Sunday, November 15, 2009

Jacksonville Landing and Global Warming


I moved Reboot to Jacksonville Landing, Jacksonville’s answer to the Milwaukee Ale House.  It is set in the heart of the downtown area with river walks on both sides of the St. Johns River. The city provides free dockage for up to 72 hours but no services.  The “Landing” is a retail complex with restaurants, clubs, stores and a central outdoor court.  On the weekends there is free music in the courtyard.  It is also event driven, tonight the local animal shelter was having a fund raising effort.  Everyone (except me of course) brought one or more dogs down to the festivities.  The dogs remarkably were well controlled.




This morning I took the runners loop, a 1.9 mile trip.  From the Landing one travels across the main street bridge, walks up the east side of the river, comes back across the high rise bridge and back to the landing.  I got a decent workout and some pretty pictures.  The past couple of days it has finally become the Florida of my expectations, sunny, clear and hot.  It was great to be outside.




What does any of this have to do with Global Warming?  As I understand it man’s contribution to global warming comes from exhaling and burning fossil fuels.  Why do we burn fossil fuels?  In large part to create electricity.  And what do we do with the electricity we create?  Why we light up our cities with beautiful decorative lights.  If we were serious about global warming we would not light up our bridges, fountains, etc. just to make them look pretty.  For that matter why waste electricity to pump water up in the air, it just falls down again. (“Gravity, more than a good idea, it’s a law!”)  Anyway, I am glad that the crisis has not reached the proportions where we have to turn out the pretty lights.




2 comments:

  1. It looks a great place to hang out.
    How long do you have to be off the dock before you can have another 72 hours for free??
    Or...... For how long can you stand the hustle and bustle before you need to escape to a quiet anchorage ??
    It's still windy and raining in ol' Blighty.
    Nigel

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  2. The fountains of old...........From Roman and mediaeval times were gravity fed from lakes or reservoirs at a higher level.
    Have you ever seen kinetic pump in action??
    Only one moving part and it will pump liquids to a higher level without any external power required whatsoever.
    Nigel

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