Prelude from Bach´s Cello Suite No. 1

Finis du vin

I like to fancy myself a team player and a good neighbor. When I got the word that the wine bar down the street was forced to go out of business by a mean spirited shrew of a landlord I knew that something had to be done.

In order to do my duty I was sitting on one of their comfortable bar stools five out of six nights last week. I drank the cabs, the zins, both malbec and shiraz, pinot's and barberas with nary a pause. I pretty much drank what they put in front of me. Friday morning I was hurting. Couldn't destroy any more internal parts and skipped the last day. I was there early the next morning to eat upstairs and the sign and every vestige of their identity had been removed from the exterior walls.

The Gnarly Vine was a really neat place. Just getting the right crowd of regulars. A rare place for my generation to hang without a lot of idiots around. Great sound. Gone. Poof. We wish John and Lura the best of luck and hope that they find another location and even surpass this fantastic effort next time.

Hot and Cold

I heard an interesting interview on NPR with Heidi Cullen last week. She has written a new book, The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet about how warming events can contribute to increased snowfall in this country and cause other assorted climactic aberrations.  I found it quite interesting. The podcast. And I reprint the transcript, courtesy of NPR. And another podcast from Dr. Martin Hoerling at the NOAA.

TERRY GROSS, host:


This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.


This summer of record-breaking heat followed a spring that brought some of the most extreme weather on record. My guest, climatologist Heidi Cullen writes: It's time to face the fact that the weather isn't what it used to be.


She's the author of the book "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet." It's just been published in paperback. And she's a senior research scientist with Climate Central, a journalism and research organization.


We're going to talk about how climate change appears to be creating extreme weather in winter and summer. And we're going to consider the cities Cullen says are likely to be the most vulnerable to extreme weather.


Heidi Cullen, welcome to FRESH AIR.


What makes this month's heat wave in the U.S. unusual - different from other heat waves?


Ms. HEIDI CULLEN (Research Scientist, Climate Central): I think what's really special about this heat wave is just the sheer size and scope of it. I mean, it basically at one point it was affecting more than 140 million people here in the U.S. And so it's massive in size. It's been a long heat wave and so in many respects this is exactly the kind of thing we can expect to see a lot more of as the planet warms up.


GROSS: Before we get to why you think this is a result of climate change, which is, I think, what you're saying, what are some of the records that this month's heat wave has set so far? And I'll say, we're recording this on Friday, July 22nd. So...


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah. So we could see even more records set today. But, you know, for example, Wichita Falls, Texas had over 54 days of 100 plus temperatures, 27 consecutive days reaching at least 100. Tyler, Texas, we saw 32 days this year of 100 degree readings. So, I mean, it's just that the magnitude and the length of what we're seeing here - Mobile, Alabama, 50 consecutive 90-degree days. So it has just been excruciatingly long period of hot weather.


And I think what's really interesting is that it's one of these things where you really get the sense that everything is connected. Because the heat is remarkable, but the other thing that's really special about this heat wave is the fact that the water vapor, the moisture is so high. And that actually ties straight back to the spring and when we had, you know, epic flooding and the fact that, you know, all of this floodwater that's been, you know, seeped out into the ground, these high temperatures, kind of like a blast furnace, is evaporating that moisture and that's leading to these really high dew points and these high overnight temperatures.


And those are the kinds of things that, you know, public health officials get really, really worried about.


GROSS: OK. I think maybe I lost you. So maybe you can explain that a little more. How did the floods from the spring contribute to the heat we're experiencing now and the high temperatures at night?


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah. So, basically we've just got really wet soil in the Midwest. And so, you know, a lot of these high temperatures that we saw in places like Detroit and Chicago, the Midwest region in general, you know, we've just ground that's incredibly wet. We've also got, you know, corn fields that are evaporating moisture. And so the high heat basically sends this additional moisture into the air. And so now we've not only got high temperatures, but also really high humidity levels.


GROSS: And that contributes to the heat? The high humidity?


Ms. CULLEN: Well, that's where your heat index comes from. And so, for example, a place like Moorhead, Minneapolis, it actually recorded a temperature of - a heat index temperature of 134 degrees on July 19th, which made it the hottest place on Earth on that day.


GROSS: Wow. And does the humidity make it more difficult for the atmosphere to cool off at night?


Ms. CULLEN: You know, it means we've got these high overnight temperatures. And, you know, it's, you know, public health officials in cities especially get really worried when they see these, what we call high dew points, these high moisture levels because, you know, for older folks and for, you know, young children, just, it makes it really hard for your body to sweat and to cool off.


And so, you know, when we look back to these, you know, these really epic heat waves that we've seen in the past where hundreds of people have died, like, say, Chicago in 1995, it was, you know, this incredibly high moisture that led to these high mortality rates.


GROSS: Your sweat doesn't cool you when the humidity is high because it doesn't evaporate because the atmosphere already has so much moisture in it?


Ms. CULLEN: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.


GROSS: I was really surprised to read in - I forget whether it was one of your articles or in your book - that heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather-related event. And that astonished me, considering how dangerous blizzards and hurricanes and tornados are.


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah. I think it's one of those statistics that definitely surprises a lot of people. Because, you know, we have a tendency, you know, our visual strength, you know, we always want to see these extreme events. And so things like tornadoes and hurricanes, these incredibly visual weather events, we just associate them with being more deadly. And that's always been sort of the sinister aspect of heat, which is, you know, from a television standpoint, you know, what kind of imagery do you show to really make people understand that this is an incredibly deadly situation?


It's a really tough kind of thing to convey with visual images. So you just, you see images like water fountains spraying water and people at the beach, but those are not necessarily the things that our brain thinks of as dangerous. But it really, really is.


