{"id":960,"date":"2012-09-11T13:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/09\/11\/families-vs-saving-the-planet"},"modified":"2012-09-11T13:04:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T13:04:00","slug":"families-vs-saving-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=960","title":{"rendered":"Families vs. saving the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I can\u2019t stop thinking about an idiotic applause line that Mitt Romney threw at the Republican faithful as he accepted his party\u2019s presidential nomination in Tampa.<\/p>\n<p>He chided President Obama for pledging to stem rising ocean tides and while saving the planet; then he said his first priority would be to help \u201cAmerican families.\u201d The Tampa crowd roared its approval.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m with those who wonder how the threat of global climate change became a political punch line. <\/p>\n<p>I also am among those who believe the climate is changing. I\u2019m open to discuss the reasons for the change: manmade or a natural geological cycle that occurs every few millennia. There can be no dispute, though, over the fact that the ice caps are melting, the worldwide mean temperatures are rising, ocean levels are rising too, storm systems are becoming deadlier and more violent, and many species of God\u2019s creatures are becoming threatened by all of it.<\/p>\n<p>And let me include human beings in that final example.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, that also includes American families.<\/p>\n<p>Is it really and truly prudent to ignore these trends? I think not. Scientists who are a lot smarter than I am \u2013 or even smarter than Mitt Romney \u2013 keep telling us that we\u2019re approaching the point of no return. Indeed, there may be nothing humankind can do to reverse these warming trends if you subscribe to the notion that the climate change is part of some evolutionary cycle.<\/p>\n<p>But from where I sit, I consider these threats every bit as real as the persistent economic threats that endanger Americans\u2019 way of life.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s nothing funny about them.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can\u2019t stop thinking about an idiotic applause line that Mitt Romney threw at the Republican faithful as he accepted his party\u2019s presidential nomination in Tampa. He chided President Obama for pledging to stem rising ocean tides and while saving the planet; then he said his first priority would be to help \u201cAmerican families.\u201d The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=960\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Families vs. saving the planet<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}