The Confusion About Global Warming

Global Warming

April 21, 2015

Few people understand this.  But this information is critical to our survival. We must act immediately to stop our own behavior, but far more important is to stop our sociopath (individuals born without the brain equipment to tell right from wrong and care about anyone but themselves.)  EVERYONE MUST LEARN WHAT A SOCIOPATH IS, LEARN HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM, and remove them from positions of power and control over the economy which is dependent on burning fossil fuels.  This is no time for talk, sociopaths will not change no matter how "reasonable" the argument or how much scientific evidence is presented. Obama learned this the hard way when he first became President, as his hero was Abraham Lincoln, who was his deserving role model who was a master of negotiation and compromise. But the powerful opposition in Congress are sociopaths, and he got nowhere following Lincoln’s fruitful path.  Fortunately, for all of us Obama is fast learner even when it comes to life long beliefs.  He learned to play hardball with the sociopaths and made remarkable progress by picking progressive issues that the GOP had supported in the past.  For example, the bill that boosted benefits for Vets, and the GOP has supported all things military so they couldn’t oppose this bill and retain any shred of integrity.

We, the 99% of the American public that are not sociopaths must learn the same lesson rapidly and learn how to defeat the sociopaths who control the majority of wealth and recourses in the world.

The sociopaths  must be removed from positions of power by vote, or bullets if necessary.  If a violent revolt is necessary, then bring it on.  These same sociopath have already dished out tremendous misery (which they enjoy) to the American people, shredded the Constitution, fought a disastrous war in Iraq, allowed the bankers (sociopaths all) that cost the taxpayer (3.5 trillion for the war) and 1.5 trillion for the banking scandal), taken away our most valuable right, Freedom of Speech (by virtue of the Patriot Act---which was Dick Cheney's prime objective when the 9/11 plot was planned by the Bushies and the Saudis), and the subsequent War in Iraq---a treasonous act in itself because the Constitution clearly that Congress must declare war BEFORE any military action is taken).  These deeds are enough to justify a civil war, even if the global warming was not an issue.  BUT NOW IT IS A NESCESSITY if the public doesn't suddenly wake up and vote all the GOP office holders out of office.  I doubt that voting will obtain the desired result, even though there are signs that the public is waking up and realizing what has been done to them over the last 25 years.

At this point, these catastrophic droughts are going to cause mass migrations (30 million or so form Southern Cal to Texas) which will be profoundly dangerous and millions will perish. NO ONE, city, county, state, Federal, or NGO (none government organization) has any plan to assist this mass migration; nor does anyone have plan to make a plan to my knowledge.  California has one year of water (as determined by a recent independent organization using highly sophisticated methods). The Governor of California has very little power since 90% of the budget is already earmarked for certain purposes as a result of their “Proposition” hodgepodge system of government.  The only way to free up proposition bound monies is for the voters to repeal the proposition.  Unthinkable under these circumstances.  Brown began by urging conservation among the citizens ; when there was no response, he declared a 25% cutback, but this is a very small, almost insignificant amount since 70% of California’s water usage is agricultural and this category is exempt. There is no mechanism to enforce such conservation.  In addition, Washington, which for years has been sending water to Cal from the snow pack melt, but last week, Washington announced that they have a serious drought of their own, since the snow pack in the Cascades set a record low.  So another loss of a water source for California, having already lost their main source of water from the dams and lakes on the Colorado river in Nevada and Arizona (Powel and Mead), which are at historic lows that don’t supply adequate water even for Nevada.  In addition the contract that determined the amounts of water dedicated to send to California runs out in 2017, not that this legal agreement has any meaning since the land bound states have not been able to send the declared amounts in years.  An absurd long and lengthy legal battle has been fought benefiting only a large number of lawyers, since Arizona and Nevada cannot make water.

