Friday, January 22, 2010

Is Pope Benedict XVI In The Best Position to Effectively Combat Climate Change?

Homily for January 17, 2010 by Dennis Tate. Assignment #2 for MNST 130 class at St. Francis Xavier University.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/011710.shtml

Reading I Is 62:1-5

For Zion’s sake I will not be silent,for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be
quiet,until her vindication shines forth like the dawnand her victory like a
burning torch.

Nations shall behold your vindication,and all the kings your
glory;you shall be called by a new namepronounced by the mouth of the LORD.You
shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD,a royal diadem held by your
God.No more shall people call you “Forsaken, “or your land “Desolate, “but you
shall be called “My Delight, “and your land “Espoused.”For the LORD delights in
you and makes your land his spouse. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder
shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his brideso shall your God
rejoice in you.


Responsorial Psalm Ps 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10(3)

Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations.Sing to the LORD a new song;sing
to the LORD, all you lands.Sing to the LORD; bless his name.Proclaim his
marvelous deeds to all the nations.Announce his salvation, day after day.

Tell
his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.Proclaim his
marvelous deeds to all the nations.Give to the LORD, you families of
nations,give to the LORD glory and praise;give to the LORD the glory due his
name!

Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations.Worship the LORD in holy
attire.Tremble before him, all the earth;Say among the nations: The LORD is
king.He governs the peoples with equity.Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the
nations.


Reading II 1 Cor 12:4-11
Brothers and sisters:There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord;there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

To each individual the manifestation of the Spiritis given for some benefit.To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another, the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another, mighty deeds;to another, prophecy; to another, discernment of spirits; to another, varieties of tongues; to another, interpretation of tongues.But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.

Gospel Jn 2:1-11
There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short,the mother of Jesus said to him,“They have no wine.”And Jesus said to her,“Woman, how does your concern affect me?My hour has not yet come.”His mother said to the servers,“Do whatever he tells you.”Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus told them,“Fill the jars with water.”So they filled them to the brim.Then he told them,“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from— although the servers who had drawn the water knew —,the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,“Everyone serves good wine first,and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galileeand so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
........................................................

We have often heard the modern proverb: "It's the economy stupid."

I regard that the two most intelligent statements regarding the productive
capability of humanity are found in the written Word of God.

The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. (Genesis 11:6 NASB)

In my own provincial level campaign as an independent back in 2006 I attempted to
deal with the astonishing productive capability of humanity in this way:

http://www.bankingsystemflaws.blogspot.com/


When well trained workers have high quality technology to work with then the
total of all wages and benefits paid out to employees is only a fraction of the
retail value of the products they produce. As a result of this fact the only way
to move products out of warehouses is to extend higher and higher levels of
credit. One problem with an abundance of red ink is that compound interest on
all this government, business and personal debt over a period of decades will
grow to astronomical levels. At this time there is approximately TEN TIMES as
much debt in Canada as there is money.

Wise old King Solomon made a brilliant assertion regarding the power inherent in money.


"Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the
answer to everything."
(Ecclesiastes 10:19 NASB)

Although I took two years of Business Administration at St. Francis Xavier University a couple of decades ago, I feel that I had minimal comprehension of the big picture economically until 1994 when I was introduced to Social Credit Economic Theory by a group of Catholic Patriots who have published The Michael Journal. I was fascinated by their ideas but my experience seven years later of teaching English in Quito, Ecuador for over a year where I saw real poverty with my own eyes has caused me to become almost obsessed with a desire to educate people to the astonishing productive capability we humans actually have. I would like to think that I have been bitten by the same bug that dropped on Dr. Coady and gave me a little radioactive nip!

