What's good about global warming
Faithful readers will remember that when my husband and I visit my 93-year-old mother-in-law in Washington and take her out to dinner, we're lucky if she eats a lettuce leaf. She usually says, "Oh, I'm not hungry. I don't feel like ordering anything. I'll just nibble off your plate."
(Embarrassing revelation alert!) I HATE anyone nibbling off my plate. Like any self-respecting foodie, I'm very possessive of my meal, and I usually have to resort to the arm casually resting on the table between us, making it hard for her to take a fork to my food. Luckily she is frailer than I am in case I have to do some serious blocking.
But I'm getting off-topic here. My subject is global warming. ...
We took her to Clyde's in Friendship Heights, her favorite restaurant, most recently; and I nearly fell off my seat when she said to the waitress, who had just recited the night's specials, "I'll have the whole lobster." It came with french fries and coleslaw for $18.95.
Not only that, she ordered a glass of red wine to go with it.
Which brings me, finally, to the point of this post. Her lobster (which she ate every morsel of) reminded me of a story I had seen in National Geographic. Researchers studying 50 years of fish trawling data have found that numbers of lobsters as well as other bottom-crawlers are increasing because of global warming.
I'm sure you've heard that old joke about lobsters being protected by their natural enemies by their high price. That may be changing.
(Photo by Gordon M. Grant/Bloomberg News)
Comments
EL wrote: But I'm getting off-topic here.
Welcome to the Sandbox, EL!
Posted by: hmpstd | October 1, 2008 5:43 AM
Lobster. SAAALIVATE.
I am going to Cape Cod on Friday for a week, and I plan to kill MANY a crustacean on my vacation. I hear the abundance of lobster and the fact that people aren't eating a whole lot of them throughout the country have driven down prices up there to $3 a pound. Run for your lives, lobsters!!!
Posted by: dcdiva | October 1, 2008 7:49 AM
dcdiva, you are going to hit the lobster pounds, right? Those places right on the shore, no name, with picnic tables, boiling 50 gallon drums of water, melted butter and seafood? That's where you get the really good lobster.
(I actually don't like them much. They are never as good as I remember them being, so I don't bother. Although the lobster soup at Sea Baron in Reykjavik was delicious.)
Posted by: Lissa | October 1, 2008 9:22 AM
One of my primary Life Philosophies is that nothing is all good or all bad.
Cheap lobster is apparently one of the good things about global warming.
Posted by: Bucky | October 1, 2008 10:26 AM
Looook for
the silver lining ...
Posted by: Dahlink | October 1, 2008 3:43 PM
Thanks Dahlink! now I've got that tune etched in my brain for the rest of the evening. Actually what it brings to mind is when Reagan was president and we were looking for the American label...
Posted by: Joyce W. | October 1, 2008 8:32 PM
I think the song you mean is from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union:
Look for the union label
when you are buying that coat, dress or blouse.
Remember somewhere our union's sewing,
our wages going to feed the kids, and run the house.
We work hard, but who's complaining?
Thanks to the I.L.G. we're paying our way!
So always look for the union label,
it says we're able to make it in the U.S.A.!
It was written around the mid 70s and did use the tune from Look for the silver lining...
Posted by: Retired in Elkridge | October 1, 2008 10:37 PM
Yup, RiE, that would be the song!
Posted by: Joyce W. | October 2, 2008 5:23 AM
Well, when you think about food overall, climate change isn't great. Here's an article in National Geographic:
Warming May Cause Crop Failures, Food Shortages by 2030
Posted by: Ed M | October 2, 2008 3:20 PM