Climate change can't possibly be happening , post 2

Who could possibly believe in climate change with all the arguments for and against? Opinion leaders and politicians are providing different points of view. The issue has become political. There needs to be a simple and practical approach to understanding the issue and what to do about it. It is the attempt of this series of post to examine the practical side.


The last post explored how more carbon is being released in the atmosphere. Carbon is trapped in plants and animals when they die and decay. That decay process, over hundreds and thousands of years produces fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. When humans first discovered they could burn fossil fuels, they only consumed less than a year’s supply. The environment could easily absorb the carbon released. Now, humans are consuming about a thousand year’s worth of fossil fuels each year. The environment can no longer absorb that much carbon. [The ocean can absorb a lot of carbon, which provides some hope for the future. But, its rate of absorption is so slow that it can’t keep up. If the ocean absorbed faster, the carbon levels would not have found the balance needed to maintain a healthy carbon level to grow plants.]

So are the levels rising? Yes. The growth in carbon levels have been rising since the turn of the last century. Even the doubters will accept that fact. Science has known this for nearly a 150 years. The levels today are as high as they have been in 17,000 years.

Here is meaning of this. Carbon in the form of carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It acts like glass panels on a greenhouse. Carbon dioxide is colorless so it allows light from the sun to penetrate the atmosphere and reach the earth. Some light is reflected off because of the angle the light strikes the upper atmosphere. Some is reflected off by clouds. But, enough light gets through to warm the earth and grow plants. The heat generated by the light is radiated back into the atmosphere. The cold of space then cools the atmosphere keeping the heat levels in balance.

But, carbon dioxide also acts like a blanket on a cold night. It reflects heat back down to the earth. This doesn’t allow the natural cooling effect to keep a balance in the atmosphere.

The carbon dioxide affect is not a guess. It is an observable and measurable process. It is fact.

So, now we know, in practical and measurable terms, that humans are burning more than a thousand year’s worth of carbon based fuels each year. We also know that carbon levels are growing in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary form of carbon, acts as the glass panels on a greenhouse, allowing light to reach the earth, but trapping the heat generated by the light. All observable and measurable.

In the next post, the effect of all of this will be explored.

-----

Climate change can't possibly be happening

Who could possibly believe that climate change, if it is happening at all, is a result of humans? Many people are in denial including all 20 of the Republicans that are running for a senate seat this election. They are for various reason, saying that it is not a problem or it isn’t even happening. The candidates are tapping right in to the angry crowd that wants to do away with all government regulation without regard to the consequences.

Most of the scientific evidence is beyond most of us to grapple with. Then there are those that tear the evidence apart and deny it. Additionally, how about the hype that was created when all those emails from the science community about making adjustments in the numbers to fit the theory surfaced?

While all of the above can be addressed on an point by point basis, let’s take a look at a common sense approach to all of this with a practical explanation of climate change.

Now, keep in mind, this is a little geeky. It may take a few moments for it to make sense, but this is the best explanation about climate change available.

When humans evolved, the species became very adoptable to many different environments because of our intelligence and creativity. We were able to learn about things around us and apply them to our own needs. One of the things we learned was how to make fire. With all the old wood lying around on the forest floor, during the cold months, we could burn them to provide the energy we needed to keep warm.

At the beginning, there were very few humans and the only wood that was burned was already dead. Since our impact was low, the forest easily absorbed the carbon that was released. The earth was in balance because we were releasing less than a year’s worth of carbon. In a year of growth in the forest, all of it could be absorbed.

This went on for many thousands of years. But, leading up to the industrial revolution, we discovered coal, oil and other materials could be burnt to provide the energy we needed. This process that makes coal and oil traps many generations of carbon from the plants and animals that make up the material. When it is burned, the carbon is released into the atmosphere not just from one year, but many.

By the industrial revolution, we had found many more needs for energy than just keeping warm. Also, the numbers of humans had grown dramatically. Now, our energy needs exceeded what was laying on the forest floor. We were burning hundreds of years of material to supply the energy needs of a single year. All of this carbon release was now beyond what could be absorbed by the environment.

Today, it is estimated that humans consume a thousand years of energy in coal, oil and other materials each year. This of course, is well beyond the ability of the earth to absorb all the carbon released. Even when you consider not only the forest but also the other plant life in the oceans.

Since we have released such large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere it is holding much more carbon then it can absorb.

In the next post, the carbon in the air will be discussed.

-----

Stolen Valor Act is Constitutional

As Mark Scott so often said, “A is A”. That is, if you don’t tell the truth, it is a lie. Pure and simple. So, tell me the community doesn’t have the right to expect that if you say you have won the The Congressional Medal of Honor that you really have.


The federal appeals court in California and a federal district court in Denver don’t think so. They have both ruled that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional. The act states that if you claim an honor from the military that you don’t have, you can be prosecuted. The courts ruled that it is a free speech issue and the individual can’t be convicted.

