Worst solar flares in history

Worst solar flares in history - Space.com

I post this because it illustrates my point is that we really don’t know enough about our environment to go blaming ourselves for all that is going “wrong” with it.

The worst solar flare on record happened nearly 500 years ago. Of course there might have been ones that were even worse before, but … well, we haven’t been keeping records about them that long.

Now, if the ones listed above are the worst in our “recorded” history, then our data about our 4 billion-year-old sun is a tad bit on the short side. And if all they say about what damage a solar flare/solar storm can do to the planet is true … then maybe there are bigger things at play than the feeble efforts of human beings.

Now, yes, the planet is infested with those creatures and they really are a bother and they probably are straining the resources, like any other animal does when it doesn’t have a natural predator keeping its population in check.

But that is a whole other problem and probably has little to do with whether the climate is getting colder or warmer.

Expert opinions

Organics and nutrition

Weathermen make long term prediction

I would like to discuss human hubris. Well, not really, but it sounds good. What I really want to say is that I find humor in the propensity of people in this era of modern scientific research to place so much faith in the statistical approach.

Now, I am not saying it is bad to rely on statistics, I just rarely think that statistics actually definitively prove your point. You see, often times, people are comparing apples and oranges … or tomatoes or potatoes … and not really realizing it.

For example, it seems, according to the latest scientific study of statistical studies of case histories of a host of individuals that eating organic food does not necessarily do a lot of good, at least in a nutritional sense. Hello, does that come as a surprise to anyone? It really shouldn’t.

The body needs certain nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc. in certain quantities to be healthy. It needs to come in certain forms, however, but how those forms are grown, per se, really doesn’t matter. Of course the food has to be from a healthy plant/animal for it to be beneficial but how that plant is made healthy really doesn’t matter in determining its nutritional value.

Now, I will agree that some foods have less trace chemicals if they are grown certain ways, and those trace chemicals, if in significant enough quantities, can have a detrimental effect on human health. Unfortunately, growing things organically does not always mean that those trace elements won’t be found in food. The point being that paying significantly higher prices for food labeled “organic” may not be the wisest use of your resources.

However, having said that, I suppose a few years from now, some other scientist will come along and “prove” that eating “organic” is the next best thing to home-made sliced bread.

The same holds for the latest position paper by the American Meteorological Society (i.e.: Mainly those guys who bring you your nightly forecasts for the weather on TV). It seems that they are certain of two things:

One: the global climate is getting warmer.

Two: it is the result of anthropomorphic causes.

Oopsie. Statistically it might seem true, but then again it might be apples and oranges, with the apples being the climate is warming and the oranges being that is caused anthropomorphically.

I will not argue that the climate may be getting warmer but I would advise you to check back in two or three centuries, or even two or three millennia, to make sure. Despite what the doomsayers tell us, we really don’t have enough data to make sweeping statements about the climate and what it is doing. As best we can tell, humans have been sentient for about 15,000 years, give or take 15,000 or 30,000 years. You take that slice of time and see what portion it makes of the overall space of geological time, or even the time that life has been on the planet, and you realize that we are talking about an extraordinary teeny tiny bit of that experience.

So, first and foremost, before you say the sky is falling, make sure it isn’t a rain drop.

So, I am not sure that we are facing a deluge here, folks, and definitely the jury is still out on whether or not we can blame it all on human activities. It might be, and I am not going to say that it can’t be, but I am saying that when you look at the scope of changes over the course of the earth’s history it is entirely possible that these little tiny creatures running around, modifying their environment (as almost every species does to one extent or another), aren’t really the cause of the massive geologic climatological changes that our best and brightest are seeing.

Please, people, remember that we really have only about 30 years of good, solid, hard data on which we are making these sweeping predictions. All the rest of the data maybe good, but it is mostly based on assumptions, suppositions and interpretations of information that we really don’t know if it is valid or not.

And the models? Well, they are models. They are mathematical formulations that we hope mimic reality. But if any weatherman/meteorologist tells you that he or she really can tell you what the weather, or climate, is going to be like at any one point at any given time on the globe more than relatively few hours from now (which on the geological scale would be totally insignificant) with 100 percent accuracy, then they know they have just trashed their own credibility, because it is impossible. There just are too many variables out there, and too many of them that we mere humans don’t even begin to understand, for such predictions to be taken as gospel.