GROSS: So people are dying, like, in un-air conditioned homes, people who are elderly?


Ms. CULLEN: Well, and this is - you know, this is one of the things that folks talk about a lot, which was, you know, for example, during the Chicago heat wave, there was this sort of epidemic of older people dying alone. And it was sort of an indication that our social network had broken down. And it's, you know, really interesting to see that, you know, since then, cities like Chicago, cities like Philadelphia have taken enormous measures to be really responsive during epic heat events like we're seeing.


So, for example, in a city like Philadelphia, they will be sure to keep the electricity running so that folks can leave their air conditioning on even if they haven't paid their bills. They will have a buddy system where they send folks out to check on elderly neighbors. Because we've learned from, you know, circumstances in the past that tell us that we really need to have mechanisms in place to keep people safe. So, cooling shelters are open. It's a disaster that doesn't necessarily look like a disaster, but we've learned from past mistakes and cities are taking really strong measures to prevent deaths.


GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Heidi Cullen. She's a research scientist at Climate Central, which is a journalism and research organization. And she's the author of the book "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet." The book just came out in paperback.


So you implied that you think this July heat wave that has overcome so much of the United States can be attributed to global warming. How can you make that analysis? Like, what information do you use as a climatologist to figure out what's just a normal, weird weather pattern? You know, when I say normal, I mean there's a certain amount of extreme weather that is normal to have over a period of time. So how do you know whether this heat wave is part of that or whether it's attributed to climate change?


Ms. CULLEN: You know, I think the easiest way to make a comparison and, actually, the way climate scientists try to attribute a specific weather event to something like climate change, it's based on techniques that we use in epidemiology. So in the same way that we'll do, you know, an autopsy on someone's who's died to try to understand, you know, the cause of death, we do the same thing with weather events. So we essentially do weather autopsies.


And, you know, one of the things that we know very well about climate change and the way it connects to our weather is that climate change makes weather more extreme and specifically we know that climate change has a tendency to produce more frequent heat waves, larger heat waves, just more intense heat waves. And I think that that's kind of the way we have to look at the fact that, you know, climate change, the fact that we are burning fossil fuels is literally working itself into our weather. And so the same way we know that cigarettes cause lung cancer, we know that climate change causes more extreme heat.


GROSS: But I know a lot of scientists say you can say that a long-term pattern is attributed to climate change, but you can't say any specific event. You can't say any specific hurricane or heat wave or blizzard is part of global warming - so, you know, is attributed to global warming. So when you do an autopsy on this summer's heat wave what are you investigating to decide whether it's, you know, attributed to climate change or not?


Ms. CULLEN: Man, that's such a great question. I think that's sort of one of the hard things about climate change to wrap your head around is the fact that, you know, we have this tendency, especially in journalism, we want to have this kind of lone gunman theory where, you know, was this climate change? Was it caused by climate change? Well, we have to keep in mind that all weather essentially is now borne into this warmer moisture environment that weve produced over the past century. And so, you know, overall the tendency is for more extreme weather then its now.


When climate scientists approach an individual weather event and sort of attempt to do this weather autopsy, what they really need to do is a very complex analysis where they take a climate model that strictly Mother Nature -just all natural - and then they have a climate model that has human activity in it. So specifically the burning of fossil fuels that release heat-trapping pollution, and then we ask the question: to what extent did human actions increase the likelihood of that event happening? And so, for example, with the European heat wave of 2003, we know that human action, that our presence on this planet, doubled or possibly quadrupled the likelihood of that event happening. And it becomes a thought experiment, essentially, where as we move into the future, basically something like, you know, the weather event that we're seeing right now with the European heat wave of 2003, it essentially becomes the new normal.


And I think with climate change, it's so hard for a lot of us to just wrap our brains around what it means. But it's one of these things that literally works its way into our weather, and as we move forward in time, our weather just gets tougher to deal with, essentially.


GROSS: But when you look at blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, cold waves, do you see extreme patterns in all of those weather phenomena?


Ms. CULLEN: We can see it clearly in some of those. So for example, wildfires, we can already see an increase in wildfire activity. That falls straight out of the physics - is as you warm up the planet, the more likelihood of wildfires is expected to increase in the Western United States. We can actually also seek it in precipitation. So if you look at data sets of rainfall and of the heaviest types of rainfalls, starting in the 1950s, we can see a clear increase in the number of extreme rainfall events.


And in a place like the Northeast, we've seen a roughly 65 percent increase in these very extreme storms. And these are the kinds of storms that, you know, that floods cities, that overflow storm drains, that, you know, make it tough for city planners to deal with. And, you know, when you - as you move forward in time again, more of these kinds of storms are going to be happening. And it's just one of these things where, you know, we can procrastinate or we can start to deal with it now.


GROSS: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just released what it calls its set of new climate normals. What are climate normals?


Ms. CULLEN: So climate normals are basically the 30-year average of weather, essentially. And I think this is where one of those areas where for a lot of people it's tough to understand, you know, just the difference between weather and climate. And I think, you know, Mark Twain said it best: climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. And so every 30 years NOAA basically recalculates the climate normals. So last year we were dealing with the period from 1971 to 2000. And now we've got the new normal, which goes from 1981 to 2010.


GROSS: So if Noah is looking at temperatures over the last 30 years, what is it giving us, average temperatures per day? Per year? What are we getting?


Ms. CULLEN: It is giving us average temperatures, average high temperatures, average low temperature, average rainfall. And this is for, you know, roughly 7,500 cities across the United States. So it's a really nice, you know, just kind of the pulse of how our climate is shifting with time.


GROSS: So what do you find most impressive about the set of new normals that was just released?


