Maine. A string of 70s – in some cases 30-40F warmer than average? Remarkable.
While the rain-snow line wobbles above the Twin Cities – on December 23. A cold rain mixes with snow later today as temperatures cool. If we get more than a slushy coating on lawns, fields and confused robins tonight I’ll be shocked.
I expect dry travel Christmas Eve and Day; maybe another slushy coating Saturday. Another icy mix is possible next Monday as a mild bias continues.
I’m just a bewildered spectator, trying to connect the dots.
And with all due apologies to Charles Dickens, is this the ghost of Christmas yet to come?
Warmest Christmas Eve on Record Across Eastern USA? So says AccuWeather, and NOAA tends to agree. Here’s an excerpt: “…Christmas Eve will feel more like Easter with highs ranging from the 50s in Maine to the 70s in the mid-Atlantic and the lower 80s in parts of the Southeast. That equates to highs that are 15 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. “Temperatures could touch 80 as far north as the mid-Atlantic states,” Pastelok said. Widespread record highs will not only be challenged but also shattered in many towns and cities. The potential exists for records to be topped by more than 10 degrees from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to New York City and to Burlington, Vermont...”
* 2,800 (warm) temperature records have already been broken so far in December.
December Tornado Outbreak? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few large tornadoes spin up later today from near Little Rock to Memphis and Nashville as moisture streams out of the Gulf of Mexico, sufficient shear aloft for a few supercells. NOAA SPC has issued an “enhanced risk”. Unusual but hardly unprecedented.
Accumulated Precipitation. Here is the 60-hour NAM (WRF) solution, showing the Twin Cities on the edge of the heaviest precipitation amounts, falling as rain, with a changeover to sleet and snow by late afternoon and evening. Loop: AerisWeather.
Precipitation Type. You can track the surge of rain pushing in from the south today, ending as a few hours of wet snow, capable of a slushy coating to maybe an inch on some lawns and fields. I expect most roads to stay wet during the fleeting daylight hours – some slushy and slick spots are possible early tonight.
A Snowy Tail. A changeover to wet snow is expected by the dinner hour as the column of air overhead begins to cool; high-resolution guidance hinting at an inch or two, especially northeast of the MSP metro.
10-Day Snowfall Potential. I suspect GFS guidance is inflating the snowfall numbers, but temperatures next week will average 5-10F, cold enough for snow if we can get some moisture into the state. The snowy stripe forms Friday night and Saturday with a couple inches of slush possible close to home; Sunday still appears to be the better travel day.
Cooling Trend. As long as surface temperatures are hovering either side of 32F it’s hard to get (all) snow, and keep whatever snow does fall on the ground. There’s at least a chance for minor amounts of snow (mixed with ice) Saturday, again Monday of next week. Source: Weatherspark.
Warming Up Again First Week of January? I could see a couple of days in the single digits and teens around New Year’s Day, by the end of next week it should look and feel like winter. But the same warm signal we’ve been tracking for warmth shows signs of returning, with more of a zonal flow showing up in 500 mb predicted winds the evening of January 5. Glancing blows of cold air – nothing prolonged brewing just yet.
Mostly Brown. The most recent snowcover update from the Minnesota State Climatology Office and the DNR shows some snow on the ground over roughly the northwest half of Minnesota, but precious little snow south and east of St. Cloud. Do you believe in meteorological miracles? Don’t hold your breath this year.
Current El Nino Rivaling 1997-98? Here’s a story excerpt and video from Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week: “The current El Nino event is now on a scale rivaling or exceeding the gigantic 1997-98 event – which lead to the extremely warm temperatures of 1998, the warmest up to that time in the modern record. That record has been exceeded now several times, in 2005, 2010, and 2014, but just barely. 2015 is blowing it out of the water – and if history is a guide, 2016 is set up to be even warmer…”
NASA Tracking This Year’s Global El Nino Impacts. Here’s an excerpt of a good summary from Summit County Citizens Voice: “Along with being one of the strongest El Niños on record, this year’s edition of the cyclical weather event in the Pacific will be one of the most studied. NASA, for example, has been tracking the effects of El Niño via satellite data, which shows global impacts, from increasing fire danger in some tropical regions to a reduction of certain types of pollution in other areas. Some of the findings were presented this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where researchers said that atmospheric rivers, significant sources of rainfall, tend to intensify during El Niño events, and that California may see some relief from an extreme multiyear drought…” (Graphic: NOAA CPC).
