HIMALAYAN GLACIERS

updated 5:25 a.m. EDT, Mon October 5, 2009

(CNN) — The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Wed Jan 20, 7:30 am ET

GENEVA – A U.N. warning that Himalayan glaciers were melting faster than any other place in the world and may be gone by 2035 was not backed up by science, U.N. climate experts said Wednesday — an admission that could energize climate change critics.

The Himalayan glacier claim, made in the group’s voluminous, Nobel-winning report, was little noticed until The Sunday Times said the projection seemed to be based on a news report.

      How timely for me to restart my BLOG today and the article that I posted earlier today.

     This is exactly what I have been talking about and the reason that I started my BLOG two years ago.

(Readers, please check my post of earlier today.)

    Before you dive off the cliff, know how deep the water is.

HURRICANES AND SUCH

I started this BLOG in November 2007 and it has been my intention to terminate it after two years. It’s not because I am bored with it or that I do not have sufficient material to continue it.

Life is full of choices and there are many priorities that clamor for attention:

E-mails have to be read and answered, jokes need to be forwarded, the garbage must go out, wood for the fireplace must be brought in, snow must be shoveled and toilet paper rolls must be replaced when empty.

People say, “I wonder where the time went.”

That’s the answer. It was chewed up by trivia.

Anyway, the reason for this post is the goading by a very interesting and well-researched book that my granddaughter gave me recently, “Hot, Flat and Crowded” by Thomas L. Friedman. It is loaded with good information and a “must read” by Liberals and Conservatives alike.

I do take exception, however, that the author implies that all the ills of the modern world are the result of the policies of the United States in many areas.

First, a digression. I wrote and published  a novel in 1994, DESTINATIONS, which has been out of print for years.

I am seriously planning to have it reprinted soon. I have had to make no changes to the original after all these years because I feel it is more current today than when I wrote it.

In the story, I have a character ask the following:

“Who’s telling you what and why?”

This is something that everyone should ask themselves when they are presented with an argument that they are somewhat wary of.

Back to Friedman’s book. On page 147 I read something that made me take notice and I quote now:

“Many climatologists believe that Katrina’s unusual ferocity was fed by the warmer waters in the Gulf on Mexico, which, they believe, are partly attributable to global warming.”

Friedman stated that after World War II the United States increased its industrial output and as a result generated much more CO2, the major cause of Global Warming. This production increase, he claims, accelerated after the fall of The Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

Being the scientific skeptic that I am, I said to myself, “Wait a minute, what about other hurricanes before WWII?”

During the 1930’s the United States was in a deep depression and industrial production along with CO2 emissions would have been way down.

This led me to look at hurricanes of epic proportion.

The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, was a Category 5 hurricane. The Hurricane of 1938 was also a Category 5 hurricane. These occurred before there had been significant  CO2 generation. Hurricane Camille in 1969 was a Category 5 hurricane. Hurricane Gilbert of 1988 was a Category 5 hurricane. Hurricane Andrew of 1992 was a Category 5 hurricane.

Katrina, however, came ashore as a Category 3 hurricane.

It was not a “ferocious hurricane”. The damage that it caused was not by high winds but by a poorly maintained levee system and people living below water level.

Significant rain along the Mississippi River basin could have created the same result without its being a hurricane.

What I am getting at is that the Hurricane of 1938 devastated New England without having traveled across warm Gulf water caused by the United States industrial CO2 pollution.

Now, my point is this. There is no question that the climate is changing. It does so on a daily basis. I have been keeping daily weather records for over 40 years because that is my nature; to observe and hopefully predict. As I stated in my first BLOG article, I am a scientist.

 The geological records of the planet shows the extremes of ocean levels that have occurred over time. These levels are a function of global warming and cooling. There is no argument there but the Earth’s temperature ranges are neither predictable as a function of time nor consistent in amplitude.

I live along the Connecticut coast. The railroad line from New York to Boston runs along this coast and a series of bridges had been built across the estuaries in Stonington, Connecticut that flow into Fisher’s Island Sound then into the Atlantic Ocean.

The clearance under these bridges leave barely enough room for small boats to pass under yet this clearance has been approximately the same during the past 100 years.

What does this mean? The oceans have neither risen nor fallen enough to cause a change in the clearance between the water level and the bottom of the bridge.

