The Nature of Things

Texans like to brag that everything is bigger here. It's a sentiment that I have heard expressed in many ways regarding any number of things since I married a Texan and moved here back in the mid '70s. Little did I know that the boast would also be appropriate for Texas-style April showers. We live about thirty minutes outside Houston, that behemoth city that sprawls all over much of Southeast Texas. Houston is notoriously flat, with a downtown that is about 50 feet above sea level. The city slopes downward toward the Gulf Coast and it is crisscrossed by numerous bayous, streams, and rivers that drain into the Gulf. Anytime we get a heavy dew, it can be prone to flooding. Well, we had a very heavy dew over the weekend. A storm reached us early Sunday night and settled in to spend the night. All Sunday night and Monday morning thunder rolled and rain fell, often in torrents. It brought back unsettling memories of Hurricane Ike in September, 2008. When I was finally able to check...

I was perusing the science pages of The New York Times as I do every week when I came across a story about a drought in China and a resultant rise in the price of food. As I read the story, it brought to mind similar stories that I have read in recent months. There have been a number of crop failures because of extreme weather conditions right around the world. Climate scientists have warned repeatedly that the frequency of these extreme weather conditions is likely to increase as the earth continues to warm. They might as well be shouting into a hurricane. People simply are not listening. Perhaps when a loaf of bread goes for $100, it might finally get their attention. There have already been food riots in various countries around the world. The current uprising in Egypt has been fueled, in part, by the fact that food has become more scarce and expensive and people are unable to feed their families. What will happen when that circustance becomes fact in this country? Most li...