El Nino Forecast to Remain Strong into the Winter Months. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a return to ENSO-neutral conditions by late spring or early summer of 2016. For more details click here.
As Summer Birds Reject Migration South, a Dangerous Trap is Set. At some point it will chill down and the birds will suffer, according to a story at Bloomberg Business. Here’s an excerpt: “This weather is for the birds. Record warmth and no snow have turned the U.S. Northeast into a welcoming winter home for birds that would have normally taken to the skies weeks, if not months, ago for the trip south. As long as the weather stays mild and the avian visitors find a food supply, they “could make it,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a researcher at Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab. “Any cold blast would create problems…”
Image credit above: “Migrating birds seen on radar.” Source: National Weather Service.
Florida’s Record Warm 2015 an Outlier in U.S. East. 2015 has been unusually toasty across the USA, the 11th warmest since 1895 in Minnesota, according to NOAA data. Here’s an excerpt from Climate Central: “…The reasons for Florida’s out-of-sync warmth could be myriad and have likely varied with the seasons, experts said. Drought, incredibly warm ocean waters and natural climate cycles may all have contributed to the likely record. While no studies have been done to look for any role of global warming in the state’s warm year, one of the clearest trends of a warming world is for record highs to outpace record lows. That background warming due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the major reason for the record warm year the planet as a whole will see for 2015...”
Map credit above: “Year-to-date temperatures for each state in the contiguous U.S. through November 2015.” Credit: NOAA
A White-Hot Christmas Wraps Up Earth’s Hottest Year on Record. Bloomberg has the story; here’s an excerpt: “Frosty didn’t stand a chance. This has been by far the hottest year on record, and it’s ending with an exclamation point. Holiday shoppers in New York’s Rockefeller Center have been checking off their lists in weather that’s an eerie 20 degrees warmer than normal. Meanwhile, another stack of global temperature records has fallen. Last month was the hottest November in 136 years of data, according to U.S. figures released on Thursday, making it the ninth record-breaking month of 2015. This year has been so far off the charts, it’s certain to go down as the hottest year on record even if December turns out to be unusually cool (it won’t)...” (Photo credit: Akio Kon, Bloomberg).
Climate Change and El Nino Fueled 2015’s Record Heat. Here’s an excerpt from Climate Nexus: “…While the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is responsible for a large part of the variation in weather we see in the global climate from one year to the next, a study conducted by scientists with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative finds that climate change is the dominant cause of 2015’s record warmth. Using well-established techniques from peer-reviewed literature, the scientists estimated 2015’s global temperature anomaly to be 1.89°F (1.05°C) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline and determined that roughly 1.8°F (1.0°C) of 2015’s temperature anomaly was due to human-caused climate change. The WWA analysis found that El Niño was responsible for 0.09°F to 0.18°F (0.05°C to 0.1°C) of 2015’s record warmth. This means, El Niño caused at most 10 percent of the warming, with the other 90 percent being due to climate change…”
2015: The Hottest Year on Record. Climate Nexus produced a companion video and excellent overview with more detail on the record-warm anomalies and the additional heat manifested itself with record heat, drought and severe storms. This is 1C of warming, imagine what 3C warming might do: “2015 will be the hottest year on record – and the impacts related to warming have been devastating.”
The Cold Weather Effect: Raising Profits When Temperatures Drop. It’s complicated, but here’s an excerpt of a good explanation at business.com: “…Cold, dreary, gray patterns of weather tend to keep consumers indoors. However, they do have access to their devices, and online shopping during these cold, unseemly times spikes. Part of this may be emotional, of course, but the other factor is that shoppers have the time indoors to explore online purchases of things that they have intended to buy anyway. If a retailer is privy to these weather conditions in specific locales, then sending out emails to that targeted geographical demographic that advertise specials and discounts is a great way to take advantage of what research says they are doing on those days...”
