Still Snowing

It is still snowing up here in the mountains, and it's actually starting to stick! Yikes! I am gearing up for a longish indoor bike ride. I'm kind of relieved about it, there's no need for me to sit and debate whether to try riding outside, the snow made the decision for me. Somehow cold+wet up here feels ten times worse than cold+wet at sea level... although maybe I am just looking at the Bay Area winters and rains of my past through rose-colored glasses!

Separate matter: I found myself chuckling yesterday about the $4+ gas freakout. I shouldn't be laughing, it's a serious matter I know, but I was thinking about how it's not like gas prices suddenly doubled or something. We've crossed the $4 mark here in Incline many times already, although we have generally hovered right below it. But suddenly gas is 10 or 20 cents more, and it's freakout time... OMG I can't afford to drive down to Carson to swim, OMG I have to combine all possible errands for the month into one trip, OMG OMG OMG. My friends, family, and TV are all reacting the same way - everyone is.

I did read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, I understand and agree with the concept and it certainly seems to apply here. $3.99 gas is annoying, $4.09 gas warrants revision of travel and vacation plans, slapping a "For Sale" sign on the Ford Expedition, and Freaking Out. (Seriously in the past week I have seen an exponential increase in the number of gas-guzzlers sporting for sale signs. I have also laughed at the commercials on TV advertising "deals" on Toyota Sequoias, Ford Turbo Truckmonsters, etc.)

For now, I am glad I have a fairly gas-efficient Honda Civic. But I am saving my pennies for an electric car.

Home [from] Collage

I got home to my mom's house in Maryland last night. I feel like I have been here a week already, we did so much today! Put the bike together, visited with friends, visited with other friends, said hi to approx. 7 horses and ponies and the same amount of cats and dogs, swam, went to a bike shop, rode the bike, hung out with mom, watched Sarabi's flatwork, etc. Oh and had several conversations about where I am going in life. Thus even though it's been a good 7 years since I've come home from college, something about this trip is making me feel like I am a slightly aimless 22 year-old again. Anyhow here's a sampler of the day...

Here is Home, view from the bottom of the driveway.

Here is My Main Competition this weekend: Sarabi. Or in this case, Slobberabi. Again, I say to my mom that the choice is OBVIOUS!

No, they aren't twins! They actually aren't even related, although both are Thoroughbreds. On the left we have my perfect angel Sijui, who my mom got for me when I was 13 and she was 8. She is Sarabi's mom. On the right we have my mom's incorrigible monster Fox. Actually he is not a monster, I kind of like him, he and I spent 3 months together in Charlottesville before I moved to San Francisco and now he is my mom's and she lets him get away with murder because she thinks it's "cute".

Speaking of cute: Munchie goes for the good stuff.

My Blue checking out the scenery from the porch.

Munchie munching on more appropriate pony food: grass!

Also for those of you who are curious, my mom is still leaving notes all over the place especially in the laundry room.

One of the only reasons why I hate Maryland: developments are growing like weeds. The potentially funny thing about this site, which is about a mile from my mom's house, is that much of the 69 acres which was zoned as agriculture but somehow got to be sold for housing because of a state law that allows parcels of land exceeding 50 acres to be subdivided, anyway a lot of the land is very swampy and therefore has drainage issues, so there is debate as to how many cookiecutter plots of 4-car garage ugliness they will actually be able to put there.

Really Bad Joke

Did anyone else see this article on Inside Triathlon's website today?

The first half of it, written by Jeff Henderson, is spot-on - the discussion of how we can reduce the waste and pollution that are produced in even the smallest of local triathlons.

What I don't understand is why the editors had to effectively downplay such an important issue by turning it into some ridiculous debate. Editor Timothy Carlson wrote the second half of the article, which I guess is supposed to forecast what triathlon could be like in the later half of the century on a fully polluted planet, but honestly his tone and jeering reference to locals-only aid station volunteers with Priuses, and his reference to Calfee's bamboo bikes and their hefty price tags, really just make it seem like he hates environmentalists and that he doesn't want the sport to be inconvenienced. Somewhat appropriately, in his closing statement he reflects exactly what Henderson identifies as a major problem in individuals, the interest in short-term gratification, the here-and-now over the future, as well as a hopelessness that any individual effort can make a difference.