Without the law there are many ways to prosecute someone that tells such a lie. On written documents or in court it is perjury. If you say so on an employment application and get the job because of it, or if you are given money based on the lie, you have committed fraud. If in all of the above situations you stated a political opinion, something that is squarely protected, you would not be held accountable legal. So why can’t you be held accountable for making the claim when it is clearly a lie.

Many are suggesting that this case will make its way to the Supreme Court because of the importance of free speech.  But, no right is absolute. Saying you are a war hero is not an opinion or a complaint that demands redress from the government. It is an outright lie that can’t be defended.

-----

Responsibilities of the individual and the community during umemployment

In the real world, every community has a problem with unemployment and job creation. But, the recent Nobel prize winners for economics may provide a view that helps us understand the scope of the problem. Some of what they say supports action that a Responsible Community should take with those that are unemployed.


Three men, Peter Diamond, Dale Mortenson and Chris Pissarides, were awarded the 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Their work was on why buyers and sellers in various markets have trouble finding each other.

Full disclosure: I am not an economist and have not read the full breadth of their work. On the practical side, what has been read makes sense.

According to theory, unemployment should always be at zero. But, in reality, even in an economy that is humming, unemployment can be as higher as 5 % and be considered full employment. This reason for this is that a percent of people are always leaving one job to take another. This activity is the continuous adjustment in the market place of the mix of jobs, wages, training and the employment pool. (And, yes, there are those individuals that find difficulty in find a permanent job, often because of their own personal issues.)

But the real problem is when the unemployment levels are higher. That means, on the community level, individuals can’t find jobs that they are qualified for or business wont hire individuals at the pay scale that the individual needs or wants.

The trio suggest that unemployment insurance provided by the community makes it more difficult for the market to work. If workers are getting enough from unemployment insurance to maintain, they will be reluctant to take any job. On the other side, business will need to increase the pay scale or benefits to make the job more enticing to people that are on unemployment.

Keeping the paragraph above in mind, it is difficult for the community to encourage an electrician to take the first job offered, which may be at McDonalds cooking fast food. It would make it more difficult for him to get a job that he is trained for and not provide the income necessary to maintain a lifestyle built on higher wages. From the community’s point of view, it is a waste of resources for the training and experience invested in the electrician to cook fast food.

Part of the answer is the expectations the community has on the return on investment from the unemployment insurance provided. As stated in a blog earlier this year, “Require a return on investment from unemployment”, in the short run, a community should provide enough income to allow an individual to maintain a portion of the lifestyle they have. This allows time for him to find a job in the field that he is trained to do without taking the first job offered. For that investment, the community needs to make it clear there are expectations of return. If after a short period of time the individual is not employed, the system needs to hold them accountable. Make an evaluation of their life and skills. Find markets that can employ them. Train them for their new jobs. Help them move if necessary to those markets. In return for the community’s investment, the unemployed individual needs to do also help themselves by cooperating with the community on all of the above and more. If not, they should be dropped from the program.

We formed communities to help each other in times of crisis. The community needs to help individuals through times of unemployment. No one in the community benefits when individuals and families lose their savings and even their homes when unemployed. But, to continuously keep supporting individuals that are not fully engage in their future is against the rules of success of the individual, the community and as the winners of the Nobel prize point out, the markets.

-----

The community can place reasonable limits on rights

In a September 17 post, it was stated that “If I was on a milk create at Fourth and Main in downtown Royal Oak and made a speech about the upcoming election, I would be arrested for disturbing the peace”. It is also stated that, “If a group of friends planned a gathering in a park nearby to protest the war in Afghanistan, we would be ticketed if we hadn’t received a permit from the city.” Mike Stollenwerk committed that the right to do both are “basic black letter law” rights protect by the First and Fourth amendments of the Constitution.


It is agreed that the right to free speech and assembly would be protected under the Constitution. The arrest or ticket would not be for making the speech or for assembling with my friends. (Of course, both would have to be for political purposes, commercial speech in not protect to the same degree as political.)

The reason that the statements above were made was to illustrate that no right is absolute, including strapping a gun to the waist and walking around in public. In the first case, the Royal Oak police state that if I was standing on the corner impeding pedestrian traffic flow, I would at first be asked “to move along.” That request would having nothing to do with the right of free speech or with the content of the speech. It would be that I was blocking pedestrians. If I refused to “move along” by using the shield of freedom of speech, in the end, I would be arrested.

The gathering in the park to protest the war in Afghanistan has some of the same issues and a few more. It I gathered with a group of friends without checking with the city, there are a number of issues that come up. First, if the little league team from the city was on the schedule to play a game in the park, they would have the first right. By claiming the right to assemble and refusing to move, the police would issue a ticket. Second, if I sat up a stage and used amplified sound to speak to the throng, I would have had to clear it with the city first. Another ticket if I didn’t request a permit from the city and used the right to assemble as a shield.

