.....ah, that truly is the question.
CO-Admin Comments:
Once again the term "agenda" surfaces. When Crichton first wrote "State of
Religions of the world all operate on an agenda. Many of the Christian faith believe that their personal salvation is based almost entirely on how many others they can convince of the "error of their ways" and convert them to Christianity, or a different 'brand' of Christianity.
I wonder if God has a score card: Converting one Catholic to Pentecostal is worth 3 points, converting one Jew is worth 5 points, converting one guy out of the Jungle is worth 2 points, etc.
If you choose to participate you will learn what it takes to score the most points.
Of course none of us on the planet will ever know the whole truth. It is based upon "faith."
In my personal opinion, Global Warming is the exact same thing.
If paper A scientifically proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Global Warming exists, papers B, C & D will debunk paper A and cite "faulty data" or "manipulation of the data."
The people who wrote Position A get paid for doing it by those who want the data to show that (so they can sell the data to others who want to use it to support their agenda.)
The people who write B, C & D get paid for doing it by those who want the data to show that (so they can sell the data to others who want to use it to support their agenda.)
The key word here is "AGENDA."
If you are a petro-chemical company, your "Agenda" is to disprove Global Warming so you can continue to drill and produce your products for sale.,
If you are an Environmentalist, you want to prove Global Warming exists so you can continue to sell that idea to people who make monetary contributions to your cause.
If you build solar heating panels, you likely will in competition with the folks who sell gas or coal fired furnaces, whichever side you are on, there will be scientific data to support your claim.
If paper A says, "Water freezes at 32 deg. F or 0 Celsius," you can bet that those who disagree will show that they have temps taken of sea water that is 24 deg F., and still liquid, and ice that is 5 deg Celsius and still frozen.
So then the people of paper A have to come back and debunk the research techniques of B, C & D.
In both cases, money changes hands.
Some say the true scientists are selling their souls to the devil for 30 pieces of silver. Maybe so, but if you are willing to hire me to write a paper on something that can neither be proved or disproved, and I can take those 30 pieces of silver and use them to help my research on a cure for cancer or diabetes ... well no harm no foul.
Scientists and non-scientists alike will ultimately have to wait for the "rapture" to know the truth.
The difficulty in the issue of Global Warming is the time factor.,
Let’s face it, we humans are barely beyond the stage of single cell fetus when it comes to the age of the planet. We are the first bud of grass growing next to the Sequoias and the Redwoods telling the world all about them and their branches and leaves which live hundreds of feet above us.
A large amount of what we "know" about the changes in our environment is akin to making pronouncements about changes in education based upon how many preschooler know red from green this year compared to last year in one classroom, in one school, in one city, in one state in the
The time frame from which we draw our data and our samples is so limited we are essentially guessing.
Some say, "We have proof that the overall temperature of the planet has increased by 0.5 F in the past 100 years," and write scientific position papers based upon that data.
But 100 years is not much time in the overall scheme of things.
I think I have some socks that are nearly that old.
How can we be certain that we are not on the trailing edge of a naturally occurring environmental change that happens every 50,000 years, 100,000 years, 1,000,000 years?
So, my position on the issue is "wait and see." Is the climate heading for a disaster? Should we all begin carrying signs, "Repent, the end is near?" And when it does end, who will we see? Buddha or Jesus?
I'm not on either side. I have high regard for the environmental movement and the work they do. But I am also a pragmatist. Our very existence on this planet always has been supply & demand. You get hungry enough, and get your arm ripped off trying to have a fist fight with a sabre toothed tiger, you will learn to develop a weapon to help you out. Bye, bye Sabre toothed tiger.
When you decide there is a connection to days of being sick as a pterodactyl after eating raw tiger meat, you discover fire. Bye Bye forests.
When you discover that there is a demand for beautiful, fine white fur, Bye Bye Arctic seals. When you discover there is a demand for blubber, Bye Bye Whales.
Want to save the seals and the whales, take away the demand. Want to save the environment, take away the demand for fossil based fuels. That is the only way to stop the feuding and the arguments.
Who can argue when a man feeds his family by clubbing baby seals to death,, or shoots harpoons into whales? Who can argue with a man who feeds his family working on an off shore oil platform?
Want to stop that, stop the demand and find him alternative employment.
Everyone who has ever dropped a line into a trout stream knows there is always a hook involved.
Timothy D. Culey, PhD.
(I add the "PhD" on there not to brag or intimidate so much as to prove that a PhD doesn't mean squat in the total scheme of things. If anything it has taught me to be damned careful when I use it and with whom. The last thing in world I need is for somebody to quote me in support of a position to which I may not necessarily agree.
You, the members of BAM, know as much as I do about Global Warming (and probably everything else.) The only difference is that it took a lot more time in the classroom for me to learn what I don't know.
