The truth isn’t the only inconvenient matter in the debate about global warming. In no other field of science are facts and methods debated so fervently. Science requires a uniform approch to solve the unknown, not supposition and certainly not blind faith. But that’s exactly what we seem to be witnessing in the issues surrounding global warming and its suggested causes. Science and faith have not been in such a grudge match since the Scopes Monkey trial.
Now I’m not a climatologist and I don’t purport to take any side in this debate. That may sound a bit like sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t remember waking up in 1984 believing the world was going to end, and the time has long since come and gone when Paul Ehrlich’s bit of pop science in The Population Bomb suggested that the people of the world would starve to death by the mid-Eigthies because, simply, there were too many people.
In other words, every generation has its own version of the End of Days and global warming has become this generation’s Armegeddon. And, as all the other preaching about Judgement day, this one will come and go in the same, quiet fashion.
Global warming is front page news the past few days because the National Academy of Sciences released a report of 155 pages of hysteria and hyperbole, suggesting that the Earth is running a fever and "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." The scientists tell us that Earth hasn't been this hot in 400 years, and maybe longer.
However, they gave no hint that they understood how they had undermined their practiced hysteria. If the Earth was this hot 400 years ago, or even 4,000 years ago, then the recent warming could not have been caused by the madness of man's machines, the flatulence of cows, or even hot air from professors hot to get their names in the paper.
Their presentation was studded with "likely," "maybe," "could be," and "very close to being right," with assurances that their findings were gleaned from tree rings, coral, glaciers, cave deposits (from bulls?), ocean and lake sediments, bore holes and ice cores.
The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed temperatures over hundreds and thousands of years. Some of it was educated guessing, since there were few scientific instruments back in that day, and a lot of it was to be taken on faith. Scientists are generally not very hot on faith, but they embrace the global-warming doctrine with the enthusiasm of a backwoods Bible salesman.
The panelists said the warming over the past 50 years was something no one had seen in a millennium, but conceded that well, umm, OK, it is true that the Earth suffered a "Little Ice Age" for about 350 years after 1500. But hey, who's counting?
Between the year A.D. 1 and the year 1850, volcanos and fluctuations in the heat from the sun were responsible for temperature changes, but these changes were much less pronounced than the warming caused by man-made pollution in the years since the mid-19th century.
This gets to the point of the hysteria. Scientific Man in all his manufactured glory can't bear the thought that he might not, after all, be as powerful as a volcano or a solar flare. How many learned degrees does a volcano have, after all? The idea that forces of the universe greater even than Scientific Man may be responsible for the cyclical changes is unbearable.
In the end, this is the conceit of Man; that somehow humans are capable of destroying what Mother Nature has produced. And if you remember, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, less she gives us a few centuries of ice age to prove her point.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Dreams and Gatsby
Children start out with great dreams. They want to be astronauts, the president or play a professional sport. But the world and people close to them gradually have the dreams reasoned out of them.
I wanted to be a writer most of my young life, but so many people told me I needed to have a back-up plan that eventually the notion of writing for a living gave way to more practical occupational interests.
I used to think dreams were born in children and never followed them to adulthood. But I’ve had dreams as an adult and they carried with them the same wide-eyed hope as they did when I was young. They also died the same ignominious death.
Lately I’ve watched dreams and hopes dashed and it brings me back to those moments when I thought anything was possible and every moment extraordinary while mesmerized by the power of optimism and anticipation. The fall from that lofty moment is a long way the first time. As the years go by, the drop seems less and less precarious, but it hurts just the same. Each time it happens you feel a bit more jaded and a bit more disillusioned. You feel you can’t win, like life keeps dealing you a full house but you know the world’s sitting on a flush.
So I was thinking about dreams today and wondering how to recapture the youthful exuberance of believing in the possible when so many others are telling you to quit. I was thinking we need to have a new dream every time an old dream gets dashed or we’ll just stop our minds from moving forward. It reminded me of my favorite book about one of the all-time greatest dreamers: The Great Gatsby. Gatsby had a new dream born as quickly as his last dream left him. The fantastic final lines of the book sum up how I feel better than any way I can express. It goes something like this:
“And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark field of the public rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -----
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaseless into the past.”
