I never cared much about Saddam Hussein. He had the same world view as Henry Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet, George Bush, and Dick Cheney - might makes right. In that sense he was delusional.

And though I think it is a bad thing for the planet that Henry Kissinger and other listed above have not yet been brought to account for their war crimes, I just feel saddened by the hanging of Saddam. I think when justice is too random, maybe it's not justice? Maybe it's just politics played out with a court room backdrop?

I seldom think the death penalty is a good idea. If we are called to use it as an end in the justice system, I think I would be less uncomfortable if we administered IV morphine to suppress the breathing until death occurs. There seems to be little question that such a death is among the least painful ways to go. It might take hours and if we want the public viewing of an execution, we need to have it happen quickly - like a hanging, or electrocution, or lethal injection. But I think there is little talk about IV morphine executions for another reason: there is some sense that the suffering death is part of the sentence. Nobody talks about that because it is barbaric, but I am not convinced that a suffering death is not part of the bargain. And watch as the folks with a lot of gusto for death and mayhem jump and down saying - well did Saddam give his victims a humane death? And that's true of course, he did not, but the fact that this question will be brought forward in an almost reflexive reaction to the question of a humane means for applying the death penalty tells you that retribution - a suffering death for the prisoner - is part of this whole process.

It might be possible to find a little more of us standing on the middle ground with the death penalty if we would choose a humane death penalty means. I am not sure about that, I might still not feel ok about it, but the retribution aspect of a barbaric, painful, public death puts some me off.

Here's a good website from Kansas State University about the carbon cycle. The website includes a basic analysis of how the carbon cycle can be manipulated to reduce the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide. You can look at the supply side - burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees - or the storage side - into the ocean, or increased vegetation, or into soil storage.

The part of the carbon cycle I have been thinking about for the past few days is the ocean storage element.

As carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere in larger concentrations it also starts to build at greater levels in sea water. This is not so good.  The bipeds on the planet have used the waterways as dumpsters for thousands and thousands of years. Some of what we have dumped in the water has really not been a problem. Organic compounds that break down easily in amounts that the waterways can breakdown are essentially inconsequential. But as we bipeds have started creating more complex materials that are less easily broken down, we have started to create a bit of a mess in the waterways. One of the most striking examples of that sort of thing was the day in June 1969 when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire. The actual 1969 Cuyahoga River fire was somewhat apocryphal, but still it's a feature of a certain biped's impact on rivers that any river, anywhere, can actually support combustion. In a more natural state, I don't think you could get a river to burn with a blowtorch.

Anyway....

Despite the better jpegs available when a river catches on fire, I am thinking about the less news-worthy, but more catastrophic picture of oceans dying. And this slow ocean death is at least partly based on the build up of carbon in the oceans.

From the The New York Times, December 28, 2006:

Polar bears have declined in the Western Hudson Bay in Canada.

Many experts on the Arctic say that global warming is causing the ice to melt and that the warming is at least partly the result of the atmospheric buildup of heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks. The plight of the polar bear has been held up by environmentalists as a symbol of global warming caused by humans.

But in a conference call with reporters, InteriorSecretary Dirk Kempthorne said that although his decision to seek protection for polar bears acknowledged the melting of the Arctic ice, his department was not taking a position on why the ice was melting or what to do about it.

Here's a quote from by past Sierra Club President Adam Werbach given 11 months before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita:

"Before 9/11, the idea of terrorists taking down both World Trade
Center buildings was considered "unthinkable" for most people. Here's
the "unthinkable" scenario for global warming:

"Global warming will continue to cause the ice on the earth's poles
to melt, triggering the Gulf Stream to migrate several thousand miles to
the south, lowering by five degrees the average temperature in Europe
and much of North America in 10 years or less."

"…Meanwhile, this abrupt climate change would unleash a series of
monster hurricanes and floods across Central America and the Caribbean,
making the 2,000 Haitians killed this September in a single storm seem
like a minor event."

