The Climate Equation

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I’ve been busy, but more than that, I’ve had nothing much to say. Today’s activity is prompted by yet another admonition from a member of the Global Warming sect, this time to reduce my travel. I’m to think, apparently, of the amount of CO₂ I’m dumping in the atmosphere anytime I step on a plane and shudder in horror at the havoc I’m wreaking on the climate.

I’m a climate realist. I used to count myself among the climate fabulists until my brother said to me one day, “Maybe you should look into that. I’m not sure it’s what you think it is.” So I did.

In any event, when I read a summary of this latest panicked plea to don yet another hair shirt to mortify my sinful, eco-collapsing flesh, something occurred to me. I’m virtually certain that the most outspoken of the climate Cassandras also worship in the Church of Charles “the science is settled” Darwin. I haven’t researched this, but in my experience these things come in packages. To popular celebrators of Science, Global Warming and Darwinian Evolution are part of a two-for-one special. To the extent they are not, the Darwinian congregation is larger than the Global Warming fellowship which suits my purposes just fine as you will see.

            

            The importance of this relationship cannot be overestimated. The Darwinian catechism you see explicitly states that life is devoid of meaning. As simply one example we have Richard Dawkins:  

“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” ― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

As another example we have Psychology Today which revealed the meaning of life after Darwin: 

“But if we're interested in the question of whether life is ultimately meaningful, rather than whether it's potentially emotionally meaningful, well after Darwin, there is no reason at all to suppose that it is - there is no reason to assume that life has any ultimate meaning or purpose. Jan 8, 2011The Meaning of Life Revealed! | Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-nature-nurture.../the-meaning-life-revealed

And this must be so because according to the Darwinians we are the product of random collocations of atoms and molecules whose existence depends on the purely chance event that our particular arrangement of elements is able to remain together better than other arrangements of elements that are not us. Sure, lots of Darwinians argue for the existence of meaning or purpose because, as I described in another post, without meaning or purpose we’d all just give up and die. But, Darwinians cannot have it both ways: they cannot ascribe life to chance and infuse it with meaning because chance by definition is without meaning-it’s happenstance, accidental, unplanned.

Darwinians are notoriously unwilling to face the necessary implications of life without meaning. Don’t worry though; I’m here to help. I’ll explore some of those implications in connection with the current hysteria surrounding Global Warming.

First let’s talk about what follows from life without meaning: nothing is better or worse than anything else. “How can that be?” you say. “Good and bad self evidently exist.” Not so fast. Labeling one thing good and another bad requires the importation of value into the discussion and value necessitates meaning, something with which to compare the different states of whatever you’ve labeled good or bad and, altogether now, life has no meaning. We can even express this symbolically: 0=no meaning; <0 meaning="">0=meaning.

Now we arrive at the Global Warming congregation. Stop the C0₂ they say or you’ll destroy the earth. To which the response of good followers of Darwin, PBUH, should be: “So?” It doesn’t matter what happens because, class? life has no meaning. Here, let’s be scientific about this, we’ll write it out using the symbols we’ve established.

Earth is destroyed=0;

Earth is saved=0;

0=0, therefore;

Earth is destroyed=Earth is saved.

See? It’s mathematic because, once more with feeling, life has no meaning. To the good Darwinians of the Global Warming denomination it must be all the same.

Now, I’m generous so if you’ll stop clinging to your religion of the haphazard universe we can have a discussion about the geologic climate, glacial and interglacial periods, the medieval warm period, the Roman Climactic Optimum, climate sensitivity to CO₂, the alterations to the surface temperature record, benefits of increased CO₂, the morality (see what wonders appear when we give up chance and embrace meaning?) of killing people by denying them what is easily within our power (notice what I did there?) to provide, the presence or absence of the equatorial tropospheric hotspot, the reliability of climate models both in their construction (not accounting for clouds for example) and their performance, the regular oscillation of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, the sea levels and so much more.

But, I’m afraid until you lot give up your worship of chance, the creator of worlds, I simply cannot take you seriously.

You refuse to do so? Well then if it’s all the same to you (and I’ve demonstrated that it is), I’ll ignore anything you have to say.   