I Dennis Tate, am extremely interested in conversion to Catholicism but my motives are NOT entirely altruistic. In my area Dr. Moses Coady, Fr. Jimmy Thompkins with their friends and followers initiated the Antigonish Movement which has transformed not only the local economy here in rural Nova Scotia, but has grown to influence projects in one hundred and twenty nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigonish_Movement


"As educators and priests, the leaders of the Antigonish Movement were primarily
concerned with human and spiritual development. The title of Moses Coady’s only
book – Masters of Their Own Destiny – encapsulates this desire to see ordinary
Nova Scotians achieve economic and social freedom."
...
"Ordinary Nova
Scotians he argued, had only themselves to blame for their poverty and vulnerability. They had permitted money and
business to become mysterious forces outside of their control. Fishers and
farmers for example, were exploited by marketing middlemen. Everyone was
exploited by moneylenders. If they took the time to understand their
circumstances and took the risks of co-operative action, they could achieve
economic security and on that foundation greater freedom and self-realization."
(Wikipedia)

I feel that Dr. Moses Coady was so powerfully guided by the Ruach ha Kodesh/The Holy Spirit that it is legitimate to compare him with the ancient prophet Elijah. In my opinion, Dr. Coady has accomplished a tremendous amount even the economic aspect of the restoration of the tribes of Israel.

http://www.drbo.org/chapter/26048.htm


"And Elias the prophet stood up, as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch."...
"Who art registered in the judgments of times to appease the wrath of the
Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes
of Jacob."
(Ecclesiasticus 48:1,10 DRBO)

I may be wrong in this assertion but over the past decade or so I have noticed over and over again that our opinions regarding politics and economics are astonishingly similar to our own ideas regarding philosophy and theology. Those of us who feel that God has a simple plan, that the souls of the dead are either saved or lost, either in heaven or in hell often seem content to be satisfied with a world in which a minority are spectacularly wealthy while the vast majority of humanity is forced to scrounge for a pathetic living. Dr. Moses Coady felt that there was some glimmer of real hope for the people who were in something of an economic purgatory. His confidence in their ability to be raised up to a higher level was instrumental in his being able to help so many thousand and now millions of poor people to transform their lives.

In 2007 Sir Richard Branson announced a $25 million award for a design for a device that could remove one billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere annually. In a somewhat tongue in cheek but essentially still serious tone I submitted a proposal for this award:


"Dear Mr. Branson:It is my firm belief that the number one technological device
to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases has already been invented. It is the
tree.

What is desperately needed at this time is not necessarily a new mechanical
device but instead a paradigm shift in economic theory regarding monetary policy. We require a readily understandable explanation on how leaders in business and government can direct not only millions, but actually trillions of dollars of investment into combating global warming."



One of the most effective practical methods that could be put into place in the
least amount of time would be dozens of the largest possible desalinization
plants all along the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Huge quantities of fresh water
could be dripped onto the Sinai and Sahara deserts and voila, well chosen
species of newly planted fast growing trees could soon change the color of these
relatively desolate areas, significantly reduce atmospheric CO2, positively
affect local weather patterns and at the same time significantly counterbalance
the increases in worldwide ocean levels as the polar ice caps melt. This will
buy us some extra time and thus expand the “very brief window of opportunity to
deal with climate change.” (Anti-Armageddon Paradigm Shift Monetary Policy
Theory, The Introduction by Dennis Tate).


One disagreement that I had with the editors of the Michael Journal was that they blamed all of our economic problems on our Prime Minister or on other secular political leaders. My opinion on who is actually in the best position to alter and redirect the entire world is a little different and perhaps the number one obsticle to my perhaps eventually becoming officially a Roman Catholic.


"So who is going to finance the construction of all these massive installations
not to mention the planting of all those seedling trees?"

I believe that it is
possible for you to do this yourself Mr. Branson. You have already created a
Virgin currency unit/coupon which has astonishing long term potential. My wife
Maria Jose just returned from a two week trip to the British VIRGIN Islands. It
is theoretically possible to link your Virgin coupon with the national currency
of a small nation and you could soon be playing around in macro-economics.


Considering the volume of business being done through your Virgin Group I would
submit that you already are.

Pope Benedict XVI may be in an even stronger position than you Mr. Branson to transform the world economy virtually overnight through the introduction of a new Vatican Currency Unit that could be linked
with each and every national currency where the Vatican State is free to do business
."


The full text from my first submission for the Virgin Earth Challenge can be viewed here:
http://greendesertstoreducecarbon.blogspot.com/2010/01/anti-armageddon-paradigm-shift-monetary.html

As part of my introduction to my second submission for the Virgin Earth Challenge co-authored by New Mexico biologist Carl Cantrell, I made this rather politically incorrect statement:


"It seems to me that turning the world's one billion hungry people into a market for food produced in our deserts through both aquaculture and agriculture could be the way to reduce the amount of heat going into the atmosphere at the same time that we add fresh water to the water table of North Africa and the Middle East. Every cubic meter added to North Africa will NOT be on top of Florida, New Orleans, Holland or the Maldive Islands!"


