Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for June 05, 2021

Which means he also made a dramatic exit at the top of the world

Must have been due to lack of oxygen.

Well, Bob, now that you’re here, we’ll check to see if you have a reservation.

I don’t think Bob planned to climb THIS high.

God didn’t see him coming‽

Doesn’t he everrest?

“I’m sorry sir, you need a reservation to stay here.”

Soon to be at ever-resting peace …

This may be the only glimpse of heaven Bob ever sees.

Don’t you hate when you are doing your best material and it isn’t playing the room.

What was wrong with the stairway?

Sorry, but The Almighty won’t alert the media just because you’ve arrived.;-D

He’s not in yet. And it may stay that way.

The souls of the Babelites way below are kicking themselves.

Wait. What?!?!!?! NOOOOOO!!!

Yes, I know about the “living a good life” thing, but can I get some points for style?

Every world should have at least one unclimable mountain.

— Larry Niven, Ringworld

Mt Olympus

Bob thought he’d make his last stand and bring the mountain with him!

By climbing the wrong peak, that´s more like Heavens cat flap.

Eveyone sing: “Climb every mountain…”

I like the little flag with Bob’s name on it. Wiley’s subtle touches makes the comic better.

Should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

And now Bob may make a dramatic exit.

“Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s door.” Bob Dylan.

Excuse me Bob, no cutting the line, the line starts back there

Probably should not have tried the climb without oxygen!

That’s the reason Trump skipped a memorial service for WW I vets (suckers and losers). It was raining and he could not arrive in style on Marine One. He was too good and too important to take ground transportation like the other world leaders.

If this comment irks you, I don’t care.

Bob could be making a rapid descent.

Could this explain why so many people who climbed Mt. Everest never came back down?

It is pretty dramatic when you bring your own mountain. :)

The Sherpa is already inside…..

Risky, he might find himself “Bobbing” in lava…

Next up. Bob learns that he must descend to the depths before climbing to the correct heigth.

Unfortunately, Bob went to the wrong mountaintop. He’ll have to go back down and take the correct mountain.

Seems me that this is not one of the ways that the talking blues that begins, “If you want to get to heaven I’ll tell you how to do it…” recommends.

“Getting there is half the fun !”

Ok, Bob, climb back down and come up the other way. What else you got to do now?

Must have been Mount Meru leading to beyond space and location.

There, at the roof of the world, the snow samples showed traces of toxic chemicals known as PFAS, laboratory analyses done later showed. More notable results came from samples his colleagues gathered at lower elevation, which revealed these substances at levels far higher than at other mountains around the world.

“We were shocked,” said Kimberley Miner, an assistant research professor at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, who coordinated the research remotely from the United States. “We retested everything like three times, because it was much higher than we expected.”

The study by Miner and colleagues, published in December, was part of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, a large, interdisciplinary research project intended to understand the climate change threats facing mountain systems. It shows chemical fingerprints smudging even the world’s tallest peak in ways unseen and previously unstudied.

“The purpose of the expedition was to see if the highest parts of the planet are affected by human activity,” said Paul Mayewski, the expedition leader and director of the university’s Climate Change Institute.

Miner’s research has taken her all over the world to study chemicals in glaciers, especially persistent organic pollutants such as PFAS — shorthand for per- and polyfluorinated substances. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” these are toxic compounds that break down slowly and accumulate over time in people and other animals.

(To be continued)

(Continued)

Such pollutants are found in low concentrations in the atmosphere, and they are blown all over the globe. Then, when it rains or snows, they often are deposited on the ground. So Miner suspected the Everest samples would only show low levels of persistent chemicals from this sort of atmospheric deposition.

But when the Everest samples were shipped to an analytical lab, she learned about the PFAS levels that were particularly high in the samples from lower down on the mountain.

“I thought we’d screwed up, and we hadn’t,” Miner said. “We got consistently these very, very high levels.”

Miner’s samples showed two specific PFAS chemicals were especially high — perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The chemicals have been used since the 1950s to repel stains and water in carpeting, upholstery and apparel; in nonstick cookware and food packaging; and in floor wax, textiles, fire fighting foam and sealants. Neither is still manufactured in the United States, but they are made in other countries.

Both have been linked to health problems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “both chemicals are very persistent in the environment and in the human body — meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time. There is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse human health effects.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/mt-everest-pollution/2021/04/16/7b341ff0-909f-11eb-bb49-5cb2a95f4cec_story.html

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain then there is….

I know Faith can move mountains, but I suspect that Bob just took his Faith a bit too far.

Bob always called Edmund Hillary “Ted.”