This blog feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar.
This is a Leonberger Dog Blog but sometimes I post about other things such as this review and promotion of the Overstory by Richard Powers. This is a great Pulitzer Prize winning novel about Trees by Richard Powers.
Below is an overview of the four formats of The Overstory
Hardcover – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 3, 2018), ASIN : 039363552X, ISBN-13 : 978-0393635522, 512 pages, Item Weight : 1.85 pounds, Dimensions : 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches, it cost $13.61 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Paperback – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 2, 2019), ASIN : 039335668X, ISBN-13 : 978-0393356687, 512 pages, Item Weight : 1.24 pounds, Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches, it cost $16.89 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Kindle – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (April 3, 2018), ASIN : B073VX7HT4, ISBN-13 : 978-0393635539, 513 pages. It is currently $2.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Audio Edition – Publisher : Recorded Books (April 03, 2018), ASIN : B078PJ4Q9D, Listening Length : 22 hours and 58 minutes, it cost $0,99 with membership. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of The Overstory by Richard Powers. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.
Amazon’s Description of The Overstory
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List
Named One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
“The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period.” ―Ann Patchett
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
This Novel will Change how you view Trees and Life
The main characters in this epic story Nicholas Hoel (Watchman), Olivia Vandergriff (Maidenhair), Mimi Ma (Mulberry), Douglas Pavlicek (Doug-fir), Adam Appich (Maple), Dr. Patricia Westerford, Neelay Mehta, Dorothy Cazaly Brinkman, and Ray Brinkman, all have interesting and sometimes tragic life stories that somehow connects them to trees. Their life stories are told in a captivating but fast paced manner that sometimes seemed compressed but for a good reason.
The book did not just tell us about the current personalities of the characters without giving the history. Our personalities are partially formed by our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, cultures far away from where we live, by nature and by trees. In some cases, the history of several generations was covered in a couple of pages. I am a curious person, and I found this kind of novel character development powerful and very entertaining.
In a fashion that reminded me of Stephen King’s the stand, the life events of the characters and their family history bring them together in the defense of old growth redwood forest in Oregon. There are also hints of paranormal phenomena. In Oregon, things get very wild and even violent and it became difficult for me to put the book down. It felt very real and very tense and mistakes were made, bad mistakes. The book is certainly a page turner.
The Overstory asks whether humans are the only ones that matter by challenging human-centered perspectives and exploring the lives, consciousness, and value of trees. The book shows that other beings have their own valuable and interesting experiences, and presents scientific ideas that trees have a form of communication and intelligence. I learned that trees communicate with each other through a network of fungi in the soil. By looking up the facts about this I found out that this was not fiction made up by the author. There is an entire new science on this topic called mycorrhizal ecology or biocommunication, sometimes referred to as the “Wood Wide Web”. Dr. Patricia Westerford is based on a real person, Dr. Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia. The book also points out that we humans do not understand the amount of destruction that we are causing to the world’s forests. This is a book that speaks for the trees, but in addition, the trees speak for us.
This is one of the most fascinating novels that I’ve read. It has an important message that some of us will understand but that some of us may not grasp. In any case, I can certainly understand the books popularity. I highly recommend it.
Back cover of The Overstory by Richard Powers. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the Kindle version of the book.
This is a Leonberger blog but sometimes I post about other topics that interest me. This post is about five facts about Climate Change that I think everyone should know. It is also an opportunity for me to bring attention to my new blog. I should say that I am posting this on this blog because my Leonberger blog is the one that gets the most attention.
Climate Change, or if you call it Global Warming, is a huge problem that has been getting a lot of attention, but despite this fact a lot of people don’t understand the simple basics. The confusion and misinformation are especially widespread here in the US. You can thank the fossil fuel industry propaganda and right wing think tanks for that. I was bamboozled and misled myself until I took a deep dive into the subject and learned what the facts were. It helped me a bit that I have a strong science background. The five facts I have in mind are:
(1) We know that climate change is happening
(2) We know that we humans are the cause
(3) Nearly 100 percent of climate scientists agree that we are the cause
(4) Climate change has always been around but that does not change the facts above
(5) It is not important whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change
We Know that Climate Change is Happening
The evidence that Global Warming (or Climate Change) is happening is overwhelming, in fact conclusive. It includes the temperature records collected by numerous organizations, NOAA, NASA, the Hadley Centre, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the World Meteorological Organization, and many more. These organizations collect data from land-based weather stations, ocean buoys, satellite measurements, and other sources to monitor Earth’s climate. Comparison with the palaeoclimatological record shows that the rise in average global temperatures is extremely fast.
Other evidence is the measurements of global sea levels, the fact that glaciers are retreating, that the arctic ice is melting, that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing ice, that eco zones are generally shifting northward, that the climate is changing, and that snow seasons are getting shorter, something that is directly visible to old guys from northern climates like me. You can read more about this evidence by clicking here. Below are two 45 second videos from NASA illustrating global warming.
Historical global temperature map
To see the NASA web page from where the YouTube video of the shrinking arctic ice is taken click here.
We Know that we Humans are the Cause
Climate scientists have done thorough studies of atmospheric physics, paleoclimatology (past climate), oceanography, geology, and biology related to climate change, as well as climate modeling, and have produced tens of thousands of research papers in the process. The evidence they have collected points to us as the culprit behind the recent rapid rise in overall global temperatures and other climate change.
The evidence that we are the cause behind climate change includes the climate models, which have gotten extremely good. What we see is pretty much exactly what you expect from our fossil fuel emissions. The upper troposphere is cooling, which shows that the global heating is from greenhouse gases and not from the sun or from earth’s orbital cycles. To understand how the lower atmosphere is warming while the upper is cooling, think of the greenhouse gases as a blanket. The fact that winters and nights are generally warming faster is another indicator that the cause for the warming is greenhouse gases. The speed of the warming is so fast that there is no known natural forcing that could cause it. Isotope studies show that the origin of the greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere are from burning fossil fuels. To read more about this evidence click here.
This is a short one-minute overview of the causes behind global warming.
This video from NASA is a bit longer, 13 minutes, but it is very informative. Click here to see the page this is coming from.
Nearly 100 Percent of Climate Scientists Agree that we are the Cause
Climate Scientists agree that Global Warming or if you call it Climate Change is happening, and that it is caused by us primarily because of our burning of fossil fuels. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two facts because the evidence is conclusive. Typically, studies show an agreement of at least 97% or 98% among climate scientists. To read more about this topic click here.
