CT Scan and Global Warming

Your father passes out. You rush him to the ER. A CT scan reveals an occlusion.

"Did the occlusion cause the fall?" you ask the doctor.

"It may have, but it's a minor occlusion so that possiblity is remote. The fall could have been caused by flu. It could be any number of things."

"So, what caused it, and what caused the occlusion?" you ask.

"Probably no single thing. There are three factors, three influences on your father's health that make something like an occlusion and a fall inevitable. The first is his age, which you can do nothing about. The second is his genetic make-up. Again, you can do nothing about his genes. And the third is his lifestyle. Does he smoke? Does he exercise? Does he eat healthy food? Here you have some control. You can reduce the chances of his having seizures, strokes, etc. if you get him to improve his lifestyle - cut out the drinking, practice yoga or meditation, that sort of thing."

"Well, thank you," you say to the doctor. "You have made my understanding of this quite clear. If I may, I would like to compare my father's occlution and his fall to Climate Change. There are many factors affecting the climate. Most of them are outside human control. But there is one factor we can control: human activity. There we have control. And that factor is burning fossil fuels."

"Do you think, then," asks the doctor, "since you can see this so clearly, that you will reduce your carbon footprint? Do you think you will change your lifestyle to keep the Earth healthy?"

"Of course not," you reply. "For the same reason I would never advise my father to change his lifestyle. My father loves his cocktail in the evening. If I even suggested taking away his cigars, I would be killing him, that is, killing his spirit, killing the person he has been his whole life."

"I understand," said the doctor. "And I would have no disagreement with your position if your father's lifestyle did not affect others. He can kill himself for all I care. But his drinking, combined with his age, is a hazzard when he drives. His smoking produces second-hand smoke that your children breathe."

"Well," you say, "I'll have to think about it, and then confer with an esteemed professor I know."

Debate a Climate Denier

Gary:    I thought that you might enjoy this article.  I checked it on Snopes, and it was published in the Washington Post

      

GLOBAL WARMING The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.  Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable. * * * * * * * * *

I must apologize. I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post - 96 years ago.

Me:  Wow. Nearly 100 years. All the while, the retreat of glaciers and loss of species have continued. Even so, many people doubt the evidence.

True, the prediction's timing was off, just as Malthus's predictions of humanity's demise due to over-population were famously premature. But Malthus did not have the luxury of population studies that are available now. Here's one of those studies. A small herd of deer was introduced to St. George's Island in the Bering Sea. There were no predators on the island. Based on the food available, the sceintists predicted that the population would increase, and eventually stabilize between 1200 and 1500 deer. Indeed, popuation did increase just as predicted. But then it continued to grow, to 2,000 (Look, the sceintists are wrong!)  to 3,000 (Oh, those stupid scientists. They know nothing.), to 4,000 (I'm gonna vote for Trump. Overpopulation is a hoax), eventually reaching a population of 5200 (You see. Scientists are idiots.). The deer were thin, weak and highly stressed. Then, a calamitous decline began. Eighteen months later, absent any predators, absent war and social unrest, absent sea rise and global warming, there were only 5 deer stll alive.

Here's another way to look at it: a man who is skeptical of science and scientific evidence jumps off the Empire State Building wearing home-made wings. "He'll crash into the pavement very soon," predict the scientists. As the man plummets past the 10th floor, people could hear him shouting, "Scientists know nothing. Look at me. I'm doing just fine." 

David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

Three thousand years ago, Philistines marched from the coastal plain into the Judaean Hills intending to subdue and enslave the Israelites. Saul massed his defenders on a ridge above the Valley of Elah. The Philistines dug in on an opposite ridge. And there both armies sat, neither willing to disadvantage its troops with an attack from the valley floor.

A giant, fully dressed in the latest and best armor, stepped from the Philistine's ranks and challenged the Israelites to a one-on-one contest. "Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (1 Samuel 17)

No Israelite volunteered. For the next 40 days, Goliath taunted the frightened Israelites morning and evening. Still, no hero emerged.

