global warming state by state

Measure thirty years' worth of average temperatures from 1971 to year 200.  Now do the same thirty year measurement from 1981 to 2010 and compare the difference.  The state that's seen the biggest temperature increase?  Colorado.  But all of the Rocky Mountain states have seen big increases, and there isn't a single state in the country that isn't warmer now than 30 years ago.  Summit County Citizens Voice.

While large parts of the U.S. government, including a majority in Congress, continue to deny the reality of climate change, the U.S. Forest Service is not among them.  The service gets to see the reality up close.  See here for a list of the climate change presentations available on their site.

Wildfire Today has a report on climate change and wildfires.  Read it and weep.  In thirty years, there may be no forests left in Yellowstone National Park.

You take my homeless, and I'll take yours. Yeah, sure.

Colorado Springs officials think they can reduce their unsheltered-- that is, camping out-- population of homeless people by about 10 percent by putting them on a bus and sending them home.

The police department’s three-man Homeless Outreach Team will be working with people who have family members or friends in another city willing to take them in, and who just don't have a way to get there.  The team is hoping some 25 to 30 homeless people will take advantage of the offer, which is funded by the Salvation Army through a grant.  Some 300 to 500 people are estimated to be "camping out" in the Colorado Springs area.

Lancaster, California, a small city of 145,000, operated a similar program last year.  The city's mayor felt as if the City of Los Angeles, an hour to the south,  was sending their own homeless to overwhelm Lancaster's homeless.  But most of the homeless people who took advantage of the offer were local people who chose to go somewhere else.

For every touching story of a daughter who discovers her long-lost father in a homeless shelter and welcomes him in to her loving home, there are ten homeless people who can't go home again.  Maybe there is no home to go to, parents and siblings dead, or scattered to the winds.  Maybe families are why a person is homeless in the first place-- shelters have their share of the young, runaway victims of abuse.  Sometimes homeless peoples have slammed the door shut themselves, or had it slammed on them because of their own behavior.

But what if every homeless person went back to the city in which they were born?  Or in which they'd spent most of their lives?  The affluent communities, the small towns, the capital cities: what would you do if all the homeless people came home?

Photo from DavidX Zhang's photostream at Flickr.

Wasn't this a Law & Order episode? & other homeless news

LAW & ORDER: Insurance agent Richard James and a co-defendant are on trial for felony murder in NYC for taking out life insurance policies on at least three homeless people and then killing them.

CAN'T SEE THIS HAPPENING HERE: Mayors in Nevada rallied for $20 million in funding for transitional housing for the homeless. Apparently they were inspired to action after lawmakers and homeless advocates spent a snowy night in tents back in February on the lawn of the Nevada Legislature.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THIS SEEMS LIKELY: The Democratic National Convention is coming to Denver next summer, so the city plans to keep its winter-only shelters open through the summer and for 24 hours instead of just overnight. Black Star News

NO DUMPING HERE..JUST BACK AND FORTH FROM HOSPITAL TO SHELTER: LOS ANGELES -

LOS ANGELES - A paraplegic man with a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in the gutter. An elderly woman, wearing only a hospital gown and slippers, was dumped on the street by a taxi called by the hospital.
For years, few people took seriously reports that Los Angeles hospitals were taking sick, confused and homeless patients by ambulance to the city's notorious "Skid Row" and leaving them there.
Today, Los Angeles city officials and a major hospital group announced a deal they hoped marks the beginning of the end to the dumping of vulnerable people in an area thought to have the highest concentration of homeless in the country.
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the nation's largest non-profit health-care provider, agreed to find shelter places for all homeless patients it discharges in Los Angeles.

It will also contribute US$500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row including a free legal clinic, a shelter bed database and extra beds for recovering patients. More at New Zealand Herald.