1000th post, more or less

[n2doc]

1000th post, more or less

It seems to be a tradition to write something personal on the occasion of one’s 1000’th post. Although I cannot hope to match the eloquence of many of those here I will give it a try...

Although we mostly revel in our anonymity on this site (sometimes for good reason) I will say a few things about myself. I came to DU in 2003, I don’t recall exactly why but probably was first drawn to the “Top 10” page first. So I’m a bit late to the party but a regular visitor and infrequent poster. I am an environmental scientist working on carbon and nitrogen cycling (hence the N2 DOC), and have been doing so for roughly half of my life. Doing so has given me the great privilege of seeing some of the more exotic corners of this world and also to see the kinds of changes that we are creating by our actions. It is extremely frustrating, as a professional in this field, to see the number of folks, even here at DU, who don’t understand that great changes are taking place in our environment right now.

I could not find a larger picture but this will give you an idea. These are boats isolated by a tributary of the Amazon River drying up. In Peru the rivers have been the lowest they have been in recorded history these last 2 years. With the weak El Nino this year the problem will likely be less severe, but the destiny of the Amazon is to turn into a grassland/desert region. Not because of natural causes but because WE are cutting the forests down, burning them down, and pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. The reason the Amazon is so wet and lush is “evapotranspiration”, the process where trees take groundwater and release it as water vapor from their leaves. The vast majority of water in the middle and western Amazon comes from this source. When the forests are gone moisture coming in from the Atlantic will rain out onto the grasslands on the east coast, and wash back into the Atlantic. And warming will shift much of that moisture elsewhere. Anybody who disputes that the high and rising levels of CO2 cause warming doesn't understand chemistry and physics. And anyone who doesn't understand that we will not reverse this trend in CO2 anytime soon (100's of years) doesn't understand how Humans and the Earth work, either.

The Sahara was once grassland….vast areas can change in a geological blink of an eye.

The point of this lecture (sorry, can’t help myself) is that we are screwing up things in a major way, and not paying attention to these changes. One of the legacies of the Republican controlled congress has been a gradual destruction of the sciences in the USA. We were once the undisputed leader in Science. Now, funding has reached a point where ideas hardly matter anymore, only politics. There are many programs at NIH and NSF that have 5% success rates. This means only 5 out of 100 grant applications will get funded, and often those that are will be funded at 30-50% cuts from requests. The trend for this started in 1994 and continues (with occasional respite for NIH) to the present day. There are incredible facilities that are gradually falling apart due to lack of funding for upkeep, let alone updating. In many fields we have been surpassed by European and Asian scientists. ‘So what’ You say? Well, look at the US, and look at where the centers of innovation, the centers of discovery, the centers of commerce are. Always around Universities. Boston, NY, Seattle, SF, LA, even in Red states- Houston, Austin, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, etc., etc. Where you find a University you find commerce, culture, innovation. The US University system is built on externally funded research programs, and we are beginning to see the breaking of this system with ever more desperate programs by these Universities to bring in such funds. We will lose this system soon, I think, as we drown in a sea of debt and external conflict. And we will be the poorer for it in many ways.

I wish to thank the DU community for being a place of discovery, discussion, aggravation, and encouragement. In spite of the flame wars and other distractions it remains one of the first places I go to each day to find out what is happening in the world of Politics. I find myself more of a Liberal than a Democrat, and sometimes my impatience and anger at the Democratic Party gets the best of me. Still, they represent the only hope we have at the moment.

For those of you who have taken the time to read this, or even to scroll through it, here’s a reward Toon….Cheers N2DOC

[acmejack]

1. Your job must be rewarding and devastating in equal parts!

I'm not sure if I could take it. I get depressed merely witnessing the relentless advance of "civilization" over my beloved countryside. I have seen so much of nature ruthlessly and irresponsibly subsumed by cheap housing and tawdry development.

Even worse, it is a generic suburbia, it looks the same all over America. Literally, change the street signs and you are home. It is disgusting, except for a small "Old Town" section-one size fits all. How sad, we have been stuffed into a plain brown wrapper.

btw,I was going crazy trying to decipher your screen name!

[n2doc]

3. The thing that is most frustrating is that we can do better

I see a tremendous amount of damaging activities that we do to our coasts and wetlands. Yet people want to live near those spots precisely because of their beauty. But instead of taking the time to find out how to responsibly build, how to responsibly deal with wastewater, most developers simply do whatever has been done before. Even if it costs about the same. Even if it leads to the downgrading of the environment that they depend upon for their profits.

I urge anyone who thinks that Government shouldn't regulate land use, or thinks environmental laws are too strict, to go to a third world country and hang out in one of the cities. It is a major eye-opener. (And I don't mean the slums where people can barely survive). People do what they have to do, but they often do no more than the least they can.

I know what you mean about suburbia. I grew up in Northern California, near Santa Rosa. I can barely stand to go back there now, it has been hit so hard with development I can't even recognize many places anymore. And I love California.

[Cerridwen]

2. K & R............n/t

[militaryWife]

4. At the rate I actually "post", I'll hit my 1000 sometime in 2010

Doesn't mean I don't come here and read every single day. Congrats on the marker and the intensity you feel about your job. It says a lot about your character.

[n2doc]

5. I started pretty slowly

I don't think I hit 500 until this year. For some reason I have gotten into the whole "finding" new links before others and so this ended up boosting my activity a lot. I remember getting a "Wecome to DU" after being here for 2 years!