Jesus/Yahushua made one of the most brilliant observations that I have ever read when he stated that many of his own followers might not be exactly the most insightful, well read, wise and articulate people to ever walk the earth.


"And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly;
for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the
sons of light."
(Luke 16:8 NASB)

I have the distinct impression from the following verse that the Apostle Paul had noticed essentially the same tendency.


"For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble, are called:"
(I Corinthians 1:26 ASV)

In the summer of 2008 I joined Canada's Christian Heritage Party but I left it a few months later because it seems that the majority of the membership regard the ideas on global warming as nothing more than an elaborate conspiracy to take away their freedom to drive their cars!


"You are not to say, 'It is a conspiracy!' In regard to all that this people
call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it."
(Isaiah 8:12 NASB)

I am so glad that I was given this opportunity to do the homily for January 17, 2010, these are the perfect scriptures to introduce the theory that the Roman Catholic Church may well be in the perfect position to alter world monetary policy in such a way that the one billion hungry people on this earth become the key to combatting climate change in a manner that will actually address the most probable short term as well as the most likely long term hazards presented by climate change.

It was rather obviously God at work that I was delayed from being able to write this sermon until after this Monday in which I was able to see my daughter in law in her new wedding dress. A woman can be compared to the land in that the land produces food, and food is essential for life. It is pretty much impossible for a man to give birth to a baby and feed and take care of it by himself, modern medical and genetic technological innovations notwithstanding.

If the one billion hungry people on this earth were each to spend one thousand dollars on food produced through aquaculture, and hydroponics projects based in North Africa and the Middle East, then ONE TRILLION dollars has just been spent in such a way that it will directly combat climate change.

Biologist Carl Cantrell has stated that satellite images of this earth indicate that vastly more heat is going into the atmosphere from the deserts than from all of earths cities combined. Yes, greenhouse gases act as an insulator, but if your house was too hot it might be rational to try turning down the furnace before knocking all the insulation out of the walls.

In the afternoon the Sahara Desert may be 40 Celcius or higher, by the next morning that same area can be near the freezing point. Why? Well, because a desert has no plant cover nothing keeps the heat in. It dissipates rapidly into the atmosphere.


"Therefore, the less vegetation you have on the planet, the more sunlight is
being turned into heat and the warmer the planet becomes. This is very critical
because warmer and dryer winds dry out other land areas faster decreasing the
vegetation on those land areas. Less humidity in the air also reflects less sun
light back out into space so that more sun light strikes the earth and more heat
is generated….”

“The truth is that you can do more to decrease global warming by
just reducing the average temperature for the Sahara Desert by one or two degrees than if we humans completely quit using fossil fuels and returned to the cave….”

“So, how would you start working to resolve this problem?

Easy, cool the deserts and get some vegetation growing on them as soon as possible. But the method is much more complex than that. You have to use the prevailing trade winds in relation to the deserts to get the best results as quickly as possible
and it will be extremely expensive….”

“Then we build desalination plants along the coast near these water sheds and pipe water to the tops or ridges of the water sheds…”

(Biologist Carl Cantrell, article, Global Warming II)

Combatting climate change is the PERFECT excuse for the Roman Catholic Church to come up with a comprehensive plan to feed, clothe and educate one billion of the world's poorest and most malnourished people.


"The peril of Mother Earth and our children will not be alleviated without
enlisting our spiritual heritage in the struggle. "Fight the worst with the
best," advises farmer/poet/prophet Wendell Berry. At a National Academy of
Sciences conferencein 1986 exploring the mass extinction of plants and animals
on our planet, Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University declared, "Scientific
analysis points curiously, toward the need for aquasi-religious transformation
of contemporary cultures."
(Coming of The Cosmic Christ by Dr. Matthew Fox).

I also feel that it was God delaying my ability to complete this homily until today. This theory is relevant to the after effects of the earthquake in Haiti. In my first submission for the Virgin Earth Challenge I drew the attention of Sir Richard and his colleagues to the localized micro-economic experiment being conducted in Ithaca New York.

