Thursday, March 30, 2006

Global What-ing?



As seen in:
March 31st, 2006 Record Herald



If we humans manage to survive the bird flu, another disaster awaits us, of course-- global warming. Something which is irreversible, I'm told via the news. The next cover of Time Magazine which has a "Special Report: Global Warming," features a polar bear floating on a piece of ice with the words, "Be Worried. Be VERY Worried." Well, if it's irreversible, why are we worrying about it?

The ice at the polar caps is melting, I heard that, too. I even saw the picture that shows the evidence that the caps are retreating. These experts left out the fact that the satellite showing this evidence couldn't differentiate between land, rock and ice. Interesting. Now, I'm a skeptic, (I'm sure you've figured that part out by now) so I don't trust surveys, polls, statistics or scientists because they are like a string bikini. It's more important what they conceal than what they reveal.

If these photos prove true, that the ice is melting, becoming liquid again and filling the oceans, I really don't think we're responsible for it. I read on NASA and Space.com that they believe Mars is undergoing global warming. Did we cause that too?

It's pounded into our heads that global warming is heating the earth, even though in the past few years we have had record breaking cold spells (remember all those who died in Russia?) and snow falls, those get mentioned once, then overtaken with global warming. Now there are public service announcements warning us of global warming, with children making ticking sounds like a clock, saying that we are running out of time. Once again, I thought it was irreversible.

It wasn't long ago, 1972, in fact, that we were told, "We simply cannot afford to gamble. We cannot risk inaction. The scientists who disagree are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored." Global warming? Nope. Global cooling. I put this in the same category as "eggs are bad for you" and a year later "eat more eggs, they're good for you!" The experts in 1972 wanted the governments of the world to cover the ice caps with black soot to absorb heat to help melt the growing glaciers.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were told that we would have the Great White Death (snow) the day after the first day of spring. Anywhere from four to eight inches, depending on what channel you had it on. I don't know about you, but I had about an inch at my house. The weather is a very, very difficult thing to predict. Meteorologists are the butt of many jokes, but really, they do a decent job. They happen to be wrong a lot of times. What is a meteorologist if not a scientist? If they can't tell for sure if we are going to have snow, rain, clouds or fog four days out, how can they tell us they know for a fact that the ice caps are melting and Florida will be under water in a hundred years when they can't even make up their mind if we are getting hotter or colder in the past forty years? Oh, while I'm on Florida; record low temperature in Palm Beach on March 26 of this year. Record low. Global warming. Gotcha.

Lately, I've noticed the term "Global Climate Change." This is probably leaving the door open so the "experts" can back up and say the world is getting colder, like they did only thirty four years ago.

Now that I've vented, I'll say that global warming may just be happening. I don't think we are responsible. I don't think we could be. I think people who believe humans are causing it are conceited. Do you think we could destroy the world, really? Humans don't make the impact we'd like to think we do. Our largest cities still cannot be seen from orbit. If you look down, all you see is forest, deserts and oceans. No sign of humans, even though we're told we are running out of forests, building too big, too much sprawl and so on.

How long has Earth been here? And we're going to destroy life on it in less than one hundred years? The Earth was here before us, and it will be here after us. Nature adapts, but for some reason there are people out there who think that humans are the only ones capable of adaptation. Take a walk down any street, road or even a sidewalk. There you will see what I take as proof that we cannot stop nature. Grass. It comes through the streets. It makes cracks in sidewalks in order to live. We walk on it, pull it up, pave over top of it yet it keeps coming.

If we can't even keep grass out of the sidewalks, how are we going to destroy the world?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

It's Bad, & It's Getting Worse


As seen in:
March 14th, 2006 Record Herald
&
March 16th, 2006 News Journal



How many times have you been told that you're going to die this week? It's more than you think.

Avian Influenza (AI) or Bird Flu is the latest example of scaring the American people. I'm not trying to downplay the threat of bird flu. . . oh, wait. . . yes I am. To be honest, I don't think it is going to be a "pandemic" "epidemic" or any other catch word the media uses to scare us into watching the next broadcast.

I'm already sick from the bird flu. I'm sick of it. In China, the 10 th person has died from AI. Current population of China is 1.3 billion (with a 'B'). Ten deaths out of a billion. That would be one out of one hundred million. Is that really a pandemic? And why are they reporting it now? The earliest I can find of a human being infected was in 1997. That was almost 10 years ago. Why now? It has been a problem since then.

The "experts" are saying that the threat is if the virus mutates and is carried and transferred from human to human. Are these the same experts that kept us scared of mosquitoes due to West Nile Virus? The same experts that had people walking around in surgical masks during the Severe Acute Upper Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare?

West Nile is still here in America, but it's not getting the same media attention it once had. There's a new bad guy in town. SARS has not gone away in Asia, either.

I seem to remember a few years ago, everyone was going crazy over e-coli. Make sure you cook that chicken! Well, duh. Can I get a show of hands on who remembers Hoof and Mouth disease? Ah, hah! Forgot about that one until now, didn't you? How about Mad Cow? Do you see where I'm going with this? It's always something.

Anytime I turn on the news or read the news on big name websites, it's always the same story: "It's bad, and it's getting worse." What an awful way to live.

I recently read a news article that said all of us should have at least one week's worth of food in our house. That way, in case of an outbreak of AI, we could hole ourselves up in our home. The story was written in a way that sounded like if I didn't do it, I would die. (of AI)

The dictionary describes a terrorist as; 'the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion'. Doesn't it seem like the big media is always trying to keep us scared of something? When we stop caring about West Nile, we get SARS. When we're tired of hearing about SARS, we get AI. What's next?

If you could turn your TV back several years, you'd think we were being invaded by killer bees from South America. Go further and the Bot Fly is going to bore into our flesh and eat our bones while we sleep.

These things are real, but they are not pandemics. They are not nearly as bad as they are made out to be.

My glass is half full. I'm always looking forward to the other half filling up, not waiting for someone to come along and take what I've got. Since my glass is half full, pass the cookies and let me enjoy it!