While manufacturing jobs generally pay better then the median income in most regions of state, some locations, especially those with high-tech manufacturing, have jobs that pay much better then other counties.
It needs to be said, that sugar coating the truth of climate change isn’t helping anyone except maybe short-term political expediency.
It bugs me when political leaders refuse to talk about climate change or acknowledge that humans are changing the climate, because only a stupid person would fail to acknowledge such an obvious fact. Every day when I look at the weather records, we are consistently above historical averages, and record breaking cold is almost unheard of these days. Almost all the cold records are 100 plus years old.
I understand the climate change activists are obnoxious people, advocating unrealistic goals, hoping for near ideal outcomes. Sure an ideal goal for not cooking the planet would be an emissions cut of 80% over 1990 levels, which conveniently now is described as keeping the yearly global average climate within 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures that were averaged out in the 20th century.
That would be ideal. Such levels have been judged to minimize serious damage to the earth’s climate, even though any realistic person knows that wouldn’t be possible without an impractical or generally undesirable crash diet on humanity’s use of carbon for energy and all other purposes. Renewables offer a lot of promise, but they aren’t a stand-in for our high levels energy consumption we get from fossil fuels. Even if we could make nuclear safe, it would bankrupt society before we ever made much of a dent in the climate.
If you were to eat a controlled food ration every day of year and never smoked, drank alcohol, or went out in town on Friday night, you could probably live a lot longer. You would be a lot healthier for sure. But we don’t live in such a world, but do make informed choices in our diet and lifestyle choices, and realize life is a compromise that you make. It’s not a bad idea to eat a little more broccoli, choose to not smoke, consume alcohol in moderation, exercise and not party too hard. But it would suck to give up on all that is fun and good in life. No cookies, no alcohol ever?
Reasonable adults would come to the table and weight the pros and cons of addressing climate change to different extents. There should be an informed dialog, one where we as a society get together and come to a consensus on what would be an appropriate amount of change – and not just an theoretically ideal number. We should harden our communities against obvious storm threats, like increased flooding and sea rise, as the climate gets warmer. We should take reasonable steps, like investment in roof-top solar and wind turbines and replacing old coal and nuclear plants with modern, efficient gas peaking and mid-load plants. We should be designing automobiles to be efficient while serving the purposes of their owners.
There are cost-effective solutions that would allow for economic growth, while ensuring people are comfortable and can do much what they currently do today. Climate change action should be about moderation not extremism, and should address the serious threats while balancing our contemporary needs.
After struggling through the deep snow for 45 minutes, I finally reached The Gulf, a 500 foot deep hollow. Deer apparently congregate along the edge of this hollow, as witnessed by the ample deer tracks in deep snow, and places where deer had slept in snow.
I think that’s a reasonable conclusion based on the radar. Nuisance snow today, maybe a few inches, maybe some rain and ice. Actually it is picking up a bit, but what do I care? The bus will make it through it even if it slips slide a bit. I have got to go in, I have diversity training today, and they’ll be up my ass if I don’t make it.
I wanted to catch the earlier express on in but it was running early and I was running late. Based on the real-time bus tracking I never had a chance of even catching it so I didn’t bother to run out to it though I did get my coat on thinking I might make it. But it’s snowing hard now, I am sure it was the driver’s first run of the day, and he didn’t want to be late for the rest of the runs for the day, which inevitably will be bogged down by the snow. I’ll probably walk down to the express lot, so I can get exercise.
Truth is I have that diversity training at 10 AM so it hardly makes sense to catch the shuttle over the Enterprise but I kind of want to stop by the office at least briefly and ride back over to training downtown with the team. Chilli cook off is on Friday, so this evening I got to at least get the beans soaked and head to bed early so I can move forward on that on Friday.
Went down to the library, made up some maps and worked on some projects. I’ve been thinking a bit about that one piece of land on that dirt road I was looking at out in Berne for building my off-grid cabin. Kind of too far to commute from, and it would be basically impossible to get to work from there with that steep hill being a complete bitch in the winter. But I was having that dream, even if it’s not a realistic one. It’s tough being in this cold apartment in the winter, though riding both ways to work yesterday was so awesome. It just doesn’t feel like work without the commute – that is the commute via the city bus or my pickup – either way. It’s really is pure bliss, riding through the gorge, even if it was a bit icy and was getting pretty dark by the time I hit pavement last night. Still it’s wonderful to think I’ll be able to ride in both ways any time the weather is decent and there isn’t too much snow on the trail.
but it was running early and I was running late. Based on the real-time bus tracking I never had a chance of even catching it so I didn’t bother to run out to it though I did get my coat on thinking I might make it. But it’s snowing hard now, 
I am sure it was the driver’s first run of the day, and he didn’t want to be late for the rest of the runs for the day, which inevitably will be bogged down by the snow. I’ll probably walk down to the express lot, 
so I can get exercise.
but I kind of want to stop by the office at least briefly and ride back over to training downtown with the team. Chilli cook off is on Friday, 
so this evening I got to at least get the beans soaked and head to bed early 
so I can move forward on that on Friday.
and worked on some projects. I’ve been thinking a bit about that one piece of land 
on that dirt road I was looking at out in Berne for building my off-grid cabin. Kind of too far to commute from, and it would be basically impossible to get to work from there with that steep hill 
was so awesome. It just doesn’t feel like work without the commute – that is the commute via the city bus or my pickup – either way. It’s really is pure bliss, riding through the gorge, even if it was a bit icy and was getting pretty dark by the time I hit pavement last night. Still it’s wonderful to think I’ll be able to ride in both ways any time the weather is decent and there isn’t too much snow on the trail.