Ray's Thought for the Day

The parking lot south of the Burger Center (football stadium), lookin' west. Does this look hot?

The hurricane abideth elsewhere, no rain has fallen on the Cow Barn, and yesterday’s high temp. was 101, tying a record high for that date, set in 2000 A.D. and it's going to be that hot again today, anon. So..........What else is new?

One of the ways to predict rain at RGVECB is to enumerate the number of plastic bags the newspaper (er, what passes for a newspaper in these parts) comes in. She works, the predictin’, this away. No bags = no rain. One bag = no rain. Two bags = rain. Note: Not foolproof, but helpful.

Then there’s the annoying debate over what causes global warming which annoys me, Ray. The debate is mostly annoying to me, Ray because of the contributions to the debate by the ignorant and vulgar and the ignorant and vulgar media coverage of same. How do I, Ray find out about the ignorant and vulgar contributions to the debate in the first place? Easy that. Red hollers out “Ray, you got to see this ignoramus on the TV!”

Annoyance, like an itch, gets a response, eventually, so here’s Ray’s scratch, er spell, on the annoying subtopic of:

Global Warming

The globe waxes hotter and colder periodically. We know that. It’s like a fact. Hmmmm. Actually, no simile is involved here, so let me restate. The globe waxes hotter and colder periodically and that’s a fact. Many hypotheses have been advanced as to the cause of the waxing, hotter and colder. Since the globe is nowadays waxing hotter, also a fact, hypotheses have been advanced to explain why it’s getting so dern hot, lately. The usual macro hypotheses have been advanced and all these macro hypotheses are so macro that we humans and proto humans have no likely possibility of having caused them directly in the usually considered frameworks of physical and chemical laws and theorems. I am referring here to magnetic pole switches, changes in solar output, vulcanism and the like. And I suppose that the scientists are hard at work measuring these and similar subtopics if they haven’t had their funding cut.

But what on the globe over the last, can you say 400 hundred turns of the wheel?, has mightily altered the “appearance” of the globe? Easy that. Consider lights. Four hundred turns ago there weren’t none. Now the earth shines with ‘em. A great many of these lights are hot, are they not? Easy that. Yes, they are hot and there were none of, em, nary a one, 400 yar ago. Consider engines. Same thing, there are millions of ‘em now, some immobile but mostly mobile and zoomin’ about, and they run hot, but hardly any 400 yar ago. Consider fuel, both fossil and currently alive. All of it burns hot and we’re burning it up apace, more and faster burnin’ of it every day. Consider pavement. Same thing, there’s bunches more of it these days and more a comin’ and pavement gets hot and stays hot fer a spell longer than most anything else that’s commonly around that the pavement replaced.

Given all this heat we’re producin’ and certain of our activities that are apparently keepin’ the heat from dissipatin’ into space as fast as it might otherwise dissipate, ‘tis reasonable to assume we’re makin’ the globe hotter. Are we the main cause of all the heat? Easy that. Course not. But we are the only source of heat we have any potential control over and we’re makin’ the globe hotter.

I, Ray foresee more energy, trapped in the globe as heat, atoms and molecules vibrate faster, excited nerve endings fray, generalized panic attacks break out, globally. Actually, I, Ray didn’t foresee this but the Crumby Ovate and Red have both seen it, and I, Ray in my capacity of Chief Chronicler of RGVECB have now shared their foresight as a result of that chroniclin’ capacity.

And, this infernal heat is drivin’ me crazy!

Borrowin’ now from the Bards of Pink Floyd, (Druid blood runs deep in the Bards of the British Isles), “Did they get ye to trade, yer heroes fer ghosts, hot ashes fer dreams, hot air fer a cool breeze?”

Why is it that among all the humans of the globe, practically, only the republicans of these Yorenited States believe, apparently, that we humans are not making the globe hotter? Our Yorenited States republicans are, by their own admission, the most responsible humans in these parts, or anywhere else. In fact, a veritable cornerstone of republicanism is, “People should be responsible for their own actions, oink, oink, oink and oink.” Well, all righty then, let’s assume for the nonce, that we humans are not making it hotter, but it is getting hotter anyway, but it’s not our fault. Or expressed in republicanese :

Oink, it’s not getting hotter. Oink, it’s getting hotter, but it’s not our fault. Oink, nothing bad that happens as a result of the globe getting hotter is anticipated, by us. Oink, if something bad does happen, we can not be blamed because of the prior three oinks. Which enumerates to four oinks, which as you know by now is the number of the Crumby Ovate.

However, I, Ray just had an additional thought/question. “Is the amount of biotic life on the globe constant or variable?”