The AWESOME power of Mother Nature...

Mark Eatherton

All, Colorado is in the throes of a major natural environmental disaster.



1st, we had record snowfalls/rain in the Spring.



Then the drought set in...



And then the Pine Beetle took hold.



And then the lightning storms began.



At present, there are over 8 major fires in Colorado, 3 of which are along the Front Range. The worst fires are in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. The High Park fire in Fort Collins set a new record for most homes lost in a fire storm for Colorado.



In Colorado Springs, the Waldo fire had not previously taken any residences.... Until last night. It has turned, and come charging back into the city, and parts of the Air Force Academy has been evacuated.



We will rebuild, but this is extremely devastating for all families concerned. Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers.



<a href="http://www.9news.com/">http://www.9news.com/</a>



ME

DanHolohan

So much at once

And all natural causes. Scary indeed.

Mark Eatherton

More whacky weather stuff...

So last night, I am sitting on my front porch, snapping pictures of the fantastic orange sunset, when suddenly, a funnel cloud appears. Bear in mind, that I am in Heeney, at 8,000 ASL, and tornadoes are unheard of at this altitude...



This is what the weathermen refer to as a cold front funnel, and there are no documented cases of one of them actually touching the ground and becoming a tornado, but it WILL get your attention, nonetheless...



Crazy weird stuff going on out here,,,



Thanks for the thoughts.



ME

SWEI

indeed

Watching what Texas went through last summer, and then our own backyard erupted here in NM, now you guys are getting cooked up north.



Hang in there - I suspect we have not seen the last of this change-y stuff yet.

Plumdog_2

Wierd Wind Events

Hiking up in Geneva Park, I have found large areas of recently blown down trees; in clusters, some of them huge. And remember, a Tornado touched down at Elevenmile Reservoir a couple years ago; probably over 8 thousand feet altitude. So if a tree falls in the forest, but nobody saw a tornado.....

Jack

My heart goes out

To all affected by these calamitous events. Today on NPR I was listening to a show broadcast from the Aspen Institute. On it they were interviewing scientists and lifelong Colorado farmers on the tremendous changes in the Colorado River and it's affect on the entire SW. Chilling!



Massive tornados, wildfires, floods, droughts. At least we can all take heart, that it is only weather and not climate change!

meplumber

Climate Change

While I am no where near educated enough to talk about climate change/weather change, all I know is what I see.



This year, Bangor, ME recorded its first ever 80 deg day in March. We had three of them in a row. Now it is torrential downpours, like you see in the Gulf of Mexico.



I am just a lowly basement dweller, but this is weird.

Jean-David Beyer

There is no such thing as climate change!

Click your heels together and repeat after me:



"There is no such thing as climate change! There is no such thing as climate change! There is no such thing as climate change!"



That will make it go away.

Gordy

Dry all over

Corn looks like pineapple here in the Midwest. Saw 100 yesterday nothin but 90's in the past and future. Sign of things to come or just cyclical comparable to the 88 drought here.



Have not seen rain for weeks nothin in the near future. Grounds like concrete.

Mark Eatherton

Global climate change...

Call it whatever you want. It has been changing since day one and will continue to do so until oblivion. The present local trend here has been warmer and dryer.



I have a theory about the warming aspects. Mother nature despise ANY imbalance in (pick an element, temperature, pressure vapor CO2 etc) stuff. At presnt, there appears to be an excess of CO2. She has decided to extend the growing season through warming, to allow all of these wonderful plants she has that are extremely efficient at converting CO2 into O2.



The majority of the CO2 that is present is a natural byproduct (volcanic activity, forest fires and to a much lesser degree man).



Once she has everything cleaned up, she will "normalize" the environment to what we are used to. Or not... Adapt, change and move on, or stand still and get run over by Mother Nature...



Interesting times for sure. I never thought in my life time that I would see the natural wholesale destruction of whole forests. The sad part is that my grandchildren, other than seeing pictures that we have taken over the years, will never understand the beauty of a lodge pole pine forest. They are ALL going to die from the pine bark beetle, which is flourishing due to the extended warmth. It not gotten cold enough in the last 15 years to kill the larvae of this destructive bug.



That's my $0.02 worth. The podium is now free.



ME

Gordy

Ecosystem equalis libriumis theory

 Mark thats the best one yet, and probably dead on. Like you said its been going on since the begining of time. We as humans have just been around enough ( a nano second in the big time line) only to begin to try, and understand this complex ecosystem we exist in.



Gordy

Ex Maine Doug

Water

is going to become an expensive item. And clean water even more.

