No Encouraging News Here

For those of us who follow such matters, this news is not really surprising: 2015 was the hottest year on record:

"The Ocean, If It Wants Us, It'll Come And Take Us"

So says a bemused victim of climate change in California. Jaw-dropping and chilling is how I would describe this, yet another reminder of our powerlessness in the face of nature:

Forget What Your Grandparents Told You

.... about going through five-foot drifts of snow as they walked ten miles to school. They never had to deal with conditions like this:

A Graphic Illustration Of Humanity's Hubris

People of a certain age will remember the commercial with the tagline, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Heedless of that warning, that's exactly what we continue to think we can do, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Some will take false comfort in blaming this year's weather disasters on a strengthened El Nino, ignoring why it is so strong; others will insist that climate change mitigation will destroy the economy. Still others will wait for a technological deus ex machina to save us all.

Perhaps they all should look at the latest evidence that nature always has the final say, and that our piddling opinions, rationalizations and magical thinking account for absolutely nothing in the larger scheme of things:

Apocalypse Now, And The Shape Of Things To Come

I decided to take a break from the political landscape today to look at our physical one. Regrettably, although the title of this post comes from two films, what is depicted here is all too real. I'll let the disturbing imagery speak for itself.

Is El Niño Set To Return?

Although he is taking a hiatus from his blog, The Mound of Sound is keeping very active in his research and studies. Those who read him regularly know of his ongoing deep concern with our terrible and heedless treatment of the world and its resources, pursuing lifestyles that cannot be sustained if we are to have any hope of survival as a species.

The Mound has alerted me to a couple of things that I would like to share on my blog. One is a story from today's Times-Colonist that predicts that all of Vancouver Islands glaciers will be gone within 25 years, yet another casualty of climate change.

The second point of concern rests with the possibility of an El Nino return that could rival the one in 1997, meaning the effects could be devastating. You can read more about it here, and watch the following brief video that offers a clear explanation of the phenomenon: