LibertyBell

if December is bad then thats a sign for not much snow for us too-- 2014-15 was the only major recent exception

yeah it was mostly an inland winter we were on the edge of the heavier snows

Definitely had some good winters since then like 2017-18 and 2020-21 but the main effect aside from the awful last 2-3 winters was a huge bump in winter time temperatures. NYC has a total of 6 DJF average temperatures of 40 F or higher and 5 of them have happened since 2000.

But what about looking at Venus and seeing what happened there and picturing that happening here...

And John, why is the US increasing emissions, we are out of time and this should not be done, we have reached new highs in fossil fuel extraction at record levels.

then you shouldnt like it, it just means dreary soggy weather. the best weather is now!

I wonder what the low was at KFOK

song birds chirping all morning

why werent there these wildfires back when we were much drier? 2002 was extremely dry-- much more than we are now and yet there were no wildfires? The grass was parched yellow all summer....

Do you think we've reached a place and time where 40 degree average winter temperatures are now the norm?

these are human caused aerosols? where did they come from?

this is where government needs to step in and push the fossil fuel companies out the same way we did with tobacco companies. Force them to pay for billion dollar disasters until it gets to the point where they cant function as businesses anymore.

It is in a sense, you cant let corporate lobbyists be involved here. This has to be a strictly scientific solution, let the scientists decide and keep the fossil fuel companies out of it. Capitalism in its most corrupt form is oligarchy and thats what happens with corporate dark money corrupting politics.

But who is ultimately at fault with this John, scientists, media, government, lobbyists or all of the above? The problem with capitalism is that we are still letting fossil fuel companies be part of the solution-- we can't allow that to happen. Corporate lobbyists and their dark money need to be removed on every level.

But those places are always hot lol-- in 1993 Newark had 9 days of 100 degrees or higher (including 5 days in a row!)-- has that ever been matched? I think we can finally call it a new climate when the coast gets temperatures every year over 100 degrees-- do you think we'll have that by 2050? I want JFK to get at least one high every year over 100 degrees.

20-21 didn't have the best storm tracks for us either

that was the all day white out-- like a half sized version of January 2016 lol\ true blizzard conditions for 6 straight hours instead of 12

but you'd think the opposite would be true, since more snow and cold breeds more snow and cold and patterns tend to get stuck. Some outside factor has to come in and dislodge them-- like the 2015-16 super el nino.

we need a massively active typhoon season out there to do that don't we?

and shows once again why crapitalism is unsustainable and we need price regulations (and not just in this area in many others too).

This is why crapitalism doesn't work and we need price regulations.

What I find so fascinating about octopus though and their settlements on the sea floor and why I talk so much about them is because they show us there is a different way to a higher intelligence than the mammalian/avian warm blooded route. These complex creatures are cold blooded invertebrates and yet they are so amazingly intelligent that it shows us that if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe it may be in a form that we wouldn't even recognize at first if we somehow ran into it. Parrots and ravens too-- the usual refrain about birds is because they have small heads they must be unintelligent-- and "bird brained"-- it's definitely not true. Parrots and ravens actually have large complex brains and not all of it is in their heads-- birds' brains extend downward into their necks too. I believe what fueled rapid brain development in these creatures is a high protein diet. Ravens and octopi of course eat meat and parrots eat high protein nuts. And a high intelligence was necessary for all these creatures; in the case of birds, it was originally to process their extreme visual acuity and later for socialization skills and in the case of the octopus to be able to escape predators while also catch prey in its challenging environment and was also later adopted for socialization. All of the creatures I've mentioned are also known to make and use tools which also facilitated rapid brain development (it's a form of biofeedback, you need a complex brain to make tools and alter your environment but once you start doing that the mere act of doing that also makes for a more complex brain and higher intelligence.)

Hamsters are good that way because they are small and don't need much room. A large flying avian predator is a different story though. Smuggling in birds into the country is big business unfortunately. A few years ago at JFK a shipment of finches came in from some country in Africa packed inside those hair curling things (I dont know what they are called.) The shipment with over 400 of these tiny colorful birds was intercepted and sent back and so were the people who did it (they were deported.) You have to see how these birds are in the wild to see how happy and free they are. I've seen documentaries on parrots in cages in terrible living conditions where they are picking at their own feathers because they are depressed and trying to kill themselves. The more intelligent the animal the less happy it will be in a cage. Parrots are near the peak of avian intelligence, about the same intelligence as a 7 year old child (similar to ravens, octopus, elephants, dolphins, chimps, etc). They're more intelligent than cats or dogs (which are about equivalent to the intelligence of a 5 year old child), but none of these higher order sentient creatures live happily in cages.

Looks like NYC is going to put some protections in place for birds because of what happened to Flaco.