.... and the one thing I do know is, "don't trust the spell checker on Multiply or MS Word to correct all your errors."
ReplyDeleteFollow the trail of WHERE the money will end up.. and what it will actually accomplish.. No... this is just an asinine pyramid scheme.. cloaked to resemble a "cause". Al Bore.. should be imprisoned with Madoff.. those two have MUCH in common.
ReplyDeleteOf course I think Al Gore is wonderful and really enjoy his movie "An Inconvenient Truth". In fact I show it to every one who will sit still and watch it with me. But I also enjoyed the challenges to Global Warming that Michael Crichton explained so well in "State Of Fear". What I really liked about Crichton's position was how he made it clear that we need more research to learn more about environmental management. No where in the book did I see any indication that we should not proceed with recycling or taking care of our rivers and lakes. Whether or not there is a climate crisis, we still need to do the things that environmentalists would have us do.
ReplyDeleteThere are many good reasons, climate change aside, to get past our oil addiction in this country and find renewable energy sources that meet our needs. Independence from foreign oil being an obvious one. It is just good business sense to find something we can obtain and process here to use for our energy. Not to mention the fact to be able to defend ourselves without depending on fuel from others would make us more secure as a nation.
ReplyDeleteNever the less, in spite of my beliefs, I appreciate other's opinions and feel the only way to sort things out is to share different view points.
ReplyDeleterealistically we will never be free from foreign oil but we all need to be more aware that these commodity are precious and we shouldn't squander them and the less we need to buy the better for all countries-
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a mere lad growing up on the Frozen Steppes of South Dakota, every farmer in the state had a constant need for water. There were big demands for livestock, for irrigation and for all the things for which water was needed.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to drive into the yard at a randomly selected number of farms, you would see large stock tanks overflowing with water for the live stock. You would see green grass in the farm yard, you would see acres of irrigation keeping the crops watered. You would also see a pump which distributed the water where it was needed.
But no where near the pump was there a can of gasoline or diesel fuel to run that pump. There were no electric lines leading to the pump. There were no donkey's walking in endless circles to power the pump.
The one thing you would see on every farm was at least one large windmill. There has never been a shortage of wind in S.D., and the wind mills on some farms supply the power for everything, including all the appliances in the house and the barn. Have you ever heard the expression, "The wind blows free?" Thank God it does, or we could never afford to buy a vegetable or an apple because the cost of fueling those pumps would raise the cost so high ... Wouldn't it be nice to have a way to convert that free wind power into energy to power our homes and even our cars?
A sideline about farms in S. D. Some places in a lot of states have a wind vane mounted on the roof of the barn so you can glance up and get the direction the wind is blowing. In South Dakota you will never see one. If they are interested in seeing which way the wind is blowing, they just check to see which way the barn is leaning..
I knew a farmer that put a cement post in the ground, with big "D" ring near the top of the post and this big log chain attached to the D Ring. When he wanted to check the wind direction, he just looked at the chain to see which was it was waving. He even devised an algorithm that told him the velocity of the wind by the number links it snapped off the end in a specified time.
The folks in South Dakota would probably welcome a little Global Warming in January when the outside temps are 35 to 40 below zero.
ReplyDeleteIt was so cold up there one winter that I personally observed an earthworm mug a Caterpillar just to get his fur coat.
Before there were milking machines it was all done by hand. You get your little three legged stool, put your bucket on the ground, warm your hands as best you could (if you wanted Bossie to cooperate, you better have warm hands .. not unlike your wife in that respect) you grab onto any two of the four devices situated for your convenience right where you are sitting, give a little tug, maybe a slight pull and sure enough you will be rewarded with a nice little "splash" in the bucket. But only in the summer.
In the winter there is no "splash" there is a "tink." You see the product froze solid from the time it left it's warm little container and it hit the bucket. So now you are the proud owner of "milksickles."
Some of the farmers got so adept at it that they could adjust the timing of the to squeeze out exactly a half cup or a full cup. If you were very good at it and had particularly strong hands and arms, you squeeze one completely frozen quart sized milk sickle into the bucket. This was handy for the baking and cooking demands because the milk sickles were tied up with a piece of baling twine and left on the shelf in the barn. When it came time to bake a cake, you only had to go out to the barn and pick out the sizes you needed. No measuring necessary.
Climate is an issue every day of the year in South Dakota.
ReplyDeleteOne time we went through such a drought that we had catfish that were three years old that hadn't learned how to swim. They use to walk up to the stock tanks just to get a drink.
As a matter of fact it was so hot one summer that one of the farmers who was growing popcorn for the Jiffy Pop company had a whole field of that popcorn start popping. In the adjacent field was a herd of Holsteins, two of them saw that popcorn, thought it was a blizzard and froze to death.
