So it’s heartening to see that a climate change skeptic has changed his tune, and makes his case for human-induced climate change in today’s NY Times, here. I was hanging out with my two teenage nieces this week, and made the point with them that climate change will be one of the biggest issues in their lifetimes. Muller’s editorial does seem to encourage cross-party (and ideology) discussion about the problem, which at least is some kind of positive movement. ThinkProgress.org has reported that the Koch Brothers, that dastardly duo, has actually funded part of the study Muller is describing (here), which is an interesting twist to the data.
And I have to say I’m greatly enjoying Simon Winchester’s Atlantic, full of oddball facts and keen insight. Here’s a quote, describing the oceanographic studies of the HMS Challenger, circa 1872: “All told there were to be eighty volumes. It was a formidable intellectual achievement, arguably the most comprehensive study of the ocean ever undertaken, and it remains a landmark to this day. The information assembled and disseminated represented what was at the time the sum total of humankind’s knowledge of the sea, and especially the Atlantic Ocean” (139).
Plus here’s one of my favorite birds of the West, the Lewis’s Woodpecker, named after/by Meriwether Lewis, on the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804-6. It has a beautiful glossy dark wings full of greens and purples, and a pink blush on its breast:
