The Brothers K

I’d been told for years I needed to read this book, and subsequently it had sat on my shelf for a long time, waiting for me to get around to it. Big books like this, though, you have to be ready to come to them. You’re not going to make it if you’re in a sprinting mood. You’ve got to be ready for the marathon, and I for one pick my marathons rather selectively.

But boy am I glad I finally read this one.

Brothers K steals its title from the great Russian novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. There’s always a bit of hesitancy for me when I come across a work that references a great classic, especially so blatantly. A finer writer usually masks the influence of such work, and the assumed boldness of titling your work after a classic usually turns out not to be so much boldness as rash foolishness and too much ego.

Duncan quotes from Karamazov throughout his novel, and the parallels are easily grasped by anyone who’s read both (both novels revolve around the lives of four brothers). However, while most writers only wish their own work will stand the test of time, David James Duncan wrote a modern classic that stands amongst the best of our literature.

Midway through the novel, Duncan succinctly defines the theme of his novel and illustrates where he parts ways with Dostoevsky by giving us a definition of his title.

Literally, a definition:

“K (ka) verb, K’ed, K’ing 1. baseball: to strike out. 2. to fail, to flunk, to fuck up, to fizzle, or 3. to fall short, fall apart, fall flat, fall by the wayside, or on deaf ears, or hard times, or into disrepute or disrepair, or 4. to come unglued, come to grief, come to blows, come to nothing, or 5. go to the dogs, go through the roof, go home in a casket, go to hell in a hand basket, or 6. to blow your cover, blow your chances, blow your cool, blow your stack, shoot your wad, bitch the deal, buy the farm, bit the dust, or 7. to recollect an oddball notion you first heard as a crimless and un-K’ed child but found so nonsensically paradoxical that you had to ignore it or defy it or betray it for decades before you could begin to believe that it might possibly be true, which is that 8. to lose your money, your virginity, your teeth, health or hair, 9. to lose your home, your innocence, your balance, your friends, 10. to loose your happiness, your hopes, your leisure, your looks, and, yea, even your memories, your vision, your mind, your way,

11. in short (and as Jesus K. Rist once so uncompromisingly put it) to lose your very self,

12. for the sake of another, is

13. sweet irony, the only way you’re ever going to save it.”

This is one mighty book. The story of the Chance family and the raising of Everett, Peter, Kincaid, Irwin, Beatrice and Winifred during the decade of the sixties, Duncan brings into focus the triumphs and tragedies of that era. He explores deeply two deeply American institutions, Baseball and Religion, and yet both of these decay into their singular source, Belief. But in the end, his real issue is family, and how belief holds a family together…not belief in God, or belief in sports, or belief in any particular idea, but belief, faith and loyalty to each other. How love for each other connects us and binds us in the face of everything else.

K is one of the funniest novels I’ve read in years. Duncan’s humor is of epic scale, turning something as simple as eating around the dinner table into a topic of hilarity. Comic writers of this quality are in short supply, storytellers who understand that the deep wellspring of humor is not found in cheap wit, but in the irony that weaves through our lives. Duncan hits this chord over and over, nearly toppling you ought of your chair.

Every time I sat down to read this book, I relished the experience, because I knew I’d once again be stepping into that greatest of conversations, during which I’d find myself laughing, contemplating, arguing, stopped short with grief, broken down and then finally rebuilt again…reading K reminds us of what fiction has the ability to do, and the only sadness that comes away with us is the disappointment that there are so few writers who can accomplish this feat.

I’ve said before I don’t often recommend books to the masses. Everyone’s taste is different, but some books ought to be read by everybody. Some books are that good.

If I made a list, K would make the top twenty or so. It’s as good as anything I’ve read.

Hands down.

Wolfman's Got Nards!

I’ve been complaining for about a year and a half now about the low quality of the films I see hitting the theaters and my local video rental store. There was a time when you could rely on a quality director, a top tier actor, an award winning screenwriter, but it seems those days have come and gone.

