WTF? Winter Storm Warnings in Texas, Mexico. California on Fire. High Arctic Melting.

Think of it this way. You may not feel it but you are firmly in the grip of climate change. There's nothing you can do to make it go away. It has a firm grip and it is going to tighten. It may not have gotten around to you yet as it has to others but it certainly will and your government is not doing a damned thing about it.

A week ago I posted an item about Springtime in Greenland.  The high north, Greenland and the Canadian archipelago, were basking in temperatures 20 to 30 C above normal, well above the freezing mark.

Today there are winter storm and snowfall warnings across southwest Texas and into northern Mexico.

Jump a couple of states over and you're in fire swept southern California where, in some places, the only thing stopping the spread of wildfires is the Pacific Ocean.

Hmmm, above freezing conditions in December in the Arctic Circle, winter storm warnings in the Texas/Mexico border region, wildfires sweeping southern California.


There have been many victims of the ongoing wildfires in Southern California, the largest of which is the Thomas Fire, a 101-square-mile monster blaze north of Los Angeles. The L.A. Times reports that the fire jumped the 101 freeway and was stopped only by the Pacific Ocean, along the way burning 50,500 acres, destroying 150 structures, and forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Californians are used to wildfires, but Miller says these ones are unseasonable. “We usually get crazy wildfires in October, and then the first rains come in November, and ground stays wet and more rains come, and there’s no wildfire threat,” said [climate change activist, R.L. Miller]. “It’s early December .... This is happening because there is no more winter rain. There’s not enough winter rain, ever.”

Climate science backs up Miller’s observation. The state’s wildfire seasons are lasting longer and burning stronger due to human-caused climate change, as rising temperatures make vegetation drier and causes states like California to whip between very dry and very wet seasons. These current fires are so bad because of a mixture of dry foliage and low humidity, but also because of hot, dry winds blowing up to 70 miles per hour. This seasonal high wind, known as the Santa Ana winds, is not unusual for this time of year, climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Verge. But some scientists believe climate change “may be making these strong winds drier,” according to the New York Times. 

...

Eventually everywhere in the United States, not just the coastal regions, will suffer from severe climate impacts. Climate scientists have documented how global warming stands will hit the rest of America, whether it be through more extreme precipitation in the northeast or crop failure in the heartland. But reality has shown it to us, too. Hurricane Harvey brought Houston, Texas, its worst rainfall and flooding in recorded history. The risks of sea-level rise in Florida was made more apparent by Hurricane Irma, which flooded city streets and destroyed sea-walls. This summer, in Oklahoma, the temperature reached 100 degrees in the dead of winter.

This year’s mind-boggling extreme weather has shown us that climate change will leave few Americans untouched. And yet, so many states refuse to do much about it. That angers climate scientist Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The other states—Florida, Texas, Oklahoma—are under the control of climate change-denying politicians who continue to bury their head in the sand about climate change as they do the bidding of the fossil fuel interests who fund them, with the people they are supposed to be representing paying the cost in the form of devastating climate change-aggravated damage,” he said.

Here's one way to tell if your provincial and federal governments are serious about climate change. What are they telling you about what you and everyone else in your particular region can expect in the way of climate change impacts? What specific recommendations are they passing along to help you prepare for what's coming in the short range, 10 years, 20 years? Are you hearing anything out of them? Chances are pretty good that you're not.

I find it a little odd that my provincial government is so good at warning my community and my neighbours about the earthquake peril that hangs over our head, the mega-thrust subduction zone earthquake that could arrive any time between this afternoon and a century from now. I get detailed lists of what to have on hand, the best emergency foodstuffs, first aid gear, communications and such. I know the best places to take shelter in my home and the worst.  Yet the "Big One" may never hit in my lifetime or even my kids' lifetimes. 

Climate change impacts, however, are a lot more certain and far more predictable. Yet we hear nothing from the federal or British Columbia governments beyond banal injunctions and platitudes. Instead they mutter on about carbon taxes while Trudeau continues to pimp for the bitumen barons. Did the Dauphin even read about the wildfires we had this year, fires so extensive that they formed a high pressure zone that sent the smoke from fires hundreds of miles inland out into the Pacific to blanket Vancouver Island. Wildfires from Mexico to Alaska and what's the Dauphin's response to that? Sweet f#@k all. Carbon taxes - yeah, right. That'll git 'er done, sure.

I'm sensing a window of opportunity that is at risk. If the Liberals don't really come to grips with climate change - both adaptation and mitigation (carbon taxes, etc.) it's a safe bet that, when their time has come and gone, we'll wind up with another Conservative government that will do even less. It's time Justin began giving the country as much attention as he devotes to the economy.