I may have to move back to Northern Quebec of it keeps getting this hot. I can still remember real snow and one crop of corn in August.

scott markle_2

equilibrium

Mark just because there has been a lot of change on this planet in the last 3 billion years, doesn't mean we should not be very concerned about how human activity effects our climate.



Our assent as a species has coincided with what has probably been the most stable 10,000 years of weather in geological history.



Sure the bacteria and plants will do things with our carbon cast offs, life will find a way.



Humans on the other hand are in for a rough ride. Casting GW as a planetary natural cycle amounts to ignoring an unfolding genocide. Our options are limited but inaction and denial is criminal.

Mark Eatherton

But...

how do we KNOW that it is human caused? How can we be certain that its not a natural thing?



Scott, you know me well enough to know that I do not condone waste. I live by the credo of "waste not, want not, use only what you need." and have done so during my short 59 years on the face of this planet, and have taught my children, and am teaching their children the same credo.



Human activity for sure has some effect on the environment. Take water for example. When I first got involved in water conservation 25 years ago, the stats indicated that less than 10% of the water available on the face of the earth was available for human consumption without the need for (human induced) chemical removal/treatment. Today, that number is less than 1/2 of 1 %.



Good reason for mass panic? No, learn how to conserve water, and find a better way to treat it to keep it potable. Adapt to change. And continue to conserve, but making a whole bunch of radical changes will not "reverse" anything that has been done to a significant degree, regardless of wether its natural or man caused. To think that man can really have THAT much influence on global weather changes is (searching for a good word here) arrogance in the face of Mother Nature. And NO ONE has mentioned the one green house gas that has more influence than Carbon does in affecting the worlds temperature, that chemical being di-hydrogen monoxide. What are we going to do to reverse THAT cycle?



I had no intentions of turning this into an environmental/political argument. Just making observations as a element conserving human being dwelling here on the face of the Earth.



Thanks for understanding and participating.



ME

Paul Fredricks_3

Well, if my choices are....

Use lots of chemicals, dump them into the atmosphere, and think that has no effect

or

Use as few chemicals as possible and try to have as little effect on the earth as possible, just in case it has an effect

I choose the latter, if we can't prove it one way or another.

SWEI

water

Should be treated more like other natural resources, and priced in a manner which relates in some way to its value and scarcity.



I'm a big believer in market forces.  Don't get me started on "free."



Speaking of which, and coming back to the original topic of this thread, Mother Nature is doing her AWESOME thing here in NM.  Our monsoon has arrived, and not a moment too soon!

BobC

water

Your children will see region wide wars fought over water. In the US major aquifers have been drastically lowered because we are using irrigation in arid areas that should have never been used for the type of agriculture we use them for. Rivers have all but dried up and blown away because of LA, Vegas and the central valley in California. These areas have very low annual rainfall, we are responsible for the problems that will be at our doorsteps in the next few decades.



I don't know how much the human race is contributing to climate change but unless we start to take action people are not going to be happy with life down the road. That action might be able to delay the onset of the change even if most of it is part of a climate cycle. As things change we had better adapt; government and corporations have zero interest in anything beyond the next news cycle or the end of the quarter. People can influence this by holding politicians liable for what is going on by simply not reelecting them; after a few cycles of congressmen getting thrown out on their ears maybe the replacement will realize we put them in Washingtoon to do the peoples business, not to line their pockets with lobbyist's loot. Corporations will change when they see sales going down, this means you have to know who is behind whatever product you are buying.



When i was in Korea on a mountaintop communication site we kept a clear perimeter outside the fence for two reasons, a clear field of fire in case of attack and as a buffer from fire - natural or man made. In either scenario we gave ourselves time and distance to react.



Bob

heatboy_30

Radman

I spoke with Radman the other day and he said the fires were about a mile from his door. My thoughts are with my friends in CO.



hb

scott markle_2

Clouds cause global warming!

Mark,



What are you getting at with the comment about dihydrogen monoxide (water).



The overwhelming majority of the scientific establishment believe anthropogenic climate change is underway. Just because the planet has seen a lot of "natural" changes over the last 3 billion years doesn't diminish the seriousness of this problem. Harping on the notion that there is some kind of debate about climate change amounts to putting your head in the sand. By the time this "debate" is settled to your satisfaction the world as we know it may be permanently diminished. There are so many potential positive feedback issues to be concerned about; Amazonian die back, methane in the permafrost, shrinking ice sheets. The enhanced plant growth from elevated Co2 is a possibility, but will this potential positive effect make ocean acidification, desertification, agricultural failures, human dislocations, etc. etc. less of an issue?