Heck, we don’t even, for the most part it seems, take the gospel as gospel any more.

Applying the law equally

Judge strikes down Ohio early voting law

Ok, I hope I got this correctly.

The legislature of State of Ohio standardized its early voting procedures. Before that the people wanting to vote early had to check with their local county board of elections (all 88 of them) which had different hours on different days. However, it seems, they could vote on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday prior to the election (even if hours on Saturday and Sunday were reduced in some counties but not in others). The new legislation cut off early voting on the Friday before election Tuesday so that local election boards would have time to prepare for Tuesday.

However, the legislation allowed an exemption for those serving in the military or coming back from overseas, to vote on Monday (it is unclear whether the local boards had to be open on Saturday and Sunday). The judge ruled that exemption was unconstitutional infringement on the privilege for those not covered by the exemption and that if early voting was extended to the serving military and/or people returning from overseas to vote on Monday, then everyone should have until Monday.

Ok, I can buy that or, an alternative interpretation could be that those who could have voted until Monday now have to vote by Friday. I admit, I am not a legal beagle but it would seem to me that with the exemption struck down, then early voting for the majority would be the time that stands. But then, what the heck, it is just a law right? We can ignore those we don’t like.

Anyway, it seems everybody gets until Monday to vote in Ohio … that is if they don’t want to vote on Tuesday, which is Election Day, but we want people not to have to inconvenience themselves on Tuesday. It might discourage participation in the election. They might have to stand in a line.

Anyway, my sympathies to the county election officials and I just hope they have their ducks in a row.

Keeping records in perspective

Arctic sea ice set to hit record low

Interesting story about the annual melt of the Arctic sea ice pack, but I am not sure that the headline or the premise about it really means much.

Synopsis of the story: Taken from satellite imagery, it seems that this summer’s artic sea ice pack melt has significantly reduced it from what it was just a few years ago. It seems that global climate change could be responsible.

Of course, the implication is that the change is due to anthropomorphic causes. Oopsie. That is a leap of faith that really is not justified by the facts at hand. Now, please understand, I am not contesting that the climate might be changing. In fact, I will just about guarantee it is changing. I just don’t buy off on the argument that is all the fault of humans and because the U.S. is the richest and most consumer driven country that it is entirely  its fault. (I will back this up in a second).

Ok, to me the operative point in the above article when it talks about hitting a record low it is only dealing with a period from 1979 (when they started taking pictures from satellites orbiting the earth) until 2012. Let me get my calculator out: That is a grand total of 33 years … and the world is how old? Four billion years, you say, and just 15,000 years ago the ice pack extended all the way down to somewhere around New York City … and then some thousands, or is it millions, of years ago, there was barely any ice at all. Hmm, some record.

Actually, I was thinking about it. I have a damaged heart (about 25 percent of it doesn’t work anymore) and I thought about putting it in that sort of perspective. It is like taking my pulse, and then taking it again five seconds later, and then again a few seconds later and then trying to tell me how my heart is fairing. Good try, but bad information. Oh, yeah, an EKG only takes a minute or so, but that is only a snapshot and your cardiologist (you do have one don’t you?) will tell you that is all it is. If they really want to know what is going on they have to monitor you for a few months or so, and take lots of pictures over time and maybe go in a do a little exploring with cameras and the like. But just looking at pictures taken over a few seconds will not necessarily tell them the whole story.

So, while I have no doubt my heart is damaged, I know that it is monitored 24/7 and I report the results of that monitoring every month or so. Still, that doesn’t tell the doctor what is going on inside my heart, or its muscles or its arteries. It just gives him something to compare against. It doesn’t tell him when it is going to finally say: “Ok, I’m done. I’m going to stop working now.” No test is going to tell him, or me, that.

Interestingly enough, despite my having a host of risk factors, no doctor can tell you precisely which one triggered my heart disease. Sorry, they just know that statistically if you do x, y or c or you don’t do a, b or z, then they are more likely to find blocked arteries in your body and other health problems. Of course, statistically, you can NOT do x, y or c and do a, b or z, and you still can have heart problems. Amazing how that works. Maybe we humans ain’t all that smart after all.

