The day after you use your brain instead of your mouth
The Day After Tomorrow hits theater’s today. I was just thinking yesterday, that I should see that tomorrow. Now that tomorrow is today I think I may try and see it today, if it’s sold out I’m going to have to see it tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow, if it’s easier. Tomorrow I’ll have to explain to the person selling me the ticket that I tried to see The Day After Tomorrow yesterday, but it was sold out so I decided to see it tomorrow, which is actually today, but yesterday it was tomorrow. I Just hope she doesn’t tell me to try back the day after tomorrow. The review of The Day After Tomorrow on yesterday’s Today Show was…okay, I’ll stop…
The only thing more confusing that that last paragraph is the new media’s latest news creation (It’s make your own news, and I heeaalped). The controversy surrounding The Day After Tomorrow, must have been invented by someone on an idle news day. Regardless of how it happened the film has now been labeled controversial.
What the hell is the greenhouse effect anyway?
Well, my student of Samizdat, I’m glad you asked, and could you please raise your hand next time. It’s pretty simple. Basically you’ve got your sun, or, our sun, if you will. It’s shooting out some fierce energy in the form of light. Very hot light that we can see, because it is in that pesky visible spectrum.
When that light hits our atmosphere much of it is reflected away from the earth. Some of that light passes through the atmosphere and lands on your white thighs. The light that your sweet pork bottom doesn’t absorb is absorbed by the earth. The earth in turn radiates it off in the same way the sun radiates its energy towards us. As you may have learned from They Might be Giants, the earth is much cooler than the sun. The light that the earth radiates back is (mostly) in the infrared part of the spectrum. (The one that those fancy cameras that you see on the Army of One commercials use.)
Those crazy gasses in our atmosphere that let some of the suns rays pass though are like the bouncer at those dances that you often attended on Halloween in the eight-grade. Once you enter you can’t leave. (Unless you’re mommy comes and gets you) Those gasses trap the light in our atmosphere and heat the earth. It’s a very natural process, like becoming a woman.
If it wasn’t for this great little thing happening in the sky the temperature of the earth would be below the freezing temperature and there would be no you, no me and painfully no Cher. The Greenhouse Effect, that you are so terrified of is actually keeping you alive right this second.
The concern of some scientists is that we are adding those gasses (the ones that, like the bouncer, let sun in, but won’t let sun out) into to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Those gasses, most specifically Carbon Dioxide have risen in the last fifty years from 315 parts per million to 370 parts per million today. The real problem is that carbon dioxide takes hundreds of years to leave the atmosphere. The more we put in the air the more we have to deal with. This results in a warming of the earth and an earlier tee-off at the Links in spring.
Global Climate change is a reality, it has been happening for millions of years. Global climate shifts have happened numerous times without the presence any man-made pollutants. A few fine examples are The Ice Age, el Niño and The Dust Bowl phenomenon of the 1930’s.
The fact is that over the last 100 years we have seen a number of shifts in the Earth’s climate. From 1900 to 1940, a period of little atmospheric “pollution” the earth’s temperature rose. Then from 1940 to 1975 the temperature cooled and created a nationwide debate about the return of the ice age. Then in 1975 temperatures began to rise again. This rise lasted about five years and since then the temperature has again been declining, ever so slightly.
Now don’t throw anything at me here folks. I’m talking about atmospheric temperature, temperatures taken from satellites and weather balloons high in the sky. Surface temperatures are a very inaccurate way of measuring temperature shifts. It only makes sense that the temperatures have risen is urban areas over the last 100 years. The more people you have in one area he warmer it gets, The more buildings with reflective windows that radiate heat energy the warmer it is. It makes perfect sense to me, yet this is the data that fuels the debate over global warming.
Lets take another scenario where the earth’s temperature is rising due to the extra carbon dioxide in the air. Science tells us that when it is warmer more evaporation will take place. Evaporation means that there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere, another one of those greenhouse gasses that trap the heat into the atmosphere, or will that additional water vapor just create more clouds, clouds that reflect the sun’s energy away from the earth.
What about the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising of the sea level? I’m glad you asked, and thanks for raising your hand. If the earth’s temperature raises, the glaciers will melt, there’s no doubt about that, That extra water will also evaporate at a much higher level than it had been when the Earth was cooler. That water will rain down across the land including the polar caps where it will re-freeze and re-accumulate.
