What Is The Human Spirit

     Simply put, it is the way that human beings feel about and interact with other humans. In reality, it is a huge, complex subject you can't put into one sentence. How do you describe joy? Hate? Sorrow? You can't do anything but say vague statements like "It feels good." Although you can't explain it, you can show it. That is a major part of the Human Spirit.
    There are three main parts to the Human Spirit. Emotion, Conscience, and Interaction. Emotion, like mentioned above, is not explainable, but it is show-able. It is our instinctive reaction to change, whether it be good, bad, or somewhere in the middle. It is the way to relieve stress, to communicate, and to clear our minds and spark conscious thought.
    Conscience is the way we actively and manually think, and also the way we tell right from wrong. We make decisions with our conscience, using both facts and the bias from emotions and the interactions we have had. It allows us to create, plan, and discover new ways to do things and facts to help us make decisions.
     Interaction combines both of the others into a way to communicate ideas and feelings. Whether it be physically (fighting, donating, imprisoning, etc...) or mentally/emotionally. It allows humans to work together happily and harmoniously, as well as working against each other and spreading discord and suffering. In these few posts, I will go through various events in human history, and will identify the Human Spirit in all of them.
     I would like to thank Mr. Gant for this whole part of my blog. He gave me the term Human Spirit, and the understanding I have of it. Thank you Mr. Gant!!!

Environment:The Final Post

    I know that Environment was only a few posts long, but like in politics, there are too many problems to count. So, I addressed the overall theme, gave you some warnings, and a few examples to give you a glimpse of the world around you. I will leave you all to research and record findings relevant to this topic, and spread the word of the actions that need to be taken to save the precious resources that support us so well today.
 
    What a fragile world we live in. Millions of years of creating coal, oil, and all of the creatures we know, love, eat, and kill today, and finally, with one species of super-brainy human beings, we wipe out most of the resources in only about a thousand. What an immense step in Earth's history, the creation of humans, but also the most weathering and changing. Soon, our world will break, unable to support all of the human lives that we have a high chance of generating.

   And how deceiving and petty many humans are, willing to take advantage of the concern and the compassion of others, not caring who or what they hurt, just for their own personal gain. Whether it be for money, fame, power, or other shallow desires, they do not care for the future of humanity as a whole, but just for them.

   In the next section of this blog, I will address the cruel and wonderful aspects of the lives of humans. I hope to to help others to understand who we are and what we do. Many things I will bring up. The incarceration of the Japanese and the Slavery of the African Americans. The various emotions and motives we have for doing things, and their effects on other. I am proud to present my next section: "The Human Spirit."

Ice Age or Global Warming?

   Which one would you want? Many of those that hate the hot will say Ice Age, while the majority would be Global Warming. But why does it even matter? Since the closest you will ever be to an Ice Age or an extreme Global Warming is your science textbook, why would anyone think like this?
   
    Well, the answer would be that we need to be prepared. Even if we never face it or if our children never face it or if our childrens' children never face it, preparations for either would have to be made very early, which requires planning, thinking, and reasoning with this thought pattern.
    
   In our preparations, we need to consider what is the most dangerous occurrence. Many would say Global Warming because of all of the years of hearing how terrible it is etc. from people like Al Gore. That is not true. Think about it. Can a harvest of tomatoes and peas survive an extra extra hot day? Obviously, they may be a little damaged, but nothing more than that. Now consider the opposite. Can a crop survive a frost? What if it came in the middle of the growing season? That would kill all of your crops, and leave you hungry.
   
   Prolonged cold causes more damage to plants and animals, and may even kill much of them. With our huge projected population in 2050, and in hundreds of years, if we lost our crops, we would have a terrible starvation. Just because glaciers melt an a few Arctic species suffer doesn't mean that Global Warming is the worst thing that can happen to the planet.
   
    So how would we be prepared for any one of these occurrences? By creating weather-resistant strains of plants. By making things available to the poor that will allow them to work and prosper in colder or warmer temperatures. By making things like Eco-friendly pesticides available to areas that have insect surges due to rising temperatures. It is all common sense. 

   We need to realize and start to plan a preparation for such occurrences so that we do not get caught with our hands tied behind our backs. And who knows? Maybe there is a way for humanity to cause Global Warming or other climate change. We need to be ready and willing.

Empty Oceans

   I was late in making this entry, so I have written a thousand words to make up for being a day late, and I will not count a single word of this for this week.

   Have you ever seen the Little Mermaid? Or perhaps an Animal Planet program on sea life? You see before you thousands upon thousands of fish and other creatures of the deep. It is no wonder that little see a problem in the amount of fishing we do. Such films working over our entire lives will definitely make us a little biased against the scientists who try to spread the word about the destruction we do.

   Such movies and influences have made us think that the ocean is a huge, bountiful place. They think that since the ocean is so vast, it will never run out of life and food. Not so. Most scientists will tell you that the ocean is like a desert. There are so little places to hide, so little food, and so little nourishment, that although there is a lot of life, it is concentrated in a few areas.