I wanted to be a writer most of my young life, but so many people told me I needed to have a back-up plan that eventually the notion of writing for a living gave way to more practical occupational interests.
I used to think dreams were born in children and never followed them to adulthood. But I’ve had dreams as an adult and they carried with them the same wide-eyed hope as they did when I was young. They also died the same ignominious death.
Lately I’ve watched dreams and hopes dashed and it brings me back to those moments when I thought anything was possible and every moment extraordinary while mesmerized by the power of optimism and anticipation. The fall from that lofty moment is a long way the first time. As the years go by, the drop seems less and less precarious, but it hurts just the same. Each time it happens you feel a bit more jaded and a bit more disillusioned. You feel you can’t win, like life keeps dealing you a full house but you know the world’s sitting on a flush.
So I was thinking about dreams today and wondering how to recapture the youthful exuberance of believing in the possible when so many others are telling you to quit. I was thinking we need to have a new dream every time an old dream gets dashed or we’ll just stop our minds from moving forward. It reminded me of my favorite book about one of the all-time greatest dreamers: The Great Gatsby. Gatsby had a new dream born as quickly as his last dream left him. The fantastic final lines of the book sum up how I feel better than any way I can express. It goes something like this:
“And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark field of the public rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -----
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaseless into the past.”
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Big Wup
This is my 100th post. The one before was my 99th and the next will be the 101st. Just thought I would make a meaningless post on a meaningless number.
Random Thoughts
It was pointed out by a well-known busy-body that my posts are too long. It was even suggested that I follow the editorial rule established in the movie The Big Chill (even though the person making the comments made them anonymously, it can still be said that he/she has good taste in movies). However, the comment did not take the movie quote far enough as it was said that the only editorial guideline at People Magazine is that articles should not take longer to read than the time it takes the average person to take the average crap. So, for those with short attention spans or weak bowels, the following random thoughts are for you.
Sentimental Journey
I was similarly pestered by a poster (say it fast three times) who said my stories are perhaps overly-sentimental. It was alleged that I focus too much on dates and deaths and other sentimental moments. I think the old “walking around in my shoes” rule applies here. My house is a veritable sentimental journey; from my mother’s artwork, to photos of important events, to photos of people close to me who are no longer with us. As an aside, if there were Children’s Art Museum, would all the artwork be stuck to museum refrigerators? Also, I have this condition that doesn’t allow me to forget any important date, except the year the Magna Carta was issued leading to an F in a college history course. All of which is to say I have reasons, if not an excuse, to be sentimental.
One Year Later
Bill died one year ago today. Technically, he passed just before midnight on June 13 in Japan which turns out to be the same date California time. I didn’t learn about his death until the 15th so I suppose each day will always have some meaning to me. I thought long and hard about this, but decided not to write any lengthy post about him. While it’s true I miss him terribly, I don’t miss him any more today than I did yesterday or will tomorrow. It’s just another day in the struggle to get over our loss. I know Sue would agree. So I will borrow a line from Forrest Gump (another great movie) and just say: you died on a Monday and that’s about all I have to say about that.
The Graduates
Nick graduates from college this week. I am about 80 percent as proud of him as I am of my own kids who also recently graduated. (Note: since Nick isn’t my real kid, much to his surprise, I can’t give him 100 percent backing on this. Sorry.) Many may not know how hard he worked to push himself through junior college and then through a demanding UC Davis schedule and how he did it during the time his peers had already finished school and were well into their careers. It took him an amazing amount of determination and we should all heap praise on him and ask him, “seriously, isn’t it time to grow up?” Special kudos also goes out to my trusted personal, private executive assistant Patrick who just graduated as well. Pat did so while working fulltime at my office and had to endure the fact that Bill and I basically ignored that he was going to college and piled more and more work on him. His prize for graduating, you ask? He gets to still work with me. The secret is; he didn’t need a degree to work for me so he must have done it to accomplish such a difficult goal or to improve him chances for employment with a real company. Maybe that’s why he’s reading the classified section of the newspaper.
