first of all, the professor is gary daynes. he was a professor of mine at byu. i took 'life and thought in the united states' from him. an excellent class. not only because it was interesting reading about the thoughts of influential american people from history, but professor daynes always had insightful thoughts to contribute as well. basically, it was just a class of reading people's thoughts and then discussing them for a few hours each week. a 'true' or 'pure' university experience.
so after the class concluded prof. daynes and i kept in touch. by kept in touch it basically consisted of me stopping by unannounced at his office or sending him emails and asking for his thoughts on various subjects. i was never much into politics and he was very well read on most subjects including politics, so i could just ask for his opinion or explanation on certain events going on and he would always give me an explanation and his viewpoint, which usually turned into my viewpoint. not that i wasnt a free thinker or anything, he always just presented things so rationally.
so anyways, the other day i emailed him asking for his opinion on global warming. im a little confused with it all. i watched 'an inconvenient truth.' it was alright. i enjoyed the information that was presented. it was essentially just a glorified power point presentation. i got bored with the 'al gore' segments. the parts when he was being driven around in his escalade and it would show him staring out of the car with his reflection in the window and he would give his personal thoughts on his life. i didnt need that. im sorry you lost gore. you gave it a good effort. perhaps the balloting was even rigged and you should have won. but its over. its been 6 years. no need to let all of america let you know you are still bummed about it. thats like telling the girl that dumped you that its been a year and you still sit at home on the weekend and stare out your window and wish that it wasnt your reflection but actually hers that was in the window. buck up little camper! move on. put yourself back in the public eye through other means, like scaring them about global warming.
alright, so i dont just think he is scaring people. i felt he was presenting legitimate information, until another video came out about other scientists that refute the main argument in 'an inconvenient truth' that humans are responsible for global warming. im not exactly sure what the opposing argument is, im pretty sure that they essentially say that its just natural warming that humans couldnt have done anything about and that 'an inconvenient truth' is just a big scare.
so my first reaction is a loss of faith in science. science is wonderful, but at times it gets upsetting because i feel like no matter what the theory or idea, there is a scientist out there that can find data or support the theory. its like in the movie 'thank you for smoking,' where they talk about the tobacco industry and how they found a german scientist that could 'prove' that smoking didnt cause cancer and so the tobacco industry hired him and he was 'their' scientist. the movie is of course fiction, but i think that idea occurs a lot. here, there are scientists on both sides stating that global warming is caused by humans and others saying its not.
so my second reaction is that im upset. why? because i feel like this is turning into a two party struggle. well, a conservatives and liberals struggle. perhaps two party, but im not quite sure. and im upset that it has come to this, because i dont know what is exactly going on, but i think there is a legitimate problem, or that the planet is being destroyed, but somehow people are taking sides on the issue and i dont know what to believe or who is correct etc. i feel like there is a big problem and if there is a way to fix it, then id like to know what i can do. i should probably by a 'clean' car anyways, just because it is good for the environment, but will it really make a difference? if it will, then why are people saying it wont? can humans really do anything? im sure this is a weighted issue and there are a lot of things filtering in on both sides and probably lobbyists and who knows what groups that are trying to sell the public on the issue. but in the meantime, i dont really know what to think.
so these are essentially the questions or confusion i brought to professor dayes, wondering what he thought about the whole issue or situation. i asked him other questions about his opinions on certain presidential candidates and other matters, but here is what he said concerning the global warming:
'It makes sense to destroy as little as possible when living on the earth for basic conservative reasons--we have a debt to our children to leave the world in good shape, and we have to believe that reckless destruction of anything is a (small-l) liberal activity. And I think we have to face up to the dilemma raised by the fact that if even a portion of what is predicted happens, the poor are going to get screwed again. So if only because the lives of Bangladeshis and Chadians are, at least in God's eyes, as important as my life, then I ought to do what I can to avoid actions that are going to lead to a worsening in what are already difficult living conditions. (Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren...) I didn't see Gore's movie. I don't understand the appeal...
bam! i told you this guy was rad. what a great response. he has such a great viewpoint on everything. he is always thinking about and looking out for the little guy. realizing that everything filters outside of america's borders and affects so many more people that are outside my immediate realm or sphere of influence. he stays out of the two party arguments and focuses on the actual issue and forms his own opinion accordingly. were i like him i would form my own opinion instead of just latching onto his, but im not. so who knows if this is all a scare. regardless, i definitely believe that if nothing else, a responsibility exists for me as a human just to do whatever i can to not blatantly and deliberately destroy this world. not sure if that makes me 'green' or just an opinionless clone of prof. daynes (his opinion is just so sensible and logical is it not?). either way, sorry about the political rant. ill get back into useless pop culture thoughts next time. this was just something i was thinking about and wanted to put it out there for all 6 of my readers to enjoy.