Socially active citizens of Ithaca have gotten together and continued the printing of their own local currency unit. Many businesses in Ithaca accept these local currency notes for ten percent and even up to one hundred percent of the value of their products or services. I believe that official Haiti Gourdes would almost automatically tend to inspire an even higher level of psychological confidence and therefore acceptance in the minds of people than a local currency would, especially if a wide ranging attempt to use the Haiti Gourd as a prop in a series of reality or semi-reality films taking place all over the USA.

As a long term student of politics and modern world problems it is my recommendation that the people of Haiti form several film production cooperatives to operate in the United States. I recommend that because President Obama has granted the people of Haiti a special status for the next eighteen months that this is a perfect excuse to use monetary policy to attempt to repay them for this action.

Several years ago I read a statistic that on a per capita basis Americans are roughly one thousand percent more generous than we Canadians.

If the elected representatives of Haiti will make it a national policy to shoot reality films all over the USA where they attempt to the best of their ability to repay the kindness that has been shown by the American people and by President Obama. In my opinion it will not be possible to out give the American people but they would certainly love you for trying. Many of these films can focus simply on attempting to put American back into their old, or into even better housing than they may have lost during this recession.

When President Reagan desperately sought to bring down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall who on this earth did he turn to for help?

Pope John Paul II.

Together President Reagan, his helpers, Pope John Paul II and his helpers prayed, cooperated, worked and prayed some more ultimately resulting in the dismantling of one of the most oppressive political and economic systems that the earth has ever seen.

I believe that we are in many ways in even greater danger today from the most probable effects of climate change than was presented by the cold war.

Climate change = Global warming - Global dimming

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3310_sun.html


Between the 1950s and the early 1990s, the level of solar energy reaching the
Earth's surface had dropped: nine percent in Antarctica, 10 percent in areas of
the U.S.A., by almost 30 percent in one region of Russia, and by 16 percent in
parts of the British Isles. This seemed to be a global phenomenon, so Gerry gave
it a suitable name: "global dimming."



DAVID TRAVIS: The 9/11 study showed that if you remove a contributor to global dimming, jet contrails, just for a three-day period, we see an immediate response of the surface temperature. Do the same thing globally, we might see a large-scale increase in global warming.

...

JAMES HANSEN: It has been overlooked how sensitive ice sheets are to global temperature. We can see that in the last year, the mass of Greenland decreased by 200 cubic kilometers of ice. That's a lot of ice.



In another article Dr. James Hansen stated that we could be looking at a much greater rise in ocean levels than has previously been thought:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen


"The geological record suggests that ice at the poles does not melt in a gradual and linear fashion, but flips suddenly from one state to another. When temperatures increased to 2-3 degrees above today’s level 3.5 million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59 centimetres but by 25 metres. The ice responded immediately to changes in temperature."

(Dr. James Hansen)



So was Moshe actually inspired by God to write that human productive
capability is essentially limitless when we have a unified language and common
goal?

I believe that he was.

Until taking this Ministerial Studies 130 course I had never taken the time to read the Roman Catholic Missal. Now I would so love to become an official member of the most numerous and influential group of socially active people that this planet has ever seen. I believe that by becoming Catholic I will be able to accomplish far more with my life than if I remain a theological independent.

The times they are a changin'---and at an ever increasing pace. How
should we respond? If the changes promote human welfare, we should do our best to support them. If they diminish human welfare, we should do our best to thwart them. As Christians we have an agenda of our own for
change. Indeed, we are challenged to change the world!


(Sunday Missal, 2009, 2010 page 378)



I recently viewed an exceptionally controversial Intelligence Squared debate on the BBC. The title was "Has The Catholic Church been a Force For Good In the World?" The majority of viewers at the end of the debate concluded, no! I have some very good news for one billion Roman Catholics. I am confident that within fifty years a similar debate and poll will turn out quite differently!

Anti-Armageddon Paradigm Shift Monetary Policy Theory The Introduction.

http://www.virginearth.com/

"Dr James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most. This is why I am supporting the Virgin Earth Challenge as a judge – we must explore all means, both known and unknown, to help alleviate this crisis."

Dennis Tate
March 15, 2007

Sir Richard Branson
Virgin Earth Challenge
120 Campden Hill Road
London W8 7AR
United Kingdom

Dear Mr. Branson:

It is my firm belief that the number one technological device to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases has already been invented. It is the tree.

