Worth A Thousand Words

green-graph.jpgWe’re adding a new item to our Global Warming Resources page. The National Center for Policy Analysis has compiled a Global Warming Primer in PDF format that illustrates in graphical form some of the concepts of Global Warming that are often misunderstood or not understood at all by many people with opinions about climate change.

At the right is a pie chart illustrating that greenhouse gasses are less than 5 percent of the atmosphere. A subsequent pie chart shows that 95 percent of that small wedge is harmless water vapor!

The primer is an easy read since most of the pages are graphs and pie charts with annotations to clearly explain to the reader what concepts are being presented. The primer is based on a review of available scientific research. The NCPA received no money and no input from any private company or government agency.

The primer is a welcome change from the myriad of complex and often daunting data on the subject. All that engineering and scientific stuff is fine for some of us, but try and explain it to your kids and others without the background and you get blank stares.

Hat tip to Planet Gore – A Global Warming Primer: A Graph is worth 1,000 words.

Island Patrol

When you are on an island, everything you consume has to be barged over from the mainland. In the case of groceries and gasoline, the entire delivery truck is loaded onto the barge and brought to the island and barged back empty. This causes the prices for such commodities to go way up.

While you can’t cut down on groceries and such, you can do something about fuel consumption. In order to cope with 5-dollar-per-gallon-plus gas prices, most Catalina Island residents drive small golf-cart sized vehicles since the town is rather small. You also see motor scooters and we saw a Segway while we were there.

One interesting vehicle we saw was this motorized stand-up three-wheeled solution which the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department uses to patrol the streets of Avalon. Click on the picture below for a large close-up.

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Shallow Water

This is a pleasant view of the shallow water by the beach in Avalon. I love the textures of the sand, rocks, light and bubbles. Click on the image for a larger view.

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Avalon at Dawn

On our last day on the Island, we got up early and I captured this picturesque sunrise over Avalon Harbor. You can click on the image to see the 800 by 600 pixel image.

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Clear and Pleasant Weather

During our entire visit to Catalina Island this week, we enjoyed some of the most perfect weather we’ve ever seen while visiting one of our favorite places. This photo of the famous Casino in Avalon was taken at sunset; the mainland California San Gabriel mountain range can clearly be seen in the distance. That mountain range is about a hundred miles beyond Avalon.

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On Catalina Island

Today is our anniversary. We were married in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island. We would be blogging more about our excursion, but unfortunately, the laptop is malfunctioning and we’re unable to download our photos. That will happen later this week when we are home again.

Meanwhile, we will be going out to seal rocks today to visit our piniped pals. Enjoy this picture Damsel took last year from the boat.

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