The science backing the prediction that this drought , extending from Southern California to central Texas will last at least a century, maybe two, is as solid as science gets. Every climatologist and allied sciences in the world have recently determined that the global warming, is real, and entirely caused by our own species by burning fossil fuels at a breakneck pace, mostly so the so the super-rich can get richer.  No CONSESSIONS for the consequences of wasting and polluting a recourse that is necessary for life, water.  We, homo sapiens, are on a rapid course toward suicide, because we have allowed the sociopaths that control 70% of the world’s industrial output through an economic organization called the Davos Group, which has been in full operation since 1972.  The members determine the course of action for the next year, with only one criteria: how to maximize the profits for the members who control 70% of the world’s industrial output.  Membership requires a minimum of a billion dollars per year in income and the fee is $40,000/participant.  A large % of the membership are American corporations, owned and controlled by sociopaths, like the Koch Brothers in Kansas.

 They must be unseated from their positions of power, by vote or bullets, soon.  This is life or death for the entire species and 95% of the biological life on the planet.  This is what happens when a mass extinction occurs, and the only cause of the five previous mass extinctions, and our species first encounter with Global Warming or we would not be here.

California has ONE YEAR of water remaining, and Austin Texas has a couple of years as determined by common sense applied to the known data about the ground water and the untracked rate of the water that is being pumped out by private companies as fast as possible. While this is technically legal due to a bizarre Texas law that allows water drilling can extend in any lateral directions once the surface has been penetrated.  These rogue companies use any vehicle made to haul to liquids, including those that normally carry pesticides and other industrial chemicals, all toxic to humans.  The water from these trucks is sold at a large profit to local communities as “pure”, a bald face lie and a breach of all ethical and moral standards.  Thousands of private property owners are having their well go dry due to the vigorous drainage of the water table by these rogue water profiteers.  Thousands of small West Texas towns will be without any source of water and will be abandoned, and the people will join the migration from Austin and it’s suburbs.

One year is no enough time to organize systems to help the migrators in any case.  Every state the migrators pass through will be faced with enormous problems and expenses:  hundreds of thousands of abandoned cars, some containing people who died of lack of food and water (the local authorities will be overwhelmed with the need for traffic control ,the Interstates going East or North East, through the Rockies, will be 'parking lots’ given the volume of traffic, and most will be doing well to average 5-10 mph, thus everyone will run out of gas frequently on long stretches of highway with no services (even the towns along the way will not be able to help in any way as their supplies will be gobbled up as soon as they arrive; gasoline deliveries are weekly or monthly, and with no plan to increase the deliveries, the migrators will quickly become and annoyance.

Many desperate travelers will try to steal water from residents further escalating the tension.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  The distances are enormous (1500 to 2000 miles) to find areas that have ample water for this huge mass of people: the Great Lakes area, and the Southeast.  Both these areas are economically depressed, and the Federal Government will have to step in and provide "Camps" of the type used in Haiti after their natural disaster.  People will be furious both the migrators and the mass of people in every state through which they travel who try to help them without adequate recourses, about the migration and the circumstances when they reach their destination.  This means 20+ million people exhausted (the vast majority will have to sleep in their cars every night due to the fact that the motel rooms on their path are grossly inadequate to meet the demand.   This will add to the fury that no one was prepared to help them.

Large demonstrations will result consisting of both the migrators and the millions of people that tried to help them without even remotely adequate recourses.  I have seen no information that any branch of the Federal government is making any preparations for this catastrophic forced migration from our nations first exposure from the forces of Global Warming.  At this point we are failing miserable to cope with the situation, and one year is hardly enough time for the logistics of moving food, water and providing shelter for this overwhelming number of people.

Large demonstrations will occur in many cities and some may become violent far beyond the capacity of the local police to control.   Panicked Mayors may request help from the Military both the reserves and the active duty shoulders.  They will not fire on these citizens who just wanted water and housing.  The military has been perhaps the most abused group in the country.  Lousy pay, terrible medical care, being sent back into battle before they have recovered from physical and emotional injuries.  Their sympathies will be with the migrators and other citizens fed up with the actions of the Federal Government.  

 When some mayor or governor asks for military assistance in controlling these angry demonstrators, the military will not respond to the order "use force is necessary".  If the officials panic and escalate the confrontation by increasing use of lethal methods by the police, the police will be outnumbered and in some cases better armed.  The powers to be will loose.  Who will fight to defend the likes of the Koch Bros in Kansas? Or the many rich money hoarders living in their walled compounds in the Northeast?

