The Great Climate Debate and other stuff.

Ooooookay. So I think I jinxed my stinkbug winter companion. The next morning after writing my last post I found him kind of sprawled out on the carpet right in front of my mirror-- stone dead.

I decided not to take a picture.

He's still there, though, if you want to come by and pay your respects.

In other news, I have been busy with the classes I'm auditing. Spanish is rolling right along. Globalization Issues is a new perspective for me. I haven't taken many classes like this before, studying humanity rather than nature! But I find it fascinating and enlightening..as well as depressing. The general theme is: the big fat politicians of the good ol' US of A tricked almost the entire rest of the world (focusing, of course, on the 3rd world countries) to do our bidding under the guise of "progression and development" and we get all the riches, the power, the natural resources. Journalism is great, it's getting me thinking about all the nitty gritty of the legal aspects, ethics and how journalism is developing in these craaazy times! Finally, Swimming. It rocks. I really enjoy it and it's good to give my crackling knees a break. I officially can swim 3/4ths of a mile with hardly any breaks to catch my breath! I feel good about that :)

Oh, so here's something really fun and interesting I've been doing this week. I found an article through my hubpages site about how Al Gore messed up and said something about global warming that the opponents found to be untrue, so of course they are taking that to the bank and saying that global warming isn't real, it's all a joke. Well the frustrating thing was that the author and all of the people who commented on his article were all opposing global warming based on unjust things: not just what Gore said (who, last time I checked, wasn't a scientist) but also how the warmest January in record is reported in the same paper that displays articles screaming about another snowstorm slamming the eastern US...this is a perfect example of confusing climate data with weather reports. The author points to a couple that committed suicide and blamed it on global warming and he blames it on the government putting fear in our hearts...well, I read through his article and all of the comments made by people putting him up on a pedestal with his good information and points, and I felt crazy frustrated. I had to write a comment. A comment-turned essay. I will subject you to that now, mwahaha...

stacebird 3 days ago

You are all doing exactly what RTalloni said that we Believers in Climate Change are doing, swallowing the news that leans toward your 'preferred' reality "hook, line and sinker".

Also, where Petra mentions how "experts can't predict accurately tomorrow's weather, but they speculate about 40-50-60 years from now"..well there is a different between global temperature *trends* tracked (over long periods of time) to build a more reliable data base for comparison and means for prediction while the daily differences in the weather are so short term that there is, as of yet, no way to be completely sure from one day to another. Climate and weather are very different things.

And, the government isn't the one responsible for creating that "climate of fear" she speaks of, in fact they are only just recently (finally!) accepting the fact of climate change. Rather, the government has been very busy funding certain agencies and paying underpaid scientists the big bucks to deliver (manipulate?) the data that your side of the fence is so desperate to cling on to.

With global warming, the key is to not focus on what the media is spouting. No matter which way it may be skewed, what is being said it is not necessarily all truth. Both sides (mine and yours) have made some pretty misleading allegations. What is problematic is that the media is causing us to focus on the more recent changes in weather from year to year, much too short term. And I've often heard people (some from this very comment section included!) claiming that a huge snow discounts or record hot days in February supports this idea of climate change.

Instead of obsessing over the month to month or year to year changes in the weather, what everyone needs to focus on is the fact that we are pouring carbon dioxide into our atmosphere at a rates that far surpass anything that has ever been seen. This is the reason we are certain that global warming is real, CO2 directly increases atmospheric temperatures. CO2 is what is going to get us in trouble and we're increasing its load in the atmosphere daily at disgusting rates.

The idea of climate change is something the world has endured and survived for its entire existence. The clincher is that we are changing the climate at a rate that is 100,000 times faster than past fluctuations have ever done. So now how are we, much less the natural environment that relies on evolving over thousands and thousands of generations, expected to keep up?

I appreciate the opportunity to comment, particularly to be the first commenter on the opposite side of a very one-sided discussion. Please visit my hubpage as I intend to address this issue for the wider public in the near future.

So there you go...it's a little bit harsh at points, perhaps, but I was just really fired up. He wrote me back a doosie which I just finished the reply for tonight (yea, 2 pages long in Word). I'm going to wait to see where that one takes us in this debate, but I'll give you guys a more in-depth view once I let it brew for awhile and maybe produce some really interesting outcomes. It's all in good fun, he seems glad of the fact that I am joining in on the discussion, so, I'm gonna keep it up til I feel like I've well represented my view!

So there you go!

Writing Fool

So here's what I've been up to lately..my main objective, of course, is to write as much as possible but also get my name out there and get people reading my writing. I've been scouring the internet and have found two good sites where I've been able to contribute articles. The sites are completely made up of articles written by citizen journalists so I feel like I'm in league with everyone else. You can write about any topic you want and so I've had a good opportunity to just kind of play around. Here are the two stories I wrote on my hubpages site:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Stop-Dont-Follow-That-Recipe

http://hubpages.com/hub/proudintrovert

I was super excited to discover that other "hubbers" had commented on my writing not even an hour after I'd posted! It seems like this will be a great site to get to know freelance writers (some of the people who contribute are really quite accomplished!) and find out how they make their living solely on writing. Already I've had a couple offer some really great advice, not to mention the value of reading some of their articles on becoming a writer.

I also joined Suite101 which is similar but not as user friendly or aesthetically pleasing as HubPages. I did publish a story there too, though.

http://www.suite101.com/content/learn-spanish-and-get-a-taste-of-nicaraguan-living-a346986

It's been fun just typing away, and checking out some really great resources as I go. In fact, I've been totally obsessing over it all, writing til 4:30 in the morning, spending hours and hours in starbucks on my computer, reading writer's digest on my free time between classes. Yea, I'm excited!

Now it's a matter of getting traffic to my stories, get people reading them, the more that read them, the higher the "score" or ranking so that your article has more chance of being seen if someone searches one of your keywords. For now, I'll keep everyone up to date via my own connections and see where this goes.

On another note, remember how bad the stinkbugs were last summer? I have one that has made my room his winter getaway. I don't have any idea what he must be eating, but he's been living here for months! The funny thing is, I think he's in love with me..no matter where he is in my room, he always is slowly making his way toward me, be he on the ceiling, in the closet, on my lampshade. He slowly walks toward me and I'm sitting there writing or reading in my bed when suddenly I feel him crawl onto my shoulder or he comes striding over the top of my knee. Right now he is crawling up the side of my computer screen...I seriously flicked him away three times in a row until finally I gave in. Well now he's off on some other adventure. I should probably go too. Until next time!