21 comments:
Hi Kent. This is Jonathan Fillmore. I just got your address. And I am your seventh reader. Gore is wack, and so is science sometimes. In such a politicized debate, it's hard to know who to trust without reading all the literature yourself and understanding statistics so you can evaluate the data. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as it often is. That's what's even less convenient about all this. We can all do better, but how much does CO2 even matter?
Hi. What reader am I? My post won't be nearly as intellectual as jonathon's. Brandon says that gore is a big fat dummy. And I just wanted to add that I had prof. daynes for American Heritage. Loved his bow ties. He was great. He made that class go-able.
(so, you're camping post occured right after we went to havasupai. I discovered this post while we were watching a tivo'd version of "Live Earth"... coincidence? hmmm...)
fillmore! im so happy you found me. fitting that you are lucky number 7. as always, you are insightful. nothing about this is convenient and im not sure how much co2 does matter. im sure its a factor and can damage the earth, but im not so sure its the be all end all to every environmental problem like some people say.
and lindsey, im not sure where you fall, somewhere between 2 and 6. but i should mention that while it may appear that this post was made in response to or in conjunction with 'live earth,' it actually wasnt. not that im against live earth or anything or embarassed to say im using its momentum for blog material but i honestly realized last night that i made this post just after life earth. so i guess its coincidence....or fate. more importantly, why were you tivo'ing live earth?
Only b/c we wanted to see the Bon Jovi concert. I promise. That and The Police were great. We fast forwarded all the lame celebrity endorsements.
My throat hurts when I listen to a 50 year old Sting trying to hit the high notes in Roxanne.
I did some research on both of these movies and found a few websites that were very hard to understand. This one in particular made somthing clear to me: Too much science reading will give you a headache.
http://reasic.com/2007/03/10/the-great-global-warming-swindle-questions-answered/
I agree that there are changes ocurring and we are ruining the environment in many ways. Why not do what we can to protect so that we can enjoy it?
Kent - I saw it too and felt it was informative, but also felt confused myself. They did a good job of making me feel guilty and like I needed to do something now but I also wasn't falling for it. But I will do my part. Thanks for outstanding post. Oh, and remember my post that I deleted? yeah, I think you were the first in the fam to find out - don't you feel special? You should.
matt, that site is ridiculous. im sure it has a ton of good info, and i did read some of it, but its so dry and dense, and long. did you read that whole thing? im impressed if you did. thats quite the effort to inform yourself. if you could give me a summary that would be great.
does sting still try and hit those notes? lindsey, can you answer that? thats embarrassing if he cant but still tries. and if he cant hit the notes, what does he do? sing it an octave lower? if thats the case then you just take the song off the list. the song just wouldnt be the same without the great roxanne scream/shout.
lark, i actually do feel special. its nice to be in the loop. i cant remember which baby or whose it was, but i honestly found out about one when the family member was already 3-4 months along. i think it might have been paige's soon to be child.
Kent. Great post. I've been feeling a similar disillusionment with the scientific community during this debate. Ross thinks the whole thing is crap, but I tend to think, like you, that we should be cautious.
Here's the thing about the "We have to help the poor people" argument. Government regulations on emissions will also hurt poor people a great deal. For example, most of our electricity is generated by coal because it is cheapest. If new emissions standards require more expensive energy sources (like wind or solar or ethanol) the people who will be most affected will be the people with the least disposable income.
If you are rich and your electric bill goes up 50%, what's the big deal? So you go to the movies one less time this month. If you have no disposable income and your electric bill goes up %50, you have to buy less food or start walking to work.
If the science behind global warming is bad and humans aren't causing it, then the Bangladeshis are going to be hurt because we can't do anything about it. If we regulate to try to fix a problem that is fake we will be hurting poor people here too.
I don't know if global warming is real, but I wish we could have more certainty before we made political decisions on this.
I actually read the entire thing and, in summary, there is a lot of misinformation in the "Great Swindle" show. In fact, one of the scientists interviewed was upset with the spin put on his interviews. In sum, the increased CO2 that humans are producing may be small but because it is unnatural it is adversely affecting our atmosphere.