The global warming will ensure that this mass migration will occur.  As the recent report that even Washington State, is in a drought, tame by the Southwest situations, but a clear message that the Global Warming effects are much more extensive and potent than the American public realizes.  Also, another loss of a source of water for California. A fast steep learning curve will be forced on those who have not paid attention to politics or the climate.

Every citizen has a moral and ethical obligation to discuss these issues and help the victims of the unprecedented drought decide what action they are going to take to insure the well being of themselves and their families. There is no other issue that even approaches the importance of surviving the catastrophic drought, and disassembling the power structure that made us vulnerable to this event, and which threatens the survival of our nation and our species.

Supporters of the GOP will be angered by these statements, but I challenge them to come up with a factual basis for discounting the statements I have made.  Most will resort to juvenile name calling, and other insults.  Don’t bother, such language just strengthens my statements and position that the super-rich and their pawns, the GOP, do not care at all about the rest of us; or the survival of our  species for that matter.  That is a profoundly pathetic position, and is in direct opposition to every great profit produced by out species whose goal was to teach us how to live in peace and harmony with each other and the planet, of which we are the care takers, not the exploiters and destroyers.

BTW:The Senate voted yesterday (May 29, 2015) on a policy statement:  "There is no Global Warming".  And it passed.  This is a typical GOP/Tea Party/sociopath tactic.  If someone, or something like a scientific idea blocks your path get ride of the person (via the Patriot Act) or declare that the troublesome idea does not exist.  People are easy to dispose of; ideas are not. It took Europeans 200 years to accept the discovery that the earth was a sphere, and not flat, because this scientific idea was threatening the Catholic Church.

Time to learn FAST and TAKE ACTION or perish.

Mo

Aka MORRIS CREEDON-MCVEAN,DO

12624 Timber Heights, Austin, Texas 78754

walklikeaturtle@hotmail.com

(512-508-2687)

A gentleman and a scholar.

Important references:

2052 A global Forecast for the Next Forty Years                                by Jorgen Randers (2012)

American Mania: When More Is Not Enough by Peter Whybrow

         (2005)

Secondary:

Awareness by Martha Stout, PhD (2001)

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PhD (2005)

Snakes in Suits:When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Burbank,PhD & Robert D. Hare,PhD (2006)

Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare, PhD (1993)

The Myth of Sanity: Divided  Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout, PhD (2001)

Note: “psychopath” and “sociopathic personality disorder” are equivalent terms.

www.biologybehaviorchaos.blogspot.com

My personal web sight containing 100+ essays on relative topics.

"The Well Tuned Brain" by Peter Whybrow

Peter Whybrow, MD

“The Well-Tuned Brain”

A way out of our trap.

May 29, 2015

Today, I received from Amazon a book that I have been waiting for since Dr. Whybrow wrote “American Mania: When More Is Not Enough” in 2005.  At that time, his brilliant effort was the only book that explained the many breakthroughs in neuroscience, and he made since of the implications of what was known at that time.  He also indicated the direction that cutting edge research was going, and some speculation as to where this ongoing research would carry us in our understanding of ourselves, and what changes were needed.

The biology of human behavior is turning our perception of ourselves and our species, Homo sapiens, upside-down and inside out.  Most of what we learned in school is at least half wrong (for example our behavior and our moods  and ideas were based on a psychological model, which was a number of schools of thought all based on the work of Freud).  Since, the early ‘90s, the biology of human behavior has been the hottest area of research in all of science, recently joined in the late 2000’s, by climatology as the world wide events like Katrina, awakened us to the disruptive threat climactic change represented.

