Sunday, April 08, 2007

Global Warming

I am reminded of the old story about the frogs in the pot. I've never actually tried it so I don't know if it is true. I will gladly bow to those who are more sure about that than I. You know the one I'm talking about though. It's the one that says that if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out, but if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and then turn the heat on gently, it will sit there until it boils to death. What do you think? Is it true?

I was just reading another blog out there in this amazing soapbox space where folks who live south of where I do were railing about the weather and how cold it was. There were the usual comments about global warming and Al Gore and how it's a bunch of horse puckey and he's an idiot. Perhaps. We humans are easily spooked and have jumped to a number of wrong conclusions about the earth and what it is and what part we play on it.

Some hold that we are the top of the heap and blessed by a supreme being and have some divine role to play out as foretold in whichever religious text you care to quote. Some say that we are just in another natural cycle that causes the temperatures in the air and the oceans to rise and fall. Some believe that the earth is a sentient being and we are no more than a form of virus or bacilli that live on the very most outer layer. I have learned that when I jump to conclusions, more often than not, I am seldom as right as I might wish.

There seems to be little disagreement about one thing however - temperatures are rising overall all over the globe. Whether mankind is the sole cause of this or not can be debated ad infinitum, but let me go out on a limb here and say that to rule out a role by mankind, and to say that we should not try to rethink our present lifestyles and energy usage, is to hear ourselves croaking in the pot.

The scientific data, as far as I can tell as a layman, is very clear. The correlation between the rise in average temperatures in the air and in the ocean is too tight to the increase in carbon dioxide to be coincidental. You can argue that we are not the sole cause of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and as far as that argument goes, you would be correct, but humankind and its burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause. You can call those who say that "idiots," but when you do, I hear croaking.

I am no angel in this matter. I am as guilty as the next with my cars, my computers, my refrigerators, my air conditioners, my TV's that never turn all the way off, my clock radios that always glow red. I am a very guilty American and have no reason to tar and feather any fellow consumer of four times the energy per person than the rest of the world. But, I also believe we need to change or we will see our children, or their children dying in this big blue pot we live in.

You can think what you wish about Al Gore, but on this one, he is right.

Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous @ 5:34 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Drug War Gone Bad

Yesterday, there were a couple of specials on our local NPR station, one local and one national, about the state of the War on Drugs and how effective it has been over the last 40 years. Predictably, the opinions were all over the map as were the suggestions for the future. For what it's worth, here is my view.

Where there is a market demand, there will be suppliers that will meet that demand. If you criminalize the product, the suppliers will be criminals. At that point, maintaining criminalization will result in four negative conditions: 1) the criminal infrastructure will be strengthened and their coffers enriched. 2) Taxpayers will be charged to persecute the "war" on illegal drugs (a largely futile exercise). 3) Citizens who lead otherwise legal and productive lives are labeled criminals for using drugs other than alcohol to alter their mood. 4) Citizens who seek a drug such as marijuana are forced into contact with a profit motivated and increasingly violent sub-culture to acquire the product. The suppliers encourage the users to try more profitable and perhaps habit forming products (taking cues from the tobacco industry) to ensure a steady cash flow.

In my view, the US government is achieving the exact opposite of its stated objectives. It puts its citizens in the position of dealing with criminals to satisfy a market condition. Those citizens then become criminals themselves. The flow of resources from the market goes to a crime-based economy that does not participate in the support of the US infrastructure (other than through bribes).

The solution (agian in my personal opinion) is to legalize drug use and supply said mood altering products through state owned outlets. At the same time, advertising of such products would be prohibited. Just because it would be legal to purchase beer, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or wine, there is no reason to encourage or manipulate the public into buying. The demand is there already.

Change the flow of money from the illegal suppliers to the legal infrastructure that is already in place. Tax the purchases appropriately. Fund treatment programs for those who need or wish to change their usage patterns. Protect the public at large from inappropriate use of drugs such as driving while intoxicated or other antisocial behavior.

Of course, I don't expect to see this in my lifetime, but I continue to be puzzled that the public at large continues to participate in such a negative and hippocritical process as the "war on drugs" while happily guzzling their favorite lite beer and toking on a tobacco cigarette.

Ta ta.

Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous @ 5:55 AM 4 comments