-”References”- You’ve given me a reference to another web page written by someone who then gives multiple refernces which support, what we will for now call, a spacific point of view. I suppose in return I could give you a truck load of references that would contradict that point of view. Your guy says it’s heating up, my guy says it’s not heating up. Reference wars.

Basically we’ve been reduced to – “Oh yeah, well your lasers can’t hurt me because I have a force field” – “Doesn’t matter ’cause my lasers can penetrate force fields so you’ed still be dead” ect ect.. We need to be careful when dealing with references. We are still just letting our realities be determined by what other people are saying. How can I argue that your sources are incorrect? Since I have not conducted these experiements myself, I have no real way of validating my referenes over yours.

I’m not trying to undermind the importance of references, they do serve their purpose. But let’s not forget that these references deal primarily with the testing and results of “Observational Data”. And observation data does not give us answers it only raises questions. What matters is the understanding of the mechanics. Not what is happening but why. Again, it’s not what we’re seeing, it’s what is the cause of what we’re seeing. The earths temperature may indeed be rising but given the compexities of our natural environment, the ’cause and effect’ factor might not be as simple as – Its all a result of human activity.

By the end of Michael Crichtons “State of Fear”, Gavin Schmidts concludes that the author sees Global Warming as a non problem. Wrong. Global Warming is not so much a non problem as it is an over simplifacation of, what could be, many problems. Many problems that we don’t fully yet understand. In his book Crichton clearly states that, despite the question of Global Warming, the need for humans to better our methods of natural resource consumption and waste disposal is of the utmost importance. And I couldn’t agree more.

This debate is not just about the science of our planets ecosystem it is also about media, art and entertainment. Walk into a Barns & Noble and ask the clerk for a copy of “State fo Fear” and they’ll point you to the isle that says “FICTION”. I wouldn’t put it past Crichton for tweaking certaint bits of info to better propel his story. ‘Hack Writer’. I cannot stress that term enough. Glacier exploding eco terrorists who use small baggies of exotic octipi to subdue their victims is pure outrageous but very entertaining. At least for me anyways.

Just for you, dear reader, I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night finishing Michael Crichton’s biotech thriller, Next. And although the haters will disdain my lowbrow taste, I must confess that I liked it. Overall, I’d give it a B+.
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