Now, it seems that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are one of the biggest culprits in the anthropomorphic climate change models. What would you say if some scientists told you that the US is pumping out less CO2 now than it was 20 years ago?

US CO2 emissions at 20 year low

My goodness, maybe the US has been doing something right after all.

However, my point would be that if the US has reduced its carbon footprint so much and climate change still is happening doesn’t that call into question the current causes of climate change? I ain’t no scientist but it would seem to me that the evidence would point that way. You know, of course, that it is just possible that there are other, non-human-related, factors at play here.

I do get tired of our hubris that we think that just because we think, then the world must revolve around us. Just because we seem to be sentient, that we are in control.

As my old math teacher used to say: Apples and Oranges.

Maybe we need to stop thinking that we are in control and think more about coping with reality. I do that on a daily basis … not always fun, but it has kept me alive longer than the worst prognoses said I would live. And that makes me happy.

Of course, you can think you are in control. That is all right. You do have the right to think silly thoughts.

Remember all those evil corporate giants?

Nine giants expected to be in death throes

Ten big brands likely to disappear in the next year

 

It seems that a number of American corporate and business giants probably are going to fall by the wayside, overcome by market pressures and their own leaderships’ bad decisions. Is this a bad thing or a good thing?

I am always taken by those who think that everything “corporate” is bad, and big corporations are even worse. Now, I will be the first to admit that, yes, corporations are often greedy (but then so it just about every other human-related thing on the planet, given the chance) and often do things that are seemingly cold-hearted and cruel (but make considerable business sense). However, at the same time, I suspect that a lot of those who see these evil corporations dying with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs will be hammering the executives for bailing out like rats deserting a sinking ship. What do you expect them to do? Commit hari kari? Sorry, but the Code of Bushido isn’t even observed any more in Japan.

I guess we could confiscate whatever parachutes (golden or otherwise) the leaderships of these failing entities give themselves as they jump out the doors, but I doubt that it would add much to what the floor workers would get in compensation on the final day. The problem there being is that the floor workers usually don’t own the company. There are investors who do and they are the ones who really are taking it financially on the chin. You see, they invested good money, and now, basically, they have none.

I can tell you a story of how that works. My Pappy, way back when, worked for and was part owner of a company out in California in the early 1960s. It was an executive search, market research and management consultant firm that had its offices on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (ritzy digs, if you get the drift). It was neat, for several years Pappy drove a leased car (a big old Ford Country Squire station wagon that was great for camping trips) and as I learned later was paid in stock options. Now, stock options are great, but they don’t put food on the table. I remember Pappy having to hide the keys to the car near the end of the company’s existence because the repo guys were looking for it because the company hadn’t paid the lease. Not a pretty sight, by a long shot, but that is what happens when the management gets tangled up in its image and not what it should be doing. Anyway, we survived, obviously, but the new cars in the driveway disappeared for quite a number of years.

Financially, my family took it on the chin big time, but we didn’t complain because, well, that happens in life. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try to start doing something else. Pappy wasn’t the greatest provider, I will admit, but at least he kept trying and he did provide us kids with lots of love.

Now, this time next year, (assuming we don’t all disappear with the Mayan calendar runs out in December), I suspect that there will be a host of people doing the same thing my family had to do. It is not easy, but then life is not easy. It is good to remember that, now and then.

But then again, that is how this country always has been. Somebody coined the phrase about our system as being “creatively destructive” in that it always is destroying businesses here and there and replacing them with new ones, devoted to new technologies and ways of doing things. It is a bit like climate change: Nothing ever stays the same and if you don’t like it, wait a while and something different will be along.

The unfortunate thing is that, all too often, we get too comfortable and expect everything to stay the same as it has or some reasonable facsimile. Hello, surprise, that is silly. I think it took me a long time to come to the realization that nothing ever stays the same, as much as we might want it to do so.

No, the challenge to each and every one of us is to figure out our own ways of coping with the changes (and chaos) that life sends our way. That really is the measure of who we are as people and individuals: How we bounce back from adversity. Are we bitter? Are we beaten? Or do we pick up, move out and try again?

Anyway, something to think about, I suppose.

Amen!