Now this one is interesting in a scary, Dr. Strangelove kind of way:

This scientist has spent his lifetime developing weapons science. Despite his likely familiarity with nuclear winter as a definitive treatment for global warming, this guy, Dr. Lowell Wood has instead suggested that global warming could be fought by spraying burnt sulfur particulates into the atmosphere. The guy works at Livermore, so you have to think he’s a scientific heavyweight. He may be on the Dr. Mengele side of the spectrum with his weapons science history, but still a serious scientific thinker.

Now it seems to me that sulfur is part of the acid rain problem and that maybe spraying a lot of into the atmosphere could cause unforeseen problems, but hey, I am still trying to sort out atoms and molecules.

Read more?     Ok.

Some of us worry a lot, maybe too much about global warming.

So here's a picture of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina.

Top view is about 1928, bottom view is about yesterday.

Are glaciers good? Should we care about these views or should we see if there are any fish in that lake? Could there be coal under yonder mountains that we can dig up and set afire?

Well, as it turns out, glaciers are good if the planet is heading in a dangerous warming direction. They reflect more solar heat by reflecting it back into space instead of absorbing more of it like ground and water, so if you like a stable and somewhat predictable environment with fewer Class 5 hurricanes, droughts, and floods, then glaciers are good. Maybe that dynamic is part of the explanation of why the planet ever comes out of ice ages. If you cover enough of the planet with ice, the planet reflects a lot of solar radiation and oddly enough, starts warming up.

So what cools the planet back down if it starts to overheat?   Read more?

And I wasn't making my list of who should get lumps of coal in their stockings. I was thinking about the complex cycle of carbon on the small blue planet.

All life on this planet, as I understand it, is carbon-based. The trees, phytoplankton, the great blue whale, and probably even Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia.

So we are all animate lumps of coal. And we do our thing here on a small blue planet through an amazingly complex chemical exchange of carbon.

Read more?

You are welcome to stop by if you feel inclined.  Olyblog is also welcome to link to Small Blue Planet, republish the postings there here, if you follow.  And do all those bloggerly things that bloggers do.

I have a lot to learn about Word Press, website graphics, etc, but the website is primarily set up to support my public ruminations about the state of the planet and I may or may not need a lot of bells and whistles to accomplish my primary purpose.

It was a paintball attack, so probably not much real harm.  Guess that depends on how much effort it takes to get the paint scrubbed off the walls and car.

What does it mean?   I don't know.  I guess it means I will be out tonight with soap, water and scrubbrush to see how easily the stuff comes off.  None of the other homes or cars in the neighborhood were hit that I could see. 

That's Martin Luther, not MLK Jr. 

A couple of centuries ago Martin Luther got fed up with the doctrines and practice of the catholic church.  He probably spouted off quite a few times and got shushed before he got really fed up and wrote his treatise and took it down and nailed it to the door.  By the time you nail your treatise to the door you are probably not planning to be coming and going through that door anymore.

Well, I am in that mood with regard to Olyblog, so herewith, a virtual nail to a virtual door, and a modest treatise:

I went to listen to Amy Goodman last night and it was as inspiring as I had hoped.  It was also as disturbing as I feared.  The woman is a relentless worker for peace and truth on the planet.  The place was packed with people of like mind and spirit.  It was really inspiring. May God bless her and keep her for the work she is doing.

One of the things she told the crowd last night was that what we do matters.  You can see that she truly believes that in the work she does and the life she lives.  Amy believes that getting the true story out is critical.  And she believes the truth has been suppressed in this country. And that ties into my reasons for saying enough at Olyblog. 

Read more:

Well, those crazy liberals running GM are opting for buying electricity from arrays on their factory rooftops owned by other companies who find the venture capital to install the arrays. 


So, why is this happening in some places and not others?  Because California Gov Terminator and the CA legislature are offering tax incentives for construction of sustainable energy.  I disagree with His Terminatorship on lots of stuff but he is a pragmatist and he is intelligent enough to realize that global warming is real and that he is in a position to do something about it. 

Is it enough?   I doubt it, but it's a start. 

You know how you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time. Here's the whole article from the NYT.