July 21

I saw the headline for this story and hoped that the affected area wasn't one I knew. Unfortunately, I once lived in Ft. Collins and one of my favorite drives was through the Poudre Canyon. It looks like Mother Nature is mightily pissed off. Fire last year and flood this year. This isn't the only recent flood. Germany and Belgium are still trying to find victims of their floods and the clean up will take years. Then I saw this article about flooding in China as well. The NY subway system was flooded with the recent east coast rains. Often the floods followed unusual rains systems that dumped a month's worth, or more, of rain in the space of a day or two.

This piece on the aquatic snot weed choking the Sea of Marmara is interesting. It is a purely man made problem that is replicated across the world. Note the article mentions problems in the Caribbean, the Adriatic, and the Chesapeake--all areas, like the Marmara Sea, are overburdened by pollution.

And then there is the massive red tide hitting Florida. As the article mentions, red tides do occur naturally but this episode is not natural. Partly fueled by rising temperatures and man made pollution, this one is particularly bad.

Did you watch the two billionaires ride their own vehicles to the boundaries of space? I did--out of curiosity for the most part. The commentary ranged from disparaging to gushing. The disparaging comments centered on the notion that they surely could have spent all that money on alleviating the many problems we have now. Another variation on that theme claimed that if they paid their fair share of taxes perhaps the government would have the money to address those problems. The gushers raved about a "new space age" where ordinary people could be space tourists and we can move our polluting, heavy industry into space. I am not in either camp. No one will ever be satisfied with whatever those boys spend their money on. Our government is the source of the tax codes that allow billion dollar companies to pay no taxes at all and they could change it if they were not in the pockets of business and industry thinking that what is good for those interests are in all our interests all the time. The gushers assume that "progress" will always go in the direction they think it it going and that the direction can't change unexpectedly. I was very enthusiastic about the original space program but not so much for the billionaire boys' race to space.