Climate Change Has Always Been Around But that does not Change the Facts Above
Climate has changed for natural reasons, for as long as our planet has been around (pun not intended). The sun’s irradiance has changed, life evolving effect climate, especially microbe evolution, crashing asteroids can affect climate, earth has three orbital cycles, orbital eccentricity, change in axial tilt, and axial precession, and volcanoes spew out carbon dioxide and aerosols. However, past climate change is not a reason to dismiss human caused climate change. First, our scientific organizations keep track of natural causes and if you remove our greenhouse gas emissions from the equation it should not be getting warmer right now. Second, the different causes of climate change have different effects, different fingerprints if you will, and the way climate change is happening is pointing to human greenhouse gas emissions (a fingerprint match), not anything else.
A very common objection to human-caused climate change is that climate has always changed, it’s been warmer before, a 100 million years ago it was much warmer, carbon dioxide levels were much higher before, etc. This is a very bad objection that reveals the ignorance of the objector on this topic, as well as him/her not thinking through what they are saying. Think about it, the experts on past climate are the ones telling us that climate change is not natural this time. If you use this objection, you should ask yourself, maybe there is something you are missing.
This is how the well-known Climate Scientist Katherine Hayhoe introduces herself: “Hi, I’m a climate scientist. You may know me from my greatest hits including, “No, it’s not a natural cycle,” “Yes, I know it’s been warmer before (and the only reason YOU know is because we scientists told you so),”
In my post “Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us” I wrote a lot about natural causes behind past climate change. To read more click here.
It is not Important Whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change
Finally, I have come across a lot of people who instantly object if you use both the phrase Global Warming and Climate Change. They think it is proof that there is something sinister going on. A conspiracy. We used to have a big dog, a Leonberger called Bronco. Just because I just called him “a big dog” instead of a Leonberger does not mean that I am lying about having a Leonberger. It is just two descriptions for the same dog. Actually, one time I called him Henry by mistake. There is still no conspiracy.
Climate Change is a broader term. The average global temperature is rising but there are a lot of other things going on as well, weather patterns are changing, some places are getting dryer, some wetter, the carbon emissions are causing ocean acidification, etc. However, both Global Warming and Climate Change are acceptable terms. Whether you use the phrases Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption, Global Heating, is a personal preference. The popularity of the different monikers has changed with culture, and not just because of popularity among scientists. Implying conspiracies or dishonesty because of different monikers is a popular thing to do but it is silly.
With this blog post I wanted to bring attention to my other blog. The goal of this fairly new blog is to generate a list of what I call super facts, which are important facts, not trivia, known to be true and yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many. Because these facts are fundamental and true and yet there is so much confusion and dispute surrounding them, I consider these facts to be very special. That’s why I call them super facts.
In a sense the blog is a myth busting blog. A myth busting blog that focuses on important information. I call this blog “Superfactful”. I am trying to get more subscribers and visitors to my new blog. This post is essentially a shoutout to my Superfactful blog. I am featuring five selected super facts. To read more about the super facts click on the images or links below.
I can add that about half the posts on “Superfactful” are not super facts but just fun facts or reviews of non-fiction books.
Super Fact #4 : The Speed of Light in Vacuum Is a Universal Constant
The speed of light in vacuum is a universal constant. The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers regardless of their speed and the direction in which they are going. It is always c = 299,792,458 meters per second. If you try to catch up to a light beam and try to travel close to the speed of the light beam, you will not be able to catch up. The speed of the light beam will still be c = 299,792,458 meters per second compared to you no matter how fast you go. This is possible because time and space don’t behave like we expect.
Click here or the picture below to visit Super Fact #4
In this picture Amy is traveling past Alan in a rocket. Both have a laser. Both measure the speed of both laser beams to be c = 299,792,458 meters per second.
Super Fact #7 : Poverty and child mortality have been sharply reduced worldwide
Extreme poverty as well as child mortality has been sharply reduced the world over. The countries that are the worst-off today are still better off than the countries that were doing the best at the beginning of the 19th century. Over the last 20 years extreme poverty and child mortality have continued to decline sharply.
Click here or the picture below to visit Super Fact #7
This graph from Our World In Data shows a steep decline in extreme poverty over time. Click on the picture to visit the original article.
Super Fact #25 : Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us
Global warming or if you call it Climate Change or Climate Disruption is happening, and it is happening very fast, and we also know that it is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two facts because the evidence is conclusive. Check the evidence in the post.
In other words, politicians dispute this, political think tanks dispute this, many amongst the public dispute this, but scientists extremely rarely dispute this because the evidence is too strong.
Click here or the picture below to visit Super Fact #25
The so-called hockey stick curve depicting the last 1,000 years. The blue line is the first hockey stick curve ever created (by Michael Mann). He used proxy measurements such as tree rings, green-dots 30-year average, red temperature measurements. Wikimedia commons <<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>>. This graph is taken from this page.
Super Fact #28 : That Earth is round was well known long before Columbus
That Earth is round, or spherical (or closely spherical) had been known for at least a couple of thousand years by the time Columbus set sail. Columbus did not set sail to prove that earth was round, and he knew it was round.
Click here or the picture below to visit Super Fact #28
Columbus did not use Eratosthenes calculations from 1,800 years earlier and therefore thought that the earth was much smaller than it really was. He did not know about the Pacific Ocean. Earth Pacific Ocean view Stock Illustration ID: 1617553012 by Matis75.
Super Fact #35 : Natural Disasters Kill Less People Now Than 100 Years Ago
Natural disasters kill a lot less people now compared to 100 years ago. That is despite a larger population and despite the fact that climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of many types of natural disasters.
Click here or the picture below to visit Super Fact #35
This graph from the Gap Minder article shows the annual deaths from natural disasters in ten-year intervals starting with 1930. The trend is down.
The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that I want to promote. Today I am posting about Green Earth (Science in the Capital Trilogy) by Kim Stanley Robinson, a thick book. It is 1,088 pages to be exact. I gave it four stars, not five, so I am not entirely enthusiastic about it. It featured a few pages of anti-capitalist rhetoric (the author is very left-wing), which I found to be annoying and out of place, as well as some distracting dialogue and subplots that I thought the book could have done without. A book with more than 1,000 pages should be as lean and fast paced as possible.
I am still promoting it because I think Kim Stanley Robinson’s books in general are very good books and it is one of the more prominent books in a relatively new genre that is gaining significant traction, so called cli-fi, or climate science fiction. Cli-fi deals with the impacts of climate change and global warming and is one of the fastest-growing literary subgenres. Major publishers are releasing more titles in the genre and some cli-fi works are being adapted into films, TV series, and other media formats. Amazon typically lists these books as science fiction. It is a subgenre to keep an eye on.
