The Official Global Warming/Climate Change Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

El Niño is building to a high.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicts a hot Pacific Ocean.

[GreekMan 246]

Global Warming is the biggest fraud ever. nobody can accurately predict the weather. The earth gets cool and gets hot goes back to cool and so on. it has NOTHING to do with humans! look at the ice age. what melted all the snow?? oh yeah SUVs!!! of course cause lots of factories were around back then. the earth goes in cycles. 

Global warming is one of the biggest narrcisitic moves in all of humanity next to selfies. its all about us and me and what I can do to protect us? we are a tiny speck in the universe

the 1950s had the some of the hottest summers on record. thats a fact! there werent any SUVs back then like today

look at ALL the predictions in the past ten years. the gulf would get terrible storms and hurricanes and what happened????? NOTHING!!!!!!!

no major hurricane has hit America since 2005 (katrina) maybe you can make a case for Rita in 2006. 

look at the past week or so. that storm that was heading towards florida. i forgot the name. it was going to be a big hurricane and what happened? it died down it became a tropical depression

algore got rich over scamming everyone. oh yeah im algore im right. global warming is going to be so terrible by 2015. BS

so please. stop believing in this myth that humans are causing everything and buy a real car not a prius. you wanna buy a hybrid go ahead but buy a camry hybrid or a lexus es350h or some german variant 

im sickand tired of people predicting worse year after worse year. why keep believing any of these scientist when they continue to be WRONG

 

as for the el nino. they are predicting the big rains especially for CA. we really need it but i won't hold my breath cause its a PREDICTION

  Edited September 3, 2015 by GreekMan  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Predictive "sciences" are all the same.  WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses).  Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.  People are amused by science fiction.  I am also amused by meteorological and economic pronunciamentos.

The earth, as I have said before and is agreed by the prior poster, is going through a natural warming cycle and it is apparently accelerating.  Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.  We all know what happened to King Canute when he ordered the tide to stop.  This is the same inevitability.

If governments don't like it, then put all that hot air and money into getting off the current ball of dirt.  That means it is time to stop playing with Goddard's rockets and find a better means of propulsion.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Predictive "sciences" are all the same.  WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses).  Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.  People are amused by science fiction.  I am also amused by meteorological and economic pronunciamentos.

The earth, as I have said before and is agreed by the prior poster, is going through a natural warming cycle and it is apparently accelerating.  Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.  We all know what happened to King Canute when he ordered the tide to stop.  This is the same inevitability.

If governments don't like it, then put all that hot air and money into getting off the current ball of dirt.  That means it is time to stop playing with Goddard's rockets and find a better means of propulsion.

Rockets won't take us very far.  We need something far, far superior to rockets if this excuse of a ignorant species is ever going to be a space faring species.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Predictive "sciences" are all the same.  WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses).  Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.  People are amused by science fiction.  I am also amused by meteorological and economic pronunciamentos.

The earth, as I have said before and is agreed by the prior poster, is going through a natural warming cycle and it is apparently accelerating.  Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.  We all know what happened to King Canute when he ordered the tide to stop.  This is the same inevitability.

If governments don't like it, then put all that hot air and money into getting off the current ball of dirt.  That means it is time to stop playing with Goddard's rockets and find a better means of propulsion.

Rockets won't take us very far.  We need something far, far superior to rockets if this excuse of a ignorant species is ever going to be a space faring species.

I heard a funny story a while back that some of the guys at NASA were working on a warp drive.  I hope they figure out how to make dilithium crystals or whatever it takes to generate the amount of power necessary to bend the structure of the universe.  Wouldn't be the first time NASA has taken an idea from Star Trek.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Predictive "sciences" are all the same.  WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses).  Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.  People are amused by science fiction.  I am also amused by meteorological and economic pronunciamentos.

The earth, as I have said before and is agreed by the prior poster, is going through a natural warming cycle and it is apparently accelerating.  Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.  We all know what happened to King Canute when he ordered the tide to stop.  This is the same inevitability.