On the 4th of July we would have hamburger flipping contests in the town square.
Each contestant would be issue so many raw hamburger patties which he would flip up into the air. If he threw the meat too high, it came back too well done, if he didn't throw it high enough it was still a little rare. The object was to find the distance to throw it so it came back just the way you liked it.
It gets hot up there in the summer. How hot, you ask? Well one summer it was so hot and dry I actually saw a tree following a dog around..
The poor dogs spent half the night wandering around trying to find some shade.
But when it finally rains, it is like a monsoon. I observed a turtle up there one summer that had crawled completely out of his shell, had turned it over and was using it as a row boat.
The wind blows the year round and when you get big storm, it really blows.
I called my neighbor across the street to see if he was OK after one of those big storms where the wind blew so hard. At the end of the month my telephone bill had a $10.27 charge for a long distance call.
One day the wind was blowing so hard one of our hens got turned around backward to it and laid the same egg three times.
We had a big 50 gallon cast iron "scalding" pot out in the yard. The wind started blowing that pot across the yard and it was moving so fast lightening had to strike at it three times to hit it.
Mosquitoes! Let me tell you about the mosquitoes in South Dakota. We have discovered the best way to take care of them is with a shot gun.
One big mosquito landed out at Ellsworth Air Force base and they pumped 300 hundred gallons of fuel into it before they realized it wasn't a B-52.
Those bugs can be a real hazard, especially when they start hauling off your prized hogs.
Every day in South Dakota is a day you live in a "State of Fear." (See how nicely I was able to tie all that in to the book club reading for this month?)
I never thought about the fact that a weather vane was a wind vane. I am not sure what weather I thought it showed but wind direction certainly makes sense.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me your eyes are brown?
ReplyDeletehehehehehehehehe brown eyes hmmmm
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think that .. I seemed to have missed something here.
ReplyDeleteMust be a chick joke. We always say when a guy BS's that he is so full of s**t his eyes are brown. Just a good natured playful comment that your post was fun and made me laugh but I didn't buy it as serious truth. Which I am sure you intended it to be taken as BS.
ReplyDeleteI just posted a heavy duty link in my link section.. where the USA EPA under oath.. testifying before Congress.. FINALLY admitted.. Cap and Tax.. will do NOTHING for the environment. To this day.. no one has told me WHY.. even as far off as Pluto.. it's warming up. Mankind.. is SO arrogant.. he thinks.. everything is about him. He is nothing but a speck.. on a flea's fleas butt! That's just how insignificant we are in the Universe.
ReplyDeleteOh! And, the head of the Weather Channel.. along with 31,000 SCIENTISTS.. are now.. suing Al Bore for LYING. His lies.. are costing major dollars. Like I said.. he needs to be taken off of his "green" yacht and imprisoned with Madoff..
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are insignificant in the scope of things as far as the universe, but when I was a child my family camped on vacations and sometime in the 1960s we camped at Lake Erie. I remember dead fish all along the beach every where. If you go there now the dead fish are gone due to laws passed to protect things. While insignificant we can still make things ugly if we don't act right.
ReplyDeleteActually my eyes are blue. I'm a couple quarts low today.
ReplyDeletetee hee. I did enjoy the amusing stories in that comment you wrote about the climate in South Dakota.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine a public figure lying to us! Astounded to hear it, as a matter of fact. I mean, were there REALLY weapons of mass destruction in Iran? How come we never found them? Is Water Boarding REALLY just another term for "surfing?" Do we REALLY keep doing it because it is so much fun? Is torture REALLY the best way to get accurate information?
ReplyDeleteMy friend was a POW in Viet Nam for several years, he confessed to being Black Beard the Pirate and to pillaging the villages up and down the coast line with his other pirates. Yep, he confessed it, signed the document voluntarily. He was not quite 20 years old at the time, and couldn't grow a beard of any color, but they quit torturing him when they got their confession.
Some people thought White Water Willy lied to us when he said, "I never inhaled." Actually turned out to be the truth. He has a congenital lung problem and has difficulty breathing if he is even in the same room as smokers.
He said, "I never had sex with that woman?" Was he lying? Were you there to witness it? NO? Then of the two parties who were, who would you believe, A Rhodes Scholar who happens to President of the United States and is considered to the most intelligent man to ever hold the job, or some blow-job giving Bimbo looking for a promotion and a book deal?
He did offer her a promotion to the Pentagon. She did a good job of getting the rust off the barrels of their tanks. Ooops! I think that is a lie.
She actually was assigned to the Navy and helped them create a new training program called Pearl Harbor. The sailors would lie down on the deck and she would blow the hell out of them! Oooops, another lie. Damn it's contagious.
I need to get a lawyer if you intend to press charges against me too.