Every Breath of Polluted Air in Childhood Decreases Your Salary When You Grow Up. Here’s an excerpt of a good summary of new research at Quartz: “… In a new study, researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara worked with the US Treasury to study data on 5.7 million individuals born just before and after the 1970 amendments came in to action, to understand these effects. They find that, for every 10% decrease in exposure to suspended particles in the year of birth, a person’s earnings increased by at least 1% at age 30 (and vice-versa). The results stand even after controlling for factors such as race and gender…”
Photo credit above: “Killing me softly with your smog.” (EPA/Rolex Dela Pena).
Extreme Weather Poses Increasing Threat to U.S. Power Grid. Yahoo News takes a look at an apparent uptick in severe weather and implications for keeping the lights on; here’s a clip: “…An Associated Press analysis of industry data found that severe weather is the leading cause of major outages on the nation’s power grid. The number of weather-related power outages has climbed over the last decade, with the greatest spikes in 2008 and 2011, according to the AP analysis and independent studies. That leaves Coast Electric and other utilities across the country balancing customer costs with the need for improvements to counter the rising number of violent storms, floods and droughts threatening the U.S. power grid…”
AP Investigation: U.S. Power Grid Vulnerable to Foreign Hacks. Another argument for not only emergency generators, but micro-grids and solar power back-up. Here’s an excerpt from Yahoo News: “…About a dozen times in the last decade, sophisticated foreign hackers have gained enough remote access to control the operations networks that keep the lights on, according to top experts who spoke only on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. The public almost never learns the details about these types of attacks — they’re rarer but also more intricate and potentially dangerous than data theft. Information about the government’s response to these hacks is often protected and sometimes classified; many are never even reported to the government…” (File image: NatGeo).
This Lab Can Create Category 5 Hurricanes. Forget an inground swimming pool – I need one of these in my basement. Here’s an excerpt from Popular Science: “…To better understand and prepare for these kinds of cataclysmic storms, the University of Miami just opened a $45 million lab, and at its heart sits a hurricane-simulator called SUSTAIN (SUrge-STructure-Atmosphere INteraction—a tortured acronym, to be sure). The 75-foot, 30,000-gallon acrylic tank can be filled with salt or fresh water. Using a 1,700-horsepower fan and a 12-paddle wave generator, scientists can stir up an infinite variety of waves. “We can create the equivalent of a hurricane with winds over 200 miles per hour,” says oceanographer Brian Haus, SUSTAIN’s director. “That’s an off-the-charts Category 5...”
Photo credit above: Courtesy SUSTAIN/University of Miami. “The lab’s tank and air duct house 37 permanent sensors. Dozens more can be added to collect different data sets.”
12 Flavors of Rainbows Identified. I had no idea – here’s an excerpt from LiveScience: “Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Perhaps because there are so many different types, each with its own distinctive features, new research suggests. There are 12 types of rainbows, distinguished by various characteristics, the study suggests. Fat droplets of water or tiny sprays of mist will affect them, along with the angle of the sun. Rainbows can even appear as twins, triplets or quadruplets, Jean Ricard, a researcher at the National Meteorological Research Center, in France, said here yesterday (Dec. 17) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union…” (File image: Marlo Lundy).
Wind Power Continues Steady Growth Across the U.S. NPR has some interesting statistics; here’s an excerpt of a recent story: “The U.S. wind power industry is celebrating after reaching a new milestone in November: 70 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity. “That’s enough to power about 19 million homes,” says Michael Goggin, senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). There are more than 50,000 wind turbines operating across 40 states and Puerto Rico, according to the AWEA. Wind power has grown quickly in recent years. It sprinted past the 50 GW and 60 GW milestones in 2012. Growth temporarily stalled as members of Congress let a federal tax credit expire. But now the boom times are back...”