Ms. CULLEN: Basically that every state in the Lower 48 has gotten warmer, which is completely consistent with what we expect from climate change, from the fact that we are burning fossil fuels and warming up the planet. You know, it's just again, sort of just this nice evidence of the forecast that we're making for the future. So basically, you know, the 2000s, the decade of the 2000s was about one-and-a-half degrees warmer than the decade of the 1970s and it's just, you know, this kind of snapshot of a restless climate and how it's changing and, you know, the fact that we can basically expect it to continue to warm as we move forward.


GROSS: If youre just joining us, my guest is Heidi Cullen. She's a research scientist at Climate Central, which is a journalism and research organization. And she's the author of the book "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet." The book has just come out in paperback.


Heidi, let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. Okay?


Ms. CULLEN: Okay.


GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.


(Soundbite of music)


GROSS: If youre just joining us, my guest is Heidi Cullen. She's a research scientist at Climate Central, which is a journalism and research organization and she's the author of the book "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet," which has just been published in paperback.


Now I want to ask you about the wave the tornadoes that hit the Midwest earlier this year. What was unusual about that pattern of tornadoes?


Ms. CULLEN: Ah, it was interesting, because first of all, you know, there was so many. We broke records with this past tornado season and, you know, they were incredibly powerful. And interestingly enough, you know, they were all shifted to the east, which meant that they were sitting over higher population centers and so just, you know, the fatalities were enormous. I mean it was just - it was an incredibly deadly tornado season and, you know, again it just when we see these kinds of extremes it raises all kinds of questions about, you know, what does this mean for the future?


GROSS: So what causes a tornado and how does that relate to climate change?


Ms. CULLEN: So - it's a really good question. And, you know, basically two key ingredients for tornado are youve got fronts colliding together and just so a massive exchange of energy. And two ingredients that you need, that global warming affects, is wind shear, which is changing wind speed and direction with height, and the other is water vapor. Tornadoes really like lots of moisture. And we know that global warming is going to affect both of those things. We expect water vapor to increase. As I said before, we expect our planet to get, not just warmer but also moister. The thing we don't really know is we don't how climate change or global warming is going to impact wind shears. So the jury is kind of still out with respect to tornadoes.


We know that La Nina, which is a natural climate phenomena, definitely played a role in this year's tornado season, but we don't really know exactly how climate change is going to impact tornadoes as we move forward into the future with respect to, you know, the kinds of quantities we care about - things like the frequency of tornadoes, the overall geographic location of tornadoes and the intensity. And that's basically one of these areas of intensive research right now.


GROSS: So you can't say for sure that the wave of tornadoes that we saw this year can be attributed to climate change.


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah, I mean tornadoes are tough, just because the data, the records aren't so great, Doppler radar wasn't really invented until the 70s. And so, you know, it's just we don't have a long enough record to really get a sense of, you know, the changes over time in tornadoes. But like I said, these two key ingredients, wind shear and water vapor, we know that global warming is going to mess with both of those. It's just a question of, you know, whether it will mess with them in such a way that we see more frequent, more intense tornadoes. And that's, you know, it's going to be interesting to see where the science comes out on that.


GROSS: So I live in Philadelphia, which gets, you know, it gets some snow in the winter. And I don't like very cold temperatures. I don't really like snow. So when I hear, you know, that because of climate change cities like Philadelphia are getting warmer in the winter, part of me thinks well, at least there's a, you know, an upside to climate change.


(Soundbite of laughter)


GROSS: You know, it'll be warmer in the winter.


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah. Yeah.


GROSS: But that doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be less snow, right?


Ms. CULLEN: That's right. In fact, you know, one of the really interesting research questions right now is to what extent does sea ice melt in the Arctic open up the potential for snowier winters in the Northeast? And that's one of these active research questions right now. And so basically what scientists are looking at is the fact that okay, as we expose more ocean in the Arctic to the atmosphere, that's another potential source of moisture and you have the potential for, you know, epic snowstorms. And so the question of how does melting Arctic sea ice contribute to snowier winters is, I think, a really fascinating research question.


GROSS: So it's possible that in Northeast cities the temperature will be a little warmer but there will be more blizzards and snowstorms.


Ms. CULLEN: That's right. I mean in terms of the temperature connection, you only need it to be still cold enough for snow to happen. But if you have more moisture to fuel these storms, then we could potentially see snowier winters.


GROSS: Now people who live in cold climates, I think it's fair to say, really look forward to spring. You say that there have been early spring in many places in the United States, and that always sounds like good news to me. You know, like oh, maybe that's the upside of climate change, early spring. What's the problem with early spring?


Ms. CULLEN: Well, you know, the problem with early spring is just the timing of water releases, essentially. So, okay, if spring comes earlier, it sort of comes on with a vengeance. For example, you know, the Midwest flooding that we've seen, you know, a lot of colleagues in the climate field right now are saying that these flooding events that we've been seeing in the Midwest, it's part of the new normal. And that's a problem. And in a place like California, for example...


GROSS: But relate that to early spring. Like what's the connection?


Ms. CULLEN: So, you know, basically if you have snow pack melting earlier and melting quickly, then that's when you see the potential for significant flooding events. And that was one of the risks that we saw play out this past spring. And even just from, you know, the larger standpoint of say water resources, the question of how we are going to manage our water resources in the U.S. Southwest, a place where, you know, the population is growing dramatically. When spring comes earlier and Sierra's snow pack melts a lot sooner, that means you've got a lot less water left in your bank account come summer, and that creates, you know, a whole set of problems that need to be managed.


GROSS: Heidi Cullen will be back in the second half of the show. Her book "The Weather of the Future" has just been published in paperback. She's a senior research scientist with Climate Central, a journalism and research organization.