What bothers me about the debate is that most of the loudest critics or supporters are completely irrational and, as they say in the UK, nutters. When global warming is the pet project for former socialists, anarchists, and hippies, I have a hard time jumping on the bandwagon.
Still, based on the little that I've read and studied, I think that there is a problem. I don't think that changing my light bulbs and asking poor African nations to use solar power is the solution. Josh makes good points that this can affect a lot of poor nations in big ways if handled well.
As for Sting, I was just a little disappointed with the Grammy's performance. Wasn't quite the same. Listen to this and let me know what you think(no offense Lindsey):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xKEc-uYvOg
wow. such great responses. i'd love to take credit and think that it was because of the post, but this is clearly something that everyone has already been thinking about, and forming thoughts and opinions. im happy that everyone is either as confused or upset by the scientific community. nice that we are on the same page. hopefully, we all get some clear reliable information that isnt biased or from irrational people. hopefully the small minority that always has the loudest voice doesnt make themselves seem like the majority and influence the government into some potentially poor political decisions like josh mentioned.
josh, prof. daynes is up in the salt lake area. im not sure where you are living, but i still think you guys would have some fun discussion.
matt, i actually have seen that performance from the grammy's. in my opinion, it starts out fine, but just sounds off by the end. and not just sting's voice. the whole thing sounds weak. almost like the performers are over 50. did you also know that the beastie boys are on tour? those guys have to be pushing 50 too.
so i heard that there was a company that was going to take all the energy used from the concerts and re use all its energy and guess who owns this company... Al Gore. could just be a nasty rumor
hi kent. it's dave. as your obnoxious activist friend, i thought i'd chime in. i didn't see 'an inconvenient truth'. pretty much for the same reason i didn't see 'fahrenheit 9/11'. i don't think big studio films are a very effective conduit for political information. aside from being obviously one-sided (both in opinion and in potential for interactive debate), they are also required to present 'information' in a way that will entertain the herded masses at large. you know, lowest common denominator stuff. it's got to be funny and/or extreme and/or controversial in order to fill seats with warm butts. nature of the business. so you end up with films that are sort of entertaining, filled with facts that are sort of true. what they do well, though, is bring issues into the limelight. which is great. so i'm not against big studio activist films. if it serves to get someone thinking about an issue, then it has succeeded. (the problem lies in the cattle of middle america [and elsewhere] who base their political opinions entirely upon what they see at the movies. but that's another tirade altogether.)
so i think you're right. with all these responses as proof, 'an inconvenient truth' has clearly brought the issue of environmentalism to the front burner of the american consciousness. which, i think, is great. i've done my own research on the subject, and while i'm not sure it's possible to gauge just how much of global warming is natural and how much of it our fault, i'm not sure it's important -- a) because it's in the past, and b) because, in my opinion, it's not really the issue. the big problem here is that humans (and especially americans) are generally materialistic, selfish and wasteful. we love to acquire and consume. as a result, we're so caught up a "can I" mentality that "should I" never enters the equation. we drive big cars and buy big houses because we can. we leave the AC cranked all day and take 20 minute showers because we can. and those things aren't inherently bad. i think the problem is that we don't even think about them, you know? what i think this whole global warming thing has done is it's made people realize that all those things, while not necessarily world-ending, do have consequences. and that we all, as responsible world citizens, owe it to ourselves, each other and our planet, to (at the very least) THINK about our own impact on the situation. sure sure, 'an inconvenient truth' is an arrogantly apocalyptic piece of eco-hyperbole. but if it serves to make even one person think twice before buying an escalade instead of an accord -- even if they end up buying the escalade -- the fact they're conscious of it is a pretty big step. and who knows? if they do end up going with the escalade, maybe they'll go home and turn down the AC a notch instead.
thanks for the chime in dave. and an excellent response. i think you bring up great points. it really doesnt matter if what is alleged in the movie is actually true. i think that if we were all like prof. daynes, we would already be thinking about the world and our part in preserving it and helping it. but the sad part is that im not. and while i may not buy into what 'an inconvenient truth' is trying to sell me, youre right, it has made me at least think about something that wasnt really on my mind a year ago. well, not as much as it is now. so even if i dont take a shorter shower or ride my bike instead of drive (which i do a lot, but thats mainly because i love riding along the boardwalk on a nice summer evening) because i believe the gore hype and feel that i am preventing global warming, the bottom line is that i am thinking about and/or actually doing it and that surely is helping something, well at the very least, not contributing to the damage of the planet. right?
right.