Presidents, policies - foreign and domestic - and elections

 

The author of the article linked above has a really good grasp of reality when it comes to the powers of the presidency, to which I add my hearty: Amen! Definitely read the article, it really is good.

You see, contrary to a lot of people’s opinions, the American president ain’t all that powerful. That is malice by design by the people who created this republic 225 years ago.

The so-called “founding fathers” had a really strong dislike for a strong executive authority, which in that time normally was wielded by a monarch of some variety. So, the president was not given all that much authority to do anything, without the advice and consent of Congress, the Supreme Court and the states. Despite the passage of time, the president still finds himself (so far, just hims) very limited in what he actually can accomplish. I think that President Obama probably is getting around to understanding that lesson, but unfortunately, a lot of Americans and very few non-Americans get it.

No matter who wins in November, whoever is sworn in on January 20, 2013, they will find themselves in the same bind.

In addition, as the author pointed out, no matter how much the president wants to control things, he ain’t in control. No one is. That to me is the salient point of the article. People, in their hubris, think we can control events. Well, I have news for you, if you haven’t figured it out already: We don’t, we can’t and we never will.

George W. Bush opposed nation-building and that is just what trapped his administration in Afghanistan and Iraq. Barack Obama was going to step back and let other nations help carry the load, and found out that everybody still looks to the Americans to take the lead.

Whether it is trying to control the weather or stop climate change, or bring global peace to all mankind, or ensure that no one goes hungry or without medical care: It is not going to happen. That may sound like a pretty ugly assessment, but it is facing reality.

The best we all can do is to try to cope with whatever contingencies we are faced with. Rarely will they be the ones we chose and often they will be seemingly overwhelming … and sometimes they might well be. But we can’t delude ourselves into thinking that somehow, someone, somewhere will be able to bring this chaos we see around us under control. It is not going to happen.

Remember the ancient curse – “May you live in interesting times” - well, it may come as a revelation to you, but all times are interesting times.

I don’t have a crystal ball, nor am I clairvoyant, but I can tell you all: BUCKLE UP, we are in for a wild ride.

Climate change: Let’s all panic now

Rare levels of Greenland ice melt
NASA reports satellites show ice melt
Sudden massive ice melt in Greenland
Not so fast ... seems it has happened before
Oh, and by the way, there is this rift in Antarctica that is melting ice
Ok … I will admit that I am very agnostic about anthropomorphic climate change. Recently, the news was about a NASA release that “unprecedented” amounts of the ice sheet in Greenland (which really isn’t green much these days as it is almost completely covered in ice) melting due to higher than “normal” temperatures.
Oops, later they admitted that it seems to happen about every 150 years or so, and the last time was in the 1880s. Maybe this isn’t unprecedented. And maybe, just maybe, it ain’t all the humans fault.
Oh, that is the last story cited up top … it seems that this huge rift valley has been discovered in Antarctica. This rift allows warmer seawater to come in under the snow and ice pack and … melt some of it, weakening the ice shelf, which in turn makes it more susceptible to break off. Oops, another example of Mother Nature doing her own thing without having us humans to blame. You see rifts are where the crust of the earth comes up from below … you know, volcanoes, warm rock, that kind of stuff.
Ok, I admit we humans are doing a good job trashing the parts of the planet where we are and that not only does change the environment but also the ecology. But, while we could do a whole lot less trashing, the problem always has been how and who does it. Being on top of the pile, I don’t want to go down. Sorry, but if it is up to me, I ain’t going. Besides, I am probably not going to be here long enough longer to make a whole hill of beans difference.
The real problem is that nobody wants to go down, and everybody wants to come up. I wish them luck. Granted, there probably are enough resources on the planet, if used efficiently and wisely, to make that happen. But we all know how wise and efficient us humans really are.
So what do you do? My suggestion, as heartless as it may sound, is to let Mother Nature take her course. And by that I don’t mean that we humans should try to blow each other up, just because we can. Of course, that always is an alternative, but I suspect about the time we humans start really coming to blows, Mother Nature already will have stoked the pot, so to speak, with famines, plagues and other pestilence. That is her way of evening things out. She does it with “wild” animals, why should we human beings be all that different? Because we are sentient enough to realize that God exists? As thankful as I am for being here (there were several times when I wasn’t so sure and one time, I am convinced I got told it was not my time yet, but I know you all won’t probably believe that so leave me with my own delusions), I also think that we really are not in control of things either. And I don’t think we should delude ourselves into thinking that we really are. God may control things but I long ago gave up asking where God was leading us and just said my Serenity Prayer and tried to find the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Still, us humans, being as cocky as we are, like to think we really are in control of events and our environment. So, we get all in a dither about ice melting, when it seems to be a rather routine occurrence when you look at the geologic history of the world.
Oh, well, we will die on December 21 (or is it 23) this year anyway.