    We call these areas reefs. They are comparable to an oasis in a desert, for they hold a huge abundance of life. The structure of a reef is made up of bony coral. These corals provide several key things for the survival of many species of sea life. They provide shelter, food, and a place to do things such as farm algae and perform symbiosis (two species interacting with each other).

   So with all of those traits, we get several algae and coral and other life forms near the  bottom of the food chain. That, of course, brings in predators, producing a thriving ecosystem which can be as large as a few square feet, to the huge Great Barrier Reef, which can be seen from space.

   Reefs were few and far apart already before man ever came to be, and they were fairly safe from harm even when we just started throwing in a pole. It has only been in the last few decades, when technology has began to catch up with them, and start to deplete them. Not only this, but destructive devices and practices (such as bottom trawling) destroy reefs and waste unwanted animals that will not be used and will just become debris in the bottom when they dump them overboard.

    There is a certain point when nature cannot replenish itself from what we take. We have more than passed that point with our motor boats and detection technology. The ocean is starting to look more barren than it even used to look. If we don't do something, we may end up with an extreme crisis.

    Government officials have made regulations, restrictions, and rules, but although they exist, there is no one to enforce them. The coast guard is not responsible, and there is no man-power to make sure that all fishermen and women use the ocean in a good, renewable way. So, if they took out the regulations now, it really wouldn't make much difference. Our government still does not care about the environment and making sure it stays replenish-able and healthy.

   If you want much more detailed account of our problems with the over-fishing, I would recommend either renting or finding on Youtube a movie called Empty Oceans, Empty Nets. It really explains well what some people are doing right, and what a lot more are doing wrong. It shows technologies that we could use to replenish Ocean and Sea life, and prevent them from ever happening again.

   If we were to lose the ocean life, it would be disastrous for the entire human race. No more sea food. To you and me, we might not care, because in the land-locked U.S.A, we don't need fish very much, for we have other main sources of food. Some countries around the world, however, depend almost one hundred percent on seafood to feed the people. Millions would die, and millions more would go hungry. All because we are wasteful and destructive.

   This is a much more serious problem than Global Warming or even Oil shortages, for very few people know how much is gone and how much is truly at stake. We are risking what will be the biggest food crisis in the history of humanity. Imagine the Irish potato famine across the whole world. A large percent of the population will die, and here we are indulging and not listening to the facts.

   We as a people must act. We must spread the word, and help to make sure that we can save the creatures of the ocean for the good of our fellow men. We must act, or have the deaths of millions occur because of the short-sightedness of others.

   My biggest fear is that we will be the most villanized generation in all of the history of mankind if we don't act on this and other things. We could also be known as the greatest, if we solved these problems and fixed our government and environment. Unfortunately, we are all human, so the chance of that are small. Please help to make that dream a reality.

Are We Running Out?

     Many a time you have heard a scientist or even common peer use the term "non-renewable" resource. What does that mean, exactly? It means that whatever you take out of the environment will not return for millions of years. So, if we mill it all out at once, we won't be able to use it for one hundred thousand generations later. That is a very, very serious thing.
    Some examples are: Oil, Natural Gas, and Uranium. If these and other natural gasses were not very important to the majority of the world today, depleting them would not be a problem. In fact, it would be smart. We would be throwing away resources if we didn't use them. Unfortunately for us, our entire world revolves around these things. Oil in particular controls the global economy, and makes it possible for many many people to live.
     Now, depending on the scientist you ask, you will receive a slightly varied timetable. Some say we are almost out now. Some say a few thousand years. Something all of them agree on, however, is that it is soon. Too soon for comfort.
     If we ran short, contention and even war might follow. Then, when it all disappeared entirely, the world economy will collapse, and the conditions of living all over the world would drop like a bowling pin in a strike. Millions upon millions would grow hungry, and a large percent would die. I know this sounds like a horror story too crazy to be true, but this is no lie.
    What can we do about it? Well, the best solution would be to ease out of the focus of the economy on non-renewable resources. We can't just change it instantly, because that would cause collapse of the entire economy. We would have to move one step at a time to focusing on renewable and clean sources of revenue, and using them responsibly. I hope that someday people would realize that we need to do these things, but I suppose that topic will have to be discussed in my next post.

Those Who Would Fool You

     It is truly sad how many people in the world don't seem to care about what they do to their environments, but perhaps you could say that it is far sadder when people take these problems, and pretend to care about the world just to make a boatload of money, gain fame, and in a few cases, get revenge. They manipulate the people who want to make a difference and do what they think is right just to achieve their own ends. In this post, I will describe a few kinds of people that do that.

