Climate Change

All these scientists are saying the climate is changing, and they are calling it Climate Change. I guess it's an appropriate name. So here we have the earth, CHANGING. The environment CHANGING. And every time a report comes out saying that ice is melting, ducks are dying and summmer now arrives in March, the powers that be release reports saying that the data is inconclusive and the science is "wacko", "more research needs to be done". Well that is just the perfect excuse for the blame to be passed around over and over again. "It's not our fault, it's their's." And even when people do take responsibility, they decline that they can change their ways; "Yeah our factories are polluting the air and our SUVs are killing ducks, but if we regulate our factories and tell people to buy sensible automobiles, millions will lose jobs! So therefore status must remain quo."

Well that sucks doesn't it? First of all I don't believe the econmony is that fragile that it cannot stand some regulatory restrictions on industrial pollutants and guidelines to more enviro-freindly automobiles. AND, AND even if there might be some job loss occured upon adopting, say Kyoto, these people would get jobs in other sectors. Someone is going to have to regulate these factories, someone will have to invent, build, maintain, sell, distribute, deliver and install new technologies related to the envitonment, and some poor bastard is going to have to pick up all those dead ducks.

And so in the final scenario, if there IS massive economic collapse and people do lose their jobs and do not get hired as government regulators, pollutant measurement device installers or duck carcas cleaner-uppers, then what will happen? Well yeah there MAY be a recession or even a depression in the economy. So this is the worst case, but let's look at the alternative. CLIMATE change.

Do you know what the CLIMATE is? It is the massive system of GLOBAL weather patterns. GLOBAL. So the SUV drivers in Jesusland watch the news and see the ice melting on Ellesmere Island and the ducks dying in Labrador and what do they do? "Oh well that doesn't affect me here in Jesusland, so fill 'er up y'all" Soon it starts snowing in Alabama and Miami becomes the new Venice. (Not that flooding Florida is all that bad an idea, it IS a red state.) So 50, 100 years pass and then one day we wake up to the news of the last polar bear dying in the Columbus Zoo, SCUBA diving trips to Disney World, and discount trips to tropical getaways like Winnipeg. Now where are you prescious jobs? The goverment officials of the year 2100 are wondering what the hell their grandparents were thinking. Our grandchildren have now lost the earth. We HAD the earth, took it for granted, squandered it, and sold it out to market SUVs and Ancient Incan Wal-Marts.

So governments of 2004, what to do about all this? Of course no matter how bad we make out the result of global warming, no politician (or political party) is going to risk the economy and their re-election by implementing a wide reaching all encompassing Kyoto-type legislation. That is a fact. Live with it. No matter how many scientific studies are released about our impending doom, noone is going to sacrifice the current stability of their house in the 'burbs, SUV in the drive way, drive-thru Burger King and all the other modern staples of a free society. So to all the Lefties out there, the enviro activists, the non-republican moral majority, what is to be done? To sell the idea of Kyoto-style reform to the mainstream (or the other 51% of the mainstream) a cohesive workable model must be designed to entice a greener way of life. Someone (or some groups) have to sit down and draw up an exhaustive plan that will outline a way to change the way we live, without actually changing the way we live.

Concessions need to be made on both sides; on the Left we have to realize that the implementation of any process is going to be slow. AND the process will not move forward if it heavily distrupts drive-thru Burger Kings. On the Right, they need to realize that change MUST happen. Get greener or die. It is that important. More important than terror, more important than "family values", more important than anything you have ever imagined before.

So Left-wing, you must come up with an reasonable plan that can work in the Right's world. And Right-wing, you must realize that the maintenance of the almighty dollar depends on the maintenance of the almighty earth.

My quick fix solution? Oil must go. I think everyone should take an hour out of TV each day and read up on hydrogen fuel cells. The more people we have studying the subject, the quicker our dependence on oil will be decreased.

Monday, Nov 8, 2004

Pops Freshenmeyer

first one

My first blog entry.

Hello people! I hope something I say has some value.

I am a scientist and lack the ability to write in a non-logical/scientific way, so bear with me.

enjoy....