Paperback – Publisher : Del Rey; Abridged edition (November 3, 2015), ISBN-10 : 1101964839, ISBN-13 : 978-1101964835, 1088 pages, Item Weight : 2.22 pounds, Dimensions : 6.1 x 1.9 x 9.2 inches, it cost $ 19.39 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Green Earth. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.
Amazon’s Description of Green Earth
The landmark trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of climate change—updated and abridged into a single novel
More than a decade ago, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson began a groundbreaking series of near-future eco-thrillers—Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting—that grew increasingly urgent and vital as global warming continued unchecked. Now, condensed into one volume and updated with the latest research, this sweeping trilogy gains new life as Green Earth, a chillingly realistic novel that plunges readers into great floods, a modern Ice Age, and the political fight for all our lives.
The Arctic ice pack averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter when it was first measured in the 1950s. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year.
It’s a muggy summer in Washington, D.C., as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler and his scientist wife, Anna, work to call attention to the growing crisis of global warming. But as they fight to align the extraordinary march of modern technology with the awesome forces of nature, fate puts an unusual twist on their efforts—one that will pit science against politics in the heart of the coming storm.
Praise for the Science in the Capital trilogy
“Perhaps it’s no coincidence that one of our most visionary hard sci-fi writers is also a profoundly good nature writer—all the better to tell us what it is we have to lose.”—Los Angeles Times
“An unforgettable demonstration of what can go wrong when an ecological balance is upset.”—The New York Times Book Review
An Interesting but Frightening Vision of the Future plus some Unnecessary Filler
In a future that is not too distant climate change / global warming is beginning to cause havoc. An island nation founded by Tibetan refugees is washed away due to sea level rise, the west Antarctic ice sheet is breaking up, the arctic ice disappears in the summer, the gulf stream is beginning to shut down, there’s severe storms, floods, extreme heat and drought, as well as extreme cold. Washington DC is ironically hard hit by natural disasters. The story is focused on Washington DC and to a lesser degree San Diego, California. There are scientists looking for solutions and politicians deflecting and other politicians who act on the problem.
One of the main characters is Frank Vanderwals, a respected scientist working for the National Science Foundation, falls in love with a woman, Caroline, who is involved in a very dangerous high level political intrigue and plots. He is homeless for a period of time during which Washington DC is hit by a record winter storm. Other characters in the book are Diane, who is the director of the National Science Foundation, Senator Phil Chase who is running for President, scientists Charlie and Anna Quibler and their children Nick and Joe. Charlie is an advisor to Phil Chase. Yann Pierzinski is a genius scientist who developed some algorithms that may be important for human genome editing and for solving climate change. I can add that the National Science Foundation is a real organization that I have a special connection with because they funded robotics research I did when I was young. I thought this was a fun aspect of the book. Other organizations mentioned were often made up.
This book has a lot to offer. There’s interesting science, climate change discussions, political intrigue, deadly games, thorough and well-done character development, and a lot of interesting subplots. The plot is rich and complicated but for the most part interesting. I enjoyed the discussions on gene editing, climate change, and the discussion on how to prevent the shut down of the Atlantic current. I enjoyed the discussions on Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, Yann Pierzinski’s algorithms, and Frank’s experiences as a homeless man. I slept in tents in the forest in northern Sweden when I did my Swedish army service and it was 40 below, so I very much identified with Frank during the winter storm in Washington DC. Some creepy but interesting features of the plot were the secret microchipping of people and the possibility of manipulating voting machines. I have a lot of good things to say about this book.
A few things I did not like about the book was that some of the dialogues and subplots seemed unnecessary and contained references to drugs or detailed romantic courtship that seemed out of place and added more pages than necessary to a book that is 1088 pages long. Sometimes the character development was too slow and featured unnecessary details. Frank was throwing frisbees with homeless people for a considerable amount of pages. Both Frank and Charlie seemed a bit incompetent despite their high-level positions. I also did not appreciate the leftwing / socialist propaganda around page 500. I realize that is how the author views the world, but it is not how I see things. The book seems to take place somewhere between 2030 and 2050 based on the futuristic technology and science described as well as the effects of climate change and yet there are payphones and Vietnam veterans. But maybe people will live longer, and payphones will make a comeback. Overall, I liked the book, and I recommend it, even though I think it would have been better, and 100 or 200 pages shorter, if the content I just complained about had been taken out.
Back cover of Green Earth. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the Kindle version of the book.
I would like to highlight today’s Superfactful post called “Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us”. I think it is an interesting one that is quite educational. It features 10 conclusive pieces of evidence that it is happening and then 10 pieces of evidence that we (humans) is the cause.
Superfact 25: Global warming or if you call it Climate Change or Climate Disruption is happening, and it is happening very fast, and we also know that it is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two facts because the evidence is conclusive. Check the evidence below.
Click here to visit my superfactful post and if you haven’t subscribed yet feel free to do so.
The so-called hockey stick curve depicting the last 1,000 years. The blue line is the first hockey stick curve ever created (by Michael Mann). He used proxy measurements such as tree rings, green-dots 30-year average, red temperature measurements. Wikimedia commons <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>. This graph is taken from this page.
Many of you know that I have a new blog. The goal of this new blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true and yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many. I call these special facts “super facts” in lack of a better term.
In my Leonberger blog (this one) I write about Leonberger dogs, but I also write book reviews and about non-Leonberger related topics. I am thinking about splitting the book reviews between my Leonberger blog and the Superfactful blog. I am thinking of putting Leonberger books, pure fiction and poetry on my Leonberger blog and non-fiction books and fiction books related to something factual on my Superfactful blog. I wonder if that is a good idea. Naturally the book reviews would not be part of the super fact list but would be on my blog. Any opinions about this split are welcome.
Finally, I would like to highlight my first post on my new blog. It describes my journey through the valley of bamboozlement and miscomprehension. In the past I have had to give up cherished beliefs that were wrong and I had to accept facts that were hard pills to swallow. I consider this growth. Click on any of the pictures below to read that post.
I learned that Earth is not 6,000 years old. It is billions of years old, and we know this with certainty. I learned that lightspeed in vacuum is a universal constant, time is relative, and other strange facts from science. Stock Photo ID: 2024419973 by Elena11. Click on the picture to read my post called Bamboozlement Misunderstandings Big Surprises and My Journey.I doubted human caused global warming, but I was forced to revise my belief after a deep dive into the topic. Natural causes for global warming / climate change would have cooled the planet, not warm it. Click on the picture to read my post called Bamboozlement Misunderstandings Big Surprises and My Journey.
