Meanwhile, back in Chicago, we're going to Schuba's tonight for this week's Field Museum Café Science lecture, on ancient climate change. The speaker is the brother of one of Laura's coworkers. Science and beer, what could be better?

Today's Google logo for Earth Day is pretty poignant.

Okay, okay, God, we get it. We'll curtail our greenhouse gas emissions a lot. We'll pour all our research dollars into alternative fuels. We'll stop fucking around with oil, not to mention fighting over access to that poison. Just, for Christs's sake, turn down the heat!

---

It looks like something out of an old animated cartoon. There are police vans with huge ranks of loudspeakers puttering around Manhattan, exhorting citizens to conserve electricity. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that affectless, amplified voice declaring that the end is nigh.

---

When I arrived at my office building today, I was alone in the elevator up. The elevator was cooler than the lobby, but not by a lot. The lobby in turn was cooler than out on the street by some.

I pressed the button for 12. It was the only button lit. The elevator started up.

It stopped at 3.

And didn't open.

I punched the button for 3. Nothing.

After fifteen or twenty seconds, the elevator seemed to gather its wits. It rose a short distance and stopped again, or that's what it felt like.

I punched the button for 4. Nothing.

Then I looked at the floor indicator. We were at 5, 6, 7.

I held my breath.

At 12, the elevator stopped and the door opened. I resolved that when I leave, I will leave by the stairs.

Roger Ebert throws up his hands in response to readers who took issue with his review of An Inconvenient Truth:

I cannot get into a scientific discussion here. There will be no end to it. All I can say is, the Gore documentary made a deep impression on me. I urge you to see it. You will not be seeing a "campaign film," or "sour grapes," or "Gore still being bitter." George W. Bush has repeated for six years that global warming "requires more study." If Gore has spent six years studying it, aren't his findings worthy of attention? Yes, I'm "being political." But saying the issue "needs more study" is a political statement when energy groups are among your major supporters and your family is in the oil business.  [full response]

Good point.

I began thinking about global warming again today, sparked by a posting by Christopher Bigelow—or rather, by a couple of the complacent jackasses who responded to the post. (Sorry if they're friends of yours, Chris.)

While I think it's nice that Time did finally get around to covering the story in a big way, I think the three-part New Yorker series by Elizabeth Kolbert that ran a year ago was much better and should be required reading. Before I lose them again, here are the links to the Kolbert stories:

• "The Climate of Man—I"
  
• "The Climate of Man—II"
  
• "The Climate of Man—III"

These stories are remarkable not just for the way they build from a few telling anecdotes to inevitable conclusions of frightening scope, but for the fact that they address what realistic solutions to the problem would consist of. And those solutions are harder now than they were a year ago, and harder a year ago than they would have been a decade ago. These stories should be required reading blah blah blah, but how many people do you know who would be willing to read the equivalent of a small depresssing book about a problem that will change life on Earth in our short spans of time?

Me neither.

A "Talk of the Town" piece by Kolbert from the March 20th New Yorker continues the saga. She details the findings gleaned from two satellites nicknamed Tom and Jerry that measure changes in the earth's gravitational field, and these measurements tell us that Antarctica is losing water at an alarming rate—more than anyone suspected. She concludes:

A project like Tom and Jerry demonstrates all the strengths of American science: technological sophistication, restless curiosity, and monumental budgets. But, at the same time, it points to the fundamental disconnect in our culture. Why spend tens of millions of dollars to produce such an elegant set of measurements only to ignore them? With knowledge comes responsibility, and so it is that we turn from the knowledge we have gone to such lengths to acquire.

This is the biggest story of our time, friends. Bigger, yes, than the possibility of nuclear war with Iran, or anything else you can think of. And what are we going to do about it except watch it happen while continuing to deny it's anything to worry about?

Hell, I don't blame you for not wanting to think about it. I sure don't want to think about it.