I know, I’ve got a high bar for movie excellence, and I’ve got particular tastes, but it doesn’t seem to matter what I’ve been checking out these days. Comedy, action, horror, adventure, on and on…film after film just sucks. Flat out. Sucks.

So I’ve been on a long ride of watching old films from the 80’s, the stuff I grew up watching but haven’t seen in some ten years or more. At first, I wasn’t sure how well some of this stuff would hold up (there isn’t much from the 80’s that does), but I’ve been pleasantly surprised, because as it turns out much of these films are actually well made and, gasp!, they’re entertaining and fun to watch.

Last night I pulled out The Monster Squad, an old favorite of mine I didn’t think I’d ever see again, but lo and behold I found the 20^th Anniversary Edition at Wal-Mart on DVD. Who knew?

This little gem has been long forgotten by just about everyone who wasn’t between 5 and 12 years old in the late 80’s. For that particular slice of a generation, however, most of us remember this film with fond half-shudders.

The plot is as simple (and laughable) as can be. Dracula has returned to modern day Smallville, USA, and he’s brought back all his buddies (Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Werewolf, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon). They are (what else?) hellbent on conquering the world by upsetting the cosmic balance of Good and Evil.

Of course, in classic 80’s fashion, all the adults are clueless. The Werewolf (as a man) actually walks into the police station and demands to be locked up because, well, he’s a damn werewolf. And of course the cops don’t believe him.

A couple of pilots carrying Dracula’s coffin actually encounter the Count as he escapes from the airplane…and do nothing.

In the 80’s, if the world needed saving, you didn’t call the adults.

You called The Monster Squad, a group of pre-adolescents obsessed with monsters and dedicated to their destruction. Here we find more classic 80’s, the absolutely awful wardrobes, the absolutely bitchin tree fort, the brave leader of the group who never falters and is never scared (and who wears the cooler than cool red T-shirt that sports: Stephen King Rules), the fat kid who cheerfully downs extra helpings of pie, the Bad Boy who rides a beat-up old bicycle but wears a leather jacket and smokes Luckies.

Of course, the Squad instantly recognizes the danger, puts together the pieces of the puzzle the adults are all too dense to construct, and sets out to do something about saving the world. American shop class becomes a weapons manufacturing center as the kids sharpen wooden stakes and melt their mother’s good silver china to form silver bullets.

“What’s the two ways to kill a werewolf?”

“Silver bullet.”

“And the second?”

“There’s a second way to kill a werewolf?”

One of the best scenes comes when the Werewolf is blown to pieces by a stick of dynamite…and then all the pieces proceed to slide back together and reform. There really is only one way to kill a werewolf.

This movie is unabashedly what it is: cheesy, clumsy, corny, and outrageous. It’s also funny as hell, fun to watch, entertaining, and it holds up well all these years later. You can’t help but like these kids, and in spite of its flaws the film reminds you of a time when you watched movies because they were fun, a time when you didn’t give two shits about the message or what it said about the state of the world. It’s escapist, sure, but it’s also amazingly accurate (not the monsters, but the kids).

My favorite scene in the film comes as the boys are hiding in the bushes outside Dracula’s mansion. At this point, Frankenstein has switched sides and is hunkering in the bushes with them. Fat Kid is whining about not wanting to go inside, and Frankenstein is muttering in his monosyllabic style.

“Fat Kid, you’re a wuss.”

Franksenstein looks puzzled. “W-w-w-wuss?”

The Fearless Leader glances over his shoulder. “Can it, Frank.”

While this one never won any awards and won’t be well remembered by anyone who wasn’t a kid in the 80’s, it’s a blast, and it works its magic even now. Thank god someone had the smarts to put it out on DVD.

Heard Out on Highway 31

It’s my feeling that this blog has become a slight bit too serious as of late (of my own doing, no doubt), and with this in mind I thought it was time for a change of pace.