If governments don't like it, then put all that hot air and money into getting off the current ball of dirt.  That means it is time to stop playing with Goddard's rockets and find a better means of propulsion.

Rockets won't take us very far.  We need something far, far superior to rockets if this excuse of a ignorant species is ever going to be a space faring species.

I heard a funny story a while back that some of the guys at NASA were working on a warp drive.  I hope they figure out how to make dilithium crystals or whatever it takes to generate the amount of power necessary to bend the structure of the universe.  Wouldn't be the first time NASA has taken an idea from Star Trek.

That's old news, but it would be fantastic if they succeeded and we can finally move people off planet and set up colonies on the moon and Mars and perhaps further out.  Then again, being a gov't agency, the prospects of them succeeding is very very low because some braindead career politician will scream "it costs too much money and there'll be none left to pad my bank account with."

  Edited September 8, 2015 by blade2k5  

[AcmeSigns 97]

Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.

I just have to hand out a great, big 'Thank you'! Someone (other than myself at least) is pointing out the hypocrisy of computer 'simulations' in regards to what the earth 'will' do. Simulations are based on what is programmed into them. Tell it the earth is warming and ask it what will happen if the trend continues. I'm guessing that plugging in 'what will happen if the earth starts cooling?' never gets entered because that doesn't play to the narrative.

What happened to all of those dire predictions that there was going to b another ice age in the 1970's? Oh yeah...nothing. The earth wiped out the dinosaurs and neither man nor SUVs were here then. Hmmm...who to blame for that?

So Nonny, to you I say, 'Thank you!'

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Sure there is a lot of science involved, and sure there are computer simulations.  However, you don't write a computer simulation without some bias, nor can you avoid political contamination in predictions.

I just have to hand out a great, big 'Thank you'! Someone (other than myself at least) is pointing out the hypocrisy of computer 'simulations' in regards to what the earth 'will' do. Simulations are based on what is programmed into them. Tell it the earth is warming and ask it what will happen if the trend continues. I'm guessing that plugging in 'what will happen if the earth starts cooling?' never gets entered because that doesn't play to the narrative.

What happened to all of those dire predictions that there was going to b another ice age in the 1970's? Oh yeah...nothing. The earth wiped out the dinosaurs and neither man nor SUVs were here then. Hmmm...who to blame for that?

So Nonny, to you I say, 'Thank you!'

You are most welcome. 

I've been involved in computers and computing since 1962 and there are not many of us left who can tell it like it is, because all the new generations have grown up embedded in the computer era.  Worst of it is, they don't even understand what that thing in their hot little hands is, not could many of them even start to program it.

We are at the end of the second industrial revolution which began in the late 1930s and is now mature.  The old ideas of production are completely worn out, and with them the ideas of compensation, unions, and all that peripheral clap-trap.  The next order of business is to replace the current economic system with something new with some gentility.  I'd rather not see a violent change over, but one is inevitable.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Maybe all the global warming cultists ought to read this and seriously think it through before disregarding out of hand, whether you want to believe it or not.

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/MKTNews/Global-Warming-climate-change/2014/11/17/id/607827/#CommentSection

  Edited September 9, 2015 by blade2k5  

[Sabretooth78 808]

Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.

I've been saying this for years.  I do believe that the natural systems and feedback loops, etc. which govern their equilibrium are fragile (I don't like that word but I'm having trouble coming up with an analog..."easy to unbalance") and I certainly believe we are playing a contributing role.

BUT...

We have heard precious little on how we are going to adapt (much less attempt to thrive) in the new equilibrium, which in my mind is already a foregone conclusion to happen.  Sure, it would be nice to know exactly what is causing it, in the event we can do something about it - but also consider that time's-a-wastin' and the answer isn't getting any easier to come by.  And say we are causing it (we're certainly modifying it somehow) - do you really think people are going to change their ways? Pffff, Americans will be more likely to wake up to the sham political system; that's not going to happen just as "patriotism" isn't going to be disentangled from ownership of an obnoxious pickup truck.