Costa Rica at 99% Renewables; Are Others on the Same Path? CSMonitor.com has the details; here’s an excerpt: “…The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a statement Friday that it achieved “99 percent renewable electricity generation” so far this year, AFP reports. Early this year, the Costa Rican government announced that the country had been running fully on renewable energy for the first 75 days of 2015. At the time, it set a target to run 97.1 percent on geothermal, wind, biomass and solar sources for the rest of the year…”
Photo credit above: “An ornamental windmill spins in front of wind turbines near Steele City, Neb on Nov. 3, 2015. 99 percent of electricity in Costa Rica came from renewable energy in 2015.” Nati Harnik/AP.
2015: The Best Year in History for the Average Human Being. News tends to focus on the negative, but the overall picture for much of the planet is positive, argues this story at The Atlantic. Here’s an excerpt: “From Paris to Syria through San Bernardino to Afghanistan, the world witnessed obscene and unsufferable tragedy in 2015. That was on top of the ongoing misery of hundreds of millions who are literally stunted by poverty, living lives shortened by preventable disease and malnutrition. But for all of that, 2015 also saw continued progress toward better quality of life for the considerable majority of the planet, alongside technological breakthroughs and political agreements that suggest the good news might continue next year and beyond. Tragedy and misery are rarer than they were before 2015—and there is every reason to hope they will be even less prevalent in 2016…”
Winter’s a great time to get elementary kids hooked on meteorology, says Bob Henson, a meteorologist and blogger at Weather Underground: “With all the variety and rapid changes, it’s one of the coolest times to watch the weather.” And there’s no better lab, he says, than the atmosphere around us every day.
Winter’s a great time to get elementary kids hooked on meteorology, says Bob Henson, a meteorologist and blogger at Weather Underground: “With all the variety and rapid changes, it’s one of the coolest times to watch the weather.” And there’s no better lab, he says, than the atmosphere around us every day.
Has Capitalism Devoured Christmas? Here’s a snippet of an interesting Op-Ed at The Washington Post: “…We also shouldn’t forget the many virtues of markets. Markets generate wealth on a vast scale, which, used properly, enables the Christian life: It is much easier to live the Christian virtues and to meet our obligations to family and community when we aren’t worried about finding our next meal or freezing to death on a cold winter night. Markets require freedom, which is a virtue too easily overlooked. Markets are structured to enable the mutual benefit of participants...” (Image credit: Mark Conner’s Space).
Selling Ads is a Short-Term Strategy. Here’s Why Subscriptions Are The Future of Journalism. I happen to agree with this – more advertising isn’t the answer; relevance and subscription-based revenue from loyal readers may be one of the few viable paths forward. Here’s an excerpt of a long (but excellent) story at Medium: “…That’s why a subscription model is the future foundation of every journalistic publication. A subscription model rewards investing in the trust of your readers. An advertising model does not. When selling ads, you have to decide how far you want to go in fooling your readers. How big will I make that native ad label? Should I package this photo series in a slideshow just so it will lead to more clicks? Should I make the question in my headline more click-worthy, even if the article doesn’t really answer it? And readers can tell whether a publication is investing in them or selling them out. When a publication invests in its readers, readers are willing to invest in it, by paying for a subscription…”
Spinning Ice Circle: Unusual Weather Phenomenon Provides a Draw. Here’s a new one – I’ve never seen this; thanks to a friend, Dave Anderson up on Gull Lake, for passing along an interesting article at The Brainerd Dispatch; here’s an excerpt: “Dark, cold water flowing from the Nokasippi River into Upper South Long Lake created an unexpected form this weekend—a rotating circle of ice. The ice disc forms as flowing water creates an eddy where ice is forming. The water is more still in the middle of the eddy. “So you get ice forming and it gets bigger as it gets colder and then the water that is moving faster is not freezing up, so what you get in the end is this big pancake of ice that is moving slowly around in a circle,” said Peter Boulay, DNR climatologist. “You see pancake ice on water that’s moving. When the lakes are trying to freeze up this past weekend, I saw a lot of that kind of ice forming in circles...”