The book: “2052: A global Forecast for the Next Forty Years” by Jorgen Randers, who spent his career as a top level consultant for the biggest financial institutions in the world, like the IMF.  He made a compelling case that Global Warming was no only “real”, but threatened to trigger a mass extinction (95+% of the biological organisms living today, including us.  Every climatologist in the world agreed with his assessment, except the exact date this catastrophe would occur, simply because nothing like this has ever happened before.  Most startling was the fact that is well proven, is that our species is the sole cause of the Global Warming, by burning fossil fuels at a hectic pace which has increased at an exponential pace in the 20^th Century.  Whybrow fills in the one major factor missing from Rander’s analysis: the contribution of the biology of human behavior in this alarming trend.  We have become addicted to energy wasting activities, including the purchase and collection of stuff that is not only unnecessary for survival, but degrades our health and happiness.  So in essence, Whybrow fills in a huge gap in Rander’s otherwise impeccable assessment.  Whybrow’s conclusions also add the essential element of HOPE, to what otherwise seems to be an impossible task.  Give or take a few years, our species all around the world has little more than one generation to totally change our economies from a growth and consumer basis, to one based on sustainable technologies.  Ironically, many of the big time bankers with whom Randers worked were sociopaths, and being uneducated in the biological sciences or psychiatry, he was oblivious to that fact.

After, reading the table of contents, and the first page of each chapter, the book is everything I expected.  It is lock to win the Nobel Prize, just as Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel”, which opened our eyes to the role of biology played in history, and was completely ignored in the “history” we were taught in school which was based on political and military issues (even economics were ignored).

It is fascinating that practicing physicians (I am a retired primary care physician) have largely ignored books like Diamonds, Oliver Sacks (a neurologists), “A Brain for All Seasons” by William Calvin, a neurologist           in Seattle, who proposed that adapting to climactic changes like the ice ages, force our species to get smarter and learn to adapt or perish, and Whybrow’s earlier books:  “A Mood Apart” written in 1995, which was and still is the best book on depression ever written.

There are several factors in this ignoring of these consciousness expanding books.  First, they are not written targeted to the medical world, but seek to strike a balance between the average American with an interest in science, and the medical profession.  This requires a very sophisticated writing style, and physicians are not taught to write in the same way a professional writer writes with style and substance.  Physicians, in writing to have their research reported published focus on the facts, and an actual writing “style” is actually considered a distraction for the all important FACTS revealed in their research.  Even speculation about the meaning of the facts revealed in their research is discouraged, as it is considered irrelevant to the purpose of the paper.

So, scientist writers must have skills that they either were born with or that they learned somewhere outside of medicine.  It was only in the 90’s when brain research was developing so rapidly, that researchers in one aspect of the brain hardly had time to read the publications in their own narrow area of interest, and more generalized papers were ignored, that the physicians with the elite writing skills were willing to the professional risk of writing books targeted to both the general public and their colleagues.  It is not common knowledge that this reluctance existed since those with the skills and courage to write to a twin targeted audience has been so wildly popular.  Diamond’s book won the Nobel Prize, which was very encouraging others to “follow in his footsteps.”

Please read Whybrow’s books.  Our survival is at stake, and everyone must join in the fight, or we are unlikely to succeed/survive.

MORRIS CREEDON-MCVEAN, DO

A gentleman and a scholar

May 29^th, 2015

Austin,
Texas

Honesty in Politics, the Humane Solution to the Drought Driven Mess in Southern California

Honesty in Politics

The Human Solution to the California Mess

April 22, 2015

Governor Jerry Brown has a nightmare of a situation with the critical drought in Southern California.  The Govenor of California has very little economic power, as their Proposition System, which allowed the public tovote on how their tax dollars were spent.  So 90% of the states treasury were earmarked for predetermined projects.  It was a very inflexible system, as the Propositions had to be repealed by another vote, and would be fiercely opposed by those who benefited from the proposition.  In this drought crisis the Proposition system kept many effective measures from being implemented.

A very sophisticated private company was able to make a very precise estimation that there is one year of water left (11 months now).  Brown requested the public to conserve; and given an insignificant result he mandated a 25% reduction (agriculture was exempted, and uses 70% of California’s water).  Again the public response was weak, very similar to the people in Austin who knew nothing about the dangers of the drought.  However, even a strong response would save a very small amount of water.  Washington, a steady supplier of water to California for years, based on the snow pack melt in the Cascades.  But this winter, there was virtually no snow in the Cascades.  So Washington, has a serious drought of its own and Cal looses another source of water.

