Work Schmerk

I finished the Salmon of Doubt by and about Douglas Adams over the family reunion. If you are a fan of his, and have not read it, you have done yourself a disservice. His interview on why he's such a strong atheist is very interesting. Well, he's just very interesting. The whole book is filled with non-fiction he wrote about Apple products and science and such and notes from his friends on what a cool person he was. Did you know that he was born in Cambridge the same year that Watson and Crick made a monumental genetic discovery? And that interestingly enough, his initials are DNA? I have more tidbits and revelations for you, but you will have to expand the post.

For those of you interested in climate change, or interesting/scary events that may be indicative of climate change, I present to you this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. It's about how the cold water that usually moves next to the coasts of Northern California and Oregon hasn't done that this year, thus the plankton that comes with it hasn't come to the coast, and various species are having issues with that. The article explains it better. Also, here's an oldie but a goodie about rapid glacier melting.

I'm in the last chapter of the Long Emergency, where he gives his idea of what the next 20 years will bring. It's not very sunshiny. Essentially he thinks most of us will have to rediscover farming and that the consumer life as we know it will collapse. I'm not sure how much I buy it, he pretty clearly sums up why he thinks alternative energy won't save us, or won't save us in time. You have to buy into a few key assumptions of his theory, but none of them are that much of a stretch. I would certainly miss my electronic amusements should we start having problems like that. But whether you buy his societal collapse theory or not, it is at the very least an interesting thought experiment. It's pretty interesting to learn just how much of our society is built on the idea of cheap oil forever, and just how poorly we've planned for a lack of oil. Part of the appeal I guess, comes from memories of all the end of the world stories I read as an Adventist youth. I suppose if you were apocalypse-minded, you might postulate that peak oil could easily play a key part in the adventist version of the end of the world. I'm not inclined to be that negative these days I guess. I worry about our lack of planning, and to some extent how much I believe in the end of the world, but choose to believe that life is what we make it. Anyway, I digress. As a further digression though, my dad flipped through it and put it down again, stating that he thought Christ would return before we ran out of oil so why worry about it? What kind of attitude is that? What a silly reason not to care about the consequences of our actions. I thought conservatives were all about consequences and such? Okay, I'll stop, but just so you know, I could go on all day. And will go on to add that there is considerable speculation that this year is the year we hit hubbert's peak (the halfway point in world oil supplies, and the point after which oil production will drop dramatically in just a few years) and that we could hit $80 dollars/barrel by Christmas. But, like my dad said after making his end times prediction, "I ain't no prophet."

Also, I found another good reason to keep this blog anonymous. Apparently, sometimes search committees read your blog when you apply for a job and decide not to hire you based on what you wrote. So, uh, good to know.