Perspecitve Please
It’s difficult to pick up a newspaper and not read something about Iraq. It's become quite obvious that the media is overly focused on the war and keeping a warped win/loss percentage. Zarqawi death good, Guantanamo suicides bad. In contrast to such hype, only the Drudge Report highlighted this story: A Year in America: 16,912 murders; 92,837 rapes. And we thought it was bad every day in Iraq? Perhaps we need to focus more at home.
Of course you can get drawn back into Iraq quite easily by the general nuttiness of their murders. For example, a tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death because they were wearing shorts and exposing “forbidden flesh” in violation of Islamic law to some, and a 19-year-old was killed for selling ice because, as the murderers put it, there was no ice during the Prophet Mohammed’s time. Of course there were no AK47s, IEDs, suicide bombs and tennis shorts while Mohammed was alive either. Religion is a tricky thing in the wrong hands, eh?
Of course you can get drawn back into Iraq quite easily by the general nuttiness of their murders. For example, a tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death because they were wearing shorts and exposing “forbidden flesh” in violation of Islamic law to some, and a 19-year-old was killed for selling ice because, as the murderers put it, there was no ice during the Prophet Mohammed’s time. Of course there were no AK47s, IEDs, suicide bombs and tennis shorts while Mohammed was alive either. Religion is a tricky thing in the wrong hands, eh?
My Friends Are Trying To Kill Me
Phil and Skip want me to swim in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim in September. How do I figure out a good way to tell them I’m not going to do it? It’s a one-mile swim in which my ankles will be grabbed and scratched from people behind me, my throat and face will be kicked from people ahead of me (in decidedly larger numbers), the water will be cold, it is a one-mile open swim so I can’t hang on the side to catch my breath and, most important, there are sharks in the water! Tell me where this is fun.
Win Some, Lose Some
The Boy had to deal with a bit more losses this past week than he is used to. At work, he was part of a team that included me and other regular readers of this goofy site that were passed over for a large contract. The reasons we didn’t get the job are probably not that simple but, in the Boy’s mind, a loss is a loss and hard to take especially when we were so prepared to win. Then he had to go to a national master’s water polo tournament in San Diego with an under-manned team that was missing a few key players. They won only one out of four games and, by his own admission, played one of the worst games of his life when friends showed up to watch. On the one hand, I like the desire to win that burns in him and wish I could maintain the same passion. On the other hand, I hope he understands that as life progresses, the losses add up but so do the wins. Unfortunately we have to get through the losses to get to the wins unless you handle your business affairs like Enron or the U.S. Government.
The Girl Goes Bye-Bye
The Girl has hatched a plan to move into an apartment with a male friend who shares her very odd sense of humor. Both also are not in possession of a rudeness filter that most people have developed past the age of three. She may have just found a roommate she can live with.
She has a move-out date scheduled in which she will take a few household items but leave behind a dog. What are the odds of that happening? Well, I have mixed emotions about her messing up her own living space. I want her to have the opportunity to live on her own but I have to admit that Mrs. Laz and I are a bit sad to see her go. We’ve gotten pretty used to the little crapper around the house hogging the remote control. We have had so many wonderful moments with her it’s difficult to imagine the day the house will grow a bit quieter as she moves on to the next stage of her life. Please be well, my little Purple.
She has a move-out date scheduled in which she will take a few household items but leave behind a dog. What are the odds of that happening? Well, I have mixed emotions about her messing up her own living space. I want her to have the opportunity to live on her own but I have to admit that Mrs. Laz and I are a bit sad to see her go. We’ve gotten pretty used to the little crapper around the house hogging the remote control. We have had so many wonderful moments with her it’s difficult to imagine the day the house will grow a bit quieter as she moves on to the next stage of her life. Please be well, my little Purple.
Mrs. Laz and Me
I think Mrs. Laz is at a point in her life when she would like to borrow a pair of skates and slip and slide down the same river as me.
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