I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.


(Soundbite of music)


GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with climatologists Heidi Cullen. We're talking about extreme weather and other consequences of climate change. She's the author of the book "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet." She's a senior research scientist with Climate Central, a journalism and research organization, and a visiting lecturer at Princeton University.


In your book, you do an analysis of the five cities most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change. And those places include: New York City, Miami, the Central Valley of California, which is the Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta, Fairbanks, Alaska and Las Vegas.


Let's talk about a couple of those cities and why you think they're most vulnerable to climate change. Can you start with New York City?


Ms. CULLEN: Absolutely. And, you know, I'll just say that the reason I wanted to look at specific cities is because ultimately climate change is going to be one of these problems that's going to be dealt with at the local level. And, you know, I was at the Weather Channel...


GROSS: When you say dealt with, you mean adapting to it. You don't mean changing the climate.


Ms. CULLEN: I mean adapting to. And I think a lot of the, you know, energy and just a passion that were seen to solve this problem is happening in our cities. So mayors...


GROSS: True. Mm-hmm.


Ms. CULLEN: Like Mayor Nutter in Philadelphia and Mayor Bloomberg. It's the mayors who are really, you know, they're dealing with the impact. They've got to deal with these heat extremes that we're seeing, for example, and they're dealing with the fact that their infrastructure is getting older. And so, you know, I think cities are a really great place to look.


And, you know, when I was at the Weather Channel, I was they're during Katrina and it was one of these situations where I was the expert and, you know, the meteorologists have this tremendous job of trying to communicate to the public that, you know, the Gulf Coast was extreme risk, you know, incredible vulnerability. And as the climate scientist, it was one of the situations where, you know, I could point to case studies that were done 20 years earlier say eventually a hurricane is going to hit New Orleans and this is what is going to play out if we don't do something right now. And so it was like all of these classic kind of scientific projections just playing out on live TV in the sense that, you know, we saw all of this coming and if we had just begun to work on reducing the vulnerability of that city upfront, we would have seen so much less damage.


And the same thing applies to, you know, places like the San Joaquin Delta, where, you know, right now the Delta provides water for two out of three Californians. It grows about 90 different crops. It is literally is the hub of California's water supply system and its agricultural system. And, you know, it's just one of these places, a lot like New Orleans, that's just incredibly vulnerable because it's a levy-based system. And so, you know, between the kinds of flood events, because of earlier spring that we could see more of in the future or even a catastrophic earthquake, we know that that area, which is incredibly critical to California's economy, is at tremendous risk.


And, you know, right now for example, calculations show that the probability is roughly two and three, that during the next 50 years a large flood or an earthquake will hit the Delta. So the Delta is just a perfect example of a place that is becoming increasingly vulnerable but is incredibly critical to California's water infrastructure.


GROSS: So let's get back to New York City. Why is New York City especially vulnerable to climate change?


Ms. CULLEN: Well, the island of Manhattan, you know, large population, coastal area. We know, for example, as the planet warms up, you know, heat extremes are going to be a problem. Electricity is going to become a problem. And even, you know, things like flooding events, storm surge, these are the kinds of risks that we expect to see more of and the creeping sea level rise issues. So, you know, New York City has all of these different factors in play and, you know, it's again, it's an incredibly important center, so it becomes a place that, you know, Mayor Bloomberg has already put plans in place to reduce energy usage, to become more efficient and to invest in infrastructure to just reduce the overall vulnerability of the city.


GROSS: The infrastructure in New York, like the sewer system in so many places, is so old it's not equipped for the new amount of precipitation that we're getting.


Ms. CULLEN: Exactly. Exactly. And so the significant concerns from flooding subways, from flooding tunnels, from, you know airport runways that are very close to sea level. So it, you know, it becomes incredibly important to think through - if we're seeing the hundred-year flood, for example, occur more and more frequently. A city like New York, it's going to have to be able to respond to that changing climate, that new normal, for example and rebuild its infrastructure.


So, you know, one great example is, you know, a power plant in New York City, in fact. They're building a new power plant and they've incorporated sea level rise. This is a power plant in Sunset Park and they're going to build it four feet higher just to, you know, address the fact that sea level rise is expected to be about one foot higher. Sea level is expected to be one foot higher by 2050. And, you know, again, it's just stuff that we know is going happen, so the sooner we can plan for it the better.


GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Heidi Cullen. She's a research scientist at Climate Central, which is a journalism and research organization. And she's the author of the book, "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet."


Let's take a break here, then we'll talk some more.


This is FRESH AIR.


(Soundbite of music)


GROSS: My guest is Heidi Cullen. She's a research scientist at Climate Central, which is a journalism and research organization. And she's the author of the book, "The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet." It's just been published in paperback.


Miami is one of the five cities you describe as being most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change. Why Miami?


Ms. CULLEN: Yeah, Miami again, you know, low-lying city, low-lying city on the coast. You've got hurricane risk. You've got storm surge, flooding risk. I mentioned before that we're already seeing more extreme rainfall events. And so when you talk to city planners in Miami, for example, they're already seeing, you know, flood events that fill up the streets happen more and more frequently.


Other interesting thing about Miami is that, you know, its water is very vulnerable to creeping sea level rise - so something called saltwater intrusion. And, you know, again, when you look at cities really going out there and working on, you know, creating a more sustainable future, Miami has a plan in place called Green Print that is trying to address sea level rise, increased heat, saltwater intrusion, and they're essentially trying to use at activation strategies that work together with emergency management.


