Summer time

     From The Copy Desk:  So it was that The Boys settled into the summer burrow, larder stocked, tunes running and the sun porch outfitted with the essentials . . . but, of course, there are still things they need to complain about - like the weather. It was unseasonably cold for early June, and so this is where The Boys started their ranting.



     "Hey stupid-pants," Warren called. "Where did summer go. I'm sitting here with the first strawberries of the season and it's too cold out to munch them on the porch."
     Marty, who never wears pants, was in the next room, barely able to hear his halph-brother, called back, "You said I'm stupendous. Do you feel OK?"

Warren isn't sure what kind of
 future is in the cards.

     And what's this about summer's gone, It's only early June," Marty said, walking into the front room where Warren stood shivering.
     "It is only 49 degrees out there," Warren whined, "I was looking forward to a big snack and long nap in the sun today. When does this global warming thing kick in anyway?"
      Marty gestured with his head and The Boys wandered outside onto the sun porch, where Marty grabbed two blankets off the shelf - tossing one to Warren and settling down on a stump with other.
     "This is the part where you explain stuff to me, isn't it," Warren asked.
     "Didn't we explain rhetorical questions to you once," Marty said. "I hope you meant your last question that way.
     "Anyway, rhetorical or not, you're right," Marty said. "And we'll start with weather is not climate, one day's or week's weather doesn't tell us anything about the climate. But you're eating up some of the evidence we have."
     Warren, strawberry juice soaking the fur under his mouth, mumbled, "What are you talking about?"
     "The strawberry season around here used to be in mid- to late June, that's what the old farmers tell me," Marty said. "This year the first berries hit the roadside stand on June 6, but two years ago it was June 1."
     Warren, pondering if the IPCC needed this strawberry fields data, said, "So the harvest season has moved up by a few weeks."
     "Indeed it has," Marty said. "And this effect can be seen all over the world, but most drastically in the Arctic.  See NSICD.org  The prospects for reigning in this global warming seem pretty slim, given the mistrust, greed and arrogance of the planet - but still, I'm not really worried."
     Now to Warren this didn't sound like Marty at all - he should be ranting on about drowning polar bears, droughts, hurricanes and all kinds of scary consequences of this basic reformulation of the planet's chemistry - but since he's learning to be patient, he awaited Marty's explanation for his seeming indifference, or was it confidence ?
    "So let me explain," Marty said. "All actions have consequences and in this case among the things that change are that sea levels rise as the water warms - warmer water displaces more space and that changes the stresses on the tectonic plates, oh so slightly redistributing the weight of the oceans.  But there is also vast groundwater drainage planet-wide, lightening land masses, oh so slightly redistributing the weight of the continents. These tiny alterations should be viewed as increasing the chances of volcanic activity."
     "Great," Warren said, "So as I bake to death in a overheated world my suffering will be relieved only by a sudden flow of lava over my sunbaked body."
     "Don't get my hopes up," Marty said. "But the volcanoes will be our salvation. The Gaia hypothesis says the Earth will take care of us."
     "How would that work," Warren asked.
     "Sulfuric acid dear boy," Marty said. "The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed so much dust, ash and sulfuric acid particles into  the upper atmosphere that global temperatures dropped by almost a full degree fahrenheit for the next two years."
     "So why are you so sure this will work out this way," Warren asked.
     "The increased instability at the margins of the tectonic plates will over time increase the volcanic activity, most likely on the 'ring of fire' around the Pacific, and this could help mitigate the human-caused global warming that threatens life as we know it."
   

     From The Copy Desk: Since Warren remains unconvinced by Marty's interesting idea, he plans on purchasing more LED light bulbs, wind energy and doing other things to help reduce his "carbon footprint."