The test, utilizing an unused thermostat to control it.
https://youtu.be/3W4jD3zqzN0

 

What could go wrong?

Use wildlife to your advantage, Bison can plow your sidewalk.

I tawt I taw a puddy tat.... but it was dark...

It took 6 months to get these pictures.

Last edited by xoxoxoBruce (3/07/2021 1:41 am)

A quartet joins the sax lady for a honk session...

A Montana guide was killed by a bear while fishing this week.
News story said "large adult male grizzly weighing over 400 pounds."  That's not even a big NFL lineman.

Also this week, stories of grizzly/polar bear hybridization due to climate change. 
The offspring are fertile, with their long term vigor and viability bring studied.

"You wouldn't think that way if a 400 lb grizz was unwrapping you like a gas station burrito."
They get over 1000 pounds.  It really matters more about their attitude, I guess.  This one's got him shot the next day.
About 150 years ago (a very long time around here) a local mountain man got in a dispute with one over a deer he had shot.  
So old James Hull shot the bear too, but only fatally wounded it, leaving time for the bear to kill Jim before it  also died. 
They were found the next day about ten feet apart on what is now Hull Mountain.

This stuff is tricky because sometimes raising public awareness is what allows the problem to be solved. There were significant polar bear conservation efforts put in place around 20 years ago, in order to prevent the worst-case scenario of "no more polar bears." Did those efforts play an actual role, or would the polar bears have been fine without them? I dunno, I'm not an expert. If they did play a role, would the politicians (and their appointees) who greenlit those efforts been interested in doing so, without some level of public outcry?

I'm all for avoiding panicky confusion, and my instinct says the average person doesn't need to know about every crisis being tackled at every person's job. Specialization is a good thing. On the other hand, I've done a fair amount of work with politicians on non-environmental matters, and my experience is that they respond to emotional, one-on-one appeals. If a politician's wife reads a scare-article about the polar bears, she'll talk about it at dinner, and he'll be far more likely to sign the conservation bill than he would if a panel of biologists explained in clear terms why he should.

I, personally, think that innovation will solve climate change, because people insist on surviving. The worst-case scenarios won't ultimately come to pass because we'll keep doing shit like inventing roof paint that reflects 98% of sunlight. So I'm not worried. But would we make those innovations if truly nobody was worried? I don't think so. The trick is to get the people who have problem-solving personalities worried, while keeping the people who have problem-panicking-action-avoiding personalities soothed and out of the way.

We (people) have proven over and over and over that we cannot, in fact, handle the truth.

Proof is no further away than the Politics thread.

Climate activism isn't splitting the public in two.

Undertoad says: "My climate takes are already available in the archives."
I won't disturb them.

No you don't. NASA top climate scientist through WAPO sounds promising. But the link is some chick writing for solon telling us she remembers talking to this scientist a dozen years before and she remembers he supposedly said blah blah blah. Hardly impressive evidence. I remember ocasional blurbs about how we're all going to drown next week but laughed at the crackpots.
Why was the Hansen before congress, probably to warn them about climate change. He might have known the only way to get the attention of congress or the public is dramatic predictions the press can write headlines around. Don't know how he presented it to congress or WAPO, only what that chick thinks she remembers. Reiss' book is probably a better source.

Today we saw purple coral, and lots of other coral, blue fish, yellow fish, stripy fish, puffer fish, sharks and lizards with curly tails.