The single best thing for breaking up the seriousness I know of is rock and roll. Nothing else does better, and nothing else makes you feel quite as good.

I’ve been checking out a lot of good stuff on YouTube, where you can find many excellent bootlegged concert videos, and I was giddy as a schoolgirl (well, as close as I can come to such a thing, anyway) to find a truly top-notch video of “Reason to Believe,” the new, full-band version Bruce Springsteen unleashed during his last tour.

As prep, this song was originally cut purely as a demo for an album Springsteen planned on making with the band in the early 1980’s. It was a slow, soft acoustic track played by Springsteen alone on guitar and harmonica. Eventually, when this song and many of its brethren weren’t working in the studio, Springsteen released an entire album of these demo takes, which make up Nebraska.

On his last acoustic tour, Springsteen reworked “Reason to Believe” into a one-man blues stomp that was a highlight of that tour. But it was on the last tour that he really unveiled, once again, his genius at reworking material.

The song opens with Springsteen on a howling harmonica worked through a reverb-mic, so that the chords come out haunted and ghostly. In the background Max is tapping the cymbals in a soft four-time beat, and Stevie is keeping a looping guitar lick rolling through what sounds like a bluesy, Mississippi-inspired track.

What comes in short order though is Springsteen’s growling shout-outs, and what may have been a mid-tempo blues number becomes an energized, footstomping crowd-shaker.

But it’s the countdown, the classic One-Two-Three-Four that ignites the engine of the mightiest band in the land, and they slam into it in perfect sync. What follows is a swaggering blues-rock killer, a song that will knock you on your ass and run you right over.

I’ve held for a long time that Springsteen’s unique genius is his ability to take a forgotten track that nobody cares for and in concert turn it into one of the greatest songs you ever heard. Not even The Rolling Stones do that.

“Reason to Believe” is a fine example.

Enjoy.

Thoughts on "Zeitgeist" for Ryan and Maddie

So I watched the film, finally. Though I knew a little about it from what you’d told me, and from hearing bits of your conversations with Mom, I basically had no idea what I was in for. In that regard, I went in with an open mind, although I admit it became hard to remain open after a certain point.

But I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I want to discuss what I liked about this film.

If nothing else, “Zeitgeist” should get the viewer to be rather pissed off with what we’re told by our government and, more importantly, by our media, which is the means by which our government gets its message to the people. It should get people to look at the media with greater skepticism, thereby motivating them to think more critically about what they hear, see and read. It should make people demand more from their media sources, and also more of themselves (by demanding higher levels of proof and evidence instead of just the latest sound-bite).

Unfortunately, in my experience, these films don’t actually have this effect. People get upset for a day or two, and then they forget about it. The truth is that it’s rather difficult to stay informed about a broad group of topics. Limiting ourselves to just topics covered by “Zeitgeist” we would need to be informed about politics, history, economics, religion, current affairs, government…on and on. Even educated people have trouble being this informed.

However, I rather think part of the point of this film is that being uninformed is the problem. Difficult or not, we need to be informed. That it’s hard is no excuse.

I also think this film clearly points out a need for the general American public’s need for better media education. Our populace has little capability when it comes to interpreting the media. As a writer, this is basically my area of expertise, and I know full well that interpreting the media is most often about understanding what is NOT being said. We need to learn to read between the lines, to intuit the story behind the story, or else our view of the world will remain limited, naïve and misinformed.

However, any admiration I may have for this film basically stops here. And while you may feel that knowing I disagree with the film is all that you want to know, I think it’s important you understand why.

My greater disagreement with “Zeitgeist” is that if it actually inspired the reaction I just voiced above (critical thinking, media interpretation, etc.) it would immediately lead you to realizing that almost everything this film purports is complete crap.

Still, it is somewhat well-orchestrated crap.

Let me show you how.