But no, we hear nothing of it.  And for good reason, agreement doesn't lend itself to the divide and conquer philosophy of those propagating the information (or misinformation as it may be).  We're guaranteeing our position as losers on no fewer than two accounts.  Remember what our opportunist government did with taking advantage of 9/11 - disgusting as that has been, the whole climate change issue is probably going to turn out similar.  I'm already wondering what we here in [relatively] natural disaster and climate change consequence-free Western NY are going to have to suffer to pay for what happens when half of Florida is underwater (besides potentially becoming repatriated with some of our more obnoxious former residents, which would be disaster enough) and Washington has been reclaimed by nature as a brackish swamp.

As a footnote, I remembered a good bumper sticker I saw yesterday.  Well, on the driver side they had an Obama/Biden sticker and I was turned off by the ignorance it displayed...but on the passenger side, a similarly colored, simple statement:

"Nature bats last"

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The biggest problem is that there are too many variables in nature's program for anyone to simulate in real polynomial time, the problem of the climate of any planet is NP complete.  That means it has no "real world" solution for us as observers and participants.

There is little doubt that H. Sap. as one of the major species infecting the planet that we are having slight climatic effects.  However, we were not around during the age of the Dinosaurs, and the best we can come up with why they became extinct is a cosmic accident.  It is probably true, but they were around a lot longer than we have been.  I am not worried about life on earth.

The survival of H. Sap. on the other hand, is moot.  If we don't stop all this whirling around in tight circles trying to bite our non-existent tails, when the crunch finally comes, we won't be present.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Instead of whirling around in tight circles trying to figure out how to stop all this, it is time to get with it, and figure out how to live with nature.

I've been saying this for years.  I do believe that the natural systems and feedback loops, etc. which govern their equilibrium are fragile (I don't like that word but I'm having trouble coming up with an analog..."easy to unbalance") and I certainly believe we are playing a contributing role.

BUT...

We have heard precious little on how we are going to adapt (much less attempt to thrive) in the new equilibrium, which in my mind is already a foregone conclusion to happen.  Sure, it would be nice to know exactly what is causing it, in the event we can do something about it - but also consider that time's-a-wastin' and the answer isn't getting any easier to come by.  And say we are causing it (we're certainly modifying it somehow) - do you really think people are going to change their ways? Pffff, Americans will be more likely to wake up to the sham political system; that's not going to happen just as "patriotism" isn't going to be disentangled from ownership of an obnoxious pickup truck.

But no, we hear nothing of it.  And for good reason, agreement doesn't lend itself to the divide and conquer philosophy of those propagating the information (or misinformation as it may be).  We're guaranteeing our position as losers on no fewer than two accounts.  Remember what our opportunist government did with taking advantage of 9/11 - disgusting as that has been, the whole climate change issue is probably going to turn out similar.  I'm already wondering what we here in [relatively] natural disaster and climate change consequence-free Western NY are going to have to suffer to pay for what happens when half of Florida is underwater (besides potentially becoming repatriated with some of our more obnoxious former residents, which would be disaster enough) and Washington has been reclaimed by nature as a brackish swamp.

As a footnote, I remembered a good bumper sticker I saw yesterday.  Well, on the driver side they had an Obama/Biden sticker and I was turned off by the ignorance it displayed...but on the passenger side, a similarly colored, simple statement:

"Nature bats last"

But nature always wins and it will this time to.  Mankind's arrogance is thinking he is in control and not the other way around.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

^ Quite right.  There is an old quote "Man proposes; God (nature) disposes."

If all the money spent so far in the fire drill while getting nowhere fast were applied to living with the consequences of climate change we'd be much further along.  Politicians do a very good job of wasting money while getting people upset over nothing.

[Sabretooth78 808]

They can't help it, though.  By their very definition they waste money whilst creating problems - some real, most imaginary.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

They can't help it, though.  By their very definition they waste money whilst creating problems - some real, most imaginary.

And the worst part of it is that we can't really get along without them.  Just getting them to be accountable is like herding cats. 