This is a Leonberger blog, but sometimes I also post reviews for books that are not about Leonbergers and when I do it is for books that I love and that I want others to read. Today I am posting a review for Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis by Dr. Michael E. Mann. If you don’t know who Michael Mann is, he is the creator of the hockey-stick curve (in 1998), which is a curve that shows the variation of average global temperature throughout history. For recent times (last 150 years) he used measured temperatures and for temperatures further in the past he used so called proxy data to estimate global temperatures. As the name indicates the graph looked like a hockey stick laying down, which did not sit well with climate change deniers, and as a result he was viciously attacked, threatened, and defamed. He was a young post-doc student at the time. February 8, 2024, Dr. Michael Mann was awarded one million dollars in a defamation lawsuit against Fox talk show host Mark Steyn and another $1,000.00 from Rand Simberg.
Hockey stick curve for the last 1,000 years, blue-Michael Mann’s original curve (proxy measurements such as tree rings), green-dots 30-year average, red temperature measurements. From Wikipedia Commons.Global temperature going back twenty thousand years, another hockey stick graph. Notice the stable temperature during the last 6-7,000 years, coinciding with the development of human civilization, and then a sudden sharp increase at the end.
I should say that at first, I believed myself that Dr. Mann was a fraud. As I took a deep dive into the topic and learned more about it, I came to realize I was wrong and that his critics were wrong, and that Michael Mann was right. Since his original hockey stick curve there have been several dozen hockey stick curves produced by other independent researchers, often going back further in time, and they all confirm his findings. Today the scientific community has entirely accepted the hockey stick as correct. Despite this fact Dr. Mann is still being attacked by various organizations and individuals. Typically graphs put people to sleep, but this one started a war that is still ongoing. Charles Darwin was also attacked for his scientific discoveries and now history is repeating itself.
Anyway, about this book. This book mentions the hockey stick curve, but it is not the focus of the book. This book goes back 4.5 billion years and explains what is known about past climate which is surprisingly much. Science does not know everything, otherwise it would stop, but it knows a lot. He discusses various past climate shocks, various climate cycles, extinction events, etc., and analyses what past climate means for us today. There is bad news and there is good news. The book is packed with information and data, but I loved it.
Hardcover – Publisher : PublicAffairs (September 26, 2023), ISBN-10 : 1541702891, ISBN-13 : 978-1541702899, 320 pages, Item Weight : 1.15 pounds, dimensions : 6.4 x 1.06 x 9.55 inches, it cost $19.59 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Paperback – Publisher : PublicAffairs (October 15, 2024), ISBN-10 : 1541702905, ISBN-13 : 978-1541702905, 320 pages, Item Weight : 1.11 pounds, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.25 inches, it cost $19.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Kindle – Publisher : PublicAffairs (September 26, 2023), ASIN : B0BRJ6SCFM, 392 pages. It is currently $18.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Audiobook – Publisher : PublicAffairs, Release date September 26, 2023, ASIN : B0BWKCPSDY, Listening length 9 hours and 38 minutes. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis by Michael E. Mann. Click here or the picture to visit the Amazon.com page for the Hardcover version of the book.
Amazon’s description of the book (from the Amazon page)
In this sweeping work of science and history, the renowned climate scientist and author of The New Climate War shows us the conditions on Earth that allowed humans not only to exist but thrive, and how they are imperiled if we veer off course.
For the vast majority of its 4.54 billion years, Earth has proven it can manage just fine without human beings. Then came the first proto-humans, who emerged just a little more than 2 million years ago—a fleeting moment in geological time. What is it that made this benevolent moment of ours possible? Ironically, it’s the very same thing that now threatens us—climate change.
The drying of the tropics during the Pleistocene period created a niche for early hominids, who could hunt prey as forests gave way to savannahs in the African tropics. The sudden cooling episode known as the “Younger Dryas” 13,000 years ago, which occurred just as Earth was thawing out of the last Ice Age, spurred the development of agriculture in the fertile crescent. The “Little Ice Age” cooling of the 16th-19th centuries led to famines and pestilence for much of Europe, yet it was a boon for the Dutch, who were able to take advantage of stronger winds to shorten their ocean voyages.
The conditions that allowed humans to live on this earth are fragile, incredibly so. Climate variability has at times created new niches that humans or their ancestors could potentially exploit, and challenges that at times have spurred innovation. But there’s a relatively narrow envelope of climate variability within which human civilization remains viable. And our survival depends on conditions remaining within that range.
In this book, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann will arm readers with the knowledge necessary to appreciate the gravity of the unfolding climate crisis, while emboldening them—and others–to act before it truly does become too late.
A Palaeoclimatological Journey Accompanied by Intelligent Analysis And What It Means for Us
In this book the author takes us on a journey through earth’s climate history. He discusses the climate during the different eras and periods of earth’s history starting with the Hadean and Archean and ending with the Holocene. There have been extreme changes in the climate, caused by shocks to the system, followed by mass extinctions. The many devastating large swings in the climate often took hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years to run their course. Species disappeared while species better adapted to the new climate evolved. As he gets to modern times, the Holocene, he gives us more detail and analyzes the climate for much shorter intervals. It is clear from his discussion on more recent climate that climate has shaped us, and we have shaped climate.
He also discusses the various climate cycles that effected our climate in the past as well as currently, including the Milankovitch cycles, such as the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, earth’s obliquity and precession. Other cycles he is discussing include the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the north Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which as it turns out does not exist. The purpose of all this is to determine what this means for our civilization and the unnatural and extremely rapid warming that we are causing today primarily via our carbon emissions.
I found some of the climate shocks he discussed quite interesting. During the Paleoproterozoic era 2 billion years ago the biological innovation of oxygen-generating photosynthesis led to a rapid drawdown on atmospheric carbon dioxide and in addition the positive feedback from the increased albedo from the ice buildup turned the planet into a snowball. This was reversed as the ice prevented absorption of carbon dioxide. Eventually the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reached 200 times of what it is today, and the snowball rapidly melted, and the carbon dioxide concentration settled again. The greatest extinction event in geological history was the Permian-Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago when 90% of all species on Earth perished. It was primarily caused by a substantial release of carbon dioxide from Siberian Trap volcanic eruptions.
Another interesting climate shock was the dinosaur-killing K-Pg event 66 million years ago. An asteroid collision made Earth’s climate much colder, and all large species died out. It took four million years for flora and fauna to reestablish itself but with new species. The losers were the non-avian dinosaurs, and the winners were the mammals and the avian dinosaurs or birds. The PETM event 55 million years ago was triggered by carbon-enriched volcanic eruptions that led to a rapid increase in temperature of 7-11 Fahrenheit in just 10,000 years. This event is eerily similar to what we are experiencing now, except our warming is even faster. He also describes the cooling that happened 50 million years ago because of the forced uplift of the Himalayas due to the collision of India with Eurasia. For more recent times he is discussing the various glacial and interglacial periods (ice-ages), driven by Milankovitch cycles.
