I'm going to start again on Tuesday. (I'm off for MLK's birthday.)
And, if I intend to continue to blog politically occasionally, it is more important to talk about this issue than about Iraq. Alas, Bush will still be part of the discussion, since the Busheviks have been largely successful at misleading people through their comprehensive campaign to hide the truth—such as a White House official's distorting government climate reports:
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training. [The New York Times, June 8, 2005]
I'd wondered, Oh My Brother, why I had heard so little from you on this issue. Now I know. Gore's film is an incredibly powerful documentary. I felt guilty to sit in an air conditioned theater while I watched it, and you know I'm not the stereotypical tree-hugger of O'Reilly's nightmares.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed to encounter people who still disagree with the basic premise of the film, that our environment is getting warmer. The evidence is overwhelming, and so is the evidence that we are contributing to the problem.
These people refuse to accept that global warming is happening. Most of them will live long enough to see the Greenland icecap melt. They'll probably also live long enough to see the tundra melt, the alpine glaciers melt, the transoceanic thermal conveyor shut down, and low-lying islands and coastlines submerged (which is already happening in the Bay of Bengal and Vanuatu).
The really ironic part of all this is that most of the people who don't "believe in" global warming have children. You'd think they would want to leave a decent, livable world to their children. Oh, but the Rapture will solve that problem, won't it?
I feel a rant coming on, so I will stop here.
Did you ever consider, that a person with the same amount of influence, image makers and story writers, could construct another movie to make you think the exact opposite of what you felt while you were watching an inconvenient truth? I'm not saying that global warming isn't an issue that we have to be concerned with, but there are people, who can, if they want to turn your emotions on and off at will. watch the movie one more time and look for fallicies. You are not a dupe. you have trained yourself to be a thinker not an emotinal reagent. The more you believe you are exempt the deeper they will reach into your mind and turn things around. You already have seen how the thoughts about Bush are diffuse and intangible. where is the difference in other areas that suddenly make you want to change your habits and do something different than what you have been doing before. Look into the prime motivator and not in the directions of the traffic cop.
ReplyDeleteMr. Anonymous, I have been following the upward-trending graph lines for about 38 years, since Paul R. Erlich's book The Population Bomb. Watching Al Gore's movie was not a revelation to me, just a reminder of well-known facts. Remember, I rode the bus for some months earlier already. The fact that I haven't ridden it lately is only evidence, alas, that even I am subject to laziness and unfaithfulness to my conscience. Look to the beam in thine own eye, Mr. Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteMe is a little confused Mr. Moristotle. Did anonymous Not believe in global warming???
ReplyDeleteThat be besides the point Me was wondering how you know about the changes that were made to the wording of government reports. Is there a place where plain folks can get information that ain't been distorted by the Bush League.
Also- "Look to the beam in thine own eye" ????? Me not certain what that means. Could you give me a clue, thanks
Hey, Monster, thanks for stopping by. I just spent a little while reading your blog too. Don't know what to think about your interests as expressed in your profile: "Destroying buildings and railway lines in major metropolitan cities." Maybe you are scary in more than name?
ReplyDeleteYou questioned whether Anonymous "didn't believe in global warming." Global warming isn't something that we must take (or leave) on faith, as "believing in" suggests. It is possible to know whether or not it is happening, and, in fact, it is very well known to be.
I get my information from newspapers and magazines and books. Newspapers that I think are generally objective and trustworthy include The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. I read the first one regularly. It includes an excellent science section. Lately I've been reading Time Magazine and Newsweek (the print editions). They are pretty reliable, but contain a lot of People Magazine popular culture stuff. I rarely watch television news. When I do I prefer "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."
As to "Look to the beam in thine own eye," that was a reference to The Sermon on the Mount, as recounted in The Gospel According to Matthew, verses 7:3-5.