Granules and Cycnicism

Hurricanes, Florida, and Fuel

Hurricanes seem to be rather common nowdays. There are four named storms already this July, and Dennis is having a run with the gulf of mexico. Last night my local newsman said that even here, in the middle of the entire continent, we may be getting some storms as a result of this hurricane!

Again I am not suprised, my cynicism was right. I've been expecting increasing hurricane trouble worldwide for a good long while, I suppose I didn't have an official prediction about it until a year or two ago when Florida started seeing some real hurricane trouble.

I have heard people say that the oil drilling in Alaska is partly the cause of all the screwy weather patterns. I can believe this is partly true because this drilling and harvesting of crude oil involves a lot of heat and carbon exhaust in an area near that pole that historically had relatively little exhaust, but I think the real reason is quite simply global warming.

Recently I saw a news article explaining that scientists have discovered that the Earth is now receiving about 1 full watt more enegy from the son Per Square Meter of earthly surface. This is about a third of a percent more heat that the earth is getting overall, from our sun, already, with no signs of slowing down in the near future. Most people don't realize that this is actually a lot of heat, 1 watt is enough heat to start anything flammable on fire, if concentrated in one point that's insulated well.

Personally, the idea of our exhaust causing every square meter of the Earth to heat up in measures of watts is pretty scary. The idea that the system and industry here would rather deny it and keep consumers in the dark, because of costs, is even scarier because I see it working every day.

Let's calculate the amount of extra heat we're taking on because of our exhaust. The earth is approximately 12,756.28 km in diameter on average, I'm reading, so the number of square meters in the profile, calculated conservatively (i.e. a hypothetical 2D cross-section instead of considering the 3D hemispherical curve's surface area) is about 128 million meters square, or three million kilo-watt-hours per day. I suppose that is not as much as a sizeable city's heat exhaust in a day, but I say we need to do something about this "percentage increase" that's happening with the amount of heat that gets to us from the sun. If it stopped at 1/3% I wouldn't be too concerned for my life but since I expect it to be reach a couple percent someday in the not-too-distant future, well I really don't like to think too far down those lines. It could be disasterous for the ecosphere.

It's probably more important for us to stop the atmosphere from becoming more and more greenhouse-gassy, than to stop exhausting heat, since the gasses have the effect of trapping the heat in the atmosphere preventing it from radiating back into space. Heat is important not to waste as well, I wish I could say I was recycling some but alas my AC is on, pumping all the heat from inside (and then some) to outside of the house.

Anyway I predict more hurricanes next summer, a rather warm fall and a rather cold winter this year, at least for the area I live in. It will continue to be more stormy than in the past, in general, at least until it gets cold. I don't feel like I'm even predicting anything really, more like admitting what has been happening for the last 5 or 10 years at least, and is now obvious.

posted by Catalyst @ 1:19 PM 0 comments

Let's entertain the theme of self-awareness: let's examine the blog, using the blog, from within the blog. What is this blog? If we consult a popular web-based reference we can find some simple definitions for the words in our web-log's title:

Cynicism:
1. An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or
professed motives of others: the public cynicism aroused by governmental scandals.
2. A scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act
3. Cynicism The beliefs of the ancient Cynics

Granules:
1. A small grain or pellet; a particle
2. Geology. A rock or mineral fragment larger than a sand grain and smaller than a pebble, between 2 and 4 millimeters in diameter
3. Astronomy. One of the small, transient, brilliant markings in the photosphere of the sun
4. Biology. A cellular or cytoplasmic particle, especially one that stains readily

Okay let's cut the crap: The author's view of society and humanity is rather cynical, however he's going to attempt to counteract each cynical assessment with some gem or granuel of wisdom that he pretends he has to help the situation. You've got to work with what you've got to work with...

For example, one cynical viewpoint might be: to make it in the business world you have to take as much as you can get and therefore you'd better be ready either to hose down some hosehead or to fold when your competition hoses them first. That is to say that if you make it big without trying to take advantage of people, your scruples were almost certainly either incidental or unhelpful to the money-making process.

One counteracting granuel of wisdom might be: you can find many useful and relatively cheap products when shopping in the Wal-Mart and Target stores alone whether you like to think about young Chinamen in cages or not.

I now profess that my motives are somewhat biased towards having a liberal enough sense of humor to gracefully survive what seems to be going on around me. It's not as if I can just blot it all out by closing my eyes while listening to Paul Taylor's 'Nightlife' on my headphones, no it would take a bit more obscurring to hide the ugly truth from me!

This blog was created under inspiration from Zoe there, but since she would ultimately be bored with a blog that was only professing my appreciation of her image and personality etc: I had to appropriate the blog's essence for my own personal whimbition (which is a combination of whim & ambition: whimbition.)

I hope I don't seem too colon-happy: that just sounds bad.

Although cynics like me do not expect all things to spontaneously heal themselves, we sure like the fact that we are given a choice whether we like the choices or not. We can choose to fight, we can choose to bow, or we can choose to meander over the horizon on a tangerine cow. There might be more choices but for now...

-Xeno

p.s. no multi-national retail outlet chains or franchises were harmed in the making of this post, or at least if they were slandered then their main competition was too [as far as I can tell.]

posted by Catalyst @ 1:06 AM 0 comments