The film begins with emotion. This should be your first clue that everything to follow is not going to be a scientific argument (which is fine if you’re watching a religious or philosophical movie, but not so good if you’re watching a movie that’s supposed to be factual). A good logical argument based in fact starts and ends with facts. It doesn’t need emotion, because the facts should convince you all on their own.

So all the mood music and emotional images of war (to thudding drums no less) and bleeding and dying children…well, every time you hear this shtick you should be reaching for your wallet, if you know what I mean.

That aside, the next important point is to note how “Zeitgeist” frames its arguments within half-truths. This is the hook.

In Part One, we get the religious history, which the film gets at least partially correct. Yes, Christianity is a bastardization of many pagan religions. This really shouldn’t stun anyone in our modern world (except that, sadly, most Americans are stunned…which only shows how ignorant our people really are).

Yes, ancient people’s worshipped the sun and the Romans basically shifted the Sun to the Son. Yes, the Bible and all its stories are myths intended to be seen allegorically, not to be taken literally, hence much of the mythology is connected to astronomy (the irony here is that, as sophisticated as we are today, most of us believe in the literal truth of these stories, while the ancients understood they were allegorical…go figure). Yes, Christianity adopted much from pagan religion precisely for political reasons (mostly to keep the Empire from falling apart, partly because the Romans were actually good rulers who didn’t demand the people it conquered to convert).

Yet, while there are these half-truths, a great deal of the film is then filled in with information that is completely inaccurate.

For example, Horus was the god of the sky. Ra was the god of the sun. Eventually, these two gods morphed into one, “Re-Horakhty,” which even then clings to their original division (the hyphenated name instead of a brand new name). Horus and Set did not battle every night and day. They battled once, and Horus cut off Set’s testicles, making Set the god of the desert (because he was now infertile).

The actual connection of Egyptian night and day cycle comes from Ra’s connection to the goddess of the sky, Nut (night). At dusk Nut swallows Ra. Ra remains within her uterus until morning (god only knows how he ends up in her uterus) when he is born again.

Horus was not born on December 25. He was born in August. His mother wasn’t a virgin. His father was Osiris, who had sex with his mother, Isis, and they conceived.

In connection with Horus, there is no star in the east, three kings, new-born savior, 12 year-old teaching, baptism, walking on water, and no one ever called him The Truth, The Light, Lamb of God, or the Good Sheperd…at least not until “Zeitgeist.”

While I could continue detailing the number of misinformed facts and outright lies that take place here, be sure that they aren’t restricted to just Horus. “Zeitgeist” gets its facts wrong regarding each and every deity.

This kind of couching of falsities with half-truths continues throughout the film. I’m not going to list them all, because that would simply take too long. I will however list some of the ones I find more salient.

1) All of the reports of the hijackers being alive were later reported by those news agencies to be cases of mistaken identity.

2) The hijackers paper trail of funding is incredibly easy to trace (why make it difficult when you know you’re going to kill yourself?). There is evidence linking at least $400,000 in funding to the hijackers from bin Laden.

3) Steering a large jet into a huge building requires little skill. The skill in flying is in landing and taking off, neither of which are important if you’re planning on blowing yourself up.

4) Assessments of what the Twin Towers could withstand (engineers reporting the towers could take a hit from a 707) are irrelevant, because the engineers did not imagine a deliberate attack…they imagined a 707 with low fuel flying at low speed hitting by mistake…not the much larger 767 full of fuel crashing directly at full speed and angled so as to hit as many floors as possible.

5) While it may look like a controlled demolition, it's not. A giant building always collapses in this fashion, and when the floors start falling the tremendous force always causes them to go in the same direction…straight down.

6) Building 7 is mentioned numerous times in the 9/11 Commission Report, on pages 301, 310, 319 and 322.

7) Air control on 9/11 failed because they didn’t anticipate the threat, not because of some mysterious military training going on that day. All of the protocols were based around the concept that a hijacker would keep the plane in the air, find a landing space far away, and demand ransom. Further, response would have been ineffective anyway, as by the time authorities had been told of the hijackings the planes were already flying into buildings.