His chief goal with his paleoclimate discussion is to find out what the paleoclimate record implicates for us. For example, establishing what is the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature that occurs after the climate system fully adjusts to a sustained doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Another is Earth System Sensitivity (ESS), which describes how much warming you ultimately get in response to a doubling of CO2, after all the slow-response feedback mechanisms fully unfold.
Yet another climate feature is the existence of hysteresis loops, in which the value of a physical property lags behind changes in the effect causing it. For example, setting back CO2 to what it was before an event may not bring temperatures and climate back to what it was for 100,000 years. He is also analyzing the risk for ocean conveyor disruption and the risk for future methane bombs. The latter, which turns out to be low risk. Another piece of good news is that we are not at risk of a run-away greenhouse effect like the one Venus underwent two billion years ago. His conclusions are a mixed bag of good news and bad news. I can add that naturally he is also discussing the hockey-stick curve. He was the inventor of it.
The book contains a lot of information, and it sometimes features complex discussions, but if you read the book carefully it makes perfect sense. It is logical, intelligently written, and avoids hyperbole and exaggerations. However, if you are not very familiar with science and have a hard time with complexity it may not be the book for you. He stresses that the greatest threat to meaningful climate action is no longer denial, but despair and doomism, premised on the flawed notion that it is too late to do anything. We will not all perish from climate change, but neither is it a good thing. The facts justify immediate and dramatic action, but we are not going to fall off a cliff. Climate change is a crisis, but a solvable crisis. The question is how much damage we will do to future generations.
I highly recommend this brilliant, and fact filled deep dive into paleoclimate and what it means for humanity today, to anyone willing and able to tackle some complexity.
Back cover of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis by Michael E. Mann. Click here or the picture to visit the Amazon.com page for the Paperback version of the book.
About the Author
Dr. Michael E. Mann, famous for the hockey stick curve, is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM).
Dr. Mann has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA’s outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012. In 2020 he was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications and five books. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system.
The Silurian Hypothesis
For all science fiction fans, the book also featured an idea that would make a good science fiction story. 55 million years ago there was an exceptionally fast warming of 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) that was in many regards similar to what is happening now. It was not quite an extinction event, that requires more than 75% of all species to be gone in less than 2 million years, but it was catastrophic. This event is referred to as the PETM event. I can add that we are warming the earth at a rate 10 times faster today.
If we were to destroy ourselves what would a future species know about us 55 million years from now? Well, all traces of our civilization would be gone and finding fossils of us would be very likely despite our large population, because fossilization events are extremely rare. What would be left of us are the traces of the global warming we caused and long-lived chemicals such as nitrates from our fertilizers. That’s exactly what the PETM event has left behind, signs of a sharp increase in CO2, global warming and a sudden spike in nitrates that remain unexplained. Could it be that we are not the first intelligent species on earth and that our predecessors caused global warming as well? Well, this was just entertaining speculation, not science, but could there be something to it?
I have not posted in a while, and I have not read blog posts either because I’ve been focused on the annual Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) conference and lobby days in Washington DC. Part of this event was about 1,000 CCL volunteers having meetings with more than 400 congressmen and senators. I organized and participated in a meeting with senator Ted Cruz’ office (Texas) and I participated in a meeting with Senator Wicker’s office (Mississippi). I also had a small one-man (just me) meeting with the office of another Texas congressman and a delivery to my own congresswoman Beth Van Duyne (Texas district 24).
CO2 emissions dial. Shutter stock Photo ID: 1928699927 by NicoElNino
Some technical background. The United States congress consist of two houses, the house of representatives with 435 congressmen, and the Senate with 100 Senators, two from each state. Each proposed law or bill/act has a number in the house of representatives on the form H.R.xxxx and S.xxxx in the Senate. To become a law, a bill/act must be approved by the house of representatives with a vote of at least 50% as well as approved by the Senate with a vote of at least 60% (filibuster rule) or 50% if you can make it part of a budget bill (so called budget reconciliation). I can add that the president can also veto a bill that has passed both houses.
How it looked like when I arrived at the Capitol building in Washington DC the early morning of Tuesday June 11, 2024.
The majority of the house of representatives is Republican and the majority of the Senate is Democratic, but the split is very even. Unfortunately, the current congress is also very partisan, and pretty much war like, making passing any laws nearly impossible. Most bills are introduced to impress respective side’s partisan base and for grandstanding, not with the intention of it becoming law. I’ve read that the current congress is the most dysfunctional in United States history. Into this mess CCL is proposing or supporting climate related legislation that is bipartisan, or introduced jointly by Democratic and Republican congressmen, and therefore has a chance of passing. CCL is a bipartisan organization and has good relations with both Democrats and Republicans.
The CCL group meeting with Senator Ted Cruz’ office. The staff member, Jackson Tate, is standing the furthest to the right. I am standing in the middle, immediately to the right of the flag.
Our favorite piece of legislation is the carbon fee and dividend, but we did not discuss it for reasons I will soon explain. The carbon fee and dividend policy consist of three parts. First, a price/fee/tax is placed on carbon emissions. This makes sense because ruining the atmosphere for everyone on earth should not be free of charge. Second, the proceeds are returned to people/consumers on an equal basis, as a dividend, a check or a direct deposit. Most people will receive more money than they lose from paying higher prices, while the incentive to buy less carbon intensive products will remain. You are rewarded for polluting less than the average. Thirdly, a carbon border adjustment, or a fee at the border, will be enacted on imported carbon intensive products that are produced with higher carbon emissions than the average for the United States. A subsidy is applied to exported products created using less carbon emissions. According to economists, a carbon fee and dividend is a very effective policy in reducing emissions. In fact, an optimal way of reducing carbon emissions. At the same time, it does not harm the economy. This is why CCL loves it.
Unfortunately, it is currently not politically viable. In Canada something similar has been implemented and even though 80% of Canadians come out ahead financially from this policy, almost no one believes it because doing the accounting is not easy. It is also incorrectly blamed for inflation. Add the fact that the Republican party has turned against it, thus making it a partisan policy (no longer bipartisan). Therefore, we have to wait.
This graph is showing US annual carbon emissions. The black line is the actual US emissions up to the end of 2023. The multicolored graphs are estimated emissions reductions resulting from different policies. The blue triangle corresponds to a specific quite reasonable form of carbon fee and dividend, but we can’t use it right now. The second largest triangle, the dark red triangle, correspond to clean energy permitting reform, a policy area that is very bipartisan and viable.
For this year we had four “Asks”. Four policy proposals or areas for which we are asking support from congress.