What is desperately needed at this time is not necessarily a new mechanical device but instead a paradigm shift in economic theory regarding monetary policy. We require a readily understandable explanation on how leaders in business and government can direct not only millions, but actually trillions of dollars of investment into combating global warming.

One of the most effective practical methods that could be put into place in the least amount of time would be dozens of the largest possible desalinization plants all along the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Huge quantities of fresh water could be dripped onto the Sinai and Sahara deserts and voila, well chosen species of newly planted fast growing trees could soon change the color of these relatively desolate areas, significantly reduce atmospheric CO2, positively affect local weather patterns and at the same time significantly counterbalance the increases in worldwide ocean levels as the polar ice caps melt. This will buy us some extra time and thus expand the “very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change.”

So who is going to finance the construction of all these massive installations not to mention the planting of all those seedling trees?

I believe that it is possible for you to do this yourself Mr. Branson. You have already created a Virgin currency unit/coupon which has astonishing long term potential. My wife Maria Jose just returned from a two week trip to the British VIRGIN Islands. It is theoretically possible to link your Virgin coupon with the national currency of a small nation and you could soon be playing around in macro-economics. Considering the volume of business being done through your Virgin Group I would submit that you already are.

Pope Benedict XVI may be in an even stronger position than you Mr. Branson to transform the world economy virtually overnight through the introduction of a new Vatican Currency Unit that could be linked with each and every national currency where the Vatican State is free to do business.

I plan to elaborate in great detail on these two major alternatives in a later writing but I felt that you and your staff should now see the simple explanation that I wrote up for applying this theory within a micro-economy to greatly reduce unemployment. Although combating global warming would seem to be a conflicting goal to job creation, there need be no dissonance when we all have a better grasp of the big picture.

I ran as an independent for the office of MLA in the most recent Nova Scotia provincial election.

Dennis Tate primary campaign writing for June 13/06 election
http://www.bankingsystemflaws.blogspot.com/


My name is Dennis Tate. I lived most of my forty seven years in West Lochiel Lake, Guysborough County. I am running for MLA as an independent in the area of Pictou Centre so that I can help as many people as possible become more aware of what I am sure is the real reason why our roads are in disrepair, why hospital beds are unused, why so many of the rural schools have been shut down, why our soldiers in Afghanistan are poorly equipped and why many if not most of our young people may have to leave Nova Scotia to find jobs.

When well trained workers have high quality technology to work with then the total of all wages and benefits paid out to employees is only a fraction of the retail value of the products they produce. As a result of this fact the only way to move products out of warehouses is to extend higher and higher levels of credit. One problem with an abundance of red ink is that compound interest on all this government, business and personal debt over a period of decades will grow to astronomical levels. At this time there is approximately TEN TIMES as much debt in Canada as there is money. A simple explanation for how this happened can be seen here:
http://www.michaeljournal.org/plenty34.htm

In my opinion this rather simple mathematical problem is perhaps the number one cause of inflation in the Canadian economy over the past three decades. This is also perhaps the number one reason why our costs of production are so high and Canadian products cannot compete on the world markets as well as they could under better conditions.

From 1940 to 1970 the Government of Canada put roughly half of the total money supply into the economy through loans issued through the federally owned Bank of Canada. Provincial and municipal governments could borrow the money to build roads, schools, hospitals and sewage treatment facilities at zero or one percent interest. In 1970 we changed our system and since that time a higher and higher percentage of all government debt is financed through loans issued through privately owned banks. At this time it is ninety eight percent. This policy may be great for our banking sector but it was estimated that in the one year of 1995 alone our federal government could have saved roughly SIXTY FIVE BILLION DOLLARS in interest payments if we had gone back to creating half the total money supply through these low interest rate loans issued through the bank that is OWNED BY ALL CANADIANS.

Considering that our deficit was approximately thirty billion dollars for that year, simply by changing back to an already proven monetary and banking system, we could theoretically have had a FEDERAL BUDGET SURPLUS OF THIRTY FIVE BILLION DOLLARS in 1995.

The massive cutbacks in the Canadian military, in health care, highway construction, social programs and education were profoundly affected by these accounting practices?