As a matter of fact there are three Japanese Lawyers here in Little Rock that also own a Japanese Restaurant. It is called "So Sue Me."
Chill out, for heaven's sake. OF COURSE he lied! They take classes in it at Law School.
I don't suppose you ever heard anybody say, "I'll still love you tomorrow." Probably a lie.
What about "The check is in the mail?" Never said it?
Ever heard, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Just like they did in New Orleans after Katrina.
The one man who probably never lied was Dubya.
When they asked him what was going through his mind watching all the coverage of Hurricane Katrina on TV, he stated, "I saw it, but I thought it was just an old movie." And that, Ruth Ann, is the TRUTH! Spffffffffffft!
You know one of the points in State of Fear is that in order to get people to act, leadership often uses fear. Get folks in a State of Fear and they will buy in. It is too bad that people can't do something right unless they are afraid. Whether or not we are melting, why do what we need to do to treat our planet in a respectful manner. But as far as leadership using fear to motivate, I don't think any one group has the solo behavior on that. Using fear - what color of terror alert were we in when? - is what was used in getting us in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteWhat I remember hearing President Clinton say on the news was "I never had sexual intercourse with that woman.". And I knew then it was probably oral sex. Half truths are human nature. Is omission a lie?
ReplyDeleteEven with modern day recording equipment .. digital recordings MP3 ... SOME human being has to run the equipment. And therin lies the rub.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we think we hear something or believe we hear something and accept it without question. Good example. How many times have you heard Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon? What you THINK you hear is "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." That's what we were TOLD he said. He conveniently doesn't remember (Duh ... I have some trouble believing that had I been the first human to step onto the moon, I would have had my little speech prepared MONTHS in advance and it would have been right up there with "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and I would have had written copies available for autograph for a small stipend, thank you very much.
What you actually hear on the tape is "That's one small step zckskdrskswzpbx mankind." No matter how much work was done by untold number of experts, the stuff between "step" and "mankind" is still static.
That wouldn't do, therefore a few "enhancements" were made to "clean up the static from the background so you can hear him better." Not true. the "zckskdrskswzpbx" is a total lack of signal. The connection was actually lost for few seconds and what you hear is the same thing you hear when your favorite Radio Station accidentally pulls the plug. Nada, zip, static.
Debate rages even today whether John Lennon said, "We are more famous than Jesus Christ" or "We are more popular than Jesus Christ." That one word changes everything. Being more 'famous' means that more people know of the Beatles than know of JC. Probably true. Being more "popular" indicates that among those who can choose between JC and the Beatle, the Beatles would get more votes. (Also probably true.)
No doubt there were millions of people on earth at the time who had never heard of JC, but knew of the Beatles. No doubt there were millions of people on earth at the time who knew of both JC and the Beatles and liked the Beatles better.
Personally I liked the Beach Boys better than either of them. Why not? Jesus never had a little deuce coupe and Lennon never had a 409 .. what's not to like?
So the Clinton quote has also been sufficiently altered either by accident or design to be exactly what you WANTED to hear, even though what you hear may be totally different from what somebody else hears.
That's the nature of Rhetoric, it is too nebulous.
It's all in what you want to believe.
I think W. C. Fields said it best, "Everyone has to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink."
Now THAT'S what I"M talkin' 'bout!
The truth is that what Armstrong really said was "Congratulations, Mr, Kowalski"
When asked later to explain that, he said, "When I was a kid we were playing baseball and the baseball rolled over under the neighbors window, Mr, & Mrs. Kowalski. None of us had Air Conditioning in those days, so the window was open.
As I leaned down to get the ball I hear Mrs. Kowolski say, "Yeah, sure, I'll give you a BJ the day that Armstrong kid walks on the moon." I thought I would be the first to congratulate him.
(Did you know that in new speak the politically correct term for that activity has now been changed to "A Monica?")
Look into these BLUE eyes and tell me I'm lying and then you can put Al Gore and me on trial the same day.
fear is not a good tool to use it may work for a little but as you see when people finally work through the fear the backlach is or can be horrific-
ReplyDeleteWhy pick on Gore-if you buy the book you take the chance-so much in global warming is not proved because it takes eons to see the result so short term we can see things but for down the road is it man made or natural?The mythologysts can sell anything with fear even sand to the Arabs-lol
ReplyDeleteBelly laughing! These green eyes are crying I am laughing so hard.
ReplyDeleteI agree. People have opinions and positions and he has a right to his as much as anyone. As I said before, I like his movie.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.great-lakes.net/teach/pollution/water/water5.html
ReplyDeleteMy point in bringing the history of the clean up of Lake Erie in to the discussion is that it is an issue that we made a lot of progress on but back in the day it was very hotly debated. I do not think my grandmother ever got over not having phosphate in her laundry soap. She insisted the clothes did not get as clean.
ReplyDelete