Prove It Act S.1863
Energy Permitting Reform
Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act of 2023 S.1164 / H.R.5015
Increased TSP Access Act of 2023 S.1400 / H.R.3036
The CCL group meeting with Senator Wicker’s office. The staff members were Julia Wood, Flannery Egner, and Wade Roberts. Julia and Flannery are standing front left and Wade middle back. I am standing on the far right.
Below are the summaries of our four asks. Below each short summary I have included the full text from our flyers. I don’t expect anyone to read the full text, but naturally you can if you are really interested.
Prove It Act S.1863
This bipartisan act introduced by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) would require the Department of Energy to study the emissions density of certain emissions intense products, cement, aluminum, steel, fossil fuels, etc., in the United States and in other countries. US products are much cleaner than the same products from many other countries such as China and India. Having the data will help us capitalize on this advantage, for example, in trade negotiations and attracting foreign buyers of these products. It is good business for the United States.
Full CCL text of Prove It Act S.1863
The bipartisan Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable, Emissions Intensity and Transparency Act of 2023 (S.1863), or PROVE IT Act, introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), would require the Department of Energy (DOE) to study the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of certain products — including aluminum, cement, crude oil, fertilizer, iron, steel, plastic, and others — that are produced in the United States and in certain covered countries. The PROVE IT Act is not a carbon tax or carbon border tariff.
The PROVE IT Act was approved by the Senate EPW Committee in a large bipartisan vote (14-5) in January and is expected to be introduced in the House by Reps. John Curtis (R-UT-03) and Scott Peters (D-CA-50) in the coming weeks.
Greenhouse gas emissions are a global issue, and trade and the power of the American market are some of the best tools we have to reduce global emissions. Since many U.S. industries are among the least carbon intensive in the world, producing products here is good for the U.S. economy and good for the climate. In addition, U.S. industries have had to unfairly compete with industries from higher-polluting foreign countries with lax labor and environmental standards. As Sens. Coons and Cramer have said, “The PROVE IT Act would put high-quality, verifiable data behind these practices and bolster transparency around global emissions intensity data to hold countries with dirtier production accountable.”
The PROVE IT Act is endorsed by the American Petroleum Institute, American Conservation Coalition Action, Bipartisan Policy Center Action, American Iron and Steel Institute, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Climate Leadership Council, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, Environmental Defense Fund, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Third Way, Progressive Policy Institute, Independent Petroleum Association of America, Steel Manufacturers Association, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The PROVE IT Act is an important bipartisan step to protect American industry and drive down global carbon pollution. Citizens’ Climate Lobby urges all members of Congress to cosponsor the PROVE IT Act and take action to pass the bill this Congress.
Energy Permitting Reform
The biggest obstacle to expanding the utilization of clean energy isn’t building clean energy but building the power lines needed to bring the power from the clean energy sources to households. It takes 10-20 years to get a powerline approved while building a wind power facility takes months. There are also energy technology specific hurdles for building, for example, nuclear power stations and renewables including endless judicial reviews and several layers of bureaucratic approval processes. We can’t wait decades for yes or no. It is important to speed up the process for building America’s clean energy infra structure. Some has been done but more needs to be done. This is an area that will make a big difference that both Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on.
Full CCL text of Energy Permitting Reform
Citizens’ Climate Lobby believes it is critical to speed up the process for building America’s clean energy infrastructure. Changes to the current process for permitting energy projects must be made so America can lower greenhouse gas emissions and ensure American households have access to affordable clean energy. CCL appreciates that the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 included some provisions that will help streamline clean energy permitting and several new agency and FERC rules intended to speed the energy permitting process have been finalized. However, more comprehensive permitting reform is still needed and should be done in a way that protects communities, preserves their ability to provide input, and maintains environmental standards. We also know that further changes to our permitting process will need to have bipartisan support.
In each of the past three years, at least 84% of the new energy capacity built in the United States was clean energy. More than 95% of new energy projects currently awaiting permits are solar, wind, and battery storage. Building a new electrical transmission line, on average, takes over a decade and solar, wind, and transmission projects are litigated at higher rates than other infrastructure projects. If construction of energy infrastructure continues at this pace, we will not be able to lower our emissions at the speed and scale necessary and ensure Americans have affordable and reliable energy in the 21st century.
We still need key reforms to our energy permitting process, such as but not limited to:
Allow transmission lines to be permitted and built much faster: We must permit, site, and build interregional transmission and require that regions be able to transfer significant power between regions.
Reasonable timelines for judicial review: There are new time limits for NEPA reviews, but litigation still has the potential to delay needed energy projects almost indefinitely. We need a reasonable statute of limitations that allows impacted communities to have a voice and stop bad projects but does not allow for infinite delays.
Ensuring robust and early community engagement: Any permitting reform must still provide a thorough, accessible process for community engagement and input.
Technology-specific permitting: There is also a critical need to modernize permitting for specific technologies like nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal power.
We urge Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to enact needed changes to our energy infrastructure permitting process. We believe both parties must come to an agreement on reforms that can pass both the House and Senate and be signed into law.
Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act of 2023 S.1164 / H.R.5015
The Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act was introduced by Texas Senator John Cornyn (R), and a couple of Democrats jumped on board as well. It will authorize the secretary of agriculture to carry out eco system restoration activities particularly the development of seedling nurseries, which will significantly aid forest recovery from wildfires. It is part of CCL’s Healthy Forest initiative.
Full CCL text of Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act of 2023 S.1164 / H.R.5015
The Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and in the House by Rep. Leger Fernandez (D-NM-03). The legislation ensures that funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 is available to support the development of seedling nurseries to improve and expand reforestation efforts.
Specifically, the bill would:
Authorize the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Chief of the Forest Service, to enter into contracts, grants and agreements to carry out certain ecosystem restoration activities.
Clarify that funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is available for the development of seedling nurseries at state forestry agencies, local or non-profit entities and institutions of higher education.
The Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act has the potential to significantly aid in forest recovery from wildfires. From 2001 to 2021, the nation lost 11.1 million hectares of tree cover from wildfires and 33.1 million hectares from all other loss. Although the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides funding for replanting programs, it does not address the need for expanded nurseries. The Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act rectifies this omission by providing funding for crucial seedling nurseries to further our nation’s progress toward resilient forestry. The bill complements another one of CCL’s secondary asks, the Save our Sequoias Act, through aiding its regeneration efforts.
On April 16, 2024, the House version of the Seedlings for Sustainable Habitat Restoration Act was voted out of the Committee on Natural Resources by unanimous consent. It now awaits action by the full House. The Senate companion was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on March 3, 2023, where it awaits review.