Kent-
I don't know about this whole global warming thing, but I do know one thing: when I am in a public restroom and I reach to take a paper towel and like 10 fall out on the floor, I always feel a little guilty. Does that count for anything?
LOL, Tyler, you kill me. No offense taken about the sting comment. To be honest... I wasn't really paying that much attention when we were watching it. When you asked if he could hit the high notes, I couldn't even remember. That's how much it impacted me.
Eight, Kent. There are eight of us.
And I loved "An Inconvenient Truth." But I also love sitting through lectures, so my opinion might not be legit...
Scientific Truth is dependant upon what questions you ask in order to obtain "truth." I have an entire lecture on this matter. When Zach makes us pancakes, I'll explain it sometime.
Anywhoo- Conservation is important simply because gluttony and wastefulness are unnecessary and disgusting behaviors. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Peace out.
PS-
Sometimes I gaze out my window and wish Al Gore were elected, too.
I still feel you, Al. I do.
Hey Kent...I thought I would chime in here with an interesting experience I had substituting a class of 10th graders this year. They watched a documentary on global warming, which started out fair, but ended up kind of lopsided toward the 'inconvenient truth' side of thinking. Afterward, I asked if the students had any thoughts about what they watched, and one student yelled out "who cares about global warming. I don't care if the earth is around in 100 years or not, I won't be here so I don't care". A lot of the students voiced their agreement with what he said. I said curiously "but what about your kids?" And he said "I'm not going to have kids!" Ultimately, I walked away thinking we had bigger problems to worry about than whether we use toilet paper that has extra ply or if we choose paper or plastic at the grocery store (apparently now we are supposed to take our own cloth bags...ridiculous). The problem is that people don't want to live sustainably in ANY aspect of their life, it is all for the here an now and who cares about tomorrow? Telling people to use one paper towel to dry their hands off instead of two isn't going to make people less prideful or have more morality...it's just following some lame rule that some lame person created. It's all very Law of Moses to me, people can follow the so called 'rules', but who cares if they are ultimately not following the spirit of the law?
somehow i don't think i'm reader #9 since you've got 19 comments in this thread, but as a lifelong sommer fan i'd like to join up and say that my favorite thing about reading peoples' blogs is realizing that everyone i know has a very real and active conscience, which is totally heartening.
i spent my first 6 months in the bay area feeling very guilty over letting the water run when i brush my teeth--provoked partly by my memory of a sesame street cartoon where this fish makes a phone call to a tooth-brushing kid because his little pond is emptying while the kid's water runs, but mostly sparked by the fact that people where i live take it as a given that al gore is a prophet and their conviction was changing the way i looked at things. even though their prejudice to the left of absolutely every issue seems ultimately underinformed, i can appreciate the way it pulls me out of my complacency. so now i let the water run a little less. and that's why i like a little political extremism--it wakes me up from my nap in the middle. remember how novel recycling was when we were kids? and now most cities give you a recycling bin along with your garbage can. i'm convinced that happened because of crazy, people-hating environmentalists and their ferocious scare tactics. so if al gore can get my pop to buy a tiny little prius to counterbalance his big ugly expedition (which he did), then i say holla.
cherylyn, im so impressed you substitute teach. especially with children and a law student for a husband. seriously, thats way cool. and you do mention many interesting things. its true, the debate and all the discussion may not really be that important because if people dont care, then it doesnt really matter whether we can make a difference or whether we are responsible, because no one will do anything about it anyways because they just dont care. its that deeper, darker part of the issue that you dont really want to discuss because you hope it doesnt exist. that or you just assume that people, if they found out they could make a difference, that they naturally would want to chip in and do something little to help out. if not, the debate doesnt matter. and i dont really have a response either. youre doing much more than i am by interacting with them and teaching them. all i can do is sit at home and hope that the 'cool at all cost' mentality wears off at some point and that they begin to care some day.
and courtney. so happy to hear from you. i completely agree with your thinking and feel that a definite benefit from gore is that, even if people dont align themselves with him, he is at least alerting people. which is good. i really hate to liken your thoughts to another male's thoughts on this page because i dont want to live in the past or dig into the past. but when i was reading what you said, i couldnt help but think that your thoughts and viewpoints are similar to another person i know which is why im not surprised you got along so well. if only marriage was based on whether two people had the same recycling and environmental viewpoints.
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