First, some "scientist" conjectures something that gets a lot of unjustified press attention and some pol jumps on it to get on the bandwagon.  Then it turns out that the conjecture was premature and made of a set of WAGs, but the pol is now stuck with it, so makes even more noise. 

The worst type is when someone like POTUS is mushroom managed by his staff and you get something like the Iraqi war as a consequence of some "thinking" by some national security body that should know better but gets carried away by their own propaganda and rationalizations.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Oh yeah, climate models are all total nonsense because they are computer models and computers require data and because of that they are biased. Best we also ignore all theoretical physics from now on because those also work with computer models. Clearly, we can't trust scientists, some of the smartest people on the planet, experts in their fields, to come up with computer models that are accurate. 

And certainly, these highly educated scientists completely overlook such basic criticisms on their methodology. I mean, its not like that isn't the first thing people would criticize. You don't think they have accounted for that type of criticism after 40 years of climate change research? Of course they have, they are scientists, they know how to perform science. 

No, the simple fact remains that 97% of all the climate scientists, and I remind you, these are some of the most highly educated people on the planet and all of them experts in their field, are convinced after 40 years of rigorous study that humanity is responsible for the warming of the planet and that it is vital that we change our ways if we want to keep this planet habitable. But yeah, lets ignore those guys and listen to the 3% that is paid by industrial interests that says nothing is wrong, please don't regulate this or that industry. 

When 97 doctors tell you you have cancer and 3 tell you no you don't have cancer, who do you believe? 

[Sabretooth78 808]

But....but....but....scientists don't kiss babies.  They don't wear little flags on their lapel!  They don't promise me they're going to change this or that!

 

And they don't get me to passively accept that I'll be funding their early retirement!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The true horror of science is the destruction of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact.

  Edited September 11, 2015 by A Nonny Moose  
improved wording.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

And speaking of ugly facts ...

Seems the U.K. Met. Office has been putting things together and are now predicting not nice for the next couple of years.  They rightly put the adjective manmade in parentheses.  I think the jury is out on that, but there is no doubt that there will be a hot time on the old planet for the foreseeable future.  It will take a cyclano^* or a volcone^* of major proportions to make any changes.

___________________________________________________________________

* Cyclano, volcone: terms coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.  Weather patterns are really getting more intense.

[AcmeSigns 97]

Yes, the climate is changing. My problem with the argument is the claim that we (mankind) are the cause of it. Based on what? The last 40 years? 40 years is nothing to the planet's timeline. It's like claiming that an additional drop of water in the ocean will raise the sea level. Yes it will...but to what degree? Just because the earth's temperature has gone up in the past 40 years (although, I do believe I recently read that it's been cooling for the past decade or so) does in no way prove that man is to blame. If, without changing our ways one iota, we go into another ice age is that also to be blamed on man?

The planet's climate is cyclic and there's no real denying of that. Looking to place blame or forcing us all to change (think incandescent light bulbs or low-flow water spouts here in the U.S.) just to 'do something' is useless unless true, undeniable facts can be shown to prove, once and for all, that mankind is to blame. Otherwise it's all just speculation. Heck, I can speculate on stuff all day long. That does not mean that anything I speculate on will come to pass.

  Edited September 22, 2015 by AcmeSigns  

[Sabretooth78 808]

Perhaps it has cooled over the past decade, but who is to say we're not still causing it and that, barring our effects, it wouldn't have cooled more drastically?  But yes, it is all conjecture at this point.  About the only thing we can say for sure is that the politicians and otherwise scum of society are doing their best to achieve short term profit from the whole debate (not to mention that the witless populace is all too happy to play along).  Another reason the whole lot of them should be dragged out to the back forty.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

All these beautiful theories will be dashed to smithereens when nature does its inexorable thing.  The planet has been cycling around in the Goldilocks zone for about 4.5 Billion years.  Home sapiens or a forerunner has only been here for about a million years (if that).  The ratio is 4500:1 or less.  There have been lots of hot/cold cycles before, and will be again. 

