Canada Redux

I'm depressed. We returned from our Canadian Rockies vacation a few days ago, and it seems we're viewing the world through crap colored glasses. Yet, I can now indeed smell the salty tang of the nearby sea, which is nice, and yes we feel like we're back home. OK, I'm not that depressed anymore.

I'll attach a nice little picture of the place we stayed in while at Jasper. Becker's Chalets, which we recommend.

Global Warming, or If You Can't Stand the Heat, Leave Planet Earth

Update below.

I just finished reading a couple of novels dealing with global warming (GW). One, State of Fear by Michael Crichton, is a fast paced contrarian look at GW, with some curiously entertaining protagonists who wield Excel charts and corresponding scientific references as deftly as they do handguns and other assorted weaponry. Take that, you woefully ignorant pro-environmental headline regurgitator! The other, Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson, contains much of the same jargon and acronyms as Crichton's book, but reaches completely opposite conclusions, i.e. GW is man made, and abrupt climate change is imminent and will be catastrophic.

I recommend both books. The Crichton is a page-turner, though a bit unpleasantly didactic at times. Robinson's has some wonderful musings on how science (and scientists) really works, but being the first of a trilogy, has some irritating padding, notably several mundane, too-detailed scenes depicting a father's day to day dealings with his infant son. Yawn.

Note that the idea of the "precautionary principle" (put very simply: take action, even if all facts aren't known, if you want to thwart a great societal risk) is key to both books. Crichton pooh-poohs it as "self-contradictory". Robinson's protagonists take it as a given. My feeling? Get more data, dammit. After all, the precautionary principle was the key Bush justification for starting the war in Iraq. Was a great societal risk averted, or was the apple cart upended?

Update 9/24/05
There's some lively discussion over at Jerry Pournelle's site on this topic, including links to Crichton naysayers. Good stuff.

Also, here's a relevant, current CNN story.

O Canada

Having just recovered from a devilishly high fever, a wracking cough, a splinter, and a paper cut, not to mention the annoying pebble which is still lodged in my shoe, the plan is to spend the next couple of weeks ensconced in the awesome land of Alberta, Canada. If you've never been to Calgary, or Banff or Jasper National Parks, then you've probably been somewhere else. But it wasn't as beautiful, trust me.

Speaking of yet another notable Canadian, check out James Gosling's blog. He invented Java, and his web blog may fall out of the category of the "Nilblog" because it contains fascinating material which may actually help push the state of the art. Or not. I mean, how old is Java?

Preparing For a Disaster (Other than Gigli or Catwoman)

There is quite a lot of good disaster preparedness information at the FEMA site here, including a Disaster Preparedness Coloring Book, available in both English and Spanish. For once, I'll try to hold back on making snarky comments about this.

Update 9/3/05: California-specific info here.

At the suggestion of our friend Barbara, we are now in the planning stages of getting a friend and neighbor disaster plan in place. I urge you to do the same.

Look, we'd better take the initiative ourselves, because, as evidenced by the woefully inadequate response of our federal government to the wrath of Katrina, our friends and neighbors seem to be the only people we can count on.

Speaking of "the wrath of Katrina", can you not envision an overhead shot of Captain Kirk looking upward, quaking with anger, and shouting, "Katrina!", with his curse/lament echoing throughout the void?

Then again, would he shout out in anguish, "FEMA!!!"?

A lot of lessons learned here, which I hope we'll heed in the future...