B.A.D.: Learning Not to Worry
Today is Blog Action Day, or B.A.D. for short, the day on which upteen hundreds of bloggers will be posting how to save the environment. I was tagged for this by Joanne.
So, being the “rebellious non-conformist,” I’ll tell you how to “save” the environment, principally by telling the politicians and activists of the world to go jump in the proverbial lake.
First of all, you need to realize that politicians are generally not the sharpest crayons in the box. For U.S. citizens, do you know who George Washington is? Would you recognize, say, a bust of George Washington? After all, this is the “father of our country.” He’s on the dollar bill, for heaven’s sake! He’s in used car commercials. His portrait is in classrooms across the country. Can you go through life in this country without seeing an image of him?
If you choose a career in politics, certainly you would be expected to know who George Washington was and what he looked like, no? If you served in Washington, D.C. in an elected office for a number of years, you would no doubt recognize a bust of George Washington, no?
Well, Vice President Elect Al Gore didn’t recognize George Washington. What a beautiful mind, eh?
So, let’s just recognize that, for the most part, politicians, regardless of their party affiliation, which is sometimes subject to change as the political winds blow, have their own interests and agendas at heart, and really don’t care about you or me or the environment or national security or anything else. They only care about the things that will financially benefit them or keep them in power. If you meet enough politicians and don’t come to the conclusion that the power that these people have should be extremely limited, you might want to have your head examined. The power you wouldn’t trust in George W. Bush’s hands you shouldn’t trust in Hillary Clinton’s hands either, or any body else for that matter, especially those from the limited gene pool of candidates we are presented with in each election cycle.
When you hear politicians ranting about we need to do this or we need to do that, just realize that these are typically just the ramblings of people with a lust for power and little concern for anything else.
And, when politicians, like Al Gore, talk about the “consensus” of scientists that humans are causing global warming, realize that science doesn’t work by consensus. Science is not democratic. Science is not based on how many people believe what. Science doesn’t care if the majority of scientists believe a certain thing. Science is based on evidence and the reason the global warming proponents speak of “consensus” is because the evidence is not there!
For one thing, we only have somewhat reliable temperature records for the past 150 years. That’s barely a drop in the bucket on a planet that is 4.5 billion years old.
Besides that, whether you believe humans cause global warming or not, what is the big deal? People have always fared better in warmer periods than in colder periods. Longer growing seasons mean more productive crops. Expansion of warmth means more land can be used for crops. Even the polar bears have historically done quite well during warm periods.
If warmer temperatures are so bad for the elderly, why do senior citizens voluntarily move to places like Florida or Arizona?
Polar ice melting and flooding the world? Puh-lease. If the polar regions go from -35 degrees F to -30 degrees F, so what? The ice is still frozen. If the ice melts during the day, only to refreeze at night, so what?
Weathermen frequently get the week’s forecast wrong, and often enough even the forecast for the remainder of the day is wrong! Yet, we are supposed to believe predictions made by computer models for longer periods of time? If the weather cannot be accurately forecast for the remainder of the week, what are the odds of a forecast one month, one year, ten years from now being correct?
We have more to worry about from power-hungry politicians than we have from their manufactured crises, like global warming. In fact, the myth of human-caused global warming is a greater threat to the world than global warming would ever be. It creates jealousy and hatred by poorer nations, by giving them a reason to blame the industrialized nations for their problems. And, instead of fixing their own internal problems, they look outward and blame others for their misfortune, feeling justified by the “consensus” of “scientists” that say humans are causing global warming.
Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize was 100% undeserved, for it is Al Gore’s hyperbole and hysterics over allegedly human-caused global warming that is a greater threat to peace and stability in the world than even George W. Bush’s Middle East policies.
The Earth is dynamic, and the climate changes and continues to change, regardless of whether humans are around or not. One must also wonder if humans are responsible for the global warming that is occurring on Mars. Must be that secret base we have up there, no? Perhaps the more logical explanation is the nearest star, which we call the Sun. Because stars don’t burn at a constant temperature, so fluctuations are to be expected. Of course, this stands in the way of political agendas, so you don’t hear much about it.
Humans are not the center of the universe, nor do we have as significant an impact on the environment as some politicians would have us believe. Abandon a house, and see how quickly nature takes over! Abandon a city, and see how quickly nature takes over! People tend to think we leave these huge marks on the planet, but our impact is as footprints in the sand: washed away in a relatively short cycle.
Remember that a volcano can exhaust a greater quantity of toxins in the air than what humans produce in decades. A tornado or hurricane can level neighborhoods in mere moments. People like to think that we are so big, but we are so very small. Despite popular belief, not even the Great Wall of China can be seen from space. And, further out, nothing man-made can be seen from space.
We are very small.
Worry less about global warming, and worry more about power-lusting politicians.
I thought today the blog action day should be environment ?
I wrote a post on environment !
I took a tangent, as I am prone to do.
I wrote two - reluctantly.
We’ve always been environmentally conscious, but when environmentalist try to shutdown your livelihood (nuclear power) it’s hard to get enthused about environmental causes.
I, too, am a bit skeptical on global warming.
My big problem is trying to understand how a rise in CO2 can cause global warming when the CO2 rise is lagging behind temperatures.
Consensus of scientists does not mean it’s science. Besides, most of these scientists aren’t climatologists.
Global warming is based on faith. It’s a faith based movement and Al Gore is its prophet.
Climate change is occurring. Climate change is always occurring.
Many of the things that are being done in the name of global warming are probably things we should be doing anyway. Others, though, may not be — and mankind may get some unfortunate unintended consequences.
My initial idea was to do a post on the dark side of photosynthesis, that plants produce carbon dioxide at night. In young plants, the amount of carbon dioxide converted to oxygen during the day outweighs the amount of carbon dioxide they produce at night. But, in older plants (as in mature forests), the ratio isn’t so good. I didn’t have the time, though, to hunt down all my references and put that together. Maybe someday. On another blog. Because this blog isn’t about plants.
Mainly.
Then, there is the dark side to solar cells, which require hazardous chemicals for their production and are also very inefficient. I have read that new solar cells are in the works that don’t require those hazardous chemicals to be made and that can convert the whole spectrum–or at least a wider spectrum–of light into electricity. But, it will probably be a few years yet before they hit the market. Assuming they work as promised. I haven’t heard anything about them in a while.
Then, there is the hype over fluorescent bulbs with some areas already banning incandescent bulbs. Few people mention that fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and are costly to dispose of. And, hopefully you don’t drop it on the floor! Funny thing is that led bulbs will probably replace both within a few years. They use less energy, can produce more light, last longer and don’t have mercury.
Amen and thank you very much. I’ve been preaching and harping on and about this issue for a long time. Jon
I wish I had saved (or maybe I did somewhere) a link I found a few weeks ago. There was an article (or maybe it was a book review) that detailed what would happen to the Earth if people suddenly vanished. (Rapture, alien abduction, neutron bomb–take your pick.) New York would be flooded in two days, because no one would be there to operate the pumps that keep the water out of the city. In ten years (I think), many of the tallest buildings would have collapsed, because the water-soaked ground would soften their support base and they’d tip over. It also discussed how quickly plants would grow up through the concrete and into buildings and homes. Also covered which animals would thrive and which would likely die out. It was really interesting.
Human civilization is fragile. We always seem to imagine that, if civilization were wiped out for whatever reason, thousands of years from now, people (or whatever sentient life might be around) would come across abandoned buildings and be in awe of them. But, our concrete and steel constructions are brittle in the face of Mother Nature. The earth is much more resilient than we are.