A shepherd bringing food to his brothers in the Israelite army heard of the giant's challenge and said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant (I) will go and fight him.”

Engaging in combat without armor was certain death, so ". . . Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic . . . “ Now, thought the king, we have our deliverer.

David tried walking around in the armor. “I cannot go in these. I am not used to them,” and took them off. Dressed in only a plain shepherd’s tunic, and carrying only a staff, a sling and five stones, he stepped out of the Israelite camp into the valley, toward the fully-armored Goliath.

The battle was quick. A single stone from David’s sling embedded deep in Goliath’s forehead. Killed or wounded, the giant fell, face down. David cut off his head. And ever since, that story has been retold by western societies to buck up underdogs. It manifests in protean variations: a small but self-confident individual can prevail over a much larger opponent; a individual who possesses an antiquated, yet in some circumstances superior, weapon can beat an opponent fully protected by the latest that technology can produce; and, by extension, a democratic society with the confident support of its free citizens, and with strong, resilient institutions, can gain the upper hand against the high-tech giants that digitally manipulate and exploit the majority, giants that would, if allowed, relegate the government to the role of underdog. These lessons must not be forgotten.

They are of little help, though, in preventing the decline of honey bees and other invertebrates. How do the insect underdogs, even with our help, defeat the giants of human population growth and economic ‘development’? If mosquitoes couldn’t stop the Panama Canal from being built, then lady bugs have no chance against biplanes killing everything in a field except one select crop. What can a dragonfly do to save a wetland?

David was just a boy when he faced Goliath. But he was much more than a skinny shepherd with a lucky arm. Formerly chargd with protecting his father’s flock, he had practiced with his sling, a notoriously inaccurate weapon, until he could hit a moving wolf at 50 yards with a stone flying at 150-miles/hour. How do I know? Because after his victory over Goliath, followed by years of political and military machinations, he became king, conquered Jerusalem and united the disparate tribes of Israel. He was driven. Ambitious. Intelligent. When still a kid, he knew that a shepherd’s frantic shouts, stick-waving and randomly thrown rocks posed no real danger to wolves. Unless a shepherd's rock hit one, and occasionally injured or killed one, the wolves would pick off sheep around the periphery. He could never win.

So, David practiced. He practiced knocking a stone off a boulder. He practiced hitting a knot on a tree. He practices, after years, he was so good that he could step confidently into the valley and challenge Goliath.

David saved his father’s sheep, and he saved the Israelites, but how do we save the invertebrates? What is our weapon? How do we perfect it? Hurling stones at bulldozers is absurd. Shaking fists at crop-dusters - foolish. Throwing lawsuits at developers occasionally works, but more often than not, society aligns with economic interests. Which mean, plants and animals die. The flock shrinks.

Five days ago, a large track-hoe flattened 18 70-foot pine trees on the acre across the street. In less than 45 minutes, forty-year-old trees had been killed. The last raw acre near me will succumb to construction within months. The pale, yellow wildflowers that decorated bees with pollen will never return. The buzz that comforted me last summer as I watched the sun rise, a buzz that just ten years ago was a roar on my raspberries and a reassuring hum rising in sweet waves off my flowering sedums, a buzz that has accompanied me for ¾ of a century, is now barely a whisper. One more acre – right outside my window - gone. The predators decimate the edges of the flock.

My weapon is my hand. My projectile is seeds. I cast them. I cast them again and again, at multiple targets, at drainage ditches, swales, road shoulders and medians. I cast them into empty lots and along river banks. I sow them by the thousands in my front yard - organic, regional, insecticide-free wildflower seeds. The predators may cull the herd across the street, but I expand the herd. The high-tech world may massacre the fringes and poison global habitat, but I need no high-tech armor to hit back ten-fold.

And I will win. Not with a single blow. But gradually. And permanently. Because Life is on my side.