Makes you think that people are becoming less interested in the climate over time, but look at “climate change”:

Looks like interest is going up! Crazy huh? I am not a statistician or anything, so I don’t really know what any of it means, but it is quite fun to look at. Then look at what cities search for it:

Top cities for climate change

City	climate change
Washington	100
Denver	43
New York	41
Reston	40
Portland	40
Sacramento	40
Seattle	39
San Francisco	38
Boston	36
Pleasanton	33
Minneapolis	29
Los Angeles	24
Miami	24
Chicago	23
Philadelphia	23

Really shows that DC is much more interested in it than the public, by over 100% more than the next leading city!!

If I don’t know anything about what all this means then why did I make such a claim in the title? Well, one because I still say global warming and not climate change. I have a lot of opinions about that, but I digress. The real reason is because of this chart:

People are searching for global warming less and less. Does this mean they care less about it? Again, I don’t know.

The first reality we must square is our love of our way of life with our environmental goals. We take for granted the freedom to drive to work, fly to meetings, visit friends and family no matter how far-flung, and drive to the mountains, the beach or other weekend and vacation destinations. We want to leave our computers on standby for ease of starting up the next morning, to keep our homes warm in winter and cool in summer, and to enjoy our flat screen TVs, electric blenders, Wii devices, and so much more. Don’t look now, but what we have is exactly what 1 billion Indians and 1.3 billion Chinese and another 3 or 4 billion people across the planet want.

No joke! Well said.

Here are some hard economic facts. To replace one 1,000 MW gas-fired power plant, you’d need 500 state of the art wind turbines spread across 40,000 acres or 250 high-efficiency solar facilities taking up some 20,000 acres. Why are gas, oil and coal so much more efficient, needing just a few acres to produce all that energy? Thank Mother Nature. Think of fossil fuels as giant “batteries.” They’ve been compressed for eons by Mother Nature into compact pools, pockets, mounds, shale and bitumen (also called tar sands or oil sands.)

To try to turn something as scattered as photons in sunlight or the kinetic and capricious energy of wind requires colossal investment to concentrate that energy as efficiently as Mother Nature has already done with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are batteries. Every time. They work. In compact form.

I think you would need more turbines and solar facilities than that, just because we do not have efficient enough batteries right now to keep the supply constant.

He did awesome on all the energy stuff, and then he has to blow it with “organic” gardening, and population control. Sorry, but the way we preserve our produce has saved millions of lives. To go organic would kill a lot of people. Look into what banning DDT did to the world.

My opinion: Build American nuclear plants, switch as much as possible to American natural gas, and use American coal for the rest. Reforest wherever possible to create carbon sinks that attract and convert these emissions, and use regenerative agricultural practices to sequester even more carbon. According to an article in Soil Science here, soil – plain old earth, dirt, terra firma – is a great carbon storage medium, and contains more carbon than all terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere combined. For this last, we must change our agricultural practices to be more in line with organic gardening precepts but the health benefits would probably, coincidentally, save us a few hundred billion in health care costs, as well! And finally, after using more US natural gas and US/North American uranium; less but still significant US coal; continuing research and buildout in renewables like solar, wind and geothermal; and reforestation and natural sequestration; a little population control wouldn’t hurt, either.

Then newspapers take it up like it is the next great idea.

Of course, there are always possible unintended consequences that might result from any of these geo-engineering ideas.

Yet, sometimes the craziest sounding ideas turn out to be brilliant; then again, sometimes they just turn out to be just crazy.

Unintended consequences is right! They didn’t mention that water vapor is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. What about all the water vapor being introduced into the atmosphere?

I watched it for a while and it seemed to be watching for something. Then I found out what, another wasp probably 20 yards away went zooming past. I would have never seen it, but this guy did. So he went after him, and caught him in mid-air. They fought for a while and I think our friendly wasp killed the other. After his little tiff he came right back to his original spot and kept watching for intrudersr wasp problem. Well having a baby in the house I did the only rational thing I could think of… I killed him! I got a big stick, and ran out there and smashed him.

About ten minutes later another one came and found the same perch. I ran into the house, and told my wife about it. She said that I had probably killed the good one. I had smashed the one that was protecting us, and now this one was going to kill us all. So, I went inside and googled this wasp. Only to find that he is a very friendly wasp.

Well, now it was a whole different story! Now, I am a cold hearted killer. After my wife read this she just looked at me like I had murder her whole family. So, we left the second one alone. This did mean that I would no longer go out on the back porch. I really don’t care what the article said, I am freaked out by this massive cicada killer wasp.

Today I was looking out the window to see if he was still lingering about. What I saw took my surprise! He was being dragged across the back by a bunch of killer ants. No matter how much he struggled these little guys had him under control.

So, these helpful little creatures took care of our wasp problem. Yay! But I think I am going to have to take care of a whole new problem.