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Apr 22, 2007
we didn't listen I don't buy into the whole "global warming" catastrophe theory. It's not that I reject it so much is that I haven't been convinced yet. It's kind of tricky being in this camp, since most who have bought in automatically assume that this is the only possible conclusion one can come to if one is "informed." Therefore, to reject (or in my case, question) global warming means one of the following: 1. You are uninformed. 2. You are a hard-core right winger. In all of my discussions on global warming, I'm typically accused of one of the above. I am definitely not a hard core right-winger (not that there's anything wrong with that). And while I'm not the most informed on the issue, I am definitely as informed about it as those that I have these discussions (though I must admit that I have not seen "An Inconvenient Truth." My skepticism started during my meteorology class, when my professor, with no political agenda, informed us of his skepticism on the issue. As someone who studies this sort of thing for a living, I find his tesitmony to be credible. I have a couple of problems with the data, at least as it has been presented to me. Generally, whenever I hear someone preaching the gospel of global warming, they use some sort of single figure to drive their point home, whether it be a chart showing the rapid increase of the global temperature or something to the effect of "the average global temperature will rise 1 degree in 25 years (those figure were pulled off of the top of my head and do not reflect an actual number quoted to me)." The problem with this is that there is not a "global climate." Climatology,on a global scale, is a very complex thing. Even if there is a spike in the composite global temperature, that doesn't mean that this rise in temperature is evenly distributed. Even within the United States, climate and weather patterns are very diverse from region to region. Changes within climate are not something that can be quantified simply by coming up with an average. The other cause for my reservation is that this is just another entry into a long line of environmental catastrophes that have been predicted in my lifetime. I remember back in the 80's, it was acid rain that was going to destroy us. Then, in the 90's, the ozone was going to disappear allowing UV rays to destroy all life. Of course, nobody talks about these things anymore. My prediction: 10 years from now, global warming will be forgotten, and another catastrophe will be upon us. I also find it ironic that the same people who are worked up about global warming are the same people who complain about how imprecice meteorology is. posted
by Unknown @ 9:14:00 PM Apr 21, 2007 my celebrity look-alikes
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by Unknown @ 11:17:00 PM speaking of pachabel posted
by Unknown @ 10:15:00 PM Apr 20, 2007 music appreciation Pachabel, I love you ,but this is hilarious! posted
by Unknown @ 11:59:00 PM Apr 13, 2007 bad luck? Who says that Friday 13th is unlucky. Today I was contact about not 1, but 2 interviews for campus ministry positions! Now, I just have to find a way to get to them. posted
by Unknown @ 11:01:00 PM Apr 11, 2007 urban life I am pretty sure that I saw someone pay their bus fare with fruit today. posted
by Unknown @ 7:42:00 PM Apr 10, 2007 when hunger strikes First off, one of the most entertaining parts of fast food dining is the shocked look on the face of the Subway employee when you tell them that you don't want any toppings on your sub. Back when I was in college, I had a conversation with my roommate, Nick, regarding a discussion he had during a class. Apparently, the class had read something regarding some type of people's uprising against the government in a third world country. He said that there were a bunch of people who kept asking why we didn't do something like this in our country. The reason is obvious--We live much too comfortable lives to do such a thing. Recently, this has been well illustrated. There has been a great divisive controversy in our country, one that has caused people to stand up and go to extreme measures. I am, of course, talking about Sanjaya. Apparently, judging by the hate mail on votefortheworst.com, some people literally believe that their quality of life will go down if Sanjaya wins. To the point that some have even gone on hunger strikes until Sanjaya is voted off of the show. There was one in particular that was being chronicled on youtube.com, which ended last week. She said that she had to quit because her doctor told her it was having a negative affect on her medically. Of course it was. That's the point. A hunger strike is an interesting form of protest. It, in effect, is saying that I am willing to die for my cause, but I am not willing to kill for it. It can be effective in some cases, but it does assume a certain level of compassion from the person you are trying to persuade. The hunger strike in question was never going to succeed, mostly because it's premise was so silly that it couldn't be taken seriously. Was this girl going to die for American Idol? Of course not. Nobody ever believed that for a second. This girl never intended for it to come to that. Somewhere, in her head, she believed that people would be so upset that she didn't eat for two weeks that they would change their votes. The reality is that the art of protestation has been lost in this country. It's hard to have any serious kind of protest because for decades we have been cheapening it. Protests are too often done on pointless causes, to the point we don't even notice them anymore (somewhat like a car alarm). And even more damaging is that even when something is worth protesting, few are really willing to take on the consequences of the protest, which is what makes a protest effective in the first place. posted
by Unknown @ 9:25:00 PM |