    First, Politicians. These guys are unique because of the position they hold. They have a lot of public influence and a lot of connections. They are persuasive of large amounts of people, making them very dangerous to the common people who just happen to listen.
    Perhaps the best example I could give is of Al Gore. After his close, and perhaps unfair, defeat by George Bush for the office of President of the United States, Al Gore lost his credibility as a politician. So, he changed his tactics to gather the public interest in him. Some say for money, others say revenge.
     Al Gore took the center stage as the man who would start the issue of man-made global warming. He was rich, so he dropped down millions and millions in creating efficient energy, traveled the U.S. to speak in front of crowds, and even created a movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore certainly pulled out all the stops, and even created a system called Carbon Credits, where you pay for the emissions you caused by driving, buying manufactured items, and even breathing.
      Sounds like a good guy, right? No, actually. At all of his presentation, and in his movie, Gore has shown computer-generated graphs. At first when you hear that last sentence, you think "Well, that sounds accurate." The only problem is that kind of graphs computers use. The accurate graph of climate change is logarithmic, or linear. The kind that computers use are called exponential. Exponential causes very drawn-out although technically correct graphs that would make the thing being graphed seem much more than it is.
      Another problem with Gore is his Carbon Credit Program. He runs the company, so he receives all of the money. Thousands of, well, suckers pour their money into him, which allows him to afford a large house, a beach home, and a few gas-guzzling private jets. He often openly takes pride for paying for his Carbon Credits, but since he owns the company, he is basically paying himself, which proves how hypocritical he really is.

     Second, Businessmen. This is a more obvious topic. Every day when you watch TV or surf the web or read the paper, you are assaulted with advertisements. Page after page of people trying to sell you things. It is an effective marketing tool. So is environmental danger.
      Companies are always making the claim that they are "Going Green." That they are helping the environment by releasing products that reduce trash and come from efficient renewable sources. That sort of talk is very attractive to many people, and makes big business.
      Unfortunately, it is not one hundred percent true what the companies and such tell you about their products. They like to manipulate facts, bend rules, and to do jobs only half-way. They are very good at what they do, and usually go undetected.

     This post is getting long, so I will stop here. There are hundreds of different people that would like to use the environment to get you to give them something. They use a strange sense of guilt associated with the planet that they plant there to make you feel terrible, and be sympathetic to their cause. It is a new psychological game, and we need to see through it.
     Take heart. For every man who would take advantage of you, there are three that are passionate about the environment and change for the better. We need to spread the word, and stop the hypocrites in their tracks.

Global Warming

    Okay, with this section of my blog, I will just immediately hit it with a hammer right away with this hotly-debated subject for my first post. I guess I will start out with the science of the whole matter (it is the boring part, but it is required to understand some other aspects of the post).
      There is a common misconception about the definition of the term "Global Warming." Many people believes that it is the process of the Earth heating because of human actions and emissions. Not so. Global Warming is simply a term to describe the whole Earth heating, whether it be caused naturally, astronomically, or by human actions. Global Cooling is the same idea, only relating to the Earth getting colder. Many people have drilled the wrong definitions into the heads of others so as to try to achieve their own ends.
     The theory of Human-Caused Global Warming is simple. Carbon Dioxide and other emissions block the warmth of the sun from escaping the Earth after it bounces off of the surface. Sounds plausible, right? Unfortunately it is not. Venus is often used to symbolize this type of Global Warming. The truth is that Carbon Dioxide DOES block sunlight. But here's the catch. Venus has had a couple billion years to get the gas into its atmosphere. It has so much of it, we would have to burn all of the oil the world has ever had several thousand times in order to create that kind of Global Warming. Good news for us. The bad news is that Global Warmings can be very, very dangerous.
      Back a hundred million years ago there was a time called the Permian. It was a time of great deserts and immense heat. It was a time of Global Warming. Scientists debate today over the cause. Some say meteor, others say volcano interference, and many other things. Some even consider that we have another sun that comes every 40 million years to cause mass extinction. Anyways, the Earth heated 10 Degrees. Only ten. That was enough to kill 90% of life on Earth. Why? Because there are rich deposits of heat-sensitive minerals in the ocean. When the Earth heated up 10 degrees, those minerals melted, creating a reaction that skyrocketed the temperature immensely.
      Global Warming is very much real, and has happened before. However, our Earth's temperature is always raising and lowering by two or three degrees as result of several natural processes. It is much easier to trigger an Ice Age than Global Warming.
      On the topic of Global Cooling, I think that it is another dangerous thing. Effect-wise, it would be most disastrous to us early on. We would lose crops, forest, and many other things that are almost necessary for our survival. Then, after all of that is gone, the effects would not be as bad. Much of life on Earth would be annihilated, but not all would be lost. We could endure that. In the long run, Global Cooling would not be as disastrous.
      There are some people that would like you to feel guilty about "poisoning" the planet, and profit from that. Some are benign enough, but there are a couple who do what they do for gain and to get revenge on others, including the government. I will address some of them in my next post.