I’m sorry, but the facts are not strong enough for me to be wasting my precious breath on this issue. Please, don’t be one of those liberals who read in a magazine what they should think. Do a little research and come to your own conclusion. You may be surprised what you learn.
I’m Tony, for the Samizdat Radio Show
The only thing more confusing that that last paragraph is the new media’s latest news creation (It’s make your own news, and I heeaalped). The controversy surrounding The Day After Tomorrow, must have been invented by someone on an idle news day. Regardless of how it happened the film has now been labeled controversial.
What the hell is the greenhouse effect anyway?
Well, my student of Samizdat, I’m glad you asked, and could you please raise your hand next time. It’s pretty simple. Basically you’ve got your sun, or, our sun, if you will. It’s shooting out some fierce energy in the form of light. Very hot light that we can see, because it is in that pesky visible spectrum.
When that light hits our atmosphere much of it is reflected away from the earth. Some of that light passes through the atmosphere and lands on your white thighs. The light that your sweet pork bottom doesn’t absorb is absorbed by the earth. The earth in turn radiates it off in the same way the sun radiates its energy towards us. As you may have learned from They Might be Giants, the earth is much cooler than the sun. The light that the earth radiates back is (mostly) in the infrared part of the spectrum. (The one that those fancy cameras that you see on the Army of One commercials use.)
Those crazy gasses in our atmosphere that let some of the suns rays pass though are like the bouncer at those dances that you often attended on Halloween in the eight-grade. Once you enter you can’t leave. (Unless you’re mommy comes and gets you) Those gasses trap the light in our atmosphere and heat the earth. It’s a very natural process, like becoming a woman.
If it wasn’t for this great little thing happening in the sky the temperature of the earth would be below the freezing temperature and there would be no you, no me and painfully no Cher. The Greenhouse Effect, that you are so terrified of is actually keeping you alive right this second.
The concern of some scientists is that we are adding those gasses (the ones that, like the bouncer, let sun in, but won’t let sun out) into to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Those gasses, most specifically Carbon Dioxide have risen in the last fifty years from 315 parts per million to 370 parts per million today. The real problem is that carbon dioxide takes hundreds of years to leave the atmosphere. The more we put in the air the more we have to deal with. This results in a warming of the earth and an earlier tee-off at the Links in spring.
Global Climate change is a reality, it has been happening for millions of years. Global climate shifts have happened numerous times without the presence any man-made pollutants. A few fine examples are The Ice Age, el Niño and The Dust Bowl phenomenon of the 1930’s.
The fact is that over the last 100 years we have seen a number of shifts in the Earth’s climate. From 1900 to 1940, a period of little atmospheric “pollution” the earth’s temperature rose. Then from 1940 to 1975 the temperature cooled and created a nationwide debate about the return of the ice age. Then in 1975 temperatures began to rise again. This rise lasted about five years and since then the temperature has again been declining, ever so slightly.
Now don’t throw anything at me here folks. I’m talking about atmospheric temperature, temperatures taken from satellites and weather balloons high in the sky. Surface temperatures are a very inaccurate way of measuring temperature shifts. It only makes sense that the temperatures have risen is urban areas over the last 100 years. The more people you have in one area he warmer it gets, The more buildings with reflective windows that radiate heat energy the warmer it is. It makes perfect sense to me, yet this is the data that fuels the debate over global warming.
Lets take another scenario where the earth’s temperature is rising due to the extra carbon dioxide in the air. Science tells us that when it is warmer more evaporation will take place. Evaporation means that there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere, another one of those greenhouse gasses that trap the heat into the atmosphere, or will that additional water vapor just create more clouds, clouds that reflect the sun’s energy away from the earth.
What about the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising of the sea level? I’m glad you asked, and thanks for raising your hand. If the earth’s temperature raises, the glaciers will melt, there’s no doubt about that, That extra water will also evaporate at a much higher level than it had been when the Earth was cooler. That water will rain down across the land including the polar caps where it will re-freeze and re-accumulate.
I’m sorry, but the facts are not strong enough for me to be wasting my precious breath on this issue. Please, don’t be one of those liberals who read in a magazine what they should think. Do a little research and come to your own conclusion. You may be surprised what you learn.
I’m Tony, for the Samizdat Radio Show