Short memories

Suggested reading:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/us/us-drought/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

http://weather.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/07/16/2012-drought-one-of-the-worst-in-history/

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/48202640/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/us-drought-2012-widest-since-1956_n_1676936.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/midwest-drought-2012-us-worse_n_1676967.html?ref=topbar

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ag-sec-vilsack-wishes-rain-prayer-combat-painful-191255266.html

Ok, every one, the sky IS falling. Run out, run around, jump and shout. The world obviously is coming to an end and it is all the fault of the stupid Americans and their dumb gas-guzzling car lifestyle. I mean if it wasn’t for anthropomorphic-caused climate change, the breadbasket of the America (and as well as for much of the world) wouldn’t be baking in the heat this summer.

Granted, much of the US is suffering under the worst drought in 25 years and probably in the last 56 years (but not in the last 75 years and before that, who the heck really knows).

But droughts are nothing unheard of. If one chooses, one can look back through several millennia of recorded human existence and droughts seem to be a rather routine occurrence. Some have been worse, others not so worse, but they keep on happening with astonishing frequency regardless of what us humans do or do not do. What do us people want? Do we think we can control the weather? I mean I know we can do a lot of things, but I don’t think we have mastered the climate just yet, nor do we really have all that much influence on it.

The problem, it seems, that – at least in America – we constantly living under what I call “a condition of historical amnesia.” If it didn’t happen yesterday, or if I haven’t seen it on television via CNN/FOX/NBC/ABC./CBS, then it never happened and what is happening today is unlike anything that has gone before.

What a bunch of equine fecal material. I find it sad that history seems to be such a neglected subject in American schools today; because without knowing, and having some understanding, of history, then you have no context with which to evaluate and understand anything that is happening today. You won’t know what terms really mean when people start bandying them around, oftentimes misusing or misrepresenting these terms to the point you almost have to believe the sky IS falling.

Now, I am not trying to be Pollyannaish (probably an obscure reference to anyone under the age of 40), but the sky is NOT falling. The skies, the weather, the climate, the world, people, all are doing what they have done for millennia: They are changing.

The world is not static. It is dynamic and things are always happening AND changing. Often, these things seem to run in cycles and because of the cyclical nature of our planet and its orbit around the sun, there probably is some validity to that.

This does mean that if we know what has gone before, and hopefully gain some understanding of that, then we can do something different than before with hopefully a better outcome.

Panic is not an option. It is a waste of time, energy and usually resources like money, which we have scarce enough as it is.

However, we have to realize that certain things happen when things like droughts happen.

First: the price of food WILL go up. This is so simple it hardly bears mentioning, but you will see a lot of panic stories coming on the rising price of food. Drought=Poorer Crops=Less Food in the Supply Chain. When supply goes down, price goes up – basic law of economics.

Second: The price of other things depending on those crops will go up for the same reason.

Third: Water will be valuable and be in short supply. Its price may also go up.

Fourth: Energy, especially those blended fuels with biomaterial, will be more expensive. It also will be in more demand, so what supplies we have will have to be stretched.

So, if we know a) droughts happen (and will happen, over and over again) and b) that there really isn’t anything we REALLY can do to alter the weather, then anybody proposing drastic solutions to protect the climate really is blowing smoke.

We also know that times are going to be tough and money tight. Plan for it. History tells you it is going to happen, now and again, and again, and again. It is kinda silly not to learn from the past, isn’t it.

Forest fires and the environment

Reference Story/backrounder

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/48087842/#48087842

The hue and cry is going up that climate change (a pseudonym for human-caused global warming) is to blame for the wildfires that have been scorching western states this year and for the loss of very expensive homes in the fire zones around certain cities.