It was not the intent of the examples about speech and assemble to say we don’t have those rights. It was to illustrate that those rights can’t be used as a shield against all action by the community when its goal is safety and order. I could have used more extreme examples with long standing precedence. Such as yelling fire in a theater or hosting the assembly in the middle of the street. As long as it is not about the content of the speech and the community can demonstrate that people may be harmed or that order is compromised, the community can take action.

The original post was to support Royal Oak’s request to limit the right to open carry of guns. It is a simply request that people not carry their weapons at the Arts, Eats and Beats “assemble”. An assemble, that by many rulings in the courts, the applicant can request control of the people and their action that attend.

As stated at the end of the post, “The request that Royal Oak is making of the state is a reasonable limit on the right to bear arms.”

-----

Phelps is disgusting, but should receive our support

Pastor Fred W. Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church has it all wrong.

Young men that are fighting in foreign wars are not dying because the country allowed “fags” into the military. They are dying because that is what happens in war. Catholics are not “satanic”, its past has a straight line connection to Jesus Christ. (I am Catholic and it is my chosen religion). Divorced parents do not teach their children by their action to “defy [their] creator.” There can be no love for Hitler or breast cancer even though Pastor Phelps and his followers have said so verbally and in writing.

But, Evelyn Beatrice Hall has it right (or Votaire, or Paine or who ever else you may attribute it to). To paraphrase her, I disagree to the point of disgust with what Phelps says, but he does have the right to say it.

Albert Snyder, on the other side of the argument, believes that Phelps should not be able to say what he does because it caused him emotional distress.

He is the father of Lance Cpl. Mathew A. Snyder, 20, who died in a Humvee accident in Iraq on March 3, 2006. A week later, a funeral mass was held for him at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas protested the funeral with signs that said all the things listed above and more. It was a cruel and obscene way for the congregation to express its political and religious beliefs. Later, an essay was posted on line by Phelps’ daughter continuing the cruel expression of their beliefs, mostly against Lance Cpl. Snyder.

Albert Snyder admits that he didn’t see the protesters at the church or at the grave site where his son was buried. It wasn’t until much later that he was on line and discovered the essay about his son. He then sued the pastor and the church for the distress that they caused. A lower court ruled in Snyder’s favor, but an appeals court reversed. Snyder took the case to the Supreme Court. The court heard the oral arguments this week.

The protestors obeyed all the laws of Maryland. They kept their distance from the church and the grave site as outline by law. (They did this, because there are limits on free speech, as with any right. The grave site was a public sitting and could be argued that they had a right to be on site during the funeral, but stayed off the property. But, please do not take this as being understanding of the protesters.)

Snyder didn’t see the protesters at any time. There was no physical or financial harm done to Snyder. His oral argument in court was focused on the emotional harm that was done by reading the things the church sponsored. After reading much of the material, it is not difficult to understand Snyder’s pain.

As truly whacky and indefensible as Pastor Fred W. Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church are, they do have the right to express their political and religious beliefs. They didn’t cause any practical damage to Snyder and by obeying the laws of Maryland on protests they didn’t interfere with the safety and order of the community.

To return to Hall’s quote, it would be difficult for the Supreme Court to rule any other way other then expressing their disgust with the church even though they support their right to say it.

-----

Let's seek justice in our need for closure

It is being proposed by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy that new evidence that may free a convicted criminal in Michigan be presented before the one year anniversary of the conviction. After that, a claim can not be filed if the exculpatory evidence would have been discovered if the convict’s lawyer had done a good job.


Ask Dwayne Provience what this would have meant to him. He was convicted in 2001 of killing Rene Hunter on a crowded intersection in northwest Detroit. There where plenty of witnesses at the time of the shooting. One of the witnesses was an off duty police officer. None of the witnesses were called by Provience’s lawyer, who has since been disbarred. A memo in police files that pointed to a drug gang as the likely killers wasn’t discovered until 8 years later, then only by accident.

It is an arguable point that even if the new rules were in place a court would still consider the new evidence. But, for some people who trust their lawyers but find they do a terrible job, the rule changes would cancel all hope.

Worthy’s argument is that our system of justice needs finality. When someone is convicted, the public needs to have closure on the issue. She also argues that by allowing appeals to extend into the future endlessly, it pulls resources away from current cases.

Worthy is right about the need for finality. If the appeals are based on procedure instead of evidence, a one year cut off could be appropriate. After examining the proceedings of any case for a year, we should be certain about the conviction. This would save valuable resources for current cases, especially when budgets are stressed because of an economic down turn.

New exculpatory evidence should be treated differently, even after many years. If the evidence is minor and doesn’t challenge any of the other evidence or circumstances, a quick examination would dispense with it. In the case of Provience, when the witnesses and evidence never came to light in court because of a bad lawyer, to continue to hold him without a close look would be a crime in itself.

Yes, the community needs finality about specific convictions. The closure that a conviction brings provides relief to the grieving and security to the rest of us. But, by allowing a case to be challenged with new evidence also gives us the certainty that if we as a community do happen to make a mistake we can correct it.

This is justice.

-----