Reluctantly California is doing the many small things that make sense when you live in a dessert. Taking out their lawns, not filling their swimming pools, using low volume flush toilets. There is a long list of effective actions citizens can take and they are well documented elsewhere.  The point of all these conservation efforts is three fold; (1) they should have been implemented decades ago; (2) the current effect of these efforts combined is hardly worth counting; (3) and finally, they would not have had any effect on the current crisis, which is caused by Global Warming, which is 100% caused by our species burning fossil fuels at a breakneck rate. 

The science behind these facts is the result of a 25 year effort, which began by a small group of young scientists who were weary of the political bickering that dominated the 1980’s.  The right wing said there was no global warming and no action was necessary; and the left position was that the global warming was real and we needed to do something about it.

The young scientists were amazed at the amount of information they found that provided evidence of warming.  Everywhere they looked in a variety of scientific disciplines another enormous amount of data was exposed.  Very early they realized that even the best PC’s working in a network were markedly insufficient to process even a portion of the uncovered data.  They needed Cray super computers.  They pitched their case with skill, energy, and some compelling examples, but their were no takers, until the Katrina hurricane almost destroyed New Orleans, and the cost of rebuilding the city got everyone’s attention, especially when there were similar climactic disasters all over the world.  Overnight, governments and large corporations ponied up the money for the Cray Computers at cutting edge scientific universities all over the world.  It took a couple of years to input the data, and when the data entry was complete, the scientists (by this point the very best researchers in many scientific fields were fighting with each other to become a member of the Global Warming effort because the importance was so enormous.  They asked the Crays to draw a picture of the world’s climate in the past.  There are several “markers” (catastrophic events that we know the exact date that they occurred.)  The researchers, a staunch and hard to impress group of scientists, were stunned.  The history “picture” that the Cray’s drew hit all the known markers perfectly.  That unexpected result added more energy, intensity, and funding, to the project at centers all over the world.

Every group of climatologists agreed that climactic change was just getting started and was going to get worse.  There is a delay in the burning of fossil fuels and the final effect of the warming it caused.  Currently have a 1.0 degree warming, but the lag time from the already burned fossil fuels would carry us to 1.2 degrees, even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow.  There is a critical point at which a positive feedback loop will start and be impossible to stop, resulting in a mass extinction of 95% of the biological life on the planet.  The best estimate by consensus is 2.8 degrees.

This research performed by the best and brightest scientists in the world using cutting edge equipment, has been the fastest most accurate analysis of any problem in any arena in the history of science.  Anyone with a basic knowledge of the basic sciences has to be impressed by the magnitude of the achievement.  When the media (owned by the super –rich), is strongly prejudiced against the idea of Global Warming because, if true, opposition to the way they have made billions of dollars in the past will likely cause political and public pressure to CHANGE.  They are correct about the pressure to change.  Typical of sociopaths they have a strong tendency to underestimate the capabilities of their opponents.  They are also ripe for an “upset”.

In Texas everything has gone their way since George Bush was elected Governor of Texas in 1998.  Big powerful and overconfident, sudden substantial resistance will catch them by surprise, and they are very inflexible thinkers as they believe they are always right.  This happens often in sports, to the delight of sports fans everywhere, because that having “heart” and fearlessness can overcome what appears to be a certain loss.  I like to point out the finals of the NCAA basketball tournament.  The mighty University of Houston basketball team, one of the greatest teams ever in college basketball, came to the finals with a record of 40-2, and three players who were All-American every year; AND went on to   be All-Stars consistently in pro basketball.  Their opponents: Villanova, with a 24-22 record and barely made it into the tournament.  They had no dominant players; no one who made it in the pros.  They did have a very cohesive team chemistry and a inspirational coach that convinced them they could defeat this giant.  In a thrilling game, the lead went back and forth the entire 4 quarters. Even the announcers got exited, and we rooting for the super underdog.  The bookies bet that U of H to win by 40 points.  But every player on the Villanova team played the best basketball in their lives.  Houston didn’t play badly, but every time they obtained a good lead, say 10 points, Villanova would come right back and tie the game or even establish a small lead.  You could see the disappointment on the faces of the Houston players.  They were in a game and fighting for every  basket.  But Villanova’s confidence grew as they continued to play an even game with a team they were supposed to be crushed by.  Villanova won on a long range jump shot at the buzzer.  After the game the Houston players were gracious:  “How can you beat a team that shoots 78% from the field?”