Texans and Frogs. What Do They Have in Common?

It's pretty hard to exaggerate our indifference to early-onset impacts of climate change.  They're here, they're worsening before our eyes and, more often than not, we ignore them.  Some call it the "boiling frog" syndrome.

The New Republic offers up a cautionary tale of drought-stricken Texas and the collapse of the state's once legendary cattle industry.

In fact, hydrologists estimate that even with improved rainfall, it could take thousands of years to replenish the groundwater already drawn from the South Plains. If sustained rains don’t come soon, the tiny cattle towns of the Panhandle and across North Texas, already in decline for decades, may be pushed out of existence. Their residents, like the workers displaced by the Cargill plant closure, may be forced north in the first wave of U.S. climate change migrants, as the national cattle herd constricts around a narrower band in the center of the country and the nation’s food supply becomes ever more reliant on the deepest parts of the Ogallala Aquifer in Kansas and Nebraska.  

This dovetails neatly with yesterday's post concerning America's looming 'internally displaced population' problem and the increasing problem with climate change migration.

Texas Brainwashing Youth

Well I guess North Korea doesn't have a monopoly on this any more.

The great state of Texas wants to implant lies in the minds of its youngsters.

Texas has proposed re-writing school text books to incorporate passages denying the existence of climate change and promoting the discredited views of an ultra-conservative think tank.

The proposed text books ...were already attracting criticism when it emerged that the science section had been altered to reflect the doctrine of the Heartland Institute, which has been funded by the Koch oil billionaires.

In the proposed 6th grade texts, students were introduced to global warming amid false claims that there was scientific disagreement about its causes.

"Scientists agree that Earth's climate is changing.  They do not agree on what is causing the change," the passage reads.

In my view, this sort of thing - misleading young and trusting minds - is just another form of child abuse.  There's a perniciousness to this, a genuine malevolence.  It reeks of bad faith and an abuse of the trust parents must place in the authorities who educate their children.

Perhaps we need to revisit our notions of crime and punishment.  Those who would place society at risk and would imperil future generations must be held accountable in some way.  In societies as indoctrinated as ours have become by popular culture and the corporate mass media, relying on the ballot box is no longer an effective way to deter this sort of conduct.  That's why they're doing it whether by distorting text books or signing multi-decadal agreements surrendering sovereignty to totalitarian states abroad.  They do it, not because it's right, but because they can get away with it and they act without the slightest concern about retribution at the ballot box.

Fixin' to Execute Steve Staley

As though sane people are short of reasons to decry capital punishment.

Steve Staley may be the new poster boy for state barbarism.   Stanley is on Death Row in Texas for the 1989 murder of a restaurant manager he shot while trying to elude police.

Steve has been mentally disturbed since childhood.  "He has a long history of paranoid schizophrenia and depression. Staley was abused as a child by his mother, who was also mentally ill; when he was 6 or 7 she tried to pound a wooden stake through his chest. His father was an alcoholic. Staley tried to kill himself as a teenager. Doctors who have examined Staley on death row have said that he talks in a robot-like monotone yet has “grandiose and paranoid” delusions, including the beliefs that he invented the first car and marketed a character from Star Trek. He has given himself black eyes and self-inflicted lacerations and has been found spreading feces and covered with urine. Medicated with the anti-psychotic drug Haldol, Staley complained of paralysis and sometimes appeared to be in a catatonic state. He has worn a bald spot on the back of his head from lying on the floor of his cell."

The problem facing the Texas courts right now is a U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting execution of the insane.

"The court quoted British judges in the 17^th century worrying about the “miserable spectacle” of “extream (sic) inhumanity and cruelty” presented by executing a “mad man.” It served no retributive purpose, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, to execute a person “who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out.” He also noted “the natural abhorrence civilized societies feel at killing one who has no capacity to come to grips with his own conscience or deity.”

When Staley stopped taking his meds, a Texas judge found him incompetent, unfit for execution, and then overcame that problem by authorizing the state to forcibly medicate the condemned.

"...the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association hold that it is ethically unacceptable for doctors to prescribe drugs to restore competency for the purpose of execution. This should be an easy call for the Texas courts as well. If it’s awful to imagine psychotic prisoners going without their meds, it’s more awful to force shots on them so the state can kill them. If Texas fails to grasp this, other inmates will follow Steven Staley. Mental illness is common on death row. The only reason that the issues raised in Staley’s case haven’t been decided before, defense lawyers tell me, is that humane prosecutors and judges don’t insist on executing people whose sanity is so uncertain."
Staley is scheduled to be executed next week, if Texas authorities can drug him adequately by then so they can then drug him again and kill him.