This is a “yardstick” cast in stone.

If this is true, then the ocean heights have not changed at Stonington, Connecticut, Samoa, Sri Lanka or Sicily.

People can say, “The beach used to be way down there but now the waves are lapping at my foundation. That proves that the ocean levels have risen.”

Wrong, that shows the effects of erosion at work.

In 1952, on the northwest shore of Oahu, Hawaii I have photos that show about 50 yards of beautiful sandy beach. When I returned in 1953, the beach was only about 20 yards wide with about a six foot drop to the water of hard black lava.

At the time, I asked one of the “locals” about it.

He said, “The sand comes and goes. It will come back.”

In 1954, the wide sandy beach was back.

He understood.

Fishermen who leave Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod in the morning often must return in a different channel because the sand bars shift daily.

Let’s not confuse beach erosion with ocean heights. 

Before we become “Chicken Little” and scream that the sky is falling down, let’s get some solid data that does not favor some scientist’s job, does not support a political party’s agenda and does not allow someone to make a fortune at taxpayer’s expense.

Keep an open mind and a clear head and ask:

“Who’s measuring temperature and where?”

“Who’s measuring ocean heights and how?”

And finally, “Who’s telling you what and why?”

   I receive many e-mails asking why I don’t post articles to this log more often.

The reason is that like most people I find that the trivia that one encounters in everyday living consumes time that could be better spent in creative pursuits

   I write when I encounter either ignorance or stupidity so overwhelming that I have no choice.

   Ignorance can be excused but stupidity is something else entirely.

   People who have not been exposed to fact, for whatever reason, can be excused but when facts are available and well-circulated then those who, again for whatever reason, chose not to accept those facts are truly stupid.

   Stupidity has no place in civilized countries. The people therein have had access to schools, libraries and recently to TV and the Internet.

    There are countless documentaries on TV with well-developed time-lines of the evolution of the surface, forests and landscape of our planet. The rise and fall of ocean levels and the formation and melting of glaciers has been a continuous process.

   Core samples taken from ponds indicate, from very durable pollen samples, the plants that grew in the areas and the temperatures and moisture necessary for those plants to exist.

  The planet Earth has warmed and cooled for eons before there were people, power plants and automobiles.

  Even a fifth grade level geology book would enlighten people to this fact so why are so many people resistant to truth?

   What is it going to take to convince those people who make decisions that can wreck the economies of the entire planet to change conditions that are unchangeable?

   Is it politics alone that so blinds people or is it a more sinister hidden agenda that is determined to revert us back to living in caves and eating roots and berries.

  There are no more new caves and many many more people today so expect violent competition for survival.

In this very long article I hope to discuss the dangerous cliff on which we presently stand.

I have lightly discussed revolution in a couple of former articles but this is an in-depth look at what can precipitate one.

The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew an absolute monarchy and ended a system of feudalism for the aristocracy and the Catholic Church.

The precipitating cause was a famine. This was most likely caused by crop failures caused by the eruption of the volcano Laki in Iceland in 1783-1784 whose sulfur fumes and dust clouded the northern hemisphere. It is estimated that 8 million tons of hydrogen fluoride and 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide filled the atmosphere.

Temperatures plummeted to such an extent that the Mississippi froze at New Orleans and there was ice in the Gulf of Mexico. This caused enough famine and hardship in France to make the people desperate.

When the system that is looked to for stability and the well-being of the masses falters, for whatever reason, conditions are ripe for revolution.

It can be an actual cataclysm or the perception of one that triggers a revolution.

After the overthrow of the French Monarchy a period of relative stability existed during which time the Industrial Revolution began to occur.

Machines were invented which could produce much more than men could individually.

. 

Between 1834 and 1846 France’s economy mushroomed as a result of the Industrial Revolution.

However, the means of production was in the hands of a few who could afford to buy the machines by accumulating enough money to buy them.

The machines displaced hand labor and caused a migration of people from farms to the cities which possessed the power to operate the machines—steam and water-power.

This led to a rise of capitalism and the middle class which ultimately created a class struggle. It became a struggle between the owners and managers of the means of production and the laborers.

About that time two people developed a philosophy that attempted to deal with this problem.

