And I Helped

It has been so dang hot this summer. If I don't get my outside work done earlier than 9am, then it's just too hot outside to work. I live in the south and I understand it is supposed to get pretty hot in the summer but not this early and for this long.

Scientists say that the severe weather we've been having is due to the higher temperatures and they also say it's going to continue to get worse before it gets any better.

Some scientist say that humans are to blame for this climate change. I don't fully agree with that idea. I think that the world goes through cycles of heating and cooling, although I also don't rule out that the human race is now influencing that cycle with all of the airborne chemicals we have been putting into the atmosphere for the past 100+ years. And frankly, I've put in my fair share of those pollutants.

I've been trying to get better at minimizing my 'carbon footprint' on this earth. I try to drive as little as possible, use less electricity, less plastics and more reusable/sustainable products. After all, this is the only planet we have (I watched that NatGeo show on the universe and there is nothing close to the earth for us to run to). We have gotten to a point in our human evolution that we can easily destroy ourselves, by accident or action.

I am going to continue to do what I can to help our environment survive. I just wish more people and governments believed something is happening instead of turning a blind eye. It shouldn't have to take a enormous number of lives for those people to take action (usually it takes a threat to someones bank account before action is taken).

Occasionally I wonder if there is something to that December 21, 2012 end of calendar.

Not following Standards is very Poor

I don't know if they were really sticking doing what they are supposed to do in the way that they follows their standard practice or not, but Standards & Poor action of downgrading the USA leaves me with pause.

On the one hand I think, well they're just doing what they are supposed to do in giving guidance to investors. On the other hand, they could be just trying to put more pressure on the American government to do what they want the government to do.

My sarcastic thoughts around this though turns to Patriotism. Is it Patriotic to downgrade and endanger your own country like they have? There has been plenty of talk lately around the lack of Patriotism and who is more Patriotic than others. Maybe I'm way off base here tying the financial market and Patriotism together like this but this is the first time this sort of thing has happened. I understand that not to downgrade when it may be required would lay claims to unfair play. Going further though, doesn't it also lend itself to thoughts of treason against ones country to make it so vulnerable? Couldn't we even use the term 'holding the government hostage' until they get what they want thus bringing up the term terrorism?

I'm not going that far down the path. For now I'm only stopping at the selfish zone of trying to take advantage of a situation, manipulate it and get what you want. Maybe it will become the new form of lobbying. I sure hope not.

So there you have it. My thoughts on the subject. Following business standards with a sense of fairness, applying pressure to get what you want, being Un-Patriotic, committing treason or just down right terrorism. Who's to say. One thing we may all be able to agree on is that it certainly doesn't help solve any problems and may just be creating more.

Universal Show

I watched a show on NatGeo, Journey to the Edge of the Universe (best seen in HD). Pretty cool and interesting stuff. However, I had a problem with some of the statements being made. Quite a few statements were made as if they were fact. Statements about things that happened a very long time ago that no one would really know if it was true or not, purely speculation. An example would be the statement made that the dinosaurs were wiped out due to an asteroid hitting the earth. I don't think we actually know that for sure. Speculative information put into the form a statement, as if it was fact, is just wrong. It creates false 'knowledge' that leads to wrong ideas and decisions.

In general though, the information the show was providing is very thought provoking. It got me thinking about the existence of God (any God really, not just a christian one). Some people argue that the existence of the universe is absolute proof for the existence of God (a single God being a more present day idea) since where would it all have come from if not from some supreme being creating it. Something had to create it all, why not call it God.

I sat there watching this show, what it was presenting me with, and started thinking, how could something have actually created the vastness of the universe. It is unimaginably big. How could anything create something so vast that it spreads out over billions of light years? How could we possibly be the only living beings in the universe (the program said that, based on a calculation, there should be millions of other planets with life in some form or another)? Why would we ever think we are the only or the 'created' ones by some God to be watched over, that there is some grand design for us? That would be very, very narrow thinking based on the ultimate size and diversity of the universe.

The idea of a God or gods, to me, is a good thing. It provides hope and meaning to many people, helping to combat thoughts of feudalism. It provides guidelines for living, a goal to achieve, some semblance of order. People need that or utter chaos would prevail. I believe it is what has helped us survive all these years. Here's an interesting thought for non-believers, could mankind have even evolved into a civilization without the idea of a God or gods.

The big question that gets to me is, what is the universe sitting in (or expanding into)? Is there just a never ending expansion of nothingness? Some things we will just never know in our very, very, very short time of existence. Sometimes it even hurts to think about it all.

Since I don't know everything, I have always allowed for the possibility of the existence of some ultimate power or being. If there is/was such a being, it may have given us life but it would have very little to with our lives and all that happens in it. So what it comes down to is that we are because we are and nothing more.