A similar event awaits the rigid thinking arrogant sociopaths.

This is where the political arena becomes the main battle ground.  Many already super-rich sociopaths become even more obscenely rich when fossil fuels are used as they have been in the past.  To survive as a species, these people (called the Davos group has been in operation since 1992) who have control over 70% of the world’s industrial output, must be removed  from their position of power, whether it be by voting them out of office or a shooting civil war, if necessary.  If the effort to displace them becomes violent, another common fault will be revealed.  They are terrible at tactics, and rarely seek outside wise counsel; but they reject the recommendation of the wise counsel and proceed with a bad strategy, and loose the battle and often the war.  Rommel, firmly told Hiler that after three week “blitzkrieg” of France by going around the touted French heavily fortified Maginot Line that spanned the boundary between the two countries.  It shocked everyone except Rommel (and Patton who thought the French were stupid when it came to warfare and that the Maginot line was useless), whose idea was to drive his tanks through the flat planes of Belgium avoiding the Maginot  Line completely, and took control of France in three weeks. Rommel then strongly urged Hitler to invade England immediately because the were not prepared and the invasion would succeed with very little cost to the German’s in men and equipment. (Rommel was the German’s most brilliant field general, the German equivalent of the American George Patton.  The two fought some of the best battles in military history.)

In typical sociopath fashion Hitler was obsessed with punishing the Brits for the harsh reparations extracted from the Germans after WWI. He chose nightly bombing of London, perceiving them as “just a nation of shop keepers”.  Well the shop keepers fought ferociously, with brilliant leadership from Winston Churchill whose nightly radio broadcasts helped keep the Brits spirits high as they were hunkered down in the subway tunnels trying to sleep while the booming of bombs continued all night, and the daily routine of emerging from the tunnels to see what had been destroyed.

 In one of histories greatest triumphs against a powerful siege (like Vienna holding off the Ottoman Empire and therefore stopping the Ottoman attempt to conquer Europe).  The Brits held off a far superior German war machine, and after six months they showed no hint of surrendering, which demonstrated the sociopaths strong tendency to underestimate the strength of the opposition. By then, they had time to fortify the cliffs of Dover, and a German invasion would be far too costly in manpower & equipment.  And most important, it gave the US time to support the Brits with supplies and armaments, and as a result of England not being in the control of the UK, the US had a base of operations from which to invade the German controlled French Coast.  If Hitler had taken Rommel’s firm advice to immediately invade England after the three week blitzkrieg of France, he would have probably won the war and controlled Europe for decades.

Instead of trying to solve an impossible situation, how about describing the situation as honestly as possible, and let the public develop their own solutions to the situation.  This would be fair, and address an issue that has not been discussed publically:  what will do if/when we run out of water.  There are no easy answers to that question either; but one fact is, we can’t live without it.  It’s not going to come to us (at least in quantities needed to support 20+ million people.)

To my knowledge governor Brown has not stated whether he thinks Global Warming is the main cause of the drought.  Why not state:  “The scientific evidence is very compelling. I will appoint a committee to create a list of things the State can do to help those who decide to stay and those who decide to leave.  The dangers of each choice will be listed as thoroughly as possible, give the limits of time needed to deliver this report to the public in order for it to be of use in families deciding which course to take.  There is no single course of action that is right for everyone.  People must decide on the basis of which risks they can most comfortably tolerate. And, with a situation this complex, there will be surprises no matter what decision anyone makes. Sadly, the State of California can do little to make this life threatening situation any easier to cope with.

