Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Reconstituting Public Opinion around the Exigence of Global Warming Despite the cold east wind, the dark orange maple leaves cling tenaciously to the trees on the streetscape.    The yellow mulberry leaves, however, dropped last week and have now been blown out my yard, across the street.   Things don’t seem that different; this feels like November in Albuquerque.   Fall is almost over and its last remaining days have finally killed the plants in my garden.    Winter moves in as I chop firewood, change air filters on furnaces, dig out gloves and warmer clothes.   This is November, not all that different from every November. Yes, we have seasons and sometimes it feels as if life will continue apace as it always has.   Yet, just last week the World Meteorological Society stated that “… 2013 is currently on course to be among the top ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850” (WMO).    That is a not an illusion; things aren’t the same.    As noted in the report the co

                    A while back, I was reading an old friend’s Facebook (FB) post about how both political sides are corrupt and another old friend commented, “I'm going to disagree with you on that point. True people on the Right listen to the other side without putting the other side down and point to facts...The difficulty I have is that the left likes to use emotion and opinion for the disagreement and when you confront them on where they got their information it's MSN.”                 I responded, “…your take is exactly what I experience in reverse, and when you ask them where they got their facts they'll point to Fox, which I don't think is reliable sourcing.    Of course, social media has made it easier to get caught up in bubbles and tribalism and leads to only really hearing opinions that support our pre-existing opinions.   I think this sorting has sort of lead to people not really talking "with" each other at all, rather talking "at&quo