Monday Mirage

July 7, 2014

Three_WorldsGround fog and a bit warm this way-too-early Monday on California’s north coast as another work week starts whether we like it or not — not!
Those last two days appear much-much shorter than those other ones — why?
The weather up here has been super great the last month, and the upcoming week appears as no exception with fog forecast in the morning, then “mostly cloudy,” turning into “mostly sunny” by afternoon. And we’re “mostly” happy about it.

Today in Washington state, the pot retail business starts — and another push toward normal: Customers will be allowed to buy up to 1 ounce (28 grams) of marijuana. They also can buy up to 16 ounces (0.454 kg) of marijuana-infused product in solid form or up to 72 ounces (two kg) of marijuana-infused product in liquid form.
The stores actually open tomorrow, first the license, and then the buzz, business-wise.

(Illustration: M.C. Escher’s ‘Three Worlds‘ found here).

This new-found legality does have a price — sticker shock, kind of, as pot will get expensive, maybe even double the norm. Pot on the other side of the law is now part of supply and demand — supply the problem.
Via SavingAdvice:

The biggest issue causing the high prices will be a lack of supply.
There are relatively few licensed growers at this time, and of those who are licensed, few have started to harvest.
Although there have been over 2,600 grower applications, less than 80 have been certified to grow so far. Of these, the vast majority have yet to begin harvesting their product.

Lack of supply won’t be the only issue keeping prices high.
There are some fairly hefty taxes which go along with the legal marijuana.
There’s a 25 percent wholesale tax, plus another 25 percent minimum retail tax.
Add in sales tax as well, and the taxes alone put quite a bit of pressure on the price of the product.

And viewing marijuana as just another capitalistic entity: As with many products, your best bet is not to be an early adopter in the new Washington state legal recreational marijuana experiment. If you do choose to participate this week, you’ll have to pay a premium price to be a part of it. You’d be much better off financially to wait until supplies become more stable, and prices begin to fall before becoming a regular customer in this new industry.

Rather just grown my own.

Surfing through the news cycle the morning, not much else pops out — Iraq still going to shit in a wire basket, though oil prices haven’t benn slapped hard yet; in the same zone, the Israel/Palestinian situation is bordering on chaos; President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are getting into a new dust-up after the arrest of a German double-agent (working for the NSA, natch); and an old name from the Cold War has died — Eduard Shevardnadze, the last foreign minister of the Soviet Union and the president of the independent republic of Georgia, who had banged around for 86 years.

And a environmental report plugged into the story I did yesterday about soot on the Arctic ice, making it melt even faster, and this one on the source.
From Climate News Network:

Once again, US scientists have come to the same conclusion: there really is no alternative.
The only way to contain climate change and limit global warming, they say, is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
It won’t really help to concentrate on limiting methane emissions, or even potent greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorcarbons, or nitrous oxide, or the soot and black carbon that also contribute to global warming.
Containing all or any of them would make a temporary difference, but the only thing that can work in the long run is a serious cut in carbon dioxide emissions.
Raymond Pierrehumbert, a climatologist at the University of Chicago, combined new research and analysis and a review of the scientific literature.
He reports in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences that although livestock emissions such as methane are – molecule for molecule – potentially more potent as global warming agents than carbon dioxide, there remains no substitute for reducing the burning of fossil fuels.
“Until we do something about CO2, nothing we do about methane or these other things is going to matter much for climate,” he said.

Right now, according to the Earth Policy Institute, coal still accounts for 44 percent of fossil fuel emissions, oil accounts for 36 percent, and natural gas accounts for the remaining 20 percent.
Subsidies for fossil fuels in 2011 added up to more than $620 billion, while renewable energy that year received just $88bn in subsidies.
In the last 200 years, the planet has warmed by 1°C, and 2013 marked the 37th consecutive year of above-average temperatures.
The institute calculates that 4 billion people alive today have never experienced a year that was cooler than last century’s average.

And on a Monday, that’s some hard shit to swallow.

(Illustration out front found here).

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