The Doubt Factor

A major deterrent to Californians behaving in a manner that would improve their chances of survival are two psychological trends:

1)   Their long history of experiencing earthquakes.  There is sudden frightening shaking of their surroundings, followed by a couple of less violent shaking, and it is over.  The damage may be significant in a few places, the fire department has special training and equipment in how to go about rescuing those trapped in rubble.  There are special crews to reestablish disruption of water and power.  These skills are well honed after years of practice.  Building codes have made all structures earthquake resistant, so there is often little damage.  For the vast majority life returns to normal after a few hours. 

2)   However, a drought of the current magnitude is a totally different experience.  It is a slow grinding reduction in a recourse that is necessary for life.  The available water slowly is depleted, and at the start it limits the maintenance of non-essential structures like swimming pools and cosmetic items in the environment, like those green lawns.  Then private activities like long showers and bathing.  People can ignore those sensible measures, and continue their normal routine.  If the water districts raise prices to encourage conservation, people will complain, but pay the higher bill and continue as before.  No experience that makes the drought tactile comes until, no water is coming out of the tap.  Then there is bitching, complaining, until the reality that this is a serious matter and not just a government game.

3)   Then as the public tries to figure out what is really happening and what to do, past experience, the lack of education in the sciences and the medias anti-Global Warming slant in their reporting of he events in California, combine to sabotage the development of a consensus of what to do, if anything.  Here is a breakdown in the process of forming a consensus of what to do. The public becomes stuck in a morass of confusion, and resistance to what leadership, Governor Brown and others, advise them to do.

4)   Here are a consolidation of a study by “Life Sciences”, and others that cause a major disbelief in the “climatologist”, the severity of the drought, and any need to take any action because of the drought.

The American Public’s Understanding of Global Warming and the Danger it Represents is Very Weak

42% believe that Global Warming is happening.

Only 22% believe that only 80% of scientists agree on  that basic fact.

Fact: 100% agree that the drought from Southern California to the middle of Texas will be severe and last 100-200 years if the species lives long enough to see the end of the drought.

47% of Americans think that if Global Warming is happening it is caused by human activities.

The number of Americans who believe that Global Warming isn’t happening increased from 16% in 2013, to 23% in 2014.

The majority is not aware that all the major media outlets are owned by super-rich individuals whose profits and wealth would decline if people believed that Global Warming is happening and is a major threat to their lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren.  The media owners are correct about that, and they instruct their staff to put a “spin” on major news about Global Warming, for example emphasizing that there is disagreement among climatologists.  There is disagreement about unknowable details like at what degree of warming would cause an unstoppable positive feedback loop.  The current guess averages out to be 2.8 degrees.  Also the date that this would occur if we continue burning fossil fuels at the same rate that we currently do.  This to is even more unpredictable as so many factors contribute to Global Warming are subject to change, climatologists have different guesses about that too. 

The public is also unaware that the scientists working on the ‘climate change” problem are the very best scientists from all over  the world and come from a great variety of disciplines, all of which contribute to the major conclusions.

15% of the public are “dismissive” to the point that they believe “global warming” is a conspiracy theory or a hoax.

Many people depend on current temperatures to assess global warming because this information is readily available.

Many, or most, people who doubt global warming are clearly are poorly educated, especially in science, and rely on sound bites from the major media TV outlets to come to their decision.  They are incapable of reading the actual research papers or published books, so they can understand what they read and come to their own conclusions.  Here is a prime example of the high cost of NOT EDUCATING everyone. As the public schools continue to

deteriorate, people will barely be literate. 

For example, Texas, which has the 10^th largest economy in the world, yet rates 49^th in dollars spent per student under the direction of the right wing neo-cons.  Only Alabama spends less.  A trip to  Alabama is like time machine travel to the 1950’s before the Civil Rights movement.  Teachers in Texas will now have classes of 50 students even in elementary school.  Even a gifted teacher can do is maintain order and prevent the students from destroying the furniture and protecting themselves from physical harm.

MORRIS CREEDON-MCVEAN

A gentleman and a scholar

Austin, Texas

April 22, 2015