"It Was the Best of Times..."

My satellite TV network includes the often useful channel UCTV, University of California TV. An excellent program last night, Global Warming: Climate Change Science and Public Policy recommended links to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and RealClimate.org.

Much of my life has been guided by the sine qua non of environmental protection. So the principles underlying climate change come as no surprise to me: finite resources, conspicuous consumption, anthropocentrism, etc. I've put this all in perspective somewhere between Tim Flannery's marvelous description of geology and life in North America following the devastating Chicxulub asteroid impact 65 million years ago in The Eternal Frontier and the "bright but deadly" transformation of the sun into a red giant 5 billion years from now as described in Astronomy magazine. (The article's not online. You can borrow my hard copy if you like.) I find some irrational comfort in the fact that we're closer to the beginning of life on earth than to the end.

But the questions now become, how much discomfort or misery are we willing to adapt to, or to inflict on others? Why are we still talking about changing light bulbs and not about how many displaced persons are we able to accommodate?

On that happy note, I'm going to go celebrate Independence Day.

P.S. Any day that starts with the cat bringing me a still live mouse really has nowhere to go but up.