And so, you know, emergency management being, you know, those first responders that are out there after a hurricane hits. And to really bring together the emergency management community and the climate change adaptation community and say look, any kind of infrastructure upgrades that we put in place now for the future also help us right now for the kinds of extreme weather events that Miami already sees.


GROSS: You say Miami would be more vulnerable to disease if climate change continues. Why disease?


Ms. CULLEN: So for example, when it comes to things like disease and pests, we know that, you know, the risk of things like West Nile Virus for example, is going to increase.


GROSS: Because mosquitoes love that kind of moist, swampy...


Ms. CULLEN: Exactly. And I mean this is sort of where this whole notion of the new normal comes into play in the sense that climate is one of these things that, you know, it's kind of invisible. When you think about it climate is a statistical construct. It is the average of weather over long periods of time. But it makes its way into just every aspect of our lives, and so everything has to adapt. Species adapt to a changing climate, and mosquitoes, poison ivy, all of that kind of stuff is going to change as we move forward in time.


GROSS: Fairbanks, Alaska, one of the five cities that you mentioned being portable to extreme climate and climate change. So what do you predict would happen in Fairbanks if climate change continues in the same pattern?


Ms. CULLEN: You know, I think two of the big risks for Alaska - Fairbanks being part of that - is wildfires. We expect wild fires to increase substantially as the world warms up. And then the other interesting thing is that Alaska is 85 percent permafrost. Permafrost basically being frozen ground. And as the Arctic warms up, that permafrost begins to thaw and that is going to be a headache in terms of infrastructure. So those are two really big concerns that folks are dealing with right now.


GROSS: You say that Alaska's average temperature has increased 3.4 degrees and the winters have warmed 6.3 degrees - compared to when?


Ms. CULLEN: That's, that is I believe since the 1950s.


GROSS: So is that a lot?


Ms. CULLEN: Those numbers are really big and actually completely consistent with what we expect in the sense that we expect the higher latitudes, the northern regions of the world to warm up the most, and we expect to see the signal strongest in the winter. And we can really, really see that in Alaska. So, you know, when folks talk about Alaska as this canary in a coalmine, it's just the fact that the warming is hitting the northern regions the hardest right now.


GROSS: You say that we have to prepare for climate change and adapt. And we also have to do things that will slow down climate change. So in your list of things that we should be doing as individuals and as a nation, what do you see is that priorities?


Ms. CULLEN: I think that first, we just really need to say, you know what? This is really real. It's really happening and to just get started fixing it. And I think this notion of adapting our infrastructure, looking at our cities - and we're seeing this play out. Lots of cities and states are coming up with adaptation plans. So accessing the risks and their specific vulnerabilities at the local level, you know, whether it's heat-related or flooding-related, just getting plans in place. And, you know, then it's like I said, this kind of bigger scientific research question of how are we going to fuel the planet as it gets more crowded and it gets hotter? And how do we invest in technologies that just remove our dependence on fossil fuels?


You know, it's really interesting because when you look at the U.S. - you know, when I was at the Weather Channel, I always used to feel like we focused too much on the negative. We focused on tornado coverage and hurricane coverage. But there's actually, you know, really positive aspects to weather. And when you look at our country, you know, we've got this tremendous wind belt in the Midwest. We have, you know, an incredibly rich solar area in the U.S. Southwest and, you know, the calculations basically tell us that if we put a 100 square mile solar array in sort of the four corners regions of the U.S. Southwest, that would supply all of our electricity needs. And so, you know, what I'm saying is we can actually build it. You know, we can do this. We can fix this, but we need to say it's as important as getting to the moon.


GROSS: When you look at all the extreme weather patterns in the United States do you see a place that you think as being safest from extreme weather?


Ms. CULLEN: You know, interestingly enough, I think every place comes with its own set of vulnerabilities. But, you know, the coasts are incredibly vulnerable. And I think that it's really hard for us to really wrap our brains around the fact that sea level rise, for example in a city like New York, could actually mean that water levels are about a foot higher by the middle of this century. And when you look at a projection of just all of the coastline that will be lost as sea level continues to rise, we are literally going to have to deal with the fact that we're going to have to move inland.


And, you know, you talk to a city planner in Miami, you know, that is just a topic that is off-limits right now. But, you know, we know it's going to happen. We know that we're going to have to deal with it at some point.


GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.


Ms. CULLEN: Thank you so much for having me.


GROSS: Heidi Cullen. Heidi is the author of the book "The Weather of the Future. It's just been published in paperback. Heidi Cullen. She's a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and a senior research scientist at Climate Central. 

Softie in Chief

Well they got the debt deal done. That old fox Obama sure showed those Republicans a thing or two. Gave them everything they asked for. No revenue increase. Deep cuts. No unemployment extension. Balanced budget amendment. Super Congress. I can hear Boehner's cackling way out here in San Diego.

The President pinioned his democratic rank and file countryman in the most basic triangulation move imaginable. That everyone saw coming. He basically folded like a deck of cards. You don't play poker with guys like these unless you know what you're doing. Mitch McConnell must be really chortling tonight. The President was all bluster after all. He blinked. What a loser. Pitiful.

My dad would occasionally take me to the bullfights in Tijuana when I was a kid. Saw the great Eloy Cavazos. Lomelin. Lots of the sixties greats. The worst thing you could say about a matador was El Matador no tiene huevos. Mi presidente tambien. A maricón. Punked.

I was packing at the shop today. Brett came over and some guy from Obama's re-election group called me for a donation. I laughed at the guy and told him about my distaste for the president and his evident willingness to screw his base. The guy thought about it for a second and told me he agreed with me. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have a choice to make. You GOP guys want to burn the house down? Guess what, we can to, you can stick the deal right up your ass.