I'd write them a letter but I am a. too angry and b. too baffled by their intention.

What's wrong with a simple healthy discussion of how triathlon can be greener? Why can't we talk about Chris Lieto's Green Athlete campaign, wherein he is driving to [almost] all of his races in a van that is powered by 100% biodiesel? Why can't we talk about how Wildflower had both recycling and trash bins everywhere? Why can't we talk about how 5430 Sports is pursuing full sustainability and zero waste in their events? Wouldn't it be WAY more positive and productive to address real ways in which we can all work to protect the sport and the planet that we all love, than it was to basically make a joke out of green initiatives? Inside Triathlon and other magazines have the power to influence a lot of people. Give readers something positive, equip them with both reasons for and methods to help the environment and make their triathlon experience a sustainable one. Don't give them some big semi-sensationalistic argument for why the green effort is pointless and inconvenient. Even if it is meant as a joke, is it really the most effective way for the magazine to reach its readers about this subject?

I am curious to hear what others think. Maybe I completely misinterpreted the article, who knows.

Happy New Year!

Well, after a CRAZY and PARTYLICIOUS New Year's Eve, I am finally finally feeling coherent enough to blog.

Psych.

Our NYE was totally boring yet totally perfect. Healthy dinner, some netflix, and then we passed out at 9:30 p.m. I am still feeling sleep-deprived after lots of late nights and early mornings on the east coast (basically midnight-8 a.m., nothing drastic but Cour10ay totally needs her 9+ hours in order to be remotely nice/charming), so this was the best possible evening for me!

On to other peoples' more interesting lives...

I recently learned that, in the Reno hospital system, health-care workers are not allowed to call overweight people obese, overweight, fat, etc. The term is now officially "bariatric" (like geriatric but with a b). And, the hospitals have special 4XL-sized toilets (the size of a small hot tub), wheelchairs, beds, doorways, the list goes on. I guess this is important in Reno, where 55% of the population is "bariatric". If you don't believe me, just hang out for 10 minutes in the Trader Joe's/Big Lots parking lot.

I also recently learned one reason why the McMansion Explosion is so huge in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (and probably more than a few other counties). Thirty years ago, there were hardly any developments in the whole county. Basically everything that wasn't a town was farmland. Then farmers began to sell to developers... My mom's friend Ricky Davis had a farm where he raised cattle and crops, and hosted Future Farmers of America events. The farm was in his family for over 200 years. Recently, Ricky's neighbor farmer died and none of his family wanted to keep up the farm, so it was sold to a developer who put up 15 or so monstrosities with crappy landscaping (read: no trees, so everyone from the road could see how ginormous the houses were). The people who moved in started going over to Ricky's, complaining that the cows smelled, the farm machinery was unsightly, the FFA events were disturbing them, etc., and he needed to stop doing all that. Ricky fought back for a while but eventually he saw that things were only getting worse, so he too sold out to a developer and moved to Iowa (to farm in peace, I assume.)

It all makes me cry. It feels so unsustainable to me - continually bulldozing over land to make it into strip malls or housing developments where everyone gets a 4 car garage with a couple of acres of land. In Reno, which p.s. is in a DESERT, this land is usually landscaped with all kinds of east-coast plants that require lots of water, which by the way doesn't really grow on trees in the desert, so to speak. In Maryland, it's just making everything ugly, and contributing to the death of the Chesapeake Bay, which is another rant of mine that I will save for another blog.

At the moment I am quite happy to be in Incline, where homeowners have to jump through twelve hoops to do anything to their houses lest they adversely affect the environment (or their neighbors' lake view).

Whoa.... where did the "happy" of my post-title go?!

Vegas Virgin

This is my first time in Vegas. Going from this:

through this:

to this:

...was a somewhat eye-opening progression. Or a depressing one, I guess. This country has such beautiful, beautiful things, and Vegas is not one of them. For one thing, the light pollution at night was visible from 170 miles away. I knew that the city was huge, excessive, and grossly American, but seeing it in person for the first time was still shocking.

But enough rambling about the obvious and the boring.

I am very excited about the race on Sunday. It takes place mostly to the southeast of the city, where it's hilly and the air is pretty clear. Conditions are supposed to be perfect. I feel fortunate to have opted against the Treasure Island Triathlon this weekend, because of the oil tanker disaster from earlier in the week. The swim portion of that race is likely to be canceled, making the event a duathlon (bike and run only) - this would cater to my strengths for sure but it would not give me the open-water race-situation swim practice that I desperately want heading into next season.

