The ice storm
Half of my Shipoke neighborhood in Harrisburg, Pa., remains without power this morning. Fortunately for me, it's not the half where I live. The region was hit by a classic and severe ice storm Saturday night, which left trees, utility wires, and just about everything else coated with a shiny and deadly layer of ice. The weight of it caused a utility pole at the corner of Race and Tuscarora Streets to snap in half--it appeared to be rotted inside--and out went the lights (and out poured the transformer oil onto the street). Our beloved stick burner (see photo below) was practically begging for a fire to warm its rusty metal.
Surprisingly, the streets were okay, not slippery at all. I drove over to the Weis Market on the West Shore yesterday afternoon on a mission to buy a bottle of wine for dinner and marveled at seeing the forested islands in the Susquehanna River and all the trees along the river bank covered in ice, like a scary vision of some future climatic hell. It was beautiful, but some of those trees were going to die, possibly taking an unlucky human being with it.
When I returned home, I made sure to park the car away from trees and utility poles. High winds were predicted, and that meant some of those ice-covered trees would fall. It seemed the prudent thing to do. But I suppose if I'd been George W. Bush or one of his deluded followers (sarcasm alert) I'd have parked next to the biggest tree in the neighborhood and called for further study on the threat of ice making it fall over. Or, har har, joked about how it sure didn't seem like global warming was a problem today.
Speaking of global warming, America and the Bush Administration took another battering in world opinion over the past 15 days at the international climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. The talks did produce a framework for negotiations that will hopefully lead to a climate change treaty with teeth by the end of 2009. The American delegation--from the nation which contributes the most greenhouse gases-- was booed and hissed for its obstructionism.
While I do agree with Bush that China and India must be made subject to the same future greenhouse gas reduction requirements as America and Europe, I also believe that was a convenient excuse to cover up the administration's deep-seated hostility to doing anything at all about global warming. It isn't hard to figure out why Bush feels that way when you look at the strong ties between his administration and the energy industry, and with fundamentalists who believe that because God gave us coal, it must be okay to burn as much of it as we like. And if the end times are near, why bother to cut back?
When the books are written about America's eight lost years under Bush (this may need to be a multi-volume series), you can be sure that his stubborn refusal to do anything substantive about climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence will be a central theme. The Democratic President who will likely take office in 2009 will have his--or her--hands full trying to make up for lost time.
