inveniam viam

It's all been too much this year. For everyone and for me, too. Personally, I've been working too many hours and overextending myself financially even beyond that. My Plan is coming together, but so slowly!

But as Mike said, the Earth is a big, complex system, and things happen slowly there, too. Here is some of the things that are happening:

1) A warm pool in the Indo-Pacific Ocean has almost doubled in size, changing global rainfall patterns. Mainly, what they're seeing is that this vast area of warmer-than-usual sea is causing a change in weather patterns, making more rain in some places, and less in others. And of course, we need steady weather to grow food. So this isn't one of those We're All Going To Die! things, but certainly some of us are going to die from starvation. But, you know, more than we have been.


2) 2018 was A difficult year for forests, fields and meadows -- this article reports on Physiological response of Swiss ecosystems to 2018 drought across plant types and elevation, research gathered in the summer of 2018, showing overall less development of foliage, and increased plant respiration. "This means that while these systems absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere, they also released more CO2 back into it." Which is something that's been proven over and over, so nothing really new. The paper also talks about stressed out spruce, compared to less stressed out beech. So, changes of course in what is going to grow where. I would assume that the research gathered here would be easily extrapolated to other forests, fields, and meadow areas.

3) Behold the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich!



This sweetheart was successfully launched Nov. 21: "Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is the first of two satellites jointly developed by a group of agencies in the United States and Europe, including NASA, NOAA, the European Space Agency, Eumetsat and the European Commission, to provide precise measurements of rising sea levels." Will having stone-cold scientific proof from satellite data make any difference? No, I don't think it will. Or, rather, it hasn't so far. But Mikey is a pretty little thing, and people have worked their hearts out to have it up there above us, so love to them.

BTW, yeah, the oceans are rising about twice as fast as they did 20 years ago. But no one is going to suddenly drown unless there's a hurricane, and then what do you expect? Sheesh! Hey, remember Mexico Beach, Florida, wiped off the face of the earth in Hurricane Michael? A recent review of the place on Trip Advisor says "Beautiful beach without the crowd! Loved the seclusion of this beach. My family and I were able to set up and enjoy social distancing to the fullest. We did not have anyone near us for as far as we could see down the beach. Nice & clean beach."

4) Methane is seeping from all our very cold places -- the Laptev underwater slope is destabilizing, giant holes continue to appear in the Siberian tundra,


and now the first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists". But really, whenever I get crazy over methane, I remember what Richard Alley said when I went to see him talk, "The difference between methane and CO2 is hitting a wall at 100 mph or hitting a wall at 60 mph. The 60 mph will do the job."

But with all of this... I have to hope. I have to continue with our Plans. I have to stop being relaxed with my money and funnel all of our resources to the only thing I can imagine has a slim chance of saving some of us. It's pretty nuts, and most of the time I'm just sitting her talking myself into the idea that it might be worth the effort.