Twenty Inches of Snow!
We're having a huge snowstorm. I spent yesterday in preparation, stocking up on food and supplies. Right now there is so much snow at the front door - and it is not melting - that if I had to get out quickly I would not be able to.
Above is a gorgeous scene of Ocean Grove, New Jersey. It looks more like a painting than reality. From Blogfinger.
For your listening pleasure, here's The Little Drummer Boy sung by the late John Denver at the Vatican, sometime in the 1990's. There are many versions of this song on video. This one stands out because of the unusual venue and the unapologetic faith of the singer. I know litle about John Denver, but I've always enjoyed his songs. The Italian host who introduces him points out that he is playing a twelve-string guitar.
O Holy Night, sung in French, recorded in 1916 by Enrico Caruso, considered by most to be the greatest tenor of all time. At any rate, he came along when the phonograph was just being developed. His great voice and the new technology made history.
A great old carol (actually not that old - 19th century), sung by the Mormon Tabernacle choir.
Below, scenes from the storm. First the White House. It's never more beautiful than in the snow.
Air Force One returns from the Copenhagen conference on climate change!!!
Below A City Fairyland by American impressionist Childe Hassam.
posted by tiberge @ 8:40 PM
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5 Comments:
That is a lot of snow, more than the 2 centimetres that can shut down the autoroute in some areas! I think we have to be careful not to look at the cold and the snow as signs that there is no global warming. I could be wrong, but my understanding was that if Greenland began to melt, it could theoretically affect the conveyor belt of the Gulf Stream that previously had given some protection on both sides of the North Atlantic.
Thanks for the beautiful images and videos. The Caruso was interesting, and I loved the John Denver performance from the Vatican, really a feeling of Christmas.
Taker care, stay warm and hope you have a Merry Christmas!
@ dauphin,
The question lately has been, not whether of not there is global warming, but whether or not WE are repsonsible for it. Accusations run both ways of course, and I can't answer these questions. But the wealthier countries are being asked to pay heavily for being wealthy. I heard that some poorer countries refused to sign on to the Copenhagen agreements. This is understandable. If they want to become wealthier, they have to be given the means to grow. We can't ask them to stop growing, when many of them haven't even started! There seems to be a desire to force people to stop using the very tools and methods they need to become or to stay wealthy.
This is where that "climategate" scandal came into it - I have not followed the scandal, but it seems that some of this has been "concocted" to force changes in the way nations use natural resources. But, as I said, we don't know for sure if WE are responsible for the climate changes or if they are due to something else.
Naturally, I am opposed to the deliberate and willful pollution of rivers and land by industry or to any gratuitous cruelty to animals or to the wanton development projects that ruin our landscapes and our cityscapes. But climate change was another matter because from the start there have been questions that still remain unresolved.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, China has insisted on maintaining its SOVEREIGNTY in any decision about use of natural resources. It will be interesting to see which countries manage to remain sovereign, and which ones will feel pressured into conforming to Copenhagen. (I think the agreements are "non-binding", which may mean the whole thing was just a lot of hot air - pun intended!)
There is no global warming. Period. The Earth has been cooling since 1998. Long-term variations in the Earth's climate are by most accounts caused by sunspots and cyclical changes in solar activity.
Was the warmer period of Viking times caused by human activity? What about the Mini-Ice Age of Europe a few hundred years ago? Human emissions then were zilch! The fact is that Mother Earth has experienced several ice ages over the past million years, the most recent ones characterized by long glacial periods interrupted by shorter interglacial periods. Our current interglacial period dates back about 12,000 years.
Many of the "scientists" on the IPCC are political hacks with no background in climatology. The same goes for all the shills in the "environmentalist" movement, some of whom have degrees in disciplines like womyn's studies or sociology and cannot even perform basic algebra. Al Gore is no exception, a mediocre student all along and a scientific buffoon according to his academic transcripts and the people who taught him in prep school or university. The same Al Gore who has made a fortune (I've heard as much as $US200 million) peddling this scam. Al Gore also took money from the tobacco industry after campaigning against them following the death of his sister from lung cancer. He made over half a million dollars off of environmentally harmful strip mining on one of his properties in Tennessee.
Numerous scientists who advocate for global warming don't have a background in climatology, while others are paid off. People say "Big Oil" has paid off all the skeptics, but 31,000+ scientists seems like a lot of people to pay off! Yet it's been documented that James Hansen of NASA took nearly $US1,000,000 combined from the John and Teresa Heinz Kerry Foundation and George Soros's Open Society Institute.
Even confirmed socialist Claude Allegre, former member of Jospin's cabinet and well-regarded scientist, has disputed the AGW thesis. All of this is covered in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming by Chris C. Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Two points to remember: human activity is impotent next to solar activity in driving the Earth's climate; even if the Earth were to warm, humanity could deal with it much better than with a new cooling period. Warming could open up a lot of new real estate for residential and agricultural uses. Cooling could disrupt the lives of over a billion people. You can't live and prosper under a mile-thick sheet of ice as once covered the northern parts of North America and Europe!
"Carbon credits" or "cap and trade" or whatever phrase they're using these days is nothing more than cover for government-sanctioned theft of wealth from productive people to the Third World. The very idea that paying another country for the right to pollute the atmosphere will somehow alter the Earth's climate is silly on its face. Only a leftist could believe this nonsense. If they were really serious about protecting the Earth's environment and fragile ecosystems, they would protest the ongoing displacement of Homo Europis from his native habitat by hostile foreign species. Yet the Malthusian zealots never call for immigration reductions because it would mean turning away Third World hordes. The only population control they want is the physical extinction of Western Man!
I also enjoyed the irony of Obama returning from a global-warming conference to heavy snow in Washington DC.
I hope you're OK tiberge, snow is beautiful but it can obviously make travel very dangerous.
Thanks to all for the very interesting comments. The snow stopped a while back, and the streets are more or less clear. Yesterday (Monday) the schools were closed, but that too is over. However, since it's the holiday they would be closed anyway starting on Thursday.
The issue of climate change is something I have not followed closely. I only know that just about everything the Left gets its hands on becomes a gigantic scam aimed at thwarting the progress of the West. If there are environmental and climate issues and problems these should be studied by true experts. As far as government intervention is concerned, only a patriotic agency such as a Department of Conservation should be entrusted to deal with protecting the land and its creatures. What used to be called "Conservation" mutated into "environmental preservation" and fell into the greedy hands of the Left to be used as propaganda.
Maybe there ARE issues and questions and problems to be dealt with, but we will get nowhere if it the Left that as the power. Regarding smoking, whatever one may think of it, the warnings were on the packages long ago. NO LAWSUITS should have been brought against the tobacco industry, once those warnings were placed. Yet, in recent years the juries, which had been ruling in favor of the industry, veered off course, and began awarding huge sums to plaintiffs. Tobacco is now a dirty word and smokers are relegated to leper colonies. Once lively bars and restaurants are not as much fun as they used to be. We are not even allowed to have separate sections of a restaurant for smokers. (Note: I am not a smoker. Occasionally I like a cigarette, especially after dinner, especially in a restaurant.)
I notice that the thousands who descended upon Copenhagen did not deprive themselves of cars - how many limousines were there? How much refuse and junk did these so-called environmentalists leave behind?
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