 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles produced The Communist Manifesto in which they used the term ‘Proletariat’ to define the working class. These are the people in a Capitalist society who do not own the means of production but sell their labor for a wage.

The ‘Bourgeoisie’ were defined as the managers of the means of production.

Where there is a reasonable amount of freedom in a system of government, there will always be a conflict between these two groups. The laborer wants to receive the most financial advantage for each hour of his work while the manager wants to maximize his profit.

This is not the case in either a Monarchy or a Dictatorship. What you get is what you get. A person is essentially a slave in either of these systems.

How much material wealth is spread among the masses is a function of the generosity of the leader.

Unfortunately both the Monarch and the Dictator generally have other aspirations—grandeur or conquest—which permits no surplus for the masses to enjoy.

Socialism’s goal is to spread the surplus capital, the difference between what the actual generators of that production, the ‘proletariat’, have generated minus the cost of that production.

Of course, what history has shown is that this system kills incentive for investment because the would-be venture capitalist is not willing to expend the effort if there is no possibility to accumulate some of the surplus capital.

There is no point being the owner of the means of production if it is a ‘break-even’ venture. If a person’s expenses exactly balance his potential income there is no point in working harder.

The common laborer is also not likely to attempt to better himself and advance into the ranks of the owners of production when he realizes that he would be no better off to assume more responsibility and work harder.

This is the flaw in the concepts of Socialism and Communism.

The dream of Utopia is just that, a dream. The fathers of modern day Socialism/Communism , Marx and Engles, never addressed how this perfect state would come about. They produced The Communist Manifesto at about the same time as the French Revolution of 1847.They, like most idealists, would have enjoyed living in a system in which one could enjoy prosperity and leisure without trading the hours of their lives to achieve it.

Marx’s definition of Capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the Proletariat by the Bourgeoisie.

The French Revolution of 1847 was precipitated by conditions not unlike those presently existing in the United States.

The Industrial Revolution showed people that if they could acquire the ‘means of production’ they could become wealthy. Machines could out-produce people but it required money to buy these new machines.

Those with aspirations could achieve that by borrowing money. This caused competition for money which raised interest rates and increased speculation.

The Russian people, through the actions of Lenin and Trotsky, became, for the most part, almost unwilling participants in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Crash of 1929 and the following Depression created a pattern of similar thinking in the United States. The election of a Liberal President who fathered The New Deal, Social Security and permitted a fertile climate for the labor unions probably averted a revolution in the US as its citizens looked toward the apparent success of the Soviet’s first Five Year Plan.

We Americans are facing a series of hardships with the loss of enormous wealth in auto manufacturing, investments, home and business values that we may be on the verge of acceptance of either a total socialistic system or a revolution.

Socialism stifles investment and creativity; revolution creates chaos.

Utopia is an impossibility and Marx and Engles realized it.

It is unfortunate that the followers of their philosophy do not understand this and are willing to create a revolution to lose everything in the hope of achieving that which is impossible. Revolution has only led to a long period of misery.

Today we are seeing the possibility of a revolution in Iran.

Could a revolution there create a ‘fall-out’, as the volcano Laki did to France,

that would affect the United States?

During this period of religious significance to both Christians and Jews, a mental  ‘almost overload’ has “….come upon me”–while I was raking last fall’s leaves.

Not being a theologian the following is the best that I could do.

Christians celebrate Easter as the rebirth of the Savior—someone who would cleanse them of sin and perpetuate their survival in Heaven.

Pagans celebrated this period as the resurrection of crops and fruit trees–those things necessary for their survival.

The Jews celebrate it for another reason—that they were ‘passed over’ and so survived to today.

It appears to me that ‘survival’ is a major component of this holiday season.

People want to hope for better times. They need a belief that things will get better as the pagans knew would happen in the spring. Or is it simply that people have faith that things will get better?

Faith is blind acceptance of a possible outcome. There is no available data to back up faith.

This seems very appropriate for what is happening today.

The Jews had faith that a Messiah would come and make things better. When Jesus came into the picture He didn’t help them in their struggle with the Romans so he was rejected as not being the Messiah that they expected.

Today we are experiencing a similar situation. Times are tough; fear is rampant.

Obama has been compared by many to be a ‘Messianic figure’.

