Posted on 05/07/2018 9:28:53 AM PDT by John Conlin
I live along the Front Range of Colorado and I frequently hike in the foothills with my trusty dog. It is a common experience to look east onto the plains and on the horizon be able to clearly discern the curve of the earth.
For those who have never had this experience, it can be quite an epiphany. Right there before your eyes you can actually see the curve of the globe of this wonderful place we call home.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Common experience is to be on the earth and see the curve of the earth? Nope - can’t happen. This guy needs to put the bong down and sober up.
Are you proposing we (as individuals) do somthing? What exactly do you want us to do. Other than stare at the horizon slack-jawed.
You bring up excellent points. We have done a great job of environmental clean up which the global warming folks seldom mention. We have done a lot to reduce pollution of all types .
I recall hearing stories of Pittsburgh in the old days. I heard just about every day was overcast due to smoke. There were few sunny days then.
Be Grateful to the Creator by
Being Grateful for His Creation
We haven’t had a river catch on fire in almost 40 years.
I do that by being productive, not staring at the horizon.
This guy is either a liar or just plain ignorant
To see the curve you need an altitude of about 100k feet.
Stupid on parade
“It is a common experience to look east onto the plains and on the horizon be able to clearly discern the curve of the earth.”
Interesting...most people cannot discern the curvature of the earth until they fly high. High as in U-2 or SR-71 high.
Ever notice the scourge to the environment of the littered / discarded single use plastic liquid containers and plastic grocery bags? Eliminating them would be a great start for humans to actually start preserving the natural beauty that God has Intrusted us to maintain. Or just start shooting those who litter!
...I do that by being productive, not staring at the horizon.
That works too... but
‘They Also Serve who Only Stand and Wait’
There are quite a few examples of Humans not being good stewards of God’s creation.
Acid Mine runoff, and plastics are now part of the global water and food cycles....
There are many more.
I think it would be very ignorant or disingenuous for any person to claim Humanity should not be doing a better job.
[In before the humblegunner snark.]
Allow me. (Ahem)
[(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...]
Speaking of stepping up to the plate, OP:
https://freerepublic.com/donate/
Since you seem to like clicking, you can set a good example and be a good steward of FreeRepublic. Go on, give it a click. You know you want to.
“Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse****?
Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport.
And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was.
They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.”
Michael Crichton
I really don’t want to take cheap shots but constructively I must say that an over-reliance on vague bad-things-will-happen warnings is rarely as persuasive as any writer imagines.
‘Entire continents racing across the globe’ - Pangea began to separate 175 million years ago. If that’s racing it’s using a rather low gear ratio.
‘Infected’ is the wrong choice of word from a strict definitional sense as well as a contextual one. An infection is a disease or an invasion of a living organism by another living organism. The earth itself does not live but it is host to billions of living organisms, all of which belong here by dint of being here. These organisms INHABIT the earth because, well, they are supposed to. That includes man.
What is this ‘task’ to which you allude? It’s never defined beyond ‘stewardship.’
‘Our actions are going to determine the future of this planet’ - oh, really? We had nothing to do with its formation and we will have nothing to do with its demise when the sun expands. We may influence it but then so do bacteria and insects.
We are admonished for ‘childish ways of thinking’ but must endure the treacle of ‘toss aside the old ways of thinking and join hands in a collective search for the truth.’
I ask again - WHAT TRUTH? What are the ‘old ways of thinking?’ And if everything truly does depend on it, why aren’t we entitled to know what the antecedent of ‘it’ is?
Errors in logic and construction aside, this sounds suspiciously like elliptical Green Party/Sierra Club exhortation to - wait for it - stop driving, stop flying, turn the AC/heat down, recycle every drop of water and every egg carton, move into a smaller dwelling etc. etc.
And if ‘stewardship’ is NOT defined as Western cultures becoming less Western then please say so. And, while on the topic, let’s admonish the Third World for uninterrupted centuries of living in squalor that fosters all manner of pathogens and pollution.
The worst pollution and the worst environmental disasters have always been in socialist countries. Not that capitalist countries don’t have anything to clean up. But with socialist countries, since the government controls everything and no one controls the government, there are no stops on pollution and environmental destruction.
1) the Bible grants us the God given natural right to private property and calls on us to be good stewards of our resources
2) It is not socialism, but the free enterprise system, based on private property, that affords the greatest opportunity to steward our resources responsibly by creating wealth and opportunity
That aside, your firm is laudably dedicated to the spread of truth, whichever facet of that ever-changing gem appears to be flashing at the moment. If we are to imitate the techniques of the hard sciences as you suggest, a certain cold precision needs to replace the gooey platitudes that populate the Save The Planet genre. So does an accurate assessment of where we are now and where we wish to go, and more importantly, whether where we wish to go is either feasible or as benign as we are hoping.
No human being or combination of human beings is going to save the planet. A certain intellectual humility and a little time with a pick and shovel reveals that the most we can really hope to do is maintain and improve our own little corner of it, and truth be told, we've been at that for a long time. The narrative of cumulative and increasing degradation leading to an inevitable doom is, by the very standards of hard science that appear to be your own approach, contrived by data manipulation and demonstrably false by evidence. It is no longer stylish to call it "conservation" but it's been like that for at least a century in this country and elsewhere, longer.
In my state there is a river, once poisoned by mine tailings and a beautiful, clear cerulean blue because nothing was living in it. There are fish there now. A small victory, but a feasible one, more or less unnoticed in the din of environmentalist drum-pounding.
Which brings me to the main point - if, as you suggest, ideology is a hindrance to science (a proposal with which I agree wholeheartedly) then the cure is unlikely to be found in more ideology. "Think globally" is a silly addendum to the only effective part of the slogan, "act locally", proposed by people who do more thinking than acting. None of this is intended to curb your enthusiasm on the topic, only to suggest that it's a little imprecise to enjoin people to an effort they're already making, and is easily mistaken for condescension. Best to you.
He certainly did.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.