Global Not-Warming Mystery, Etc.

     

Tucson Weather Today

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There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.
--David Attenborough

According to NASA, the cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.

While the upper part of the world’s oceans continue to absorb heat from global warming, ocean depths have not warmed measurably in the last decade. This image shows heat radiating from the Pacific Ocean as imaged by the NASA’s Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System instrument on the Terra satellite. (Blue regions indicate thick cloud cover.)

(Image Credit: NASA)

For more information on ocean surface topography from space, visit: http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/


I believe I might have found an existing term that describes a peculiar state of mind which has troubled me for a long time. That term is: Cognitive Dissonance

Wikipedia states: In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

Also stated is:

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoiding situations and information which are likely to increase it.

So . . . 

There will be more on this subject later, after I have given sufficient thought as to how it pertains to me.

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Did You Know . . .?

About a third of adult humans are ophidiophobic (abnormal fear of snakes) - making this the most common reported phobia.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1943, Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on Wake Island, ordered the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.

The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood, remains one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.

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WORD FOR TODAY

The most general definition of climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time, regardless of cause. Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades do not represent climate change.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

(born October 7, 1952)

Vladimir Putin has been the President of Russia since May 7, 2012. He previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.

Nicole Ari Parker Kodjoe

(born October 7, 1970)

Nicole Parker is an American actress. Parker is known for her role as Becky Barnett in the 1997 film Boogie Nights and as the attorney Teri Joseph on the Showtime series Soul Food, which ran from 2000 to 2004. 

Simon Phillip Cowell

(born October 7, 1959)

Simon Cowell is an English reality TV celebrity. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol.

Holland Marie Roden

(born October 7, 1986)

Holland Roden is an American actress, best known for her role as Lydia Martin in MTV's teen drama Teen Wolf.

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We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been the cold periods rather than the warm periods.
--Freeman Dyson


NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

The Price Of Life Is Death

Tucson Weather Today

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Today is Valentine's Day.
(Enough said about that)

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The subject of rectifying financial inequality among the people of the world is one of those topics that sits rocking precariously within my mind, tipping first one way then the other in concert with my changes in perception and judgment of the state of my surroundings. Should there be something done about it, or not?

According to Wikipedia, Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States.

The 12th richest? There are eleven people who are richer than that in the United States?

Great Caesar's Ghost!

I read that Bloomberg has expressed concern about poverty and growing class divisions stating, "This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing." And I suspect that this is true. But I wonder what his motive is for stating it.

BIRTHDAY

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg was
born February 14, 1942

One answer might be for the peoples of the world to seize all the assets and all the wealth of every single citizen of the Earth, leaving each one of them only enough to survive in reasonable (although not in excessive) comfort and to dedicate everything collected to solving the much touted incidence of global warming.

No?

Why not? Is personal gain more important than survival of the planet?

Yes. Of course it is. Where have you been living on all your life?

Besides, global warming is a planetary problem, and is possibly a solar phenomenon. The puny race of human beings cannot stop it. Or, even if it can... it won't.

The rich and the poor of every nation wage an ongoing war with each other, sometimes by an almost unnoticed wearing down as if by water trickling away the bedrock below, and at other times with an all-out murderous conflagration from loosened flames of furious fires, but always -- always -- embroiled in consistent conflict.

Sanity?

What's that?

Events and circumstances in nature occur not as they should, but as they must.

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"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
--Bill Gates

Stuff I Found Interesting

Tucson Weather Today

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"It is a solemn and terrible thing to write a novel."
--Willa Cather

I don't understand what she meant by that, which is not surprising since there is much in her writing that I suspect is deeply profound below the surface, but as of yet I have been unable to recognize it... if it's actually there, that is.

Willa Cather in 1936

I am currently reading Ms. Cather's novel, My Antonia. I purchased the Kindle edition from Amazon.com for the quite affordable price of $0.The name in the title, by the way, is pronounced AN-ton-ee-ah -- accent on the first syllable. Or so says Wikipedia...

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Thomas Sowell believes: "...the prevalence of black men in the NBA doesn't mean that the NBA is racist, it means that reality is racist. Yes, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats really do practice the same kind of ethnic politics that resulted in the Rwandan genocide and the Sri Lankan civil war, even if they do not practice them to the same extent. Yes, affirmative action is naked racism. No, rent-control laws don’t control rent. No, gun-control laws don’t control guns. No, standardized exams are not culturally biased--but, yes, life is culturally biased."

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"More than 99.99 percent of the species that have ever existed have become extinct." -- Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan in Microcosmos.

See brief book review HERE

I had never heard of Evolutionary Biology... but now I have.

Lynn Margulis who is well-known in the field of biology for Endosymbiotic theory died last month, November 22, 2011 at age 73

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As climate-change science moves in one direction, Republicans in Congress are moving in another. Why?

Heads In The Sand

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In a comment following the above mentioned article, I read this sentence: "From a far it is probably not obvious to you that the Republicans and the Democrats inhabit the same corporate pockets." -- That is the first time I ever saw: "... from a far" instead of from afar.

And that reminds me of the incorrect spelling (and conception) of the wrongly perceived word alot instead of the original phrase a lot which has been so often misspelled that it has now become acceptable.

Fascinating.


From March 2007 to December 2010, the Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming held 80 hearings and briefings exploring American energy resources, clean technologies, climate change and the risks associated with it.

Below is a link to the Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming website:

http://www.capitolhearings.org/

What are their conclusions and/or solutions... if any exist?

Not Going Away: America's Energy Security, Jobs and Climate Challenges -- videos and transcripts.

More on Global Warming

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No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.
--John Holt