"Three years ago, practically no one had a television set in this isolated community tucked between Nepal and Bangladesh. It is an area so remote and roadless that the only access is on foot or by bullock cart, after monsoon rains turn dirt paths into bogs that become impassable even for farm tractors.

Even so, half of the 1,000 households have TV, paying about 40 cents every few days to the owner of a diesel generator to recharge the batteries that power the sets. Ranvir Kumar Mandel, a slender 22-year-old, has built a bamboo hut here just to serve as a television repair shop."

This NYTimes article details the alarming rise of dirty diesel generators as a prime source of energy throughout Asia, often driven by the desire for Western amenities like TVs. To its credit the article does mention alternative programs including biofuel generators and microturbine hydropower plants but the telling number is that the diesel generators outnumber alternatives by a factor of millions. This is carbon dumping of the worst sort, completely unregulated and uncontrollable. Yet we can’t sit here in the greatest power consumer culture on earth and criticize their desire for what we take for granted.

The Albany Times Union has a great article on the local effects of our warmer winters (or had- I can’t find the article anymore!Our local newspaper web sites are so awful…). We’re 4.5 degrees F warmer on average in the last 4 decades, we have 20% less days with snow cover which increases warming as there is less snow to reflect the sun’s rays. The results are detailed here:

Hurt:

Dairy cows give less milk in hot weather

Maple sugaring trees cannot thrive

Air conditioning costs increase

Apple orchards develop less fruit without winter cold (they need 87 days of below freezing to set buds)

Corn at risk from pests is no longer killed by cold

Helped:

Wine grapes thrive in vineyards (especially vinifera, the grapes grown in the finest wine regions but problematic in NY. We could be the next Napa the way things are going)

Lilacs and other spring plants will flower earlier

Poison ivy, oak and hickory trees spread north with warmer climate

Bald eagle hatchlings’ survival increases

Heating costs decrease

SOURCE: Reports presented at Hudson Valley Climate Change Conference conducted in December by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

I’m going to be spending a little more time on feedback loops as they can help explain the drastic weather changes we’re experiencing this year. For a good overview, this article from a Canadian site provides a lineup of feedback loops that are taking place right now. They involve arctic ice loss, carbon sinks turning into carbon sources, effects of methane on global ocean currents and more.
This is the scariest aspect of climate change because it can be rapid and unpredictable and there’s very little we can do about it as these things already have momentum. We don’t have a control panel for the planet yet we continue to turn up energy use.

“I’m sorry Captain but if I give her any more she’s going to blow…”