The fact that he was elected President might have been as a result of this perception by a large number of people. In his campaign he said that he had a plan that would solve all the problems facing our country and perhaps the world, by extension.

I wonder if Obama and Congress will “deliver us from evil” or must we wait another four years for some, as of yet, unknown Messiah?

   At the time I certainly didn’t expect to see what I have seen on TV today in London during the G20 Meetings.

  When I wrote that article I had only considered economics– Money.

  I forgot about, or really never thought that I would need to consider, another equally important reason for revolution.

  That is the loss of freedom. I had always expected that to be a constant and an absolute in the US. but events are changing the rules of the game.

   I had expected a relatively stable middle-class but the concept of the loss of personal freedom is changing that. People have very little faith in their future now.

  Guns and ammunition, the tools of revolution, are flying off the shelves as fast as they are stocked.

   The masses are in a state of both economic and emotional depression.

   If the people lose confidence in our government’s ability to deal with the multiple problems facing the country will revolution become a possibilty?

   If the government feels itself threatened will it result in an attempt to confiscate weapons and declare martial law?

    If so will there be a revolution?

…and you don’t think we need a National ID Card?

Package that with a few bags of fertilizer and a can of home heating oil and terrorists do not need to smuggle in rockets or nuclear material  in suitcases at airports.

 Let’s not be so naive. Let’s not swap a little inconvenience for our lives.

Since I posted the previous article I have talked with a number of people and everyone feels that it would restrict their freedom.

The second concern is if there were such a card could someone be arrested for not carrying it?

First, it would be an identification card not a government ‘tracking device”. The US government already has such a device. It is your credit or debit card.

If the government wanted to, they would know how much money you spend with respect to your income, what you buy and where and when. They could follow your activities in great detail at present if they wanted to.

They know the make, model and year of your automobile and knowing how much gas you purchase, they can know how far you drive in a year and where you have purchased gas therefore where you have been.

When I go to vote in Connecticut, I must present my driver’s license or I don’t get to vote. It’s as simple as that. The police don’t haul me away to prison.

We carry all sorts of “cards” today already. You have your driver’s license, your Social Security Card, your medical insurance or Medicare card, your library card and so on.
If you do not present that card you are not arrested, you simply do not receive some service appropriate to that card.

Now to the consequences as a result of NOT having this card.

Saudi terrorists would have been unable to obtain drivers licenses which they were able to use to receive flight training leading to pilot certificates in the US.

They would have been unable to board those large commercial aircraft.

The World Trade Towers would still be standing. Those lives would not have been lost. The US would not have gone into Afganistan. The US would not be fighting a war in Iraq.
Billions of dollars would be instead taking care of problems at home. Thousands of American servicemen would be alive today and more thousands would not be crippled.

A National Identity Card would have prevented all this.

What lies in store for us without this card?

It’s your decision.

I have to paraphrase the incident because I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time to record the actual words. We tend not to take notice until we realize that something of interest is taking place.

Anyway, the interviewer was stopping people on the street and asking them if they were for or against repeal of the 1975 (or some date) Bill of Income Adjustment.
He stated that most were for the repeal. What’s interesting is that there was no such bill!

Where I am going with this is that if one were to take a poll as to what the most important task for the new president would be, it would be a very different answer depending on where the poll was taken.
In Arizona, it might be border security. In Detroit it would be jobs. In New England it might be the economy. In San Francisco it might be the legalization of marijuana.
If the pollster takes his poll regarding war at a college he will find a much greater percentage of people against war. Why? These young people would be the ones required to carry the rifle.

How the question is asked also alters the answer.
Certainly the restrictive nature of the question, whether a “yes or no” answer is expected, when there is no clear answer possible to the question.
For instance, “Sir, do you still kick your dog when you get home from work every day?”

Everyone wants to be associated with a winner and unfortunately the polls can create winners.
We are seeing this effect at the present time with funding for some of the Presidential candidates drying up.
If polls are taken in specific regions that favor one candidate over another, people will shift their allegiance to the perceived winner.
This has been going on since primitive cultures formed and will continue forever.

For years my skeptical nature has caused me to ask, “Who’s telling you what and why?”

Beware how the pollster asks his questions and where he asks them for they can significantly influence the outcome of an election.

The pawns pay the price.