IS CLIMATE CHANGE GOOD?

Climate change generally has been perceived as causing adverse impacts upon the earth. For example, assertions of rising global temperatures predict drought in some regions and flooding in others. Climate change believers urge both the public and businesses, including water utilities, to prepare for negative effects from changes to come.

Surprising, a recent published report now suggests that climate change actually may be beneficial.* Based upon excavations of middle Stone Age tools and pigments found in Kenya, scientists have concluded that climate change drove innovation in toolmaking and development of trading networks among Homo sapiens or their close relatives. Presumably, advancement of toolmaking could be viewed as technology of the day and advancement of trading as globalization of the day.

The article states that climate change made food sources unpredictable. People responded by foraging over greater distances and making smaller tools, resulting in meeting and trading with other populations. Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts is quoted as saying, "Social networking during a long period of climate variability was a key to success for early Homo sapiens....Greater mobility encouraged inventive thinking about how to acquire resources."

If climate change led to success of humans, could it now lead to less success? Is innovation and social networking today less likely than it was 320,000 years ago, or is the internet of things just a Stone Age fantasy?

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*Bower, "Changing Climate Drove
Innovation," Science News, April 14,
2018, p.8

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

SHRINKING TOWNS AND THEIR WATER SYSTEMS

Water can evaporate. Can towns also?

A drive through portions of rural Midwest and Great Plains can be revealing to an urbanite. One can pass by old, abandoned farm houses and barns, crumbling like weathered gray gravestones in a long forgotten and overgrown cemetery--monuments to an earlier time, their adjoining individual land parcel consolidated into much larger agricultural ownership.

One also can drive into, and pass through literally in seconds, small farm towns, often bearing a few peeling paint houses, perhaps a gas station, maybe a tiny "oil can" elevated water storage tank, and a rusting, idle grain elevator along a long abandoned rail bed. Such towns were built and populated to serve all the farmers living in all the now abandoned farm houses years ago.

These scenes are not apparent from an interstate highway at 75 miles per hour. Rather, they are a reality available only from narrow two-lane roads which roll through the countryside like capillaries in an aging body--the "blue highways", as it once was stated.

For example, there is a small town in western Montana that was formed in 1912 as a farm products shipping point on the Great Northern railroad line. Today, the town in owned and populated by one family; the grocery store is a bed and breakfast; the bank is an antique shop; and the school house and the grain elevator are empty memories of past days.

Another town, larger and busier, is Browning, Montana located just east of Glacier National Park. Last August, a court ordered the receiver for the town to accept the offer of the Blackfeet Indian tribe, a creditor of the town, to purchase all of the infrastructure assets of the town to settle the claims of the tribe against the town.* Among the assets ordered to be transferred to the Tribe are all of the town's water and sewer infrastructure.

Today, there is a substantial national focus on the acknowledged need to replace and upgrade infrastructure, include water and waste water system assets. Estimates soar into billions of dollars as to the cost of of such work. There is talk of possible grant and loan programs as well as increasing rates to fund such work. However, how do small towns in rural areas, with their diminishing population and diminishing economic base, to afford infrastructure replacements and upgrades? This situation arises not only when farmers leave their farms and towns shrink. It also arises when a one factory or one business town suffers that factory or business closing. Who will think about of all this?

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* Kavanagh, "Judge Orders Denning To Accept
Blackfeet Tribe's Offer To Purchase Town
Of Browning's Assets," Glacier Reporter,
September 20, 2017, p.1

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

THE EASTER FISH

Who is the creature known as the Easter Bunny?

According to legend, Pope Gregory the Great, in AD 600, proclaimed that fetal rabbits were fish and could be eaten during Lent.* In response, it is said, southern French monks domesticated rabbits to assure their supply.

Now, it is reported that the legend may not be true.* It is claimed that the statement actually may have been made by St. Gregory of Tours, not the Pope. St. Gregory is said to have referred to Roccolenus, a man who ate young rabbits during Lent.

However, is it true that rabbits are not fish? In point of fact, there is a genus of fish named "Rabbitfish." They have large, dark eyes and mouths resembling rabbit mouths. Rabbitfish are herbivorous, eating algae in the wild. If kept in aquaria, they eat fresh vegetables, much like rabbits.