8) The American Revolution was mostly a result of a lack of representation, not the banking system. In reality, had King George merely granted the colonists’ request for a vote in Parliament, it is likely we’d all still be British subjects.

9) A central American banking system was originally proposed by Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers, and not because he wanted to put everyone into debt. Hamilton understood that the only way America would be one nation was if the country had a single financial system. America’s ruling class at this time did not go along with this idea simply to enslave the people. In fact, many of the founding fathers disagreed with Hamilton, and this issue was debated endlessly.

10) The Federal Reserve is private, but is also overseen by Congress and has a board of governors with seats for congressional officials. It is not an organization outside or above the law.

11) The 16^th Amendment was fully ratified by 36 states when it came before Congress.

12) The IRS code clearly sets the law regarding income tax. The law is plain in 26 USC Section 1 regarding each individual, Sections 61 and 64 discuss where income is derived, Section 6012 and 6151 require that you file a tax return in general, and Section 6072 requires you file an income tax return specifically.

Again, I could continue, but won’t. Further, though, almost every single quote in this film is either A) rewritten and misinterpreted or B) completely made up.

So what do I conclude?

My opinion is that this film is one more example of pseudoscience, a particular bugaboo of mine that you can see for yourself I’ve been railing against here on my blog concerning global warming. Is it convincing? Yes, of course it is. Pseudoscience is supposed to be convincing. If it wasn’t, no one would believe it.

Conspiracy theories are one of those things people WANT to believe in. They fall into the category with alien abductions, Bigfoot, Elvis sightings, and the Loch Ness Monster. People want to think these things are real, but the facts show us clearly that they are not. Conspiracy theories make great movies. They just don’t make much in reality.

As far as this film opening your eyes, I would caution that when your eyes are opened the first thing to do is check your facts.

Unfortunately, the business of making informed conclusions means you have to do a lot of work. You must read. You must study. You must think. You must tear apart ideas and put them all back together again. This is the only way to get to wisdom.

Most people don’t want to do this work. They are content with watching films like “Zeitgeist” and taking it entirely as fact.

I feel that you did better by calling people and asking them for their opinions, by sharing these ideas and being open to responses. That shows forward thinking.

However, if you want to open your eyes, the only way to do so is to educate yourself. And educating yourself means work, study, reading, etc. It ain’t fancy, but what you learn about the world will make you a better person. I guarantee it. The only real question is whether you have the discipline to educate yourself or not. Either you do and you will, or you don’t and you remain ignorant. There’s not really any halfway-house.

If you want some help here, I’ll send you a few books regarding this very subject. Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World” is a whole work against the dangers of pseudoscience. I read it in high school and it was, for me, the nail in the coffin of religion and pseudoscience both. Sagan is a brilliant writer (ironically, Sagan is in “Zeitgeist”…he’s the guy near the end sitting and talking about how one world fighting with itself will only fail), and this book is my favorite of his works. Also, Joseph Ellis’s “Founding Brothers” is a great introduction to the American Revolution, and there are whole chapters regarding Hamilton and national economy (this book is quite short, too).

But if you’re looking for a path in the world, I’d suggest the same things I always do. Read more, because books are good for you. Listen to rock n roll, because it’s good for the soul. Find something to do that helps other people and has nothing to do with helping you, because doing something for others makes our lives meaningful.

And steer clear of propaganda.

The CO2 Argurment

Note: this post is a response to Nathan’s questions, which we offered in response to my originally posted argument. That argument is posted below as An Argument for Skepticism, and gives a more complete reasoning against global warming than this post here.

Nathan,

Thank you for reading my post and responding to it. I know how maddening it can be to spend good time reading something you disagree with, and I personally believe it speaks well of people who take the time to do so anyway. For that, my gratitude.