"On The Road"

Hush Little Baby

Inga Swearingen

Joe Ely ~ Me and Billy the Kid

Summer Rain.

Spaceships hiding behind clouds next to rainbows. Ah road trips can be beautiful. In Arizona heading towards New Mexico with Terry. Whoo hoo!

My friend Victoria just sent this incredible arco iris photograph. Michelin rubber man throwing rainbows.

She is on her way to my next destination, New Mexico. I will be highway bound soon. Millard said a lot of rain this week in Santa Fe.

We got a nice rain here last night, first in many months. Ah, summer rain. Nothing like it. Feels like Hawaii in Fallbrook today.

Pop and Shela

She has tried to do it before. I think it will stick this time. My stepmother called early this afternoon.  My father was put in a permanent home yesterday up in Fresno. He is a sweet old guy now, but we are all visitors in terms of the conversation going on inside the old man's head. He barely walks, in little staccato tip toes, shuffling in terms of centimeters rather than inches. He loves his wife and she loves him but she simply can't care for him anymore. He is too old and too frail and too far gone. Frankly I can tell it's killing her. But she has given her life to this man.

She has done so much and I am so blessed for her being there, the last few years being exceedingly hard on her as my father slid farther and farther into his private personal place. Thank you Shela. You have done everything you could possibly do and I salute your love and the work you have done with this once brilliant and sometimes difficult man.

You have exceeded all possible expectations and measures and more.

*

Life is a bittersweet road. The truth is that you are going to endure losing every person that you have ever loved, unless of course you are lucky enough to go first.

*

I am not going to write my Dad's eulogy. He could outlive me. I will say that we never had much of a relationship until I was about 13 and then things got bad for several years. I never quite turned out the way he wanted me to. But at a certain point we put our knives away, drew a line in the sand and moved forward. As father and son and friends.

We get one run around the block in this life and there is no dress rehearsal and none of us even have a real clue what is actually going on.

You are young and you look up to your parents in their thirties and think they have all the answers and know how everything works in their infinite wisdom. Then you hit your forties yourself and you realize you never really got out of the dark.

I salute my parents and my step mother. We all gave it our best shot.

April Come She Will

Helen's Poem - Title unknown.

I have had so many people tell me how taken they were with Helen McHargue's poem, a poem triggered by her thoughts about her late sister after a fight with her own equilibrium. I don't want to keep copying if for people, since it is squirreled away in a far off corner of the blog presently but not really so easy to find.  I am touched that so many of you were touched by her wisdom and eloquence.

The beauty and brilliance of her poem is easy to grasp. Once again.

Walking straight.
A challenge? Who would guess?
The brilliance of our gyroscope -
Its praises unsung, is a quiet miracle. 


I stagger now and list left-wise.
Loopily, my destinations reached. 
But I see eyebrows raised…
My aura broadcasts “Oddball” 


Aging brings gifts in its wrinkled basket.
Becoming invisible was an unexpected pleasure.
Different again - I’m sticking out.
Looking crazy, looking drunk.


What did you say? I can’t hear you either.
Whisper something in the good ear.
Something kind.
© Helen McHargue

Another soldier with an iLimb.

iLimb Bionic Hand

Born To Wander

Deli Guy is departing for distant ports and we at the blast wish he and Mrs. Deli Guy well! Good health and a great journey.

Nothing Can Bring Me Down

Twilighters, Texas psychedelic/garage band out of Waco, circa 1968. Spiffy video.

MIT's Nexi MDS Robot: First Test of Expression

JJ Cale - Travelling Light

War is not healthy for women and children

Do you realize how sanitized war is these days? Back in the vietnam era, the american public saw photo after photo of flag draped coffins and carnage. Nowadays you might see a shot of a poor soldier learning to use his prosthesis at a rehabilitation hospital but that is about it.

It's easier for the government to conduct wars after they have been cleaned up for public consumption. They can go on for years or decades longer this way.

My friend Warren has a slightly different angle and wrote the following letter to Laura King, the Afghanistan beat writer for the Los Angeles Times:

Subject: la times article.....July 25...

Hi Laura I always have in mind the safety of reporters such as you who do so such a fine job under  what must be dangerous and difficult circumstances......a few thoughts the "poisoning "of soldiers and then shooting them by a fellow soldier appears to be another sad reminder of the cesspool of a corrupt government that the US is literally defending against it's own population.....this week in the Sunday LA times military obit 19 dead and who knows how many wounded....with the exception of usingThe Medal of Honor awarding as a crass self serving public relations "gimmick" President Obama has not visited military hospitals or continually voiced appreciation ....at the very least to the very same military persons .....I  want to make another point that I think is the epitome of the cynicism and carefully omitted  "horrors" endured by service members......I have not seen any casualties suffered by female soldiers.....  this is not misogyny but the fear of a head line that might read....."mother of 3 killed by IUD".......i realize the implications of this statement but giving the proven abilities of woman soldiers in combat I can come up with no other conclusion.....??.....thank you again for your analysis and dedication.....Warren bishop...this observation may not be categorical but I would say....."the exceptions may well prove the rule .....

He in turn received this response:

Hi, sir. Well, one issue with female soldiers who are killed and wounded is that the military here doesn't disclose any ID-type information at the time - that's done a few days after the fact by the Pentagon, and by their home bases. Obviously the numbers are much smaller than of male service members, but deaths and injuries of female soldiers ARE occurring, of course. Maybe I will ask our Pentagon reporter about teaming up on this subject - can't really be reported solely from here unless one happens to be on the scene when such a casualty occurs. 