Let me advance a theory. Suppose that over millions of years certain fish evolved into rabbitfish. Then, suppose that climate change caused some lakes and rivers to dry up. As a result, some rabbitfish evolved into land living creatures now called rabbits. Thus, by reason of two prominent earth forces acknowledged by scientific communities and the media, rabbits are the result of Darwinian evolution and climate change.

May the Easter Fishy bring you a big basket of candy and eggs.

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*Saey, "Fishy Rabbit Tale Debunked
For Lent", Science News, March 17,
2018, p.5

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

RAW WATER: BEVERAGE DE JOUR

I watched a robin splashing to its delight in our bird bath. Moments after it flew away, another robin arrived to drink to its delight. When I was a young child, my parents rented a vacation cottage in the north woods of Wisconsin, along a lovely lake. One morning, I saw the owner leave her cabin, walk to the shore and fill her coffee pot with lake water. "I always use this water for coffee" she explained to my parents. "The lake water is so clear."

It seems that the new drink craze has discovered "Raw Water". Of course, the dietary buzzword these days is "organic." To be healthful, food must be organically grown. So, for example, a carrot qualifies as organic if it is free of everything, except for high price.

However, in addition to being organic, it also seems that food must be either undercooked or more likely, RAW. Thus, we have raw vegetables, raw milk, raw honey and possibly even raw meat. Frankly, it is retro hunter-gatherer before discovery of fire.

So, now we have raw water as the "drink". What makes water "raw"? Clearly, raw water is water in its natural, untreated state--as it comes from a well, or a spring, or even a lake in Wisconsin. It contains all of the naturally occurring substances, dissolved or in suspension, added by its source.

For most of history, humans and robins have been drinking raw water. At the same time, many have become ill or died from contaminants in raw water. For example, in the United States cholera caused by drinking water was all too common. It was not until approximately the beginning of the Twentieth Century that chlorination was implemented to treat public water supplies to more safe levels.

Today, of course, thanks to the Environmental Protection Act public water supplies receive treatment for all sorts of contaminants identified by EPA, in compliance with standards promulgated by EPA.

On the other hand, raw water remains available via wells serving residential, commercial and farm buildings where central water systems do not exist; and, of course, bottled spring water is generally available.

One situation where raw water has been long promoted for health are spas such as in Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), Czech Republic. Indeed, doctors send their patients there to drink the waters, which are deemed curative. Speaking from personal experience, hordes of visits can be seen carrying small vessels of the "water" seeking its restorative qualities, but never wandering too far from the soon needed water closet (toilet). I am aware of a water utility in the United States whose well water contained a high amount of a sulphur compound, resulting in a high level of customer complaints about the need for frequent bathroom visits.

Public water supplies are treated for a reason: for health and safety. Raw water can taste good and make good coffee. However, not all raw water is equal. Its drinker must know its drink.

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© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

RIVERS RUN THROUGH THE SUPREME COURT

In 1801, when John Marshall was appointed the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Court was not the authoritative and powerful branch of the U.S. government that it is today. Over Marshall's 34 year tenure on the bench, his opinions molded the scope of the Court's jurisdiction. In doing so, he established concepts that we take for granted today.

For example, one of his more famous opinions was in Marbury v. Madison*, where the Court determined that legislation can be voided as being unconstitutional. Thus, the Court evolved to become the "final arbiter" of the constitutionality of federal and state laws, regulations and actions.

Another Marshall opinion, McCulloch v. Maryland**, held that Congress has the power to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry out its delegated powers. Thus, over the years, the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution has been a "workhorse" to sustain legislation.

Today, the Supreme Court takes on many thorny issues which grab media headlines and germinate talking heads chatter. However, there are certain cases before the Court that seem to draw little attention except from the immediate parties. Specifically, the Court has original jurisdiction, not appellate jurisdiction, in disputes between the states. This means that litigation begins and ends in the Court. Typically, fact finding may be before a special master appointed by the Court.

