Stuff My Brain Says #38

In my humble but accurate opinion, I think the Environmental Protection Agency should be pushing for a wind farm in Washington D.C. - there is enough hot air blowing around there to completely replace the city's fuel needs - and several states in the vicinity for that matter.

© Emittravel 2012

Stuff My Brain Says #12

According to a recent study, pollution in Asia is causing global warming to slow down. Really? So, are they saying that the solution to global warming is to drive your SUV over to the factory and crank that sucker up? Must be keeping members of the EPA awake at night. . .

© Emittravel 2011

Man-made Global Warming? Mother Nature Disagrees!

We've heard much over the last few years, from politicians to The Weather Channel, from celebrities to bloggers, and preachers of hysteria everywhere, that mankind has a death wish and that the world is on its way to being the ultimate bake sale product. Former Vice President Al Gore even set aside his political ambitions and donned the robes of religious authority in the worship of Mother Earth.

The major push is that through mankind's selfish ambitions, and total disregard for the earth's natural resources, the earth's global temperature is on a dangerous climb upwards. Now, there has been plenty of dissent concerning this push, but this blog entry is not to give an in-depth investigation into each argument. Some of them have been things like the temperature on Mars has been on the rise (which is pretty amazing to think that that SUV you are driving has more than just a global impact - it has a galactic impact as well), or that the data that is being used was originally obtained from technology that was just that side of indoor plumbing, and has since been manipulated to the point that the accuracy has greatly diminished to something less than blind-folded skeet shooting. No, this blog entry is to look at something else. Something beyond mankind's ability to control. I'm not even talking about the sun (which covers that Mars "inconvenient truth"). I'm talking about the mother of all polluters: toxic-fume belching volcanoes.

I remember being told by the scientific community back in the early 1980s when Mount St. Helens erupted, that there was more pollution, toxic greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide (which was before the EPA decided that exhaling was polluting) from that one eruption, than all of the industrial age COMBINED.

That, my dear readers, is worth repeating:

I remember being told by the scientific community back in the early 1980s when Mount St. Helens erupted, that there was more pollution, toxic greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide from that one eruption, than all of the industrial age COMBINED.

My question is, what happened to it all? I mean really! If what we have done to the earth is borderline irreparable, where is the damage from Mount St. Helens? I don't remember seeing a slide show condemning Mother Earth for her blatant disregard for her own well being. Come on, shouldn't someone fully take over power of attorney when it comes to her affairs? Sounds to me like she is totally incapable of caring for herself.

And Mt. St. Helens isn't my only example. In the first quarter of this year, Eyjafjallajökull (a name I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce, for fear that my "tongue will snap off its rollers" - to quote the great Hawkeye) erupted in Greenland. The most repeated news item I heard concerning this (and I admit, I don't watch news 24/7) was the disruption to air traffic over the area. I heard not a peep about the competition to man's race to the "finished" line.

Instead we have received a barrage of condemnation for man's behavior as a tenant, and demands for the "great landlord" to evict us, and nothing concerning the earth's volcanoes to please "stick a cork in it". But if a volcano is capable of spewing out much more destruction than all of man's efforts combined, than I would think it would warrant at least one slide in Mr. Gore's PowerPoint presentation. If the atmosphere wasn't so darned efficient at cleaning up after itself . . .

When it comes to "Joe vs. the Volcano", the volcano wins hands down.

©Emittravel 2010

Gulf Coast vs ANWR - Why isn't Congress being held responsible?

As of this writing, BP has been able to place a cap on the oil leak in the gulf. The media, though having to mention this by default, is slamming that fact by crying that the damage is extensive, costly, and time-consuming to clean up within the same breath.

Now, let me be clear: this is an ecologic/economic tragedy. I understand that. What I'm having issue with is that we have a deep, off-shore drilling accident, in international waters, and the U.S. government has the chutzpa to take the reins of control to hold BP (a foreign company, the last I was aware) accountable for this incident (hey, where is the United Nations when they are needed?). This is the same government that has banned drilling in places that are far more controllable, like the uninhabited Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) (nearest city - Barrow, Alaska, has a population of approximately 4,000).

The arguments have been going on for years whether drilling in places such as ANWR should take place or not. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a mostly-liberal appendage of the government, has fought for the caribou with gusto. Groups wanting to drill there argue that it is far easier to control any "catastrophe" in an area such as ANWR than in deep water drilling (as in the gulf).

The government, where logical thinking seems to completely escape them, made it illegal to drill in many places such as ANWR. Therefore, logically, they (and that can include the EPA as well) believe that the damage in the gulf MUST be far less of an environmental hazard than what the potentiality of the same type of leak out on the frozen tundra might be.

So, all of those individuals/families that make their living out there in the waters of the gulf should be THANKING our government for the blessing of destroyed lives from this catastrophe, and should be donating any aid they may receive to support those few caribou.

I'm a big time-travel buff. I collect movies, in any genre, that touch on the topic, I read novels that use it as a vehicle, and even delve into books from those with the brain capacity of Stephen Hawking. One of the big concepts that shows up time and time again (pun intended) is that of "cause and effect". Anything you do has a direct/indirect effect upon someone else. When Congress makes a law, it has an effect - in the ideal world it would only be a positive effect, but this isn't an ideal world. And that is just one of the reasons that the powers of the federal government are limited.

Now, BP is spending much in damage control - advertising, financial aid, etc. - mostly to maintain the image they have worked so hard to achieve. And yes, BP holds quite a bit of responsibility for the alleged corner cutting they did with this drill site. But I believe that the EPA/federal government should have THEIR feet held to the fire over this as well. If they would not have driven the oil companies out into deep water in the first place, we wouldn't be having to deal with the tragedy we now face.

For those who think that this would still happen, you have to consider basic economics: why go out of your way to do things the hardest way for less return on investment? But not to worry, the government's solution to this is to place a moratorium on any more deep-sea drilling too. THAT should help!

©Emittravel 2010