Thanks as always for your observations -

Best,

Laura

Now Warren (who meant IED, not IUD) brings up an interesting point. Women are already in combat but we never see it. Would the sight of wounded or dead women soldiers be tolerable to the American public? Is it intentionally played down by the Pentagon? Is it a good idea to sanitize a conflict or do you prefer seeing the real horrors of conflict on your television screen. Call me a romantic but I like the vérité of the old days.

The Fugs

Orwellian Bureaucrat of the Year Award

We are in a funny place in this country. Technology is changing light speed fast and people are not taking the time to adequately assess its potential impact on their life. And unfortunately, humans stand blindly by as we continue to watch our rights and civil liberties disappear in front of our soon to be catalogued faces.

I saw this article at boston.com yesterday. A man named John Gass received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles telling him that his license had been revoked. Gass made some frantic calls, had a hearing and realized what happened. A facial recognition system had pulled his picture from a database of millions of state driver’s license images and identified his as a possible fraud.

Gass, after ten days of hearings, managed to get his license reinstated. The computer thought that he looked like another man. Gass is unfortunately not alone. Last year, in Massachusetts alone, over 1000 individuals were wrongly tagged by the facial recog system, because they looked like other people.

“We send out 1,500 suspension letters every day,’’ said Registrar Rachel Kaprielian, who says the system has been a powerful weapon to fight identity fraud since it was installed in 2006 but that it is not without problems. “There are mistakes that can be made.’’

Massachusetts does not keep records on how many licenses have been wrongly revoked. Gass has filed a lawsuit and his lawyer estimates that it is at least in the hundreds.

Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue.


At least 34 states are using such systems. They help authorities verify a person’s claimed identity and track down people who have multiple licenses under different aliases, such as underage people wanting to buy alcohol, people with previous license suspensions, and people with criminal records trying to evade the law.


The system looks at each driver’s license photograph stored in the state’s computers, mapping thousands of facial data points and generating algorithms that compare the images to others in the mathematical database, said State Police spokesman David Procopio. The software then displays licenses with similar-looking photographs - those with two or more images that have a high score for being the same person. Registry analysts review the licenses and check biographical information, criminal records, and drivers’ histories, in part to rule out cases with legitimate explanations, such as drivers who are identical twins.


“No one is angry about the work they have to do to track fraud, but once they saw the error, even the words sorry would go a long way. But I got nothing,’’ he said. “The overwhelming attitude was they couldn’t care less.’’


Kaprielian said the Registry gives drivers enough time to respond to the suspension letters and that it is the individual’s “burden’’ to clear up any confusion. She added that protecting the public far outweighs any inconvenience Gass or anyone else might experience.


“A driver’s license is not a matter of civil rights. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege,’’ she said. “Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that’s an inconvenience, too.’’


This sounds very Big Brotherish to me. Mr. Gass is guilty until proven innocent, the burden resting squarely on his misidentified shoulders. He had to jump through numerous hoops to clear himself according to the full article, because it is easier for his state to use a technology that misidentifies one or two percent of the population base and then makes it that individual's problem than to worry about turning an individual upside down. Your turn to eat the shit sandwich, Mr. Gass. And besides, you are probably guilty of something. No one would apologize to the man, he was just an inconsequential smudge in the machine. Kaprelian's justification for the state's Orwellian tactics and then her glib disavowal of any responsibility and the horror of identity theft makes this Massachusetts democrat my stooge of the week.

***

If my memory serves correctly, facial recognition was used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to identify young protesters during the foment in Iran two years ago. They combed Facebook in order to ascertain people's identities. If the technology is in the wrong hands, lots of bad things can happen. Especially by our governments.

***

Facebook recently raised hackles by enabling face recognition on their zillions of users without notifying them. Hard to opt out when you don't know that you have been opted in. Read about it here. Raises all sorts of privacy questions. Maybe a great tool for pedophiles, especially pedophiles with access to the name and address databases.

***

And then there is the MORIS. Short for mobile offender recognition and information system. This little handheld unit uses iris and biometric scanning technology and feeds into a national database. Manufactured by B12 Technologies out of Plymouth, Mass., the MORIS can attach to an iphone and be instantly checked against a criminal database. Of course nothing can necessarily stop the authorities from shooting and storing data records on everybody they come in contact with, law abiding or not.

***

Google has its own Facial Recognition company this week since it bought PittPatt.  See what the company that vows not to do evil has up its sleeves.

***

BMW has been using face recog technology for years to help alert drivers that are falling asleep.

***

Civil liberties are like gas prices that go up but never really come back to the original base line. Once they have been ceded, you never get them back. We casually discard them at our peril.

Amy

Amy Winehouse never ate at Robert's Le Bistro in Fallbrook but she probably should have.

There, I mentioned her Brett. Are you happy? This will kill two birds with one stone.

People that bitch about the lack of good dining experiences in Fallbrook forget about Le Bistro. For the last 25 years or so, Chef Robert has been turning out wonderful french style cuisine that is always first rate.

I am a sunday brunch regular and sometimes forget about how good their dinners are. René and I went out the other night and had an incredible meal. We split a nice salad. Renée had the scrumptious pork normandy, lightly breaded perfection accompanied by nice tart apple slices.

I had chateaubriand with artichoke hearts and bernaise. I was given the choice between a filet and a top and chose the top which was really good sized and absolutely mouth wateringly divine. Perfectly cooked. The kicker? Both entrees were well under twenty bucks. There is a new menu and he dropped the prices. They were already low. What is it going to take? Get your ass in there.

I know that the chef likes to kid around and rubs some of you more genteel types the wrong way. The reality is that the guy is a prince that likes to kid around. If you haven't been back for a while please give him a shot. If you have never been you are missing out.

