Misheru

#4:  Global. Warming. Debate.

The global warming debate has got to be one of the most inane, worthless debates around right now. First off, let me just say — yes, I believe the earth’s atmosphere is in a warming trend, and I believe that the human population is responsible, and I’ve read James M. Inhofe’s articles and yes, I believe he is full of that stuff I keep finding smeared on my youngest child’s bum. However, and this is a big however, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you were to actually “prove” that global warming wasn’t true…get ready for it…I still wouldn’t give what the cat left in the litter box about it, because global warming is a giant red herring.

Yes! I said it! It’s a big, fat, debate about something that is very hard to prove, because science has a hard time proving negatives, scientists tend to disagree about data and methods, and a lot of money is floating around on both sides, yaddy yaddy yaddah. So, in my opinion, it is really a debate about nothing. But, you gasp, the Kyoto Protocol! The global warming treaty! Gasp! Gasp! US sovereignty gasp!

Get over it. Most big debates hide what the problem really is, and let’s face it — the problem is about pollution, about sustainability and lifestyle and the animals and plants and insects we share the planet with, and guess what? They’re dying. Maybe it’s from global warming, or over-fishing, or throwing trash into the gutters that go to the streams that make it into the oceans and kill the wildlife there, but the fact is we are stewards of this planet — stewards! Not children, using up our toys and throwing the broken pieces away.

I happen to know that some really, really beautiful things — including people — get destroyed by our urge to build and make lots of money to buy the car that shipped on the boat that came from the factory where nasty chemicals leached into the stream that poisoned the fish that poisoned the lady whose baby came out with no limbs. That is the debate we aren’t having because you know what? Nobody likes to face those realities, not the politicians whose campaigns are financed by industry, not the people who rely on the jobs in those factories to feed their families, not the general public who buy the goods made by those factories. This is the real debate, and I’m waiting to hear people stop arguing about which scientist is smarter and start finding some solutions. I’m at the front of the bandwagon for that party.

What I do see is endless debate about ridiculous ideas such as the loss of US sovereignty if we sign global warming treaties.  Is anyone aware that we are involved in a lot of treaties?  That there is a special office in the State Department that deals with treaty affairs? Did George W. Bush sign over our sovereignty when he signed the treaty to limit Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001? (More information on treaties here).

The thing about global warming is that it may possibly be (easily and cheaply) reversible using geoengineering, but reversing global warming is simply treating the symptoms and not the cause.  Reversing the trend could have unintended consequences, but it still wouldn’t address the many other ecological problems we’re having right now, such as mass extinctions, habitat loss for animals, and of course, pollution.  I see a lot of environmental groups using global warming as a catch-all, but the problem with this over-simplification is that then you get a war between two groups trying to over-simplify complicated questions that not only affect the United States, but every living thing on this planet.  I really hope my children get to see the wonders I have seen, and I hope future generations understand that  the idea of stewardship is more than rhetoric about an issue, but a fundamental responsibility we all have in taking care of our world.

This Christmas, I am doing something I haven’t done before, even though I’ve tried: I’m making a lot of my gifts (hence the sewing machine research).  I am NOT a crafty person; in fact, I HATE crafts, as anyone who worked with me in the Children’s Department at the library knows well.  However, the engineer in me does like designing things, and I do sketch, write calligraphy (Asian and Roman) and whip up spa items from time to time.  I also sew a bit, having started with the mega-project of sewing my own wedding dress (I’ll scan and post a pic later today).  Anyway, I’m busy making gifts but I saw this post from GetRichSlowly, one of my favorite blogs, and I thought it was a great idea to pass on.

The Anti-Stuff Holiday Gift Guide

Meaningful, personal gifts
Anti-Stuff gifts aren’t necessarily gift cards, which often feel a bit impersonal. Think about what would be meaningful to the recipient. If your sister is a busy mom, give her a couple of hours of babysitting and an appointment with a masseuse. Consider the following to generate anti-Stuff gift ideas unique to each loved one:

• Hobbies
• Lifestyle (parent, student, on-the-go, homebody…)
• Anything he or she has “always wanted to do”

Word of warning: make sure the gift is something the recipient would enjoy or something in which he or she has expressed interest, not something you like or think he or she should like! That holds true with any sort of gift-giving.

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Read the rest at GetRichSlowly

Please note:  To leave your own rant, see the comment section.
#3  The conservative movement represents “family values.”

A few years back, my in-laws got me a subscription to World. World is an uber-conservative magazine that claims to focus on global issues, but is really just a rag for propaganda. Yes, I said it — propaganda. This is not because I “disagree” with World, although on many issues, I do. Propaganda is its own form of journalism, and there are several conduits for such journalism on both sides of the political line (on the liberal side, see Mother Jones). Anyway, I was reading along in World when I reached an article about campaign finance reform, where the magazine claimed that finance reform for political contributions was “unGodly” and that readers should call their representative before this terrible blight on Christian values was allowed to pass.

Um, excuse me?

Finance reform is unGodly?

This was the point where I tossed the magazine aside, and sent all the rest of the issues (yes, they came for 18 long months) into the recycling where they belonged. It is exactly this kind of rhetoric that makes me foam at the mouth. Anti-corruption legislation (oooo, that’s the other term for “finance reform”), if God were to decide on it, would probably not be unGodly. That’s just a guess. Not that I know what God is thinking. And for that matter, neither does World magazine. So claiming “rightness” and “Godliness” for issues like this…well, like I said, it just makes me foam at the mouth.

In reality, I started looking more closely at my conservative stance when I was 19 and on an internship that led me to Iowa.  My mentor, Sande, and his wife, Margo, are two of the kindest, most ‘Christian’ people I’ve ever met, yet they thought differently about life and politics (Margo was head of the Iowa Democratic party for some years) and I spent a lot of time listening to what they said and why they believed it.  I realized that liberal values were actually more in line with what I believed than conservative values, but that I had consistently fallen for the face value of the conservative ‘line’.  And that, folks, is how I became a bleeding heart liberal – because not everyone gets the same start, life isn’t fair, and sometimes those who have much need to give to those who have less.

More than this, though, I came to understand how really crucial it is for churches and religion to stay out of politics.  We talk a lot about theocracy in the Middle East, and how detrimental it can be; what people don’t consider is how dangerous theocracy can be in our own country. (More on this later…also, ignore the “read more” links at the bottom here, I’m changing my theme and I’ve got some kinks to work out) (oops, now it works!)