You are correct in that I did not address what is for you the central issue of C02 emissions. At least, not directly. Initially, I considered doing so, but believed that particular discussion was unnecessary given the rest of my argument. Further, I knew it would add a good deal of length to an already lengthy post.

In retrospect, I can see that what I managed to do is convince you I am simply dancing around the bush, so to say, and staying away from the central issue because I can’t deal with it.

Which wasn’t my intent.

What follows is a response directly to your challenge of explaining C02 emissions.

If I’ve got it right, the general, popular global warming argument goes like this: Mankind has drastically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, thus causing an ever-increasing Greenhouse Effect because the CO2 traps heat within the atmosphere. The result is Earth’s temperature rises and rises, eventually spiraling out of control.

That is the simplified version, but from what I can tell from everyone’s responses, this seems to be what is popularly believed.

This entire argument rests on the assumption that Earth’s atmosphere acts exactly like a greenhouse, so let us begin there.

A greenhouse raises temperature within it by controlling convection (the circulation of the air). Sunlight comes in through the glass, warms the ground inside, the ground warms the air, the air rises but cannot escape, and thus the temperature simply continues to rise. When you need to cool a greenhouse, you open a window on the roof and a door below, creating a convection current, and the air circulates and cools.

The Earth’s system, however, does not operate in this manner (the big giveaway should be the lack of a giant window in the sky). The Earth does employ a “greenhouse effect,” but it does so through modulating radiation, which is not the way an actual greenhouse works.

The importance of this distinction is that “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere do not behave like the glass ceiling of a greenhouse, preventing all the heat from leaving. This is a common misunderstanding.

To understand the Earth’s own “greenhouse effect,” we must first understand the larger system of energy exchange. The drastic oversimplification of this system is this:

The Sun sends out strong, shortwave radiation. This radiation moves through our atmosphere and is absorbed, and then a portion of it is emitted back as longwave radiation (this is because the Earth isn’t as hot and energetic as the sun). This longwave radiation moves back through the atmosphere and escapes into space.

The more complex reality includes other factors:

The atmosphere is a series of layers and includes clouds and other gases. Not all of the radiation from the sun reaches the surface; indeed much of it bounces off the atmosphere and never enters Earth at all. Radiation leaving the surface must also pass back through many stages, thus encountering another complicated journey.

This graphic will give you a good visualization of this system.

What should be immediately clear is that the general belief that our atmosphere acts as a barrier, “trapping” heat inside the system is a myth. Radiation enters and leaves continuously, and while radiation may be slowed down on its journey back and forth, it is never fully “trapped” within the system. No matter how many layers it has to pass through, it will eventually exit the system.

Again, the difference we need to fully grasp is the difference between a convection system, which fully traps air, and the Earth’s radiation system, which allows flow of radiation in and out.

Now, with that understanding, let us address the “greenhouse effect” that actually occurs on Earth, and in the process abandon our earlier misunderstanding of a glass ceiling.

First, it is critical to grasp that while the Earth’s “greenhouse effect” has been given a bad rap, it is vital for life on our planet. Minus out the “greenhouse effect” and we don’t exist.

This critical system works like this:

A portion of the radiation emitted back from the Earth is absorbed by water vapor and greenhouse gases before then being emitted once again, which allows the surface and atmospheric temperature to rise. This interplay within the system is what keeps our planet at a hospitable temperature.

If you could remove this mechanism, the temperature would drop by 35 degrees, well below the freezing point of water.

Obviously then, while we can discuss the fluctuations of this “greenhouse effect,” it is a serious mistake to believe that our goal should be to remove it altogether.

The core issue GWAs raise at this juncture is that C02 in the atmosphere acts as a major force within the system, causing massive fluctuations in temperature by absorbing major quantities of radiation and bouncing it back to the surface.

To figure out if this is true, we must first know what the atmosphere is made of and how much C02 is currently there.