Wast is bad, but consumption is the real problem. In our society there is no real check on how much a person can consume. Race, class, education and circumstance certainly conspire to keep many out of the conspicuous consumption club, but even at the lowest levels of our society consumption seems to be a birth right, just substitute plastic crap for high end luxury goods. What to do?

Mark Eatherton

What I am getting at...

Some in scientific circles claim that the increase in moisture has more to do with green house trapping than does CO2. What do we do about that? I think it is tied to the warming process we are seeing, and I think it is all a part of the big plan that nature has in mind. She heals a lot better than we give her credit for.



So, based on scientific data, according to their predictions, most coastal areas should be submerged due to the loss of the ice caps, and melting of ice sheets in Greenland etc. It hasn't happened yet...



So, we agree, consumption is an issue, and you and I are both doing something about that, but it is a pittance effort. What would you do if you were King? Shut off all fossil fuel powered electrical plants and move back into caves? Park all fossil fuel burning modes of transportation? Resort to horse and buggy?



I know I am not personally interested in moving back to the caves with horses. I don't think the majority of people on the face of the Earth are quite ready for that, unless forced into it by mother nature...



ME

scott markle_2

If I was king....

I don't believe in kings.... but we could probably use some kind of enlightened despot right now.



I'm pessimistic about political solutions but I don't believe we have to move back to caves to drastically cut carbon emissions. Have you ever traveled to a less developed part of the world? I don't want to romanticize poverty but when you see a functioning (basically non-hydrocarbon) agricultural society in the mountains of nepal you begin to realize that we have been out of caves for a long time... history didn't begin with the steam engine. Mark twain said of modern life "it's taken a thousand luxuries turned them into necessities and satisfied nothing" we don't have to go back to the dark ages to avert a catastrophe, but if we don't change this is probably where we are heading.



If I had to be king, I would tell the people of the world that the economic industrial and political system that runs the world is broken and will face major contraction in the face of resource depletion and environmental degradation. We can engineer this contraction or we can just wait till "nature" forces the point.



Honestly I have no idea what I would do... seems like nobody does.

Mark N

Well

What have you done to reduce your carbon footprint. Are you sweating it out today or is the a/c on. I have a pretty good handle on my energy consumption and I'll bet its quite a bit less than Al Gores.

Jean-David Beyer

What have you done to reduce your carbon footprint.

1.) I had the exterior walls of my house foamed solid with urea-formaldehyde insulation.

1a.) I had an extra six inches of blown in fiberglass installed the area under the roof.



2.) I had 60 year old crappy aluminum windows replaced with fancy Marvin windows with argon gas in between, opti-coated low E windows.



3.) I replaced my 1950 GE oil burner with a W-M Ultra 3 mod-con.



4.) I replaced my 1996 Honda Accord with a 2011 Toyota Prius.



5.) Except for the A/C in the Prius, I have no air conditioning.



6.) I bought out the rest of my carbon footprint with these guys:



http://www.liveneutral.com/home

Mark N

Carbon Neutral

Probably the only way to be carbon neutral is to stop breathing. I think paying for carbon credits is just a feel good kind of thing.

Jean-David Beyer

I think paying for carbon credits is just a feel good kind of thing.

I hope not. The idea of the thing (cap and trade) is that there is only so much carbon dioxide that is allowed to be produced. If one producer of CO2 produces less than its quota, they can sell the part of their quota to someone else that cannot or will not reduce their CO2 output. In theory, if you produce more than your quota and do not purchase credits from someone who has them to sell, you get fined. So If I buy credits, and do not use them to pollute, they are effectively retired and so some other polluter must reduce CO2 production or get fined. If the fines are big enough, they will have to reduce their pollution.



Now how serious the government is in enforcing this is unclear and subject to corruption. Also, the initial quotas may be too high. All subject to corruption.



But I tried.

Jean-David Beyer

I think paying for carbon credits is just a feel good kind of thing.

Here is a FAQ about what these guys are actually doing.



http://www.carbonzero.ca/faq

Steamhead

Paul's comment makes a lot of sense

if we don't know for sure, why tempt fate?



I've lived in or near Baltimore all my life. When I was a kid, 90-degree heat was newsworthy. This year we got up to 104. Something has definitely changed.



One possible factor is the vastly increased use of air-conditioning. Think about it: A/C just moves heat from inside a building to outside. All that heat energy has to go somewhere, so it builds up in the atmosphere. And what happens then?