There is a lot of methane from the last hot era locked up in the oceans and the permafrost.  The slight warming effect we are seeing now will eventually warn things up enough to release it, and then it will really be a hot time.  Methane is about four times effective as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.  Methane escaping from landfill sites is often burned off becoming carbon dioxide and water.  This is the least worst result.  When the great clouds of methane are released from the arctic regions and from the oceans where it is trapped at the moment, then you'll see some global warming due to atmospheric changes.

However, in recent centuries, H. Sap. has been a dirty bird.  We are busily contaminating the environment with all kinds of nasty stuff, not only the atmosphere.  No organism can survive in an environment of its own waste.  Nature will eventually clean us off, and there is little we can do about it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yet another snivel serpent trying to keep her useless job.

The jury is not out on global warming.  It is a fact, however temporary things might seem.  It is part of the ice-age cycle where we go from tropical or hotter to glaciers in about 50,000 years and repeat.  Both this lady and the Pope are misled if they think anything else.

Agreed that we are a bunch of dirt fountains, but that's something that nature is set up to cope with.  Eventually, nature will simply wipe us out as it has previous infestations of lice and other bothersome creatures.  Now, we might be able to prolong the agony by cleaning up some of our dirtiest tricks, but let's forget the atmosphere and consider all the permanent junk we've tossed in the oceans.  Seems there are now floating islands of plastic garbage that rival the Sargasso Sea.  Nasty, nasty.  See what all that sloppy petrochemistry has done.  A fleet of ocean going garbage scows appear to be in order.

The next time you eat a slice of white bread, think of all the yeast that died in their own alcoholic byproduct to make the carbon dioxide that raised the bread.

[raynev1 1,886]

Wow , what a heated discussion ( pun intended ) . I believe man has had much to do with climate change . Sorry , but I've driven SUV's , trucks and an economy vehicle . The fact is nobody is comfortable with changing seasons , in the winter we turn on the heat , in the summer we turn on the air conditioner . The air conditioner makes it cooler inside our homes , but stand outside , in front of the same air conditioner . It's not very cool there is it . We need to learn to deal with it , instead of placing blame . What about radiation emitted from the sun ? IMHO it feels much hotter than it did several years ago . We (humans) are trying to cool things down through weather manipulation , am I correct ? Even though what's being used could be making us all sick . My point is take it as it comes , one day at a time . We seem to be like fleas on a dog , as stated earlier in this discussion . But has anyone mentioned ? That when that dog dies the fleas don't die they just find another host . 

   Everybody take a deep breath , and try to do the best they can as individuals to make life better for everyone and not just themselves .

   You shouldn't mess with Mother Nature . She may get not just angry , she might become unstable .

  Edited October 1, 2015 by raynev1  
had to add a line

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Interesting, but these fleas have no place to flee.  We keep playing with Goddard rockets and are getting nowhere fast.  They want to go to Mars, but it takes months and costs absolutely gazillions of rasbucknicks for a one-way trip.  Imagine setting up for a two way excursion, and all the excess water vapour that would wind up in the atmosphere just as the beast takes off.  Has anyone ever figured out how much water winds up in the atmosphere from all those launches?  I know they are supposed to be using liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen for the motors, but what happens when they are producing all this nice clean fuel?  Out of what?  By what methods?

Oh, and if we get a manned colony on Mars, the next planet out is Jupiter.  There is absolutely no going there, but it may have habitable moons.  Europa, anyone?  Seems it might just be a water world with no land at all.  Wouldn't that be a joke?

I think I've said outright in this thread that we need to take note of the way the native people lived before we got here and messed things up.  They lived with nature, didn't overpopulate, and got along just fine holding little wars and generally having fun counting coup in a hunter/gatherer culture with spots of farming here and there.  There were some extinctions due to things like drought: --  The Anasazi people, for example, who had to bail out of their major settlements because there was no more water.  Some of the survivors have been found to be still around, but not many.

