My life with dialysis and kidney disease
Archive for May, 2006
Yet Another Lil Update
May 24th
So not only is the large nest empty – but now there is another mama inhabiting what we like to call the West Wing (the addition ma and pa originally made to keep track of their young).
Another mama? Indeed… And she’s packin’
Yesterday we peeked into this quasi-nest and found several more eggs getting ready to pop.
Great, another two weeks of quietly entering and leaving our home trying not to disturb the tourists.
Lil Update
May 22nd
All birdies have flown the coop!
That’s right, the nest is empty. So now we have to get everything cleaned up and back to normal before mama decides it’s time for her next brood.
Supposedly they only give it a go twice a year, but I’m not willing to take any chances.
… Though being an enabler for a young start-up house finch family was pretty cool.
An Inconvenient Truth
May 22nd
Reading boingboing this morning, I ran across an article about Al Gore’s new “incredible” documentary titled An Inconvenient Truth. The boingboing article was typical boingboing – an interesting read that blatantly pushed an agenda. I don’t have a problem with this, as I think it’s virtually impossible for any writer to write something true to their own experience without including some of their own perception of that experience. I just have a problem when a journalist makes no attempt to show the other side of a piece, and tries to deny their own bias, by labeling their work “objective”.
Anyway, boingboing is hardly objective, nor does it try to label itself as such (to my knowledge) – so again, I have no problem with the *cough* subtle political agenda.
The review of Al Gore’s movie was however quite interesting. It tackles the issue of global warming in a very urgent way, giving the impression that we are all going to see a Hollywood-inspired doomsday scenario in the next ten years if we don’t change our ways.
Talk about an an Inconvenient Truth …..
While it’s hard to find “good” science regarding virtually anything these days, there is some pretty concrete evidence that temperatures are rising. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek – but it’s true, right now it appears temperatures are rising. So what? How is this proving a scientific hypothesis? And where does this become something that we as humans try to singlehandedly stop?
We’ve all heard of the “greenhouse effect” – wherein certain gases are being released into our atmosphere that in turn trap the sun’s heat causing a perpetually rising temperature. The “big one” seems to be CO2, which most of you will know as Carbon Dioxide. It’s what we exhale with each breath. It’s also what plants and trees need in order to produce live-giving oxygen for us. Having this atmosphere is what makes this planet inhabitable.
It appears though, that man is responsible for very little CO2 in the atmosphere.
Figures vary a bit, but looking at the total output of CO2 in the atmosphere, anthropogenic CO2 (carbon-dioxide coming from humans and their activities) makes up only about 0.28%. That’s right, 97% of greenhouse-causing CO2 in the atmosphere is due to natural causes. Some large contributors include water vapor from oceans, volcanic activity, and decaying plant and animal life.
What’s true then?
It is definitely true that temperatures and CO2 levels have been on the rise. Not for the last 30 years, but for the last 18000! Yes, this will culminate in another ice-age making the planet uninhabitable for the most part. Glaciers and arid deserts, that’s it. Very few forests, and very little plant (or animal) life. And this global cooling will not get better quickly, as the thickening ice at the South Pole will reflect much of the sun’s energy back out into space, and perpetuate the cooling problem. You can thank continental drift for this, because it’s deposit of Antarctica at the pole is what enables such a large polar ice cap to form (it would not become so thick over open water).
The doomsday scenarios are largely possible, nae, inevitable.
Get ready for this – this might be the warmest the earth’s been in a hundred years, but not the hottest period ever.
The hottest period in human existence was the Holocene Maximum. It occurred between 7500 and 4000 years ago. Well before humans started polluting via fossil-fuels. After this period of warming was another cooling period, followed by another warming period (the Medieval Warm Period), and finally the “Little Ice Age” beginning around 1400 AD.
Another interesting fact you won’t read in any Green Peace literature is that CO2 levels seem to rise and fall correspondingly with solar activity. So, either the sun’s energy affects CO2 levels, or CO2 levels affect the sun’s output (I think not).
Along with these astronomical effects, there are the earth’s own cyclical variations in orbit and angle which affect the atmosphere’s ability to hold heat greatly.
Yes the globe is warming, but looking at the geologic data it appears that humankind has very little to do with the equation.
Why then are we made to be so worried about global warming?
Certainly I feel personally that as stewards of this planet we should treat it well. So I’m not advocating for massive pollution.
So why are certain people shoving this false idea down our throats that our consumption (and expulsion) of fossil-fuels is bringing about total global climatic change?
I found an interesting quote on this treasure-trove of information:
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory)
(in an interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)
Whoa – Any other scientists backing up the idea that climate change is due mostly to things outside of human’s influence?
Awesome, so some pretty conrete science indicates that the Earth has its own agenda with regards to weather – and we still want to teach our kids that they’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
As though there is some solution!
Lil Friend Update
May 19th
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about our little friends building a nest by our front door.
Shortly thereafter those six eggs hatched. We’ve been watching them intently, and even found ourselves (mostly me) panicking this past weekend when it appeared that the Mom and Dad had left.
I was afraid that one of the neighborhood kids had been taking gander (pun entirely intended) and had inadvertently touched the nest area. I remember as a kid being told that if you did this, the parents would never return.
I don’t know if that’s true – in fact I’m beginning to question it right now as I think about it – but it has always seemed logical.
Anyway, a couple of days ago Mom and Dad came back to their brood, and have been working round the clock to keep them fed.
They are growing exponentially and are quickly outgrowing their quarters.
There is only room for five birds in there – tops. There are six, which makes me think some poor bird is sitting on the bottom of his or her five siblings, developing some sort of complex that will haunt him or her later in life.
According to the Wikipedia article these guys will only be spending a few more days in this nest, and may stick around for awhile.
Awesome – I have weeks worth of bird poop to clean up as it is. I can’t wait to peel that wreath away from the vinyl siding and throw it away (after the inhabiting Finch family moves out of course).
Here is a horrible pic from my cell phone – you can see one of their huge beaks. These things are like twice the size of their heads. I am amazed they have the strength in their tiny little heads to control and move such a large mouth.
I can’t wait until they start dive-bombing us.
Ward Churchill – Subway Activist
May 19th
Two days ago I walked into the local Subway restaurant to get my dialysis-lunch. One guess who I saw sitting there right as I walked in.
That’s right, Ward Churchill, the infamous quasi-native liberal activist under investigation right now for “scholarly misconduct” (what most of us have known as “plagiarism” since 7th grade English class).
Now, I must admit that as a conservative I was a bit afraid to run into such a lion out in the wild. It turns out though, he just enjoys sitting there and eating a sandwich in peace while he reads a book (probably some leftist clap-trap about global warming and how we as humans are solely responsible for it).
I half expected him to stand up and take advantage of his right to free speech – but no – he just sat there eating that sandwich.
I wanted to shout “Yo Ward!” – and give him a shout-out from the Tollidee Dialysis Blog, but instead I took my leave and left him to his peaceful lunch.
What a great visual aid in describing the subtle difference between Infamous and Famous
