Well, it is quite shocking to see that I haven't posted anything here since mid December last year, almost 3 months ago! How times flies huh? It's not to say that I haven't at least thought about maintaining this, but the inertia needed to actually sit here and write something was getting harder and harder to overcome with each passing day. So, here I sit, about to get the (rather large) ball rolling again.
And what to write about, there is a plentitude (or multitude) of topics one can embark upon, not least of which is the day to day workings of my life and all goes with it. Sure, that would be easy; get up, have a shower, walk the dogs, cycle to work, do work, cycle home from work, walk the dogs, go to the gym, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, repeat. Not overly exciting, but it sure beats being struck down by a horrendous disease and winding up in hospital for 4 months.
But a couple things recently have really caught my attention and piqued my interest; One is the economy and the other is the climate.
I'll start with the economy. Personally, I don't understand it. I think about it and wonder where all the money in the world comes from...what thin air? For instance, the bank loans me money to buy a house, but where does the bank get its money from? And where do they get theirs? I don't get it. What I do understand is that a hand full of knob heads in Wall Street selling cheap loans got us into this mess to begin with. Were they mental? Did they not think that thousands of people on minimum wages would be able to keep up their loan repayments? God Bless America huh? Oh, and to cap it off, governments around the world are chucking money at the problem to no good effect....."Oh, we know you screwed up, but here, take $500 billion to make you feel better."...and so the high fliers and fat cats continue to live their lives as if nothing is wrong.
As for the climate, well, it's all about global warming. As a scientist I'm starting question the validity of whether or not global warming is being caused by humans or not. It's true, atmospheric CO2 levels have been much higher than what they are now, about 175,000 years ago it was up around 2,800ppm compared with today's 380ppm, and it really didn't have that great an impact on the climate. I'm not debating whether CO2 can withhold heat or not, I agree with that, no issues, but I think we need to look at how life on the planet can cope with increased CO2 levels, see if it actually will create the environmental catastrophe that many are proclaiming will happen. |