So what can you and I do about this problem?
1. If we will do our homework and study this question we can put pressure on our provincial level politicians to create a provincially owned bank. A true Bank of Nova Scotia owned by all Nova Scotians could be used to finance town and municipal government projects at zero or one percent interest just as The Bank of Canada used to do.

2. Town and municipal government officials in New Glasgow, Stellarton and Trenton should seriously consider creating a local currency unit such as has been done in Ithaca, New York.
http://www.ithacahours.org/directory.php
This is a great way to promote local businesses and help sustain rural economies.

3. It is also possible for groups of concerned individuals to get together and organize a local barter exchange as a cooperative. Mr. Rob Assels has been instrumental in just such an initiative in the Tatamagouche and River John area so surely we can get similar organizations up and running here in New Glasgow, Pictou, Stellarton, Trenton and Westville. Here is a link into the Halifax LETS system:
http://halifaxlets.com/

Let’s discuss the various options available on the Pictou County Portal Message board. If you have trouble using this technology maybe you could hire a young person to help you get started?
...pcconnects.ca/portal/c/portal/layout

I just completed the first year of the Information Technology Program at Stellarton Campus of NSCC. I am running in Pictou Centre because I know that the towns of New Glasgow, Stellarton and Trenton have the people, the industrial base and the technological capability to become powerhouses of job creation not only for this area but also for all the surrounding regions.

“The wealth that is in the city comes from the countryside.”
Creating new jobs in New Glasgow, Stellarton, and Trenton will ultimately depend on job creation in the surrounding rural areas.

Thank you immensely for taking the time to consider these points. By deciding to vote for me on June 13 you will be sending a clear message to the various political parties that you want them to take a serious look at these flaws in our monetary system and at these possible remedies. From now on if a politician tells you that they have to close down a school because of budgetary restraints, you may know far more about what is really happening than they do.


Warmest regards,




Dennis Tate


p.s. I shall be back to you shortly Sir with an explanation of how your Virgin Group could implement this theory in a form that for all intents and purposes could be patented/copyrighted.

“And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” (Genesis 11:6 KJV).

“A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all [things].” (Ecclesiastes 10: 19).

p.s. Here is a link to Part 2 co-authored by New Mexico biology teacher and coach, Carl Cantrell:


Saturday, January 9, 2010

Global Warming - Global Dimming = Climate Change!

My home is located on a lake classified as tidal water so the threat of rising ocean levels concerns me greatly!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday_2.html
The complete melting of Greenland would raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet). But even a partial melting would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Indian Ocean's Maldives, which would be entirely submerged.
Densely populated areas like the Nile Delta and parts of Bangladesh would become uninhabitable, potentially driving hundreds of millions of people from their land.
A one-meter sea level rise would wreak particular havoc on the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard of the United States.
"No one will be free from this," said Overpeck, whose maps show that every U.S. East Coast city from Boston to Miami would be swamped.
A one-meter sea rise in New Orleans, Overpeck said, would mean "no more Mardi Gras."
A New Mexico biologist named Carl Cantrell has what I consider to be a wonderful theory on how climate change could be effectively combatted. He advises that we should invest heavily in turning the Sahara Desert green.
I love this idea!
Dr. James Hansen has cautioned us that as we tackle climate change we have to be careful that we could cause global warming to spiral out of control if we negate the global dimming effect. Global dimming has up to this point masked global warming.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3310_sun.html

Between the 1950s and the early 1990s, the level of solar energy reaching the
Earth's surface had dropped: nine percent in Antarctica, 10 percent in areas of
the U.S.A., by almost 30 percent in one region of Russia, and by 16 percent in
parts of the British Isles. This seemed to be a global phenomenon, so Gerry gave
it a suitable name: "global dimming."

DAVID TRAVIS: The 9/11 study showed that if you remove a contributor to global
dimming, jet contrails, just for a three-day period, we see an immediate
response of the surface temperature. Do the same thing globally, we might see a
large-scale increase in global warming.
NARRATOR: This is the crux of the
problem. While the greenhouse effect has been warming the planet, it now seems
global dimming has been cooling it down
.This new understanding is something that
climate modelers like Peter Cox have to contend with.
PETER COX: We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling
pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. CO2 will be
going up and particles will be dropping off, and that means that we'll get an
accelerated warming. We'll get a double whammy. We'll get reducing cooling and
increased heating at the same time, and that's, that's a problem for us.

