Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Global warming feels like Fresno

Perhaps if global warming were described in this way, people would pay more attention to it.

Meanwhile, Dean begins perhaps the latest fall onslaught as it starts winding up in the mid-Atlantic. Will it be Nolan Ryan in his prime, or a Hoyt Wilhelm knuckler that floats around and dies at the plate? At any rate, I'll be checking the forecast, watching the satellite, wondering, worrying, thinking about the weird arcing blue light, the hum of power lines crashing, blowing out the transformers, watching the trees all night.

In California, we worried about earthquakes tacitly, distantly. Your disaster or relief comes instantly. Hurricanes come in like political campaigns, with a lot of noise and bluster, polls and forecasts, this sick anticipation and even disappointment should it fizzle, pure terror if it comes full strength. Global warming feels like Fresno. Global warming feels like junior high, bully on the corner you have to pass to get home.

8 comments:

Chryss said...

Brilliant! I love it! (the description, not Fresno...)

John Guzlowski said...

I'm down in Coconut Creek, about 30 miles north of Miami, thinking about Hurricane Dean.

Even without strong weather, the sky in this place is powerful. Clouds that begin in white and end in blue, and fill the sky from Naples on the gulf to the Atlantic on the east. Wind moving everything but the heat. I look out uncle charlie's hospice window, 6 stories up, and know the kind of weather that made Emerson believe in the oversoul and Thoreau look deep in the waters of Walden Pond for all the answers to the questions the sky raised.

I don't know what a hurricane would do to this sky--but I'm waiting.

Marty said...

I remember those beautiful Caribbean clouds from when I was in Cancun. Looks for now like the hurricane will miss you there, but keep watching.

Gracias, Queen.

John Guzlowski said...

Hurricanes are like wayward dogs. They go were they go.

Kailash Chand said...

Your article on global warming is quite impressed. But you gave me more information about effect of green house projects. I had found a site which give regulary updates on global warming. This blog give have some great points like "The real heat will start after 2009, they said."
www.LifeOfEarth.Blogspot.com

Marty said...

Thanks, Bhuvan, for the tip and the link.

Yes, John, stray and snarly.

George said...

The question does become, what does Fresno feel like?

Marty said...

Well, I talked to my dad on his birthday, and he mentioned the Thomson Seedless winegrape harvest, which might tell you all you need to know. Flat, hot, landscape the color of underbaked breadcrust. . . .