The Dream

One day a few years ago our daughter shared with us her plans for when she wins the lottery.  It seems she had been purchasing lottery tickets and had been thinking, not seriously she assured us, about what to do with her winnings.  At that time she informed us of her intention to share some of her loot with us and with her brothers and sisters.  It has become something of a game with us to ask her when she'll win the lottery so we can plan our lives accordingly.

The other day we engaged in one such conversation in the course of which she admitted to having had a dream at one point that she had won the lottery.  While we were bantering about this she said she thought it would be funny if someone had a dream in which an angel appeared and promised a lottery win, but the person died without winning the lottery.  I thought that might make for an amusing short story, so after obtaining her permission to use the idea wrote The Dream.

THE DREAM

                The dream came at the end of a horrible day, concluding the last miserable week in a wretched month.  Sara Jones was sixteen at the time and she thought of it for the rest or her life as “THE DREAM.”    During the thirty day stretch of torment preceding THE DREAM, she learned she had failing grades in three of her six High School classes and her parents were divorcing.  Her closest friend moved to Australia. Her boyfriend boke up with her in a two word text and started dating her older sister.  On the day in question, she contracted a painful case of hives, her mom announced they were moving to Meadow, Utah and her dog Patches died in a freak accident when on their evening walk. Patches darted away and his leash became caught in an automated garbage truck. She last saw Patches as the machinery yanked his leash and he sailed high over the edge of the truck right into its compactor.  Unfortunately, she could still hear his squeals over the sound of the motors crushing the trash, and Patches, into a solid cube of refuse.

            That night, after hours tossing and turning on her tear soaked pillow, Sara finally collapsed into oblivion.  She found herself sitting on a park bench beneath a cloudless robin’s egg sky.  A gentle breeze caressed her skin, stirring the trees behind her. Its coolness perfectly balanced the sun’s heat into a glowing warmth enveloping her entire body.  A wide expanse of manicured lawn stretched from the bench down to the shore of a sparkling lake.  She knew at some level this must be a dream, but it was unlike any dream she’d had before.  This experience had none of the vagueness and indefiniteness of other dreams she remembered.  Rather, a sense of reality pervaded it that made her more alive than when she was awake. 

            Maybe she had finally achieved her goal of lucid dreaming, something she had attempted many times before without success.  She turned her head to the sky and imagined herself floating upward from the bench into the heavens.

            “It’s not that sort of dream.”

            Sara jumped at the sound of the voice and brought her head down.  “Grandma, what are you doing in my dream?”  She had a horrible thought.  “You’re not…dead are you?”

            “No, I mean, yes…wait just a second.”  Her grandmother lifted her left hand palm upward and using the index finger of her right hand appeared to manipulate something on her palm as if it were a touchscreen.  “That shouldn’t…where is it?  Ah, there’s the problem.  Now I just need to…there that’s got it.”  Her grandmother disappeared replaced by a tall woman with a kindly, familiar face.  Sara was certain she had met her before and affection was associated with the meeting, but she couldn’t place the circumstances.  The woman wore a simple tailored gown of pure white.  Her hair was completely white each strand neatly in place.  Her attractive face was tanned and lined, but not heavily.  Her age was indeterminate; she could have been thirty or sixty.

            Sara stared at this new apparition with narrowed eyes.  “You’re not my grandmother then?”

            “No,” the woman shook his left hand and frowned at it.  “My appearance generator is supposed to produce an image of me that is authoritative yet comforting, without being overly familiar.  I’m afraid the familiarity setting was just a little high.”

            “You’re not dead then?”

            “Certainly not, I’m an angel and I’m here to deliver a message.”

            Sara cocked her head and eyed the man skeptically.  “An angel?  What about your wings?”

            The woman waved away her objection.  “Popular misconception based on past abuses of the appearance generators by some of my more whimsical compatriots.”

            Sara rolled her eyes.  She was already tiring of this part of the dream and wished she’d move right to the part where she could fly and manipulate her environment.  “Fine, whatever, deliver the message and leave so I can get on with my dream.”