Recently, the Supreme Court has entered rulings in two cases involving compacts between states for the use of river water available to them. In Montana v. Wyoming***, the Court entered judgment against Wyoming in favor of Montana for violation of the Yellowstone River Compact The violations resulted form Wyoming's reduction of a volume of water available in the Tongue River at the state line between the two states. The Court awarded Montana $67,270.87. In addition, the Court entered a decree detailing the terms of the Compact to be followed.

In another recent case before the Court, Texas complained that New Mexico allegedly was taking more water than permitted under the Rio Grande Compact****. However, the decision involved the limited issue whether the United States could intervene in this dispute between states. The Court stated that it has authority to mold original actions before it. It said that the federal government may participate in state compact suits in order to defend "distinctively federal interests" in a way that litigants in traditional litigation may not be permitted. The Court, however, did not deal with the question whether the United states could begin litigation against a state to compel a state to performs its obligations under a compact.

So, while the Court's rulings for the most part get great attention, some cases, like rivers, quietly meander through the judicial process at the highest court in the land.

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* 5 U.S. 137 (1803)

** 17 U.S. 316 (1819)

*** 583 U.S.__(February 20, 2018)

**** 583 U.S. __(March 5, 2018)

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

THINGS MY MOTHER DIDN'T TELL ME AND SCIENTISTS DON'T KNOW

As young children grow up, it seems that their mothers tend to be their repository and dispensary for all information and advice. That certainly was true for me. However, as one ages, one realizes that my mother certainly did not tell me everything. And, as I have looked elsewhere for answers to many questions , I find that science, despite many advances and discoveries, does not know everything either, especially as related to some very basic issues. For example:

WATER

My mother's information about water generally was limited to "take a bath and wash behind the ears." Her explanation of where water came from was to point to the faucet. So, now, when I turn to science to learn the origins of water on earth, I discover that science does not know where water came from. Some scientists think it came from asteroids bombarding the earth. Some believe it originated from the primordial dust that created the earth. They appear to have no explanation any more certain than pointing to the faucet.

LIFE

All that my mother told me about the origins of life was that the stork brought me. Since I still believed in Santa Claus at the time, I accepted this avian explanation as plausible. Thankfully, science has explained everything with great certainty: I evolved from something. However, it is not clear what that something was-- it could have ranged from some minerals washing off rock and the chemicals mixing to create some single-cell creature to some amorphous blob swimming in aquatic life central. Since it is claimed that evolution is ongoing, I wonder what is coming after me. Thank you Darwin.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Mother's dictates on climate change were limited to "put on your boots" in frigid winter and "change your clothes" in sweaty summer. In my world, there was no climate change, but only weather change as the seasons changed. Now, science asserts that we have climate change, not weather change all because their computers say so. I still put on my boots in frigid winter and change my clothes in sweaty summer, so I really don't know what the distinction is between weather change and climate change, and I am not sure whether science knows either.

CONCLUSION

There is one thing that my mother did tell me with clarity: "God made everything and still is in control. That's all you need to know," she said.

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© Daniel J. Kucera 2018

DROOL IS COOL

Scientists have discovered that blowflies cool themselves by drooling.* They (blowflies, not scientists) release a droplet of saliva which then hangs onto the outside of its their mouth. The droplet apparently cools by evaporation, after which the blowfly draws the droplet back into its mouth. The droplet cycle is repeated several times, thereby cooling the body.

Mosquitoes seem to have a similar cooling system, only it is backwards. They get hot when sucking on warm-blooded bodies, such as ours. So, while drinking our hot blood, they release urine droplets from their posterior. The droplet dangles for a while to release heat from the body, then falls off to be replaced by another one. It is unclear whether vampires have a similar mechanism.

Before the advent of automobile air conditioning, old-timers may recall a device used to cool the passenger compartment. A tubular metal thing hung on the outside of the passenger window with a vent into the car. Filled with water, evaporative cooling took place when the car sped down the road. Of course, the passenger's window view was limited, as well as cooling in slow traffic.

What do blowflies, mosquitoes and politicians have in common? I will let you answer that one.

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*Milius,"Blowflies Use Drool To Keep
Their Cool",Science News,February 3,
2018, p.12

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018