Photo credit above: “A rotating ice disc at the outlet of the Nokasippi River as it flows into Upper South Long Lake south of Brainerd Monday. Lake residents noticed the rotating floating ice disc this weekend and have been alerting each other through the lake association website.” (Brainerd Dispatch/ Steve Kohls)
P.S. Stay off the ice until further notice, especially when it’s spinning.
TODAY: Rain mixes with snow, slushy late? Winds: NW 7-12. High: 37
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Slushy coating possible as flurries taper. Low: 23
CHRISTMAS EVE: Mostly cloudy, drier. Santa sightings late. Winds: W 8-13. High: 32
CHRISTMAS DAY: Clouds increase, icy mix at night? Winds: S 8-13. Wake-up: 21. High: 35
SATURDAY: Another slushy coating possible. A few greasy roads, especially AM hours. Wake-up: 29. High:
SUNDAY: Few sunny breaks, better travel. Winds: N 10-15. Wake-up: 21. High: near 30
MONDAY: Rain or icy mix arrives late. Wake-up: 19. High: 32
TUESDAY: Snow tapers, drying out PM hours. Wake-up: 28. High: 33
Climate Stories…
Santa Sounds Off: What Happened to “Frightful Weather?” Santa Claus has an Op-Ed at The Guardian; here’s an excerpt: “…All mirth aside, my bustling toy workshop has started to sink just a bit on the south-eastern corner: the solid foundation – rock ice, through and through – feels a bit slushy now, if you stick your boot in it. If things go on this way, the whole North Pole – the workshop, my castle, the reindeer and stables – could be swallowed up whole by the deep Arctic Ocean. This won’t do for Christmas. My sleigh is not sea-worthy, and reindeer can’t swim. But it gets even worse if our home turns to water: my elves could get snatched up as polar bear snacks. I’ve never eaten an elf, of course, but, as I understand it, they are quite the nice treat if you’re a big, hungry bear…” (Image: The Rock @ Boston College).
A Stunning New Photo from the Moon: Earthrise. Phil Plait takes a look at what made this remarkable photo possible at Slate; here’s an excerpt: “Holy sweet mother of Earth. This incredible photo was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been mapping the Moon since it achieved orbit in 2009. Its cameras are usually pointed straight down (what’s called nadir viewing), but sometimes the whole spacecraft is rotated to point them toward the horizon, or even up into space, to measure the Moon’s incredibly thin atmosphere (called an exosphere, which, c’mon, is an extremely cool word) or to take calibration measurements...” (Photo credit: NASA).
We Need a “Space Race” Approach to Saving The Planet. We sent men to the moon, why can’t we focus resources, innovation and the brightest minds on the planet to scaling new energy sources that don’t threaten our home? Here’s an excerpt of an Op-Ed at Quartz: “…In absolute terms, there is lots of money involved. However, total R&D makes up just 3.6% of the US budget in 2015, and spending on renewable energy makes up less than 4% of that. That’s a little more than $5 billion out of the total $134.2 billion R&D expenditure. Compared to the effort and outlay to put a man on the moon, this is orders of magnitude smaller. But the problem today is much bigger. Governments must be more proactive and, in line with recent research, we should use public money to direct millions of scientists and engineers towards solar power, electric transport, or better batteries. It won’t deliver a “man on the moon” moment, but this investment is the only way to truly end our dependence on fossil fuels…”
Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too. Here’s a clip from InsideClimate News: “The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation’s largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world’s climate far earlier than previously known. The group’s members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco and Sohio, according to internal documents obtained by InsideClimate News and interviews with the task force’s former director….” (File photo: history.com).