The composition of Earth’s atmosphere is comprised of the following gases: Nitrogen, Oxygen, Water (in the form of vapor), Argon, Carbon Dioxide, Neon, Helium, Methane, Krypton, Hydrogen, Nitrous Oxide, Xenon, Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide, Iodine, Carbon Monoxide, and Ammonia. I have ordered them from largest quantity to smallest quantity.

Nitrogen makes up 78.08% of the atmosphere. Oxygen 20.95%.

That means over 99% of the atmosphere is Nitrogen and Oxygen.

C02, which GWAs spend so much focus on, makes up .0383% of Earth’s atmosphere.

That is less than half of one percent.

Surely then, C02 must be an incredibly powerful “greenhouse gas,” so incredibly powerful that the amount of radiation it can absorb can simply overpower the effects of over 99% of Earth’s atmosphere.

This is a pleasant fantasy GWAs would like to believe. In reality, C02 is one of the weakest absorbents of heat in the atmosphere (Methane is capable of absorbing 21 times the amount of heat of C02, Nitrous Oxide 310 times). Also, since neither Nitrogen nor Oxygen is a “greenhouse gas”, even if we added all the “greenhouse gases” together we’re still talking about less than 1% of the atmosphere.

In fact, only one item on the list can truly be called a major player:

Water vapor.

Water vapor, especially in the form of clouds, accounts for between 90% and 95% of Earth’s “greenhouse effect,” a fluctuation that is never entirely stable at one number because the water in the atmosphere is constantly changing (due to elevation, temperature, wind, etc.). Clouds are the single most important and determinant “greenhouse gas,” absorbing more and emitting more radiation than anything else in the system.

To go further, one must recognize that all gasses can only absorb radiation within a narrow bandwidth of the light spectrum (C02 absorbs longwave, infrared and far-infrared radiation only in three narrow bandwidths, at 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers...which means only 8% of the Earth’s emitted radiation can be absorbed by C02 at all), and that each of the “greenhouse gasses” is, for lack of a better metaphor, in competition with the rest for the chance to absorb radiation. And all of these gasses are effected by an atmosphere that is not static…it is constantly in motion, as is the air, the ocean currents, the Earth itself, everything.

So…to come back to the central argument.

Of all of the radiation from the Sun the Earth can possible take in, roughly half reaches the surface. Of that half, only some 15% is absorbed into the atmosphere when emitted from the Earth.

Of the 100% composition of Earth’s atmosphere that will absorb that 15% energy, C02 makes up a slight .0383%.

And that .0383% of C02 is only physically capable of absorbing 8% of the emitted radiation.

These are the numbers. They are plain and simple numbers, and you may interpret them how you choose.

GWAs offer us the interpretation that the .0383% of C02 in the atmosphere is responsible for all of the temperature fluctuation of the last century, and that this less than half of one percent of the atmosphere will cause the end of mankind as we know it.

GWAs offer that the .0383% of C02 in the atmosphere plays a larger and more powerful role than 99% of the atmosphere, and that it outweighs the effects of water vapor and clouds, which are admitted by climatologists to play the largest role in Earth’s “greenhouse effect.”

GWAs offer that this minuscule amount of carbon is more important than all other factors, from natural interglacial warming to urban sprawl to the effect of the Sun itself.

Now, I imagine that you are probably saying to yourself that even if this amount is so small, human beings have already added to it, and will keep adding to it, and so there will be more and more C02 in the atmosphere, wreaking more and more havoc, so that we need to ACT NOW OR ELSE.

Which would be logical if humans accounted for the majority of carbon emissions into the atmosphere (we don’t…human activity accounts for roughly 3.4% of annual carbon dioxide emissions…the other 96.6% is entirely natural) and if the accumulation of C02 didn’t have a logarithmic effect (except it does…which means that the more C02 you add, the less effect the additional gas has…imagine putting up window blinds, and then another set of blinds behind those, and then another set, on and on…each successive set has less effect than the one before it). Actually, the truth is that advocating for a massive C02 reduction would mean advocating for the destruction of the natural world producers of C02…kind of ironic, I think.

