Weather

Yesterday, we had our third day this season in which the temperature rose to 90 degrees F (the others took place before summer officially began). Many days it has been in the low- or mid-80s which is not bad, though it has also been very damp and humid. Sometimes it has been so humid you can't really tell if it's raining. The trees are hanging down and the grass is tall.

Over in Europe, the weather is much worse than here in New England.

Our correspondent from the second-smallest country in the world (the smallest is the Vatican) reports the horrid effect of the weather on this year's plantings.

Plants here, currently, are a Disaster. Not Normal. My belief is that when vegetation goes seriously awry, over a period of time, say, 2 or 3 years, there is something seriously Wrong. I am one of those old-fashioned folk who believes there is a difference between Right & Wrong. As a very simple illustration : there are Wrong Notes & Chords on the Piano. They are simply "Wrong", that's all. It is quite evident. Same goes for the Vegetation. And all the Rest. Here, currently, Wrong Season, we have Great Heat & Hot Winds - Not right for this period of the Year, at all. This is normally the period when the heat slacks off, we have blue & beautiful limpid cool skies. At the moment, it is hotter than it has been all Summer. Plus these strange winds. I was a sailor. I pay attention to this kind of stuff. :-)
-- Big Mike

Climatologists and environmentalists are deeply worried by the effects of global warming. Here's an excerpt of an Aug. 19, 2004 news report on the European environment Agency

COPENHAGEN - Rising sea levels, disappearing glaciers in the Alps and more deadly heatwaves are coming for Europeans because of global warming, Europe's environmental agency has warned.

The European Environment Agency said much more needs to be done - and fast. Climate change "will considerably affect our societies and environments for decades and centuries to come," the agency said in 107-page report released on Wednesday.

It said rising temperatures could eliminate three-quarters of the Alpine glaciers by 2050 and bring repeats of Europe's mammoth floods two years ago and the heatwave that killed thousands and burned up crops last summer. The rise in sea levels along Europe's coasts is likely to accelerate, it added.

... The European Union has been a leader in pushing for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations pact drawn up in 1997 to combat climate change by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide in 2010 to eight percent below 1990 levels.

So far 123 countries, including all 25 European Union members, have ratified the pact, but it isn't in effect because it hasn't reached the required level of nations accounting for 55 percent of the industrialised world's emissions. The United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has refused to ratify, arguing the agreement would hurt its economy, and Russia also hasn't signed.
-- IOL.co.za

President Bush seems more short-sighted than any president in recent memory, or really, sociopathic in his flagrant unconcern for anyone but himself and his cronies.