Amusingly: the check-in lady at the hotel asked if we were here to get married and whether we needed a wedding chapel or something. We were both like "ew gross".

Plastic Bag Ban in S.F.

Oh my god there is HOPE!! Maybe we are not on a rapid bobsled-ride to world destruction after all. Maybe we have slowed to a sled-ride pace.

Climate metaphors aside, this ordinance makes me really happy. It won't affect me directly, because right now I don't live in San Francisco, but I am hoping it inspires other cities and regions to start implementing similar waste-reduction measures.

Grr

I find it ironic that people I know who have children are also the people I know who don't recycle.

Rain Please

The weather folks are calling for days and days of rain.

I am actually hoping they are right. Rain will clear the air, maybe then we will be able to see the mountains and sky and stars again.... The pervasive haze has been depressing me, I can't shake the world-is-ending thoughts when I am suffocating in an ominous cloud of who knows what, the grey sky sitting on grey buildings built by fossil fuels wantonly using ores and resources.

GWB doesn't want to participate in global climate change initiatives for fear of hurting the U.S. economy?! Please. Dude needs new glasses, but I guess it will take more than that to cure his short-sightedness.

Kinda makes the 401(k) and other retirement plans seem silly...

You can find the original article here. I have asked a climate-change biologist friend for his opinion on the article, and I will let you know what he says.

And, since it's a bit long I am going to put my question first, in case if you don't get to the bottom. My question is: if this theory is correct, will we as a society and species all band together and work towards a sustainable life, or will we each jump on our own hedonistic I-am-going-to-make-the-most-of-the-last-5-years-of-the-world-and-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-which-includes-buying-a-Hummer-and-throwing-my-trash-in-the-bay-since-there-will-be-no-such-thing-as-consequences-any-more toboggans and go flying into a crevasse that has no escape? Or is the collective impulse going to be to play ostrich and just ignore even the most obvious signs of a problem (for example: SNOW and ICE on Skyline Rd. in Oakland this morning?!)? I could explore other questions and scenarios but before I get too boring, here's the article...

Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012

Hydrate hypothesis illuminates growing climate change alarm

Compiled by John Stokes

A recent scientific theory called the "hydrate hypothesis" says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as "hydrates") spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.

In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.

The "hydrate hypothesis" (if validated) spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life.

By the way, the "hydrate hypothesis" is a weeks old scientific theory, and is only now being discussed by global warming scientists. I suggest you Google the term.

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing the Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to when we will pass the tipping point and be helpless to stop the runaway Global Warming.

There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.

Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 billion tons of the gas.

The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.

Peat deposits may be a comparable methane source to melting permafrost. When peat that has been frozen for thousands of years thaws, it still contains viable populations of bacteria that begin to convert the peat into methane and CO2.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane. Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.

By the way, warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons have caused microbial activity to increase dramatically in the soil around the world. This, in turn, means that much of the carbon long stored in the soil is now being released into the atmosphere.

Releases of methane from melting oceanic clathrates have caused severe environmental impacts in the past. The methane in oceanic clathrates has been estimated at 10,000 billion tons.

55 million years ago a global warming chain reaction (probably started by volcanic activity) melted oceanic clathrates. It was one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events in geologic history.

Humans appear to be capable of emitting CO2 in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

Methane in the atmosphere does not remain long, persisting for about 10 years before being oxidized to CO2 (a greenhouse gas that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years). Chronic methane releases oxidizing into CO2 contribute as much to warming as does the transient methane concentrations.

To summarize, human activity is causing the Earth to warm. Bacteria converts carbon in the soil into greenhouse gasses, and enormous quantities are trapped in unstable clathrates. As the earth continues to warm, permafrost clathrates will thaw; peat and soil microbial activity will dramatically increase; and, finally, vast oceanic clathrates will melt. This global warming chain reaction has happened in the past.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rose by a record amount over the past year. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply. Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear the trend could be the first sign of runaway global warming.

Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth's remaining resources.

Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelarates into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.

Bibliographic reference courtesy of Brad Arnold who has an extensive resrarch background on Global Warming.