Increased TSP Access Act of 2023 S.1400 / H.R.3036
There is a current Technical Service Providers Shortage that needs to be addressed. Farmers and ranchers need help with resilient and climate smart practices, and this bill streamlines and improves the certification process. It was introduced by Senators Mike Braun (R-IN) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) in the Senate and Representatives James Baird (R-IN-04) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) in the House. It is a small step forward but easy and inexpensive to do.
Full CCL Text of Increased TSP Access Act of 2023 S.1400 / H.R.3036
The bipartisan Increased TSP Access Act of 2023 has been introduced by Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) in the Senate and Reps. James Baird (R-IN-04) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) in the House. The bill would address the current Technical Service Providers (TSPs) shortage, which is impacting the ability of agricultural producers to fully utilize current conservation and climate programs.
As extreme weather events increase in frequency and strength, we are seeing increasingly devastating effects throughout our agricultural and food systems. Farmers, ranchers and forest-owners are on the front lines of climate change and can also mitigate its effects through resilient and climate-smart practices.
TSPs help producers to access USDA conservation programs through one-on-one assistance. For example, TSPs can help producers to develop grazing management plans, nutrient management plans and sustainable forestry plans. TSPs will be key to leveraging the recent $20 billion investment in agricultural conservation programs and conservation technical assistance.
USDA’s current TSP program has failed to adequately train and certify TSPs, even though the 2018 Farm Bill included language (Section 2502) that would allow USDA to approve non-Federal entities to certify TSPs. The Increased TSP Access Act would address the TSP shortage by expanding on the framework first envisioned in the 2018 Farm Bill.
Non-Federal Certifying Entities: The bill directs USDA to establish a process to approve non-Federal certifying entities within 180 days of enactment. The bill ensures that USDA’s process will allow agricultural retailers, conservation organizations, cooperatives, professional societies and service providers to become certifying entities. It also puts clear deadlines on USDA to ensure that the agency is responsive in administering the program.
Streamlined Certification: The bill directs USDA to establish a streamlined certification process for TSPs who hold appropriate specialty certifications (including certified crop advisors) within 180 days of enactment. This guarantees that applicants with other certifications aren’t burdened with duplicative training, but are still trained in the competencies needed to serve as a TSP.
Parity in Compensation: The bill ensures that TSPs—who are often paid using conservation program dollars—are paid the fair market rate for their services.
The Increased TSP Access Act was referred to the House Agriculture Committee, Subcommittee on Conservation, Research and Biotechnology, and to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on May 2, 2023, where it awaits consideration.
But wait a minute! That’s not what the bill says.
I should mention that the full CCL texts of the aforementioned bills above are still summaries of the real bills that are even longer. This makes the Senators and the Representatives job difficult, which is why they have their staff read and summarize the bills for them. The staff is often young kids making this a little bit risky.
One of the Senators that we (including me) met with had voted no on one of the bills above in committee. The bill had still passed out of committee to be voted on in the Senate later, but we wanted to know why he voted no. The reason given made no sense. He had misunderstood the bill. This was a great opportunity for us to correct the misunderstanding. Hopefully, he will vote differently in the Senate.
Would you be willing to visit your representatives regarding matters you would like to address?
Today, or rather yesterday, since it is past midnight, was a wild day here in Dallas. We had severe thunderstorms with strong winds ripping up trees around the neighborhood as well as our patio parasol and one of our small trees. There were large hails, lightning and thunder, flash floods, as well as a tornado. Luckily the tornado was not anywhere near us, but we lost power during a significant part of the day, just like more than 650,000 people here in Dallas. Oncor said it will take 8 days to restore power to everyone. Our mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo is very afraid of bad weather, so he had a bad day. I am sure many other dogs had a bad day too.
A so called supercell but without a tornado. Stock Photo ID: 1768468151 by Laura Hedien.
When I talked about the weather with friends and family, I realized that many people do not know the difference between a tornado and a hurricane, so I thought I would explain. A hurricane is a big rotating storm system originating in the ocean that sometimes makes landfall and devastates our coasts. Hurricanes are big, thousands of square miles and even a million square miles. A hurricane has wind speeds of 74 miles per hour (mph) or higher. That’s 119 kilometers per hour or 33 meters per second. They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and the northeast Pacific, and Typhoons in the northwest Pacific, and otherwise just cyclones.
Satellite photo of hurricane approaching Cuba and Florida. Stock Photo ID: 2202605185 by Emre Akkoyun.
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cloud. They originate with thunderstorms, especially supercells, and are more of an inland phenomenon even though hurricanes can sometimes generate tornadoes. They are much smaller than hurricanes in area, almost always much smaller than a square mile, or just 10 or 30 meters across. The reason they can be as deadly as hurricanes is that they tend to have stronger winds and they appear and disappear quicker thus taking people by surprise. Tornadoes can happen anywhere, but they are more common in North America and especially in tornado-alley. Despite tornado alley’s small size, a quarter of all significant tornadoes in the world occurred there according to a study (1921 – 1995).
A tornado. Stock Photo ID: 2369175167 by g images.com.
Below is a list of how hurricanes (Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) and tornadoes (original Fujita scale) are classified. The unit is miles per hour (mph). Also note that as the wind speed doubles the force quadruples, so an F5/261 mph Tornado has a force that is 2.8 times stronger than category five/155 mph hurricane.
Hurricane category one: Winds 74 to 95 mph. Tornado F1 : 73 to 112 mph
Hurricane category two: Winds 96 to 110 mph. Tornado F2 : 113 to 157 mph
Hurricane category three: Winds 111 to 130 mph. Tornado F3: 158 to 206 mph
Hurricane category four: Winds 131 to 155 mph. Tornado F4 : 207 to 260 mph
Hurricane category five: Winds greater than 155 mph. Tornado F5 : 261 to 318 mph
Map showing Tornado Alley. It includes north Texas / Dallas. Stock Vector ID: 1719764089 by Adansijav Official.
The weather today reminded me about what happened on October 20, 2019. An EF3 Tornado ravaged our neighborhood, and it came close to our house, about 100 yards, and it damaged our house. Our chimney was smashed by a piece of concrete flying off a neighbor’s house, and our roof was damaged and needed to be replaced. In addition, our garage door was destroyed, and the wiring and pipes in the attic were destroyed, our fence was damaged, and my grill flew across the yard. The cost of the repairs was $50,000.00.
Bronco had just had a toe amputation. He did not blow down our fence.
However, we were lucky. Several of our neighbors’ houses were totally destroyed and my wife’s parents house was a lot more damaged than our house was. The wind from the Tornado lifted my 89-year-old father-in-law up in the air and he was hit by a broken marble table that injured his back. The school where our boys used to go, St. Marks School of Texas, was badly damaged and the walls of the gymnasium blew away.