With all due respect, what a bunch of hokum.

First, I grew up in California and I have a long legend with wildfires … even had to fight one … so I think I know enough to make relatively intelligent comment.

Second, I will never, ever deny that the climate might be changing … or that it might be getting hotter. So, what? The climate changes every year. Climate is not some static thing that never changes, but is always changing. Sometimes hotter, sometimes colder.

Now, you have to realize that we only have semi-accurate records for much of the world that go back, maybe, 125 years. Oh, yeah, we can estimate what temperatures and the climate was before then, through tree rings and ice cores, but that is all they are … estimates … educated guesses. We really don’t have accurate data from everywhere to make the claim that we “know” exactly what the weather was like on the planet more than about 50 years ago … when we started putting satellites up to orbit the earth and take measurements. Before that, the records are spotty and in some places, totally absent.

So, to blame humans for all the climate changes is yet another example of human hubris that thinks that the world is us, rather than something bigger than we humans are. Do the things we do contribute to climate change … undoubtedly, but it is not the cause. On a planet that is 4 BILLION years old, scientists will tell you that the surface of the earth has warmed to much hotter than it is now, as well as cooled to much colder than it is now.

How does this apply to the wild fires? Well, by implication, if we humans weren’t screwing the environment up with our cars and power plants and housing developments, all those pretty forests (and all those expensive houses with the great mountain views) wouldn’t be burning. What a bunch of fecal material.

For more than 20 years various forest/wild fire experts have been arguing over the “let it burn” strategy. The strategy basically says that wild fires are a natural event and it is better to just let them burn out than to run yourself crazy trying to stomp out all the embers. The other school of thought, that started about 40 years earlier, was to stomp out forest fires wherever they were found. Thank you Smokey The Bear for all those years that you put that message out that “only YOU can prevent forest fires”.

Then in the great Yellowstone fire of 1988, foresters thought they learned a lot … that maybe fire wasn’t a bad thing after all, but actually was part of the natural cycle of the forest. Hello, even I knew that as a kid. There are some things that happen in the wild that absolutely require high temperatures (and we are not talking about 100 degrees or so) for the forest to regenerate naturally. Forests, like people, are born, mature, die and are reborn again, just like the rest of the life cycle that we humans are familiar with.

So, the elements … nature … Gaia … whatever … have conspired for the western US to undergo a very dry and fiery season; not that it hasn’t happened before. The 1930s were like that, only most of us were not around to experience that. Some are noticing that conditions are much like they were during the days of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. I hate to say it, but our environmental footprint, with less than half the population and far less of the technology than we have today, was much smaller than it is now. Was man at fault then?

Well, some will tell you that man was, but I think history would show that the earth and its ecology hiccups now and again, at long and short intervals and nothing man has done, can do or will do, really will have all that much an impact. We just don’t have enough data to say that we can - or can't - do anything. We basically are trying to extrapolate what will happen from an snapshot and a bunch of guesses, old stories and assumptions. That is not a good way to make very accurate prognoses. But in our hubris, we think we can tell the world how much it is caused by X, Y or Z.

So, my take is: Wildfires happen. They will continue to happen. Some years they will be worse than others, some years better. But like volcanoes and earthquakes, rain and snow, wind and running water, it all is part of the natural cycle of Planet Earth. Now, you can go with the flow and try to adapt to the changes, or you can futilely try to make changes that will stop or slow the pace of change. IF you choose the latter, you will either drive yourself crazy or you could cause the death of a large portion of the human species.

Of course, a large portion of the human species will die off anyway, because that too is part of the natural cycle of things. Humans have no real predator (we ARE the top of the food chain on Earth) and so there are none of those to put any checks on our population. So, instead, we have famine and wars to do that job, along with natural disasters like storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanos and an occasional asteroid impact. But it is not time to run out screaming that the sky is falling or the end of the earth is near if we don’t stop changing the environment, because that is not the problem.

Also, if you are really concerned about fire burning down your pretty house in the forest with the great mountain view … then accept the fact that Mother Nature has a vote on where you live and if you don’t like that, move somewhere else … but remember, no matter where you move … Mother Nature still has a voice.