What's the Definition of "Screwed"? In Texas, It's Rick Perry.

The Great State of Texas is enjoying an early launch of the 2012 tornado season.   As many as 18-tornadoes were reported to have hit the Dallas area on Tuesday leaving some 800-homes damaged or destroyed.

Last April the US set a record of 758 tornadoes for the month.

Weather.com meteorologist Greg Forbes told TODAY that the season is already "running about 50 percent above average for the number of tornadoes."

"We've had record heat," he added, and "that warmth is a big ingredient that provides the instability for the storms."

Record heat indeed.   The map shows the mutant heat waves that hit most of the US last month.   I wonder what all that could be about?


And it seems much of Texas is in for another year of extreme drought.

Fortunately Texans have Rick Perry as their governor.   His solution to drought is to pray for rain.   He'll even authorize pray-ins for entire long weekends.   One of these days that's bound to pay off, huh?

Governor Rick is some pissed off these days.  The Guardian reports he's steamed about foreigners meddling in his state's affairs.

"...the governor of Texas and former Republican presidential candidate, has criticised the UK's Foreign Office for funding an environmental group which aimed to "educate" Texan policymakers about climate science and "move them from a state of denial and inaction to one of acceptance and effective action".

"In 2009, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) gave £13,673 to the US-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to part-fund a project entitled "Influencing climate security policy and legislation in Texas", the Guardian has learned. The money was used to fly two Texan state politicians, including the climate sceptic Republican Troy Fraser, to the UK to receive a briefing with climate scientists and government officials. A conference was also held at the Texas Capitol in Austin in which a video of Prince Charles personally addressing Texan politicians on the subject of climate change was shown."

A spokeswoman for Perry summed up the governor's position:

"In Texas, we base our policy decisions on sound science and what is ultimately best for our citizens. Man-made global warming remains but a theory and one where thousands of scientists remain sceptical. It would be irresponsible to put our entire economy at risk based on unproven science."

The governor declined to speak directly to the newspaper, saying he was scheduled to unveil the new Texas climate change advisory panel.

Prayin' For Rain

Just what does it take to become a Republican governor in the American south?  That region is in a lot of trouble as in global warming and droughts.  You might think that, being the first of their countrymen to feel the climate change lash, they'd be demanding action from Washington but you would be wrong.  You see, they want their climate change salvation from God.

This time it's Texas governor Rick Perry who is looking for divine intervention to break his state's crippling drought.   Perry has introduced a three-day, "prayer for rain" initiative.  Seriously, here's the gubernatorial proclamation:

WHEREAS, the state of Texas is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with some parts of the state receiving no significant rainfall for almost three months, matching rainfall deficit records dating back to the 1930s ... NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.

But Perry isn't the first southern governor to seek divine intervention.  The slapstick governor of drought-stricken Georgia, Sonny Perdue, tried the same thing in November, 2007.  Of course Sonny only went at it for an hour and, predictably, his brief prayer vigil was a bust.  What can you expect for an hour of superstitious chanting?  Perdue then said Georgians weren't doing enough to conserve water and the drought was God's way of getting their attention.

Well, if one hour didn't do shit for Georgia, perhaps 72-hours will do the trick for Texas.  Or not.

You Too Can Be a Border Patrol Agent - Seriously, You Can!

Want to help keep America's border with Mexico safe?

Well if you really have nothing else to do with your time you can log onto http://www.blueservo.net/ and sign up to become a volunteer with the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition Texas Virtual Neighborhood Watch programme.

The programme has a network of web cams set up to allow volunteers to monitor border areas for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants seeking to find their fortune in the United States. 15 cameras are up and running. The network will eventually have 200 in all.

Clinton Asking Texans to Atone for Bush

Banking heavily on Tuesday's primary/caucuses in Texas, Hillary Clinton told Texans she's their chance to make up for giving America George w. Bush. That sounds pretty far out there, especially given that the people of Texas didn't decide either election and that Bush wasn't even born there. But, oh well, maybe it struck a chord.

In any event, Clinton appears to have pulled even to Obama in Texas in the latest polls. It's believed she still holds a small lead in Ohio. Whether she'll be positioned to get the big wins she needs, however, is far from certain.

Still, blaming Texans for Bush is a funny touch.