JAMES HANSEN: If the particle forcing is what we estimate, about minus-1.5
watts, that would imply that removing that forcing would cause a global warming
of more than one degree Celsius. That's more than the warming that we've seen
already, so this is a huge factor.
NARRATOR: If we continue as we are, combining reduced air pollution with an
increase in greenhouse gases, temperatures could rise by a further two or even
three degrees Celsius. That's as much as five degrees Fahrenheit by mid-century,
much sooner than current models predict.
JAMES HANSEN: But, in my opinion, three degrees Celsius is not the level of
dangerous interference; that's the level which guarantees disaster.
NARRATOR:
James Hansen is particularly worried about what this rise in temperature would
do to the Greenland ice sheet. Even at today's temperature, there are signs that
substantial melting is already underway.
JAMES HANSEN: It has been overlooked how sensitive ice sheets are to global
temperature. We can see that in the last year, the mass of Greenland decreased
by 200 cubic kilometers of ice. That's a lot of ice
. I cannot imagine that the
ice sheets could survive more than a few centuries with a three-degree Celsius
warming. So that would mean a sea level rise of several meters per century, and
it would just continue. And once that starts, it's out of our control.
It seems to me that turning the world's one billion hungry people into a market for food produced in our deserts through both aquaculture and agriculture could be the way to reduce the amount of heat going into the atmosphere at the same time that we add fresh water to the water table of North Africa and the Middle East. Every cubic meter added to North Africa will NOT be on top of Florida, New Orleans, Holland or the Maldive Islands!
Mr. Cantrell and I submitted a proposal to the Virgin Earth Challenge elaborating on this theory. We didn't win, but we both feel better that we did our best to draw more attention to this seemingly logical method of combatting climate change:
February 22, 2008

Sir Richard Branson
Virgin Earth Challenge


Dear Mr. Branson:
Dear Mr. Gore:
Dear Mr. Tickell:
Dear Mr. Lovelock:
Dear Mr. Hansen:
Dear Mr. Flannery:

I am extremely glad that you are all doing your best to attempt to find a method to save the earth from the many perils associated with global warming. I believe you will be tremendously encouraged by the theory presented by biologist Carl Cantrell who makes a convincing case that global cooling can be initiated simply by pumping vast quantities of fresh water into the world’s largest deserts.

http://hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/globwarm.html
Global Warming II by Carl Cantrell

“So how is our problem of continental drying causing global warming? It all has to do with vegetation and sunlight. When sun light hits a plant, it causes a process which we call photosynthesis where the energy from the sun light creates oxygen for us to breath, water for us to drink, and is stored as sugar for plants and animals to use. When the same sun light hits the soil, all of its energy turns into heat and is radiated back into the atmosphere, carried away by running surface water such as rain fall, is carried away to other areas by our winds, and diffuses down into the soil towards the earth's crust. All of this warms our planet increasing its average temperature.”

Therefore, the less vegetation you have on the planet, the more sunlight is being turned into heat and the warmer the planet becomes. This is very critical because warmer and dryer winds dry out other land areas faster decreasing the vegetation on those land areas. Less humidity in the air also reflects less sun light back out into space so that more sun light strikes the earth and more heat is generated….”

The truth is that you can do more to decrease global warming by just reducing the average temperature for the Sahara Desert by one or two degrees than if we humans completely quit using fossil fuels and returned to the cave….”

“So, how would you start working to resolve this problem? Easy, cool the deserts and get some vegetation growing on them as soon as possible. But the method is much more complex than that. You have to use the prevailing trade winds in relation to the deserts to get the best results as quickly as possible and it will be extremely expensive….”

Then we build desalination plants along the coast near these water sheds and pipe water to the tops or ridges of the water sheds…”

“This will do a number of things. First, it will increase the moisture in the desert soil so that it will develop water tables and water will begin to run in the streams. This water will increase the amount of vegetation in the area and decrease the amount of heat being generated by sun light cooling the watered area and all areas down wind of the watered area. As more available water evaporates, it will cool the air and reflect more sun light back out into space cooling the area even more. Cooler and more humid air will have less of a heating effect on areas down wind and will reflect more sun light back into space in those areas cooling areas we won't be watering yet. Cooler and more humid air will also have less of a warming effect on our seas and oceans.”