Scientists Say Climate Change Could Cause a “Massive” Tree Die-Off in the U.S. Southwest. Here’s the intro to a story at The Washington Post: “In a troubling new study just out in Nature Climate Change, a group of researchers says that a warming climate could trigger a “massive” dieoff of coniferous trees, such as junipers and piñon pines, in the U.S. southwest sometime this century. The study is based on both global and regional simulations — which show “consistent predictions of widespread mortality,” the paper says — and also an experiment on three large tree plots in New Mexico. The work was led by Nate McDowell of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who conducted the research along with 18 other authors from a diverse group of universities and federal agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey…”
Photo credit above: “Dying conifers, particularly ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) in California’s Sequoia National Park, October 15, 2015.” (Credit: Craig D. Allen, US Geological Survey)
Freakish Winter Warmth: It’s Not (not) Global Warming. The long-term warming we’ve been experiencing set the stage; El Nino was merely the hot icing on the cake, according to The Union of Concerned Scientists; here’s a clip: “…The specifics of what’s happening where El Niño, Arctic dynamics, and underlying warming meet are, in a word, complex, and scientists are actively discussing how things might play out. But the collective bottom line recognizes that global warming plays a role. NOAA’s Deke Arndt puts it this way, as reported by the Guardian: “Long-term climate change is like climbing a flight of stairs: over time you get higher and higher. El Niño is like standing on your tippy toes when you’re on one of those stairs. Both of those together work to create the warmest temperature on record. We would not be threatening records repeatedly if we had not climbed the stairs for decades…”
Graphic credit: NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. 2015 temperature trend in green.
Exxon Uses Weapons of Mass Confusion on Climate Change. Here’s an excerpt of a Jim Hightower Op-Ed at Lubbock Online: “…Their strategy was to create an incessant noise machine, fueled with hundreds of millions of industry dollars, to spread the false narrative that scientists are “uncertain” about climate change. In a confidential 1998 memo, ExxonMobil’s senior environmental lobbyist stated the Orwellian goal of this corporate campaign: “Victory will be achieved when … average citizens ‘understand’ uncertainties in climate science,” and when “recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.’” Their many tactics included: forming a lobbying combine in 1989 to sow doubt among public officials about the need for government action; placing a very costly, decade-long series of essays in newspapers denigrating the very scientists it previously nurtured and the science reports it published…”
Exxon’s Support of a Tax on Carbon: Rhetoric or Reality? InsideClimate News takes a look; here’s an excerpt: “…Greg Dotson, vice president for energy policy at the Center for American Progress, a public policy organization supporting a list of progressive issues, urges a close study of what Exxon is saying. The company isn’t explicitly saying it wants a carbon tax, but is saying it prefers a carbon tax to other options in the face of regulatory intervention. “Are they saying this is the best of bad options, or are they saying we support a carbon tax?” Dotson said. “The full understanding of what they support has not come to light…”
People Who Were Certain Climate Change is Fake Are Now Certain Paris Can’t Stop It. Call me crazy but conservatism should apply to the very thing that sustains us. New York Magazine takes a look at the fall-out from COP21, the new climate deal negotiated in Paris; here’s an excerpt: “…Conservative economic thought is structurally different from liberal thought. Liberal support for expanded government is based entirely in practical expectation that new programs can deliver concrete results — cleaner air, healthier children, higher wages for low-income workers, and so on. Conservative antipathy to expanded government is based ultimately on philosophical opposition. For that reason, data can change liberal economic thinking in a way it can’t change conservative economic thinking…”
Climate Change – A Mom’s View. Here’s an excerpt of an Op-Ed at The Tallahassee Democrat that caught my eye: “…All parents want to provide a safe place for our children to grow, live and to reach their God-given potential, but by no fault of their own, their future is threatened by the effects of climate change. We read stories about epic storms and their human toll, droughts that turn fertile land into deserts, and California water reserves drying up. We see images of skinny polar bears and melting arctic ice, bleached coral and dying oceans. And closer to home, we hear about sunny-day flooding in Miami Beach, experience record high temperatures and prepare for super storms. It’s no wonder busy parents just tune it all out and hope for the best – a feeling of helplessness has set in...” (File image: 350.org).
