Dim Sum in Parsippany, NJ

 

It's been months since RO and I have been able to get together, in part due to sinkholes on I-80.  For both of us, it's a 90 minute drive to a midpoint destination.  If one of our key highways to Parsippany, NJ is out, it can add at least 30 minutes to the trip. For both of us, spending 2 hours to meet an acquaintance would be a non-starter.  So, we waited until I-80 was repaired fully before we scheduled lunch again.

I wasn't in the greatest of moods when I woke up.  Current affairs is very depressing, as one can't escape mention of the Orange Snowflake in the news.  I limit my interactions with the news, while RO tunes it out.  That doesn't mean that she doesn't care about what's going on.  Instead, it means that turning off the news is her only way of escaping the monster and his childlike voice.

While driving to the restaurant, MAR called me.  She doesn't have a stable job, and we have been trying to find a time and date when we could meet.  Even though this upcoming weekend is a rare open one for me, she was booked up already.  So, after a long conversation over the phone, we rescheduled our get together for 3 weeks from now.

Eventually, I reached the restaurant, and RO arrived a few minutes later.  It was as if little time had passed since our last get together, and conversation flowed like water.  We each had a bowl of hot and sour soup, and then split 4 dishes of dim sum - including some soup dumplings.  Yum!  All too soon, we had to leave, and we will try to schedule something within 4-6 weeks.

On my way home, I decided to explore the items in Lane Bryant.  Only one catch - I was trying to avoid the tolls on the Garden State Parkway.  This was a mistake, as I drove through the bowels of Patterson, NJ -from one side of the "hood" to the other. Eventually, I made it to the road I was looking for, and then made it to Lane Bryant (with a pit stop at Panera Bread.)  Luckily, I escaped the store without spending anything, and went home for the evening without further delay.

Sinkholes and other headaches

 

This is the view of a road across the river from me.  I often used this road to return home from my (then) girlfriend's place before I was married. So I'm very surprised that this road would fail in this way.  Yet, I shouldn't be surprised, given the rain we've had lately.  Some TV weather reporter noted that our area received as much rain in one July day as we normally do for the whole month of July.  

Could this excessive rain be related to global warming?  To me, I can't be sure.  But when one mentions Global Warming in some circles, people become irate  A recent article in Fortune reports that many meteorologists are experiencing extreme reactions from the public because they choose to report weather related news honestly mentioning how climate change may be affecting local weather.  Even the weather has become politicized!

What about reports of global warming is so bad?  As I see it, they expose the possibility a given class of people are willingly ignorant of a demonstrable truth, and refuse to see their part (if not responsibility) in causing a global problem.  No one likes to admit that they are wrong.  And when a person's survival depends on being wrong, how can they afford to believe an inconvenient truth?

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In the past 5 years, we've seen excessively hot temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.  People living in homes which never needed air conditioning, now swelter during parts of the summer.  Wildfires in Quebec are producing particulates that result in this year's summer smog in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal.  The world is changing around us, and global warming can explain it.

You'll note that I am not making any prescriptions on what society should do about this problem.  Instead, the first step to a solution (as I learned from a therapist) is to recognize what the problem is. And that's where I am annoyed.  Although I say that global warming is a theory, it is the one with the best evidence to support it.  It's a theory we should take seriously, as the risk factor is great.  We shouldn't be pointing fingers, labeling people as evil.  Many people still depend on the industries (e.g. coal mining) that have caused our problems.  We can't solve the problem unless we can give these people a way to both survive and prosper while retiring these industries.

So where does this leave us?  I don't know.  I have my doubts that the worst offenders will want to see how their actions have made things worse.  And yet, these are the same people who must be involved in the changes we need.  Somehow we must separate their past actions from their future actions, and allow them to move forward without feeling they should feel guilt about a past they couldn't control....