Monday, June 26, 2006

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

The Eastern seaboard is about to float away. We got 5 inches of rain yesterday and the rain is not expected to let up for another couple of days. When I was a child I thought rain was boring or scary. I grew up fast enough and rain become a nuisance or a joy depending on my attitude. In middle school, rain was a nuisance because it would flood the cafeteria and make the entire building dank and irritating. It was a joy in the summer when I could sit in the window and watch the lightning and the rain washing shit down the drain. When there wasn't any lightning, I would be outside sailing sticks down the current into the drain and that was fun. Someone ruined it all for me when we learned about acid rain in school. I first heard the term without explanation when I was in first or second grade. My logical but silly mind understood acid and rain and became shit scared to be out in the rain. I kept asking my dad when he was going to put the pyrex roof on our house. He had no idea what I was talking about. This was a frequent occurence in my house. Very logical questions and conclusions based on incomplete information result in mass confusion.

I have since learned a lot more about acid rain, pollution and the water cycle. I am even more scared by this than I was as a child. We may not be in danger of the house melting in the next storm, but if this keeps up, we are in danger of killing of the planet. You may think this is silly, but you are an ignorant cobag. According to a study published in the Scientific American (only a little sexed up with pretty pictures), the rising levels of CO2 in the ocean are acidizing the oceans. Coral is made from calcium, a base. If the deep ocean is becoming acidic then bye bye coral. Coral reefs support the largest ecosystem on the planet. That ecosystem supports all life on earth. If the water cycle gets much worse, we will be in danger of the rain melting the house.

There are cobagz out there who will say that this is all crap. None of them are scientists and none of these cobagz are without an agenda. Clif at Outside the Tent has more and better info on the specifics of these cobagz. Basically, it comes down to a simple question: if you have pain somewhere on your body, are you going to listen to a doctor's diagnosis or are you going to listen to the guy who just burst into your room where you are wearing a paper skirt and says that you are not sick at all and should just ignore the pain?

That's the anti-clean air/water argument in brief. A bunch of bastards that want you to remain in pain and wear paper clothes.

This may seem a little random and odd, but I am having trouble controlling the iron horses in my head today. My union station is sending out a few too many trains for me to keep track.

7 comments:

missyandchrissy said...

what a coincidence...our middle school leaked too. the ceiling in one of the english classrooms was so damaged that a piece of it fell and landed with a soggy smack near our friend danny's head.

stay dry chuckles,
m&c

Alex said...

Good timing, Chuckles. Today the Supreme Court is reviewing whether the EPA has authority to regulate CO2 emissions, and thusly greenhouse gasses. The Cobag in Chief, of course, says "no way, dude."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/26/scotus.environment.ap/index.html

My fav comment in the article:

"'Fundamentally, we don't think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and so we don't think these attempts are a good idea,' said John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group representing oil and gas producers."

JESUS.

TITTY.

FUCKING.

CHRIST.

Let's see how Alito acquits his jackholishness here.

Chuckles said...

Never ask if it could get worse.

NEVER.

I will have to put up a link to the article from Scientific American. We don't think CO2 is a pollutant because trees need it to grow and it exists naturally in the environment. Just because adding massive quantities to the ocean is causing a direct rise in the acidity and it is thus eroding calcium based life forms doesn't mean it is a pollutant. Just because an environment entirely composed of co2 is poisonous to human life, we don't think it is a pollutant.

Kevin Wolf said...

I'm in the Boston/Salem area, Chuckles, and I feel your pain.

Yeah, Cobag In Chief. Can we please be rid of this fuckwit, like, yesterday?

Chuckles said...

We have had maybe an hour or two so far today when it hasn't been raining. I am glad I don't need to do laundry because the floor in that room is damp most days and now? As PopRenn would say, fuck that noise.

My buddy has a blocked stairwell drain outside his basement and his two kids are stuck inside. I don't feel so bad being at work today.

Anonymous said...

to keep those trains running on time and in control, hire mussolini (or ayn rand's proteges)

Chuckles said...

I think I would rather hire a trepanner to increase the flow to my brain and then I will know all everything.