108 Degrees. Oregon is the new Sahara.

Yikes.  It's hot.  Was 108, but now its cooled to about 106.  Wow, the relief!  Kidding.

This isn't the Oregon I know.  Where are you cool misty gray Oregon?  What have you done to yourself?  What have we done to you?

Is this a freak winter/summer or have we screwed up the climate so this is the new norm?  I don't know.  Another Oregon city has declared a water emergency..  In southern Oregon, the woods are closed and its unlawful to travel on some roads without a shovel, ax and fire extinguisher.

In Portland, a colorful battle has raged all day.  Greenpeace protesters dangled from the St. Johns bridge on the Willamette River, with long flags blowing from each, to block a Shell oil ice breaking ship they want to use to keep ice away from their drilling rigs up in the Arctic.  Protesters claim if the icebreaker got a hole torn through its hull, which is why the ship was in Portland, for repair of that hole, the same will happen to the drilling rig, creating a huge spill that will never go away and destroy the fragile arctic.

To read the story, see photos and video, click here.

It's hard to not believe that.  But should we all stop driving or using petroleum based products?  The colorful kayaks that surrounded the ship are plastic and made from petroleum, I believe, and were probably transported to the launch point on cars that run on petroleum.  What are we to do?  Nobody wants the Arctic trashed, except for those who don't give a rip about much of anything.  But is it hypocritical to protest drilling for a product one then uses?

We don't have alternatives to using petroleum, that are cost effective. Is it ok if its drilled out of our sight and doesn't destroy lands in America but rather elsewhere? Will we ever have cost effective alternatives?   Or, will we before we destroy most of this planet in various ways?   Our species is reactive not progressive.    I doubt it.  I'm skeptical, you see, from age, and seeing the same old for decades without real change.  Money runs our society.  The quest for money is our most cherished value.  As evidence, look how the poor are trashed!

My guess is we won't change until there's money in change or we have to change.

The battle in Portland was spectacular!  Colorful kayaks, a sailboat, protesters dangling from ropes off a bridge, all to fight a massive ship leaving for the Arctic to break up the ice, so a drill can be sent into the bowels of the earth to suck out rotted dinosaurs so we can type on plastic keyboards and watch screens that display the protest or drive to watch it live, in our gas engine cars.

Wow!