A neighbor’s house the morning of October 21st, 2019.
I was sitting outside drinking a beer, a Yellow Rose, when my phone started making a loud sound. It was an alarm announcing a tornado warning and, in the distance, I could hear a faint tornado siren. At first, I thought it was nothing but when I saw the lightning approaching, I decided to go inside. Two minutes later a hailstorm made things very loud, the wind was strong, and the house shook, and then we heard a loud explosion. That was our chimney being smashed.
Another neighbor’s house. This house was about 100 yards from our house. It took a direct hit from the tornado.
After the wind had died down a bit, I opened the door to the backyard, and what I saw shocked me. My gas grill had flown across the patio. There were bricks and pieces of concrete all over the patio and the lawn. There was a big sheet of metal lying on the patio. Big tree branches covered the lawn. There was debris everywhere. We had also lost power. It turns out that the EF3 tornado had gone through our neighborhood and passed within one hundred yards of our house.
Another neighbor’s house (a bit further away from us).
My wife Claudia asked me to go check on her parents. I drove about 50-100 yards when a neighbor’s roof lying across the road stopped me. I turned around but this time I was stopped by a large pile of trees lying across the street. So, I started walking, but this time I was stopped by a group of firemen telling me that it was too dangerous to be outside. They told me to go back home, and I did.
Inside Claudia’s parents’ house. This was the morning after. We are walking into their house to check on them (that’s my wife).
I can add that October of 2019 was a very difficult month for our Leonberger Bronco. He was getting old. He was twelve years old, and he had the first signs of geriatric-onset laryngeal paralysis polyneuropathy (or GOLPP), which made his breathing a bit labored and affected his gait. In addition, he had developed another case of squamous cell carcinoma, a toe-nail cancer, and this time on his right rear paw. We amputated his toe on October 3—the day he turned twelve years and three months old.
We had to change Bronco’s bandages every now and then but Rollo, our mini–Australian Shepherd made sure we did it right.
The surgery went well, but after around ten days it was discovered that he had a large deep ulcerous sore on the same paw a few inches above the surgical scar. Fortunately, it was not cancerous, as we first thought, but we would have to treat this sore in addition to nursing him back from his amputation. Then on October 20 we were visited by the tornado. One week after the tornado Bronco had his first heart failure. So, something bad happened every week in October 2019. It was a dark time for Bronco. However, he took it very well, he kept his brave and positive outlook on life, and he was able to recover.
Below are a few more photos from that day.
Bronco and Daisy the evening before the big storm. None of us suspected what was about to happen.This is the next-door neighbor of Claudia’s (my wife) parents.Destroyed house in the neighborhood.View of the shopping center in our neighborhood.A store at a nearby shopping centerThis was a school bus belonging to the school where my boys went.Streetview from the neighborhood.Bronco and Rollo a few days after the Tornado.
Responding once more to CCL’s (Citizen Climate Lobby) request to start conservations about climate change I am posting about three Conservative/Republican friends who are engaged in climate change solutions. Well, Bob Ingliss, the former Republican Congressman from South Carolina is not a personal friend, but I’ve met him, seen him speak several times, and I am a member of his organization. The other two, Larry Howe and Jack Zimanck are personal friends, and they have blogs (but not on word-press). I am posting this with their permission. If you don’t mind perhaps, you could check out their blogs a little bit (links below).
I should mention that Citizen Climate Lobby is a non-partisan / bipartisan volunteer organization promoting climate solutions. CCL does a lot of things but one of our main focuses is to speak to politicians, which is where “Lobby” comes from. However, we are just regular citizens / constituents. We don’t have money, unlike other lobbyists, not even donuts, but we vote, and we are many (200,000+). RepublicEN is an organization for Republican Environmentalists, and they are also promoting climate solutions.
CO2 emissions dial. Shutter stock Photo ID: 1928699927 by NicoElNino
Larry Howe
Larry Howe is a retired electrical engineer and engineering manager and a lifelong conservative. He embraces free market climate solutions, and he volunteers for republicEn.org and Citizens Climate Lobby Conservative Caucus. After initially being skeptical about climate change, he took a deep dive into the topic/science. He came to realize that he needed to accept the science, and the fact that global warming is happening and that the cause is us. You can read about his climate journey here. This is the link to his home page .
Life before harnessing energy from the combustion of fossil fuels was cold, dark, and short. We owe many of the benefits of our wonderful modern way of life to harnessing energy from burning fossil fuels. However, we now know that the accumulated CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels poses a grave threat to our well-being.
Human society has dumped trillions of tons of excess heat-trapping CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100+ years by combusting hydrocarbons for energy. That excess CO2 doesn’t just go away. Each year about half of what is emitted adds to the atmospheric concentration which then persists for hundreds to thousands of years. The rest is redistributed from the atmosphere to the land and ocean which are reaching limits of what they can further sequester. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased 50% in the last 100+ years trapping more and more heat. We shouldn’t continue doing it…….
This is Larry Howe, a retired electrical engineer and manager. He is a lifelong conservative/republican who promotes climate solutions.
Jack Zimanck
Jack Zimanck is a retired business leader and consultant who is exploring how businesses can be part of the solution to climate change and environmental problems. He is not associated with any particular political ideology. This is what he says in his latest blog post Sustainable Growth | Challenges and Opportunities. The institution of business may be our most powerful force for positive change
Businesses of various types provide the food, shelter, water, energy, and sanitation that allows more people to live safe, comfortable lives than ever before. Business provides the entertainment, transportation, and technology we enjoy each day. In reality, business is the economic framework that enables life in the 21st century.
Yet, it is important to understand that this constant stream of goods, service, and benefits has also brought unintended consequences and challenges to our ability to sustain this remarkable bounty for current and future generations…..to read more click on the link above. This is the link to his blogs main page.
Jack Zimanck, retired business leader and business consultant focusing on how businesses can help solve the climate crises and other environmental problems.
Bob Ingliss
Bob Ingliss, a former Republican Congressman from South Carolina won his district in 1994 and 1996 by 70%. His interest in climate change began after he asked his 11-year-old son if he would vote for him, and he said no because his stance on climate change was bad. So, Bob Ingliss studied the subject, and he came to change his mind. He realized it was a real problem that we humans had caused, and he announced his new stance on the topic publicly. His son was happy. However, despite a 93.5% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and his endorsements from the NRA Political Victory Fund and National Right to Life Committee he lost his primary election in 2010. Republican primary voters felt that he had moderated his views. Bob Ingliss went onto found RepblicEN and the ECORight. You can read more about him here.
Former Congressman Bob Ingliss. From Wikipedia public domain.
Leonberger Life 