Still, you could argue that cutting out the major sources of human production of C02 emissions would lessen the amount of C02 in the atmosphere, thereby DOING OUR PART to help keep the planet at its current temperature. This would at least be making an effort.

Which would be logical if the major sources of human production of C02 (factories and cars) didn’t also produce aerosols, which act as a cooling mechanism in the atmosphere, thereby canceling out the effect of C02 in the first place (cooling mechanisms are actually an entire focus GWAs try to ignore, both natural and man-made)

The truth, my friend, is that the GWAs concentration on C02 emissions is based upon bad science, misinterpretation and fundamental misunderstandings of the way our world works.

And, to put it rather bluntly, folks still making this argument simply don’t know what they’re talking about.

I sincerely hope this answers your question regarding this Great Tenet of Global Warming Theory.

As for your two other questions.

Human beings do have an effect on their surroundings, and many of those effects we can accurately measure and understand. Using science, we can measure our effect, verify our results, test our hypothesis, and then discern a course of action which will work.

And I fully support our efforts to do so. The issue I raise with GWAs is they are not doing this. They are using pseudoscience to focus our attention on a problem we cannot assess and cannot solve, and they base their argument on gross misunderstandings of the environment.

You bring up issues of urban sprawl, land-use, and habitat displacement…all issues we know how to deal with. I agree with you. In fact, you will remember I argued that our money and resources ought to be spent on these very issues. But then you interjected C02 emissions, which clearly have nothing to do with urban sprawl, land-use, or habitat displacement. All of your focus is on C02 emissions, cars and factories, and as long as it remains there the problems we can actually solve will remain unattended.

Considering your argument for action, I think you will discover you and I are on the same side of many of these issues. Clear-cutting rainforests is a serious problem. So are the former issues of urban sprawl, land-use, and habitat displacement. I could add to this list an incredible number of issues ranging from strip mining to the way we manage forest systems to our mismanagement of the water cycle within urban cities.

However, calling for action regarding climate requires that we understand the problem, that we assess it accurately, that we test it so that we may reasonably know what we’re doing.

And GWAs haven’t done that.

You want action, and I understand your anger with a process which takes time and requires incredible amounts of debate. Yet, if we abandon the scientific process our action will almost certainly result in one of two outcomes: a complete waste of our time and resources, or we will make the situation worse.

There is little chance for success if we try to impose action on an issue we do not understand.

Finally, I would caution against disregarding fully factual scientific arguments simply because they don’t fit within your worldview. There is no logical reason whatsoever to ignore scientific data which show clear correlations of solar flare radiation and temperature increase in favor of data showing C02 emission increases and the same temperature increase. To arbitrarily accept one and reject the other as “background noise” or “chatter” shows a dangerous unwillingness to examine all of the facts.

I would say the same of someone who rejects C02 emissions offhandedly without examining their implications.

For myself, this post shows clearly why I reject C02 emissions as the cause of climate crisis.

But note that I didn’t disregard them simply because they didn’t fit with my beliefs. Indeed, they fit with my beliefs for a long time (yes, I too was once a global warming advocate). And I stuck with this belief until I examined the issue in-depth, and until the science led me elsewhere.

In the end, what I’m pressing is for a higher standard than what GWAs are being held to. Their claims are outrageous and based on faulty science. We, the public, should demand more than that their claims adhere to our “common sense.” Just because we look out the window and see that humans have an effect on the world doesn’t mean our effect is destroying global climate. For a lot of people, their common sense tells them we really are destroying the climate. But common sense tells us that the Earth is flat, that it’s the center of the universe and that the sky is up and the ground is down.

It is science which informs us that the Earth is round, not the center of anything and that up and down are relative, arbitrary positions in space.

One bar is our perception.

The other bar is truth.

I’m simply advocating we use the latter.