May 20, 2021: Largest Iceberg in History

 

5/20/21: Remember when Rejected-President Trump used to like to bark about climate change and how it was all “a hoax?”

 

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An iceberg the size of Delaware.

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It was great fun for right-wing fools, who, like the jackass in the Oval Office, proved incapable of discerning the difference between weather and climate. Meanwhile, the four years of Trump in office, turned out to be four of the hottest, globally, in history. Even major automobile manufacturers started to realize: The days of gasoline-powered vehicles were numbered. 

This week, Ford announced plans to market the Lightning, starting at $39,974, an all-electric version of its most popular model, the F-150 pickup. And this isn’t your granny’s Prius. As Ford CEO Jim Farley promised buyers, the new model “hauls ass and tows like a beast.” 

Nor is that all the new pickup truck can do:

 

Ford is emphasizing what the Lightning can do at a standstill – namely, run a work site or power a home during an emergency.

 

Eleven built-in outlets allow drivers to run multiple power tools at a work site or kitchen appliances at a campsite. (The new hybrid F-150 offers a similar feature.)

 

And when it’s plugged in at home and the power goes out, the Lightning can automatically send electricity back into your home, keeping the lights on for days, Ford says.

 

In related news, the largest iceberg in the world has broken off an ice sheet on the Antarctic coast. At 4,320 sq. kilometers, or 1667.961 square miles, that makes the berg, named, unimaginatively, A-76, only slightly smaller than Delaware. 

A-76 now knocks A-68, which broke off from the ice sheet last year, into second place. That berg was “only” a little larger than Rhode Island. Scientists say that the breaking off of A-76 may have nothing to do with climate change – but go on to warn that climate change is definitely causing damage to ice sheets along the Antarctic coast; and that means humanity will pay a price.

 

Garbage may seem to be only tangentially connected to the saga of A-76. But do you ever ask yourself, “Where does my old toaster go when one set of slots stops toasting my bagels?”

The toaster doesn’t disappear, although you might think it does. It goes into a landfill with all the other dead toasters. We need to remember that all human activities leave marks on the environment. 

For example, the New York City Sanitation Department estimates that it hauls away 12,000 tons of trash daily. 

You can’t pile it up forever. 

Nor can you spew unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with absolute impunity.