            “Sara, it’s important that you understand I really am an angel.”

            Sara regarded her with skepticism.  “An Angel?  I don’t think so.”  Sara looked around again at the surrounding beauty.  “No, you’re part of my dream, a particularly annoying part at the moment.”  Sara turned her gaze back to the woman.  “But I can’t seem to make you disappear so, if my subconscious has a message for me I—”

            The woman transformed into a brilliant pulsing ball of light brighter than anything Sara had experienced before.  Sara closed her eyes instinctively at the change, but the light shone through as if her eyelids were no barrier at all.  Her eyelids parted.  To her surprise, she found she could look at the light directly despite its blazing intensity.  Moreover, great waves of compassion, acceptance and kindness flowed from the light, overwhelmed her, drove her to her knees and bowed her head.  The light winked out.

            Sara raised her head.  The woman was back.  He reached down and helped Sara to her feet.

            “Sorry about that.  It’s sort of against the rules, but I had to convince you and I’m really rather busy at the moment.”

            Sara shook off her confusion.  “Wow.  Okay, you’re an angel.  But…”  Something the angel had said when it looked like Grandma.  “I asked if you were dead and you said yes.”

            “Ah, well,” the angel said looking a bit chagrined, “about that, I’m afraid that exchange resulted in a bit of a miscommunication.”

            Sara stared at the angel as understanding flooded her mind.  “Grandma’s dead.”

            The angel nodded.  “It happened just after you fell asleep.  You’ll receive the official word when you wake up.”    

            Sara knew she should feel bad, Grandma had lived with them for several years when she was younger and during that time had prepared most of the meals, transported her to various activities and tucked her in at night with lullabies of haunting beauty,  but everyone dies and an immensely powerful being had a message specifically for her.  So, you have a message?”

            The angel squared her shoulders and seemed to increase in height.  Her voice rang out reverberating through the immensity of the landscape of Sara’s dream.  “Sara Jones, you have been weighed and found worthy.  Your response to the extreme challenges of your young life have been exemplary and have garnered you the blessings of heaven on earth.  In two years on May 18 you will purchase a lottery ticket at the convenience store on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and 58^th Street.  It will be the sole winning ticket for a prize of Eight Hundred and Fifty Eight Million Five Hundred and Ninety Thousand Dollars.  You will never suffer from want and be blessed with the bounties of the earth, but more importantly you will use that money to alleviate the suffering of millions of your fellow beings and at the end of a long and blessed life will be received into the divine presence to dwell with God and his angels in everlasting glory.”

            Sara was stunned.  She’d had a difficult month that was true, but she couldn’t bring to mind any way in which she’d been particularly noble and in fact, now that she considered it, some might consider sabotaging her boyfriend’s chance to make the varsity basketball team so he could spend more time with her or kicking Patches the other day when she found out about her grades to be something less than exemplary.  Ah, well gifts and horses and all that.  “Okay,” she said drawing the word out.  “I just have a few questions.”

            The angel huffed, glanced at her right wrist and actually tapped her foot with impatience.

            “So, you said something about al…al—”

“Alleviating the suffering of millions of your fellow beings.”  The Angel finished quickly clearly anxious to be about some other business. 

“Yeah, that.  But I can use this money for myself too right?  I mean, since I’ve been so good and all.”

            The angel stopped tapping her foot and narrowed her eyes fractionally.  “Yes, certainly, as long as you don’t go overboard.”

            “Meaning….?”

            “Meaning your compassionate heart will warn you of excessive selfishness and act as a natural brake on any self-centered impulses you might encounter.  “Look, is that it?  Because I really have to go.”

            Sara knew that she should have a million questions, but her mind blanked out.  She shook her head.

            “Wonderful.  I look forward to meeting you at the end of your life.” 

            Sara opened her eyes to sun streaming through her window.

            The next two years dragged slowly by.  Sara quit high school because what after all was the point?  She refused to move with her mother instead passing the time living with one friend after another - the length of her stay determined by the friend’s inability to recognize Sara’s superiority and fulfill her basic needs, which admittedly from a certain cramped perspective could be seen as substantial, but which Sara more realistically recognized as barely adequate to her divine position.  In the end Sara resorted to promises of extravagant wealth which she delivered with such sincerity that she managed to remain housed and fed until two years had passed.