Gordy

Steamhead is spot on

I know on discovery or history channel it was discussed the climate change in Phoenix due to the cities development over the years. AC discharge asphalt, and buildings absorbing the suns energy has raised the average daily, and nightly temps compared to before anything was there. Take into account all the cities around the globe it adds up.



 Just think of the ground being able to absorb precipitation alone with all the added parking lots, roads, and buildings preventing that absorption. Retaining ponds do not do any justice as that water usually gets directed to the nearest tributary water way via storm sewer. Man indeed has made an impact slowly over the years. Economic expansion being the catch 22.



Gordy

Jean-David Beyer

climate change in Phoenix

Another cause of change there, I do not know how important, is the planting of grass in a place that should not have grass: home lawns, golf courses, etc., that are extensively watered with water imported from more northern states. This raises the relative humidity a lot, impairing the evaporative coolers. In the old days, the relative humidity in the area ran around 5% most of the time, but now it is much higher. Just yesterday, a friend said it ran about 50% sometimes. I do not know if his facts are right, but they may be.

SWEI

I can say this about Phoenix

based on personal observation:



When I was a kid, people moved to Phoenix for its lack of pollen, humidity, smog, and traffic.  Now it has all of those.

Ex Maine Doug

So would this be

a byproduct of natural causes or a result of people moving to Phoneix?  I think the Chesapeake Bay is a good example of the bad effects of people. Mountain topping in WV comes to mind also. And we should not leave out.......

People contribution to "global warming" might be dismissed but people contribution to messing up the earth can be easily measured in many other ways. Ultimately I think water quality and availability and air quality will be the big issues. At that point the argument over GW will be moot.

Sal Santamaura

Carbon footprints and humanity's relationship to climate change

Those who refuse to accept that human activity is the major contributor to this planet's rate and direction of climate change over the last centuries are burying their heads in the sand.  Unfortunately, that camp has made the policy decisions which led to and perpetuate this problem.



Reducing one's carbon footprint is all well and good, but such efforts are swamped by earth's hugely increasing human population.  Worse yet, places where the number of people is growing fastest are using dirty energy sources as well as adopting western energy-intensive consumption patterns.



I consider myself fortunate to be childless.  I will retire to a northern location and spend my remaining years "benefiting" from milder winters.  Those of you with children and grandchildren deserve sincere condolences.  It's not going to be pretty.  And was avoidable.

Gordy

Another one is

silt fence which is used in construction to prevent erosion until completion of the project. Miles, and miles get used every year all over the country. when the project is done guess where it ends up.......Land fill. it does not break down quickly either. The suns uv rays does the best job, but once buried it will last a generation.

Gordy

Mans impact on the earth

Is of huge a huge ratio. How much is directed at global warming is debatable. Defacing of the natural earth is of no question in my mind.



Think of the trillions of barrels of oil removed from the ground displaced by sea water alone. How long will it take for natural filtration of that water to ever be usable.



Then that same oil is dispersed into the atmosphere. In to the water ways via accidental spillage. How many years went by before any control over what was dumped on the ground or in our bodies of water being any type of toxic substance.





We are all like locusts using up natural resources faster than they can be renewed, and everyone is the blame no matter how green we think we may be.

Plumdog_2

Tornado at 11.200 feet altitude

I posted about swaths of huge trees being snapped off and uprooted;and I suspected tornadoes. Now somebody has video of a twister on Mt Evans, possibly the second highest ever documented, the other being in Seqouia in Cali.7

Mark Eatherton

Yeah...

I remember a lightning strike back a few years ago in the same area that wiped out most of a herd of elk.



Heres a link to the tornado.



http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21187400/mount-evans-tornado-could-be-second-highest-recorded



ME

Sal Santamaura

Timely corroboration

Just published yesterday:



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all



His work was funded by, of all entities, the Koch brothers!  In an interview tonight, he made clear that the money came with no strings.

Steamhead

They'll cut him off

count on it. 

Sal Santamaura

Regardless of future funding...

...what's significant is the work done and conclusion reached.  I regret mentioning the irony of how it was funded;  this is too important for distractions.

Owen

Civilized People

I'm very impressed at this thoughtful, reasoned and altogether friendly and civil discusion of what can be a very divisive issue. Hear, hear, gentlemen.



My opinion is that you can't have 6-9 billions of consumers s..ting in the nest forever, without some kind of an effect. Usually, if you s... in the nest, you/ve got a s..tty nest. End of my opinion.



Sixty-six homes were destroyed by wildfire driven by high winds, temperature and extreme low humidity at THE END OF JUNE in the foothills above Pocatello, Id.