The Cost of Global Warming

At least a portion of the destruction in the past few days and near future can be blamed on global warming.

Drought and warmer winters have made turned the natural presence of bark beetles in the San Bernardino Mountains, much of which is National Forests, into an epidemic and extreme fire hazard.

Trees weakened by drought and pollution are less likely to produce enough sap to expel boring beetles. Warmer winters means that more bark beetle eggs will survive to adulthood. The lack of natural fires and prescribed burns also creates over growth that contributes to an unnatural buildup of fuel.

Here is a map of Bark Beetle infestation in the San Bernardino Mountains.



The above map is from the San Bernardino County Museum.

Apologies for the size, I couldn't find a better one. You should be able to click on it to make it bigger.

Between the two main lakes, at the edge of the western swath of pink and red, you should be able to make out where the 18 - the highway that runs from Lake Arrowhead to Big Bear Lake - meets the 330 - the middle road leading from the mountains to the valley. That's where Running Springs is.

This is the current fire damage in Running Springs.



The above map is from rimoftheworld.net. Since residents are using that site to get updates, and the site administrators have taken everything down except the fire updates in order to deal with the demand, please wait until the fire is contained before clicking through.

You can see that the burn area overlaps the beige and lighter pink area on the first map. The latest reports are that the fire is moving towards Lake Arrowhead. (The western lake.) So it's burning along the pink area, not toward the beige and green area.

The Lake Arrowhead fire is on the western edge of the lake, the fire area overlaps the pink and dark pink areas on the first map.

Welcome, Julie!

Finally, we have a new American Girl!

Meet Julie, a girl of the 70's. Yes, you read that right, a girl of the '70s. Yes. The 1970's. Which I think is supercool because so much of recent history doesn't get taught to kids because it's too "controversial."

And the books are written by Megan McDonald. How cool is that!

And OMG! here's the synopsis of the first book:

Julie Albright doesn't want to move away from her San Francisco neighborhood near Chinatown, even if her new apartment is just a few miles away... Julie tries to make the best of it by joining the school’s basketball team, but the coach won’t allow girls to play. She learns that it’s up to her to make positive changes in her new school—and her new life. The “Looking Back” section discusses the women’s movement, divorce, and other issues of the turbulent 1970s.

(emphasis mine, of course)

Awesome.

The second book focuses more on Julie dealing with her parents divorce, and the fact that it wasn't as common back then. The third deals with culture clash between Julie's family and her best friend Ivy Ling's family. It also breaks tradition by being about about New Year's instead of Christmas. (The AG books all follow the same pattern - with the exception of Kaya's: Meet [blank], school story, xmas story, spring/birthday story, summer/heroic story, winter/growing up story.)

It gets better! In the fourth book

Julie and her best friend, Ivy, find a baby owl in Golden Gate Park—and it needs help. At a wildlife rescue center, Julie meets Shasta and Sierra, two bald eagles that will be caged for life, unless money is raised to release them back into the wild. For Earth Day, Julie thinks of a unique way to tell the public of the eagles' plight. The “Looking Back” section explores the beginning of the environmental movement.

Bwhahahahaha. (Sorry, I'm just imagining the reactions of all the conservatives that like the AG series bc it's "good, clean fun.") That is just so cool.

The fifth book is about the bicentennial. (Which is another break in tradition, because the first book takes place in 1974 and the series usually span only a year and a half, if I remember right.) In the sixth book Julie runs for school president. (Nice timing there, AG. ;) )

Although, of course, we are left with one big question, and I hope you are all asking it along with me. (Especially since the American Girl books are supposed to be about the idea of American girls being diverse in all kinds of ways.) Why the hell is this Julie's series and not Ivy's? Did American Girl think that they just didn't have enough blonde girls in their line? Are we ever going to have an American Girl of Asian descent? :(

At least they do give Ivy her own book (written by Lisa Yee), like they did for Samantha's friend Nellie, Felicity's friend Elizabeth, and Molly's friend Emily, when their movies came out. Which makes me wonder if this year's movie will be about Julie. That would be interesting. But I doubt it, since they have a theatrical release movie about Kit coming out next summer.

Maybe the fall doll drawing will feature Julie and Ivy this year? The first one featured Kaya, when she first came out. The last few years have featured the girls whose movies were about to come out. So maybe this year it's back to the new girl since there doesn't see to be a fall movie. Hmmm. I hope they at least keep the drawing as being for two dolls, American Girl and Friend. At least that will mean Ivy will get more exposure than she normally would.