We keep abusing the kernel of existence.  All the advances of our science get abused before the ethics of their use catches up to them.  How do you like the ethics of WW II?  The Germans used their advanced engineering technology to take over Europe and tried to create a master race at the cost of millions of lives of what they considered to be untermenchen.  Then to cap things off, the allies dumped a couple of dirty A-bombs on the Japanese because they could.  Not very ethical, perhaps, but the Japanese were not listening, and their military and political intelligence was very poor.  Perhaps they should have been invited to the tests at Los Alamos and then they might have got the message.  I like Harry Truman rather well, but that was a dastardly deed, indeed.  Since then, the world has been scared to death of the word "atomic".  The number of peaceful uses of atomic energy and atomic physics are legion, but say the word power plant and what you get is a lot of screaming about Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island.  Yet we don't worry much about automobile accidents which wreak carnage on our roads daily.

However, getting back to global warming: we are not responsible for the major effects of what is happening.  At least, not in any meaningful way.  One big forest fire or a volcanic eruption puts more crap in the atmosphere than we ever have.  Mind you, it is not smart of us to add to it, but let's work on cutting all that down by eliminating use of fossil fuels and dumping garbage that generates methane - CH₄ (a far worse greenhouse gas than CO₂).  Nature has enough methane locked up in the oceans and the permafrost in the arctic regions to give us a real hot time in the old world in the next few years.  The trick here will be to delay the tipping point for this as long as we can, and cutting our own emissions will clearly help.  Our ethics on this have started to catch up after 150 years of devil-may-care behaviour.

I think in a couple of centuries when things are a lot warmer that the equatorial zones may well become uninhabitable and that the arctic could be getting tropical.  All the farmers should be thinking of alternate crops as the available water and heat changes.  In some areas it is going to be hotter and drier, others will be hotter and wetter.  What happens when all the mountain glaciers that feed big river systems are gone?  A good example of that one is the Ganges.  The whole character of the Hind subcontinent will change.  A number of the west coast of America rivers depend on the ice fields in the Rockies.  What happens when these have all melted?  Heh!  People think we have troubles now?!

  Edited October 1, 2015 by A Nonny Moose  
Fixed a bad spelling (word choice)

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If global warming is a myth, why are my people dying?

Mortality among moose populations are up with a large finger being pointed at climate change.

[raynev1 1,886]

Sorry to hear about your people Mr. Moose . Here in West Virginia , we're experiencing a problem with a wasting disease in our whitetail deer population . I've been told by local hunters , that the deer look normal . Fact is they're probably inedible , the flesh is infected with a pus . I don;t know if it has to do with climate change or not , but still seems to be a problem . DNR here handles it by opening deer season earlier than previous years , seems without concern over the illness to my knowledge . I don't hunt , nor do I eat deer , but would imagine there should be concerns over human consumption of these infected animals . 

   Also have noticed insects from further south seem to be popping up . I'm sure that's from climate change though . Some don't remember several days in a row in winter with sub-zero temps . That use to kill off a lot of undesired things .

   Maybe , the best way to lower emissions would be if people were to curb there travel to a minimum ,this could help . This is a modern time , with different forms of communication other than travel . We surely do need to get away from the use of fossil fuels . Where I live , they are trying to get a hydro-electric plant installed on our local dam . Don' t know if it will go through or not , since the lake has been a large part of the tourism industry here . I guess that will depend on our local politicians juggling some numbers around .

   Good luck to you all , with these concerns . Park the car and maybe do a little more walking . People don't walk much anymore , it's good for the cardiovascular system and also a good way to fight obesity . 

[Sabretooth78 808]

I always picture WV being somewhat of a poster child for our fossil fuel addiction when it comes to (at least as it appears to an outsider) as Big Coal's iron grip on the statehouse and a vast number of residents who knowingly vote against their own interests to keep that just because in many towns that's all the economy they have.  Especially in the "coalfields".  In a way it's a little "extreme microcosm" of the US as a whole.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

To quote Dr. Peter "The status quo is often protected even after the quo has lost its status."

[MintberryCrunch 83]

A number of major mudslides have happened in northern Los Angeles County lately, enough to bury parts of I-5. Although mudslides can happen in normal years, the drought makes them more likely to occur when heavy rains do finally fall.