“Rain water running off of cooler soil will decrease the heating effect on our oceans and our planet crusts which will decrease catastrophic storm activities for other areas and seismic activity for the entire planet. Also, returning more ocean water to the surface and aquifers of our continents will lower the sea levels providing more usable land for us to farm and build on.”

“With cooler desert areas and increasing vegetation, less water will evaporate from our deserts increasing the amount of surface water even more and increasing the amount of vegetation and animal life by huge amounts because deserts currently take up more than 20% of our land surface. Populations will be able to spread out and there will be less competition for existing land areas.”

“This strategy has to be done in steps with the first step being to begin slowing the rate at which our global warming is increasing. We need to focus on that until we have brought it to a point to where the temperature is not increasing any more and is reasonably stable. While we are doing this, we need to come to a global consensus of just how cool we want to cool our planet down to. If we cool it down too much, we will begin to have devastatingly harsh winters in large populated areas and even cause an ice age to set in.”

“Then we begin cooling the planet down to a point which will be most beneficial for all countries or the planet as a whole. We need to gradually bring the temperature down because there may be a lag effect in which the planet will continue cooling after we stop increasing our efforts to cool it off more. We may even want to stop cooling the planet once or twice before we reach our targeted temperatures to see if there is a lag effect…”

“We need to start working on this as soon as possible because, if the planet reaches a point to where it is warming faster than our technology can possibly stop or reverse this warming trend, then our planet is lost and all life will cease to exist on this planet within a relatively short period of time. We will need to start with the largest and hottest deserts because cooling them will have the greatest benefit in the least time (Global Warming II by biologist Carl Cantrell).”

Mr. Cantrell has agreed to become an official co-applicant along with me in my submissions for your Virgin Earth award. My primary contribution will be to figure out a method to PAY for this project which as Mr. Cantrell has stated, “will be extremely expensive.”

In “Anti-Armageddon Paradigm Shift Monetary Policy Theory – The Introduction” I stated that you Sir Richard, or perhaps the Roman Catholic Pontiff were two of the most logical choices to FINANCE this possible remedy for global warming. I shall attempt in a later writing to elaborate on a method whereby perhaps I may be able to finance this project myself through an organized barter and film production company that works in cooperation with several other film production cooperatives and/or companies. Here is a brief outline of how this could be done.

I work night shifts stocking the shelves at the ........ grocery store in Antigonish.


I plan to invite ...... to also become official co-applicants along with myself and Mr. Cantrell in our submissions. Their role that I will be proposing to them will be to sell me higher and higher amounts of damaged goods from their stores beginning of course with Antigonish. I plan to print up a barter currency unit similar to how a group of concerned citizens have printed the Calgary dollar:
http://calgarydollars.ca/

Next I plan to encourage various local church and other non-profit organizations to become involved in a reality and/or semi reality film series where organized barter is used as a tool to raise funds for worthy projects that they desire to accomplish.

"The peril of Mother Earth and our children will not be alleviated without enlisting our spiritual heritage in the struggle. "Fight the worst with the best," advises farmer/poet/prophet WendellBerry. At a National Academy of Sciences conference
in 1986 exploring the mass extinction of plants and animals on our planet, Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University declared, "Scientific analysis points curiously, toward the need for a
quasi-religious transformation of contemporary cultures."
(Coming of The Cosmic Christ by Dr. Matthew Fox).

I completely agree with these comments quoted by Dr. Fox. It will be necessary to generate interest among and enlist the assistance of many of the deeply religious salt of the earth type of people in each nation if we are to succeed in preventing the destruction of Mother Earth.

I plan to get back to you soon with results from various groups as I submit this proposal to them. I also plan to make you an offer to purchase a significant share of a barter and film production company that I have had on my mind for several years now.

Thank you for considering our submission.

Kind regards.

Dennis Tate

p.s. It is now 2012 and I summarized the more important conclusion so far in:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/west-antarctic-ice-sheet/proposal-for-the-creation-of-a-quebec-provincial-currency-unit-to-save-coastal-c/373261199364486

Proposal for the creation of a Quebec provincial currency unit to save coastal communities from threat of rising ocean levels.