Dirty Work

Spooked

“When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry.” Senator Ron Wyden

In late May I wrote about the dire warnings issued by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden concerning Obama Administration privacy and secrecy abuses. This President, who campaigned on a platform criticizing his predecessors use of the Patriot Act to spy on innocent americans, has apparently outbushed Bush. Unfortunately, we will probably never know the magnitude of the intrusion since it is all cloaked in national security paranoia and doublespeak.

The Obama Administration rebuffed Senator's Wyden and Udall in a letter published yesterday. Kathleen Turner, director of legislative affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that a joint oversight team “has not found indications of any intentional or willful attempts to violate or circumvent” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA, which was amended in 2008.

The ACLU released a report on the government secrecy today which can be read here. The report was written by Mike German, a former FBI undercover agent, and Jay Stanley. The government made a record 76.8 million classification decisions in 2010 according to the report, some of the redactions and classifications placed on the most banal material, long de-classified or in the public domain. The government tried to charge an ex NSA employee for using the word fiber optic in a missive, the charges were ultimately thrown out of court.

This is one of the paragraphs in the preface:

...the framers of our Constitution established a system of checks and balances among
separate, co-equal branches of government to curb abuses of power and suppress the natural tendency of government to encroach on individual rights. Our current national security secrecy regime threatens to destroy this careful balance. The power to hide government actions from public accountability is simply too great an invitation to abuse. Congress has the power and the duty under our Constitution to remedy this situation. The American people depend upon their elected representatives in Congress to oversee and regulate the government’s activities on their behalf and for their benefit.

Unfortunately, even many of our elected representatives have no idea what the government is doing and how they are spying on ordinary americans. They are not allowed to know. Our own Senators.

The report excoriates the Obama Administration for abusing the privacy and secrecy laws and for its casual and convenient use of the states secrets privilege. I really recommend that you read the report in its entirety. It shows that contrary to his rhetoric, Obama has prosecuted whistleblowers he promised to protect and also kept the leaden veil over prior torture abuses. He has in some cases been worse than his predecessor in many respects in regards to protecting american's civil rights and liberties. The constitutional scholar.

Also, in 2010, the Obama DOJ issued a secret OLC opinion that re-interpreted the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to allow the FBI to ask telecommunications companies to provide them with certain telephone records on a voluntary basis, even where there is no emergency and no legal process, such as a Grand Jury subpoena, National Security Letter or court order.


Ironically, the FBI sought the OLC opinion after the DOJ Inspector General criticized the FBI for using “exigent letters” and other informal requests to illegally obtain communications records in violation of ECPA. The IG report said, “we believe the FBI’s potential use of [REDACTED] to obtain records has significant policy implications that need to be considered by the FBI, the Department, and the Congress.”


Unfortunately, DOJ has not released the OLC opinion, so the public has no way of understanding how the government can obtain their telephone records without legal process.


While the IG report reveals the existence of this secret OLC opinion, it is redacted in a manner that masks the provision of law in question, the types of telephone records the FBI seeks access to, and the legal arguments supporting its interpretation. The OLC opinion has not been released. In a letter denying a McClatchy News FOIA request for the OLC opinion, DOJ may have revealed the provision of law that is being reinterpreted.


According to the Washington Post, there are 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 
private companies working on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security 
and intelligence, and an estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances.


In 2009, the Government Accountability Office estimated that about 2.4 million Department of Defense civilian, military and contractor personnel hold security clearances at the confidential, secret and top secret levels.


 Remarkably, this figure does not include personnel at intelligence agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010 required the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to calculate and report the aggregate number of security clearances for all government employees and contractors to Congress by February 2011, but the DNI has so far failed to produce this data.


According to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the government made a 
record 76,795,945 classification decisions in 2010, an increase of more than 40% from 
2009. ISOO changed the way it counted electronic records in 2009 so exact year-to-year 
comparisons are not possible, but this figure is more than eight times the 8,650,735 classification decisions recorded in 2001.  One-fourth of the security classification guides the government used in 2010 had not been updated within five years as required.


“Derivative classification” in particular has exploded. Fully 99.7% of classification decisions are not made by the government’s trained “original classification authorities” (OCAs), but by other government officials or contractors who may have received little or no training and wield a classification stamp only because they work with information  derived from documents classified by OCAs.


Document reviews conducted by ISOO in 2009 discovered violations of classification rules 
in 65% of the documents examined, with several agencies posting error rates of more 
than 90%. Errors which put the appropriateness of the classification in doubt were seen 
in 35% of the documents ISOO reviewed in 2009, up from 25% in 2008. A similar analysis was not included in the 2010 ISOO report.


The cost of protecting these secrets has also skyrocketed over the last several years. ISOO estimated security classification activities cost the executive branch over $10.17 billion in 2010, a 15% increase from 2009, and cost industry an additional $1.25 billion, up 11% from the previous year. A meager 0.5% of this amount was spent on declassification. The government spent only $50.44 million on declassification in 2010, which is $182.74 million less than it spent in 1999. The fact is, there are significant physical costs associated with protecting our secrets, and unnecessary classification wastes security resources.


Refused to declassify information about how the government uses its authority under section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect information about Americans not relevant to terrorism or espionage investigations.


These are just a few areas of concern covered by the report. Too many people have potential access to our private information and we can't know, why, what, or where. The last paragraph I cite is the most chilling and troubling to me. When did we decide as an American people that our government was entitled to read, vacuum or datamine our private communications, without a warrant, clear reason or a probable cause to search?

"A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a
prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance;
and the people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power,
which knowledge gives." Letter from James Madison to W.T. Barry (Aug. 4, 1822)

“Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the public have no access to the secret legal interpretations, so they have no idea what their government believes the law actually means.”
— Sen. Ron Wyden


I found an interesting new blog today - Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News.