Climate Change? Nahhh ...

My parents began a full-court press to get me licensed once their Tennessee Farm Bureau agent informed them their rates were going up either way simply by virtue of having a 16-year-old male under their roof.

 

I was driving farm equipment by age 10 and driving on the road on my own by 14. I was mad because my 16th birthday was on Sunday, and the DMV was closed. I was the first person in the door at 8 a.m. on Monday.

 

Which means you probably got called about 3:30 p.m.

When I tried to just RENEW my North Carolina license, the next available Charlotte office appointment was four months away. Had to go up to Statesville just to get an appointment before mine would expire.

 

You illustrate a key issue.

For young people living in urban areas, they can get around and be independent without a car or driver’s license.

Not so much in rural or less.populated areas.

 

15-year-olds can get licenses in Montana.

 

I remember being so stoked to get my license and be able to drive some of my friends to school. My high school was about seven miles away so the only other option was riding with someone else or taking the bus, which just wasn't fun at all. I'm stunned when I talk to my friends who have teenagers with zero interest in driving. It was a sign of freedom for me. But the world has changed, alas...

 

In Cali when I was coming up it was permit at 15 so you could get the road hours in to take your driving test at 16 to get your license. They have a thing now where you can skip driver's ed if you get your permit at 17 and a half and your license at 18.

I failed my driver's test twice, so I didn't get my license until the end of my junior year. The first time I chalk up to me not processing everything around me and fucking up in an intersection. The second time the damn instructor failed me because I was driving too slow ... in the rain ... through a construction zone ... next to schools ... By my third go around, I was so tired of dealing with the test, I relaxed and got it done. Even then, when we pulled into the DMV, I fully expected the tester to tell me I failed a third time.

 

My son has been counting down the days until he can get a permit for at least two years. He's 13. And we live in a city with public transportation.

 

My parents didn't drive, and it always was my goal to get my license ASAP.

I didn't get a car until I got my first "real" job (19).

I still love taking the train, but there's nothing better for the soul than a long drive down an empty interstate or through the middle of nowhere.

Two favorite drives.

1. This, especially when the leaves overhang both sides of the road and you're basically driving through a tunnel:
2. Through South Dakota over the pink asphalt as the sun rose. I thought I was tripping.

 

Rising seas threaten ‘mass exodus on a biblical scale’, UN chief warns

An increase in the pace at which sea levels are rising threatens “a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale”, the UN secretary general has warned.

The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise faster than for 3,000 years, bringing a “torrent of trouble” to almost a billion people, from London to Los Angeles and Bangkok to Buenos Aires, António Guterres said on Tuesday. Some nations could cease to exist, drowned under the waves, he said.

 

Investigation under way as ninth dead whale washes up in New Jersey

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/15/glacier-ice-melt-ocean-warming/

The results from overlapping teams of more than two dozen scientists, published Wednesday in two papers in the journal Nature, reveal the extent to which human-caused warming could destabilize glaciers in West Antarctica that could ultimately raise global sea level by 10 feet if they disintegrate over the coming centuries.