            On March 18 two years after The Dream, Sara stood across the street from the convenience store on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and 58^th Street.  The past two years had been rough as more and more of her friends, family and acquaintances had abandoned her despite her exalted status, but it had all been worth it because now she was poised to collect her reward and begin living a fabulous life.  She’d already planned her first purchases, she had her eye on several exquisite Louis Vuitton dresses, Prada handbags and shoes and of course homes in New York and Los Angeles and probably a private jet for the commute.  Of course, she’d have to help people too, but there was plenty of time and money for that later.

            Waiting for the light to change, Sara noticed a young woman about her age walk up the street and enter the Convenience Store.  Sara received a text just as the light turned green for her to cross.  She pulled her phone from her pocket.  Ugh, it was from her mother and it was lengthy.  She didn’t have time for this—her destiny awaited.  She crammed her phone back into her pocket.  Distracted by the riches across the street and angry at her mother for annoying her on the cusp of greatness, Sara stepped out into the street without seeing the car on her left whipping around the corner in a right turn and catapulting her thirty feet in the air.

            Sara opened her eyes.  She was on the bench from her Dream, but on the lawn in front of her a woman sat behind a desk glancing through a folder.  Sara rose from the bench and marched up to the desk.  “Where am I?”  Sara said.

            The woman closed the file in front of her and regarded Sara coolly.  “You’re dead.”

            Sara laughed.  “That’s not possible.  I can’t be dead.  I’m supposed to win the lottery and live a long life and go to heaven.  There must be some mistake.”

            The woman smiled with indulgence.  “You are,” the woman glanced down at the folder in front of her, “Sara Jones correct?”  Sara nodded.  “Then there’s been no mistake.  Where did you get this idea of winning the lottery etcetera?”

            Sara couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “The angel, he told me.  Two years ago in a dream in a place just like this.  He promised me.”

            The woman frowned and opened the file on her desk studying the contents carefully.  She glanced up at Sara.  “An angel you say, in this place?”

            Sara nodded vigorously.  She hopped they’d straighten this out fast so she could get back to her plans.  The woman looked straight ahead.  Her eyes lost focus.  Moments later the angel from her dream appeared next to the desk.

            “Finally,” Sara said.  “Tell her what you promised me about the lottery and return me to earth.”

            The angel walked to Sara took her gently by the elbow and led her to the desk.  “I think we can clear this up.  Please place your hand on the desk Sara.”

            Sara laid her hand on the desk.  The angel and the woman behind the desk leaned forward and studied her hand.  At the same moment, they both sighed.  The woman leaned back in her chair; the angel straightened up.  Sara looked from one to the other.  The woman looked away; the angel fidgeted with her hands.

            “There’s no easy way to say this,” the angel said finally.  “Sara, there’s been a mistake.”

            She couldn’t believe her ears.  “Mistake?” although she tried to sound calm, her voice squeaked.

            “Yes, about the lottery ticket.  It seems you are the wrong Sara Jones.  It’s a common name, and I guess I just assumed you were the one.  I should have examined your aura before discussing the lottery ticket with you.”

            Sara collapsed to the ground along with her shattered dreams.  She wasn’t going back to earth to live a life of luxury; she wasn’t going back at all.  She was dead-before all of the good stuff.  It wasn’t fair.  She thought she should cry, she wanted to cry, but in whatever form she was, that was denied her.  After a time, she again noticed her surroundings-the perfect weather, the impeccable vibrant landscape-and remembered the second part of the angel’s promise.  She levered herself to her feet and stood tall.  She was strong, she wouldn’t allow this reversal to defeat her.  She looked the angel squarely in the eye.

            “Fine,” she said, “I forgive you.  I suppose such earthly rewards are insignificant anyway in view of eternal happiness in the Divine presence.”

            “Ah, well,” the angel said looking a bit chagrined, “about that….”