One Step Closer To Terminator

Sci-fi fans are all familiar with the bullet-proof, self-healing robots of the genre. Skin covered Terminators made up a major movie franchise back in the day, and we all admit we've laughed it off. Skin on robots? Not happening!

Well, laugh no more. Standford has created a touch-sensitive, self-healing plastic skin. The skin is a polymer made of plastic and nickel which conducts electricity and can re-bond when cut. The skin took 30 minutes to heal completely after being cut.

Beyond the realm of robots this tech-skin is the future of prosthetics and phones. Lost limbs of the future could be covered by a skin that allows the owner to touch, feel, and heal. Cracked screens could be a thing of the past if the surface was self-repairing.

Not to be outdone, MIT and Rice University have created an ultra-light bullet proof material.  Polymer layers of glassy and rubbery substances create a buffer between the protected area and the bullet. Outside of combat this could become impact-resistant shielding material for the space program. After all, we aren't getting to Mars without a few dings along the the way.

And it isn't a stretch of the imagination to combine the two, layer the self-repairing skin of the the nano-light bullet proof vest, and create a super soldier controlled by Skynet.

Me...

... every time someone mentions a Mars Mission.

And now NASA is working on a warp drive? How soon can I enroll in Starfleet Academy?

The Science Behind The Vows

About a year ago I did a series on the Science Behind Love (feel free to go read - I'll wait), and in honor of the 11th anniversary of my first date with my husband (February 13th), and the upcoming debut of EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE I thought it would be fun to look at the science and psychology behind marriages.

Cards on the table, I'm pro-marriage. Done right, I think it's the best setup for a relationship. Done wrong, marriage is a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare. That's my point of view, you are free to have your own opinion (always!). Thing two... I'll be using husband/wife terminology here but feel free to substitute any combination of genders that works for your situation. Keep in mind that the dynamics of a menege/polyamorous/polygamous situation are going to be very different. We'll get to the whys of that later...

Moving on!


What Is Marriage Anyway?
Before we can have an open discussion on the science behind marriage we need to normalize the definition. Marriage is a committed, consensual, adult relationship between two people. Remember, without commitment it isn't love.

This is where Common Law Marriage verse Living Together gets complicated and the first place people get lost when talking about love. If you aren't having the ceremony because you want to bail if things get hard, you aren't committed it's a Stage 2 relationship and your chances for a happy marriage are significantly depressed. If, on the other hand, you have decided you don't need a formal ceremony or paperwork for your relationship and it is committed you might be living in sin according to some religions, but you are in the right mindset for marriage. Good for you!


Isn't Marriage Just a Religious Thing?
Considering all major religions I've heard of have some very firm ideas on marriage you'd think this is just a cultural concept, maybe a way of controlling reproductive capabilities of the young before The Pill was invented. As it turns out though, The Vows are actually a formalization of a biological adaptation.

Mammals are - with a few exceptions - social creatures. Troops, packs, pods, prides... mammals get together for survival. Granted, in most cases humans can survive with basic civilization around them. Marriage, then, becomes a function of survival during the child-bearing and child-rearing years. There are arguments that marriage isn't necessary [reference], and that works on the chemical timeline of love. Once the children are old enough to not need two parents for survival it makes sense to split, yes?

Not really. In the long run a healthy marriage is actually healthier for you [reference]. Of course... you have to have a happy, working, and healthy marriage for that to work for you. Welcome to the Marriage Paradox!


What Is A Happy Marriage?
Quick! Describe your "How We Met" story... Go on, describe your relationship.

If you start with the word "we" or use the inclusive terms - we, our, us - frequently you're probably happier than if you use the exclusive terms - I, me, mine - and the more of a positive spin you put on your "how we met" story is a good indicator of how healthy the relationship is now [reference].

I admit, that fact grabbed my attention. Especially since EVFIL is about a married couple. There is a back story to how Evan and Tabitha met. Evan tells his part of it during the course of EVFIL, but I wondered what Tabitha's view was. Naturally, the only thing to do when you have a question like that is to get writing!

So I did... the opening for the new story from Tabitha's POV is up on my FaceBook Author Page. Go ahead and give me a like, read the snippet, and let me know what you think.

Later this week...
How to Ruin a Perfect Thing -- because Evan is an expert at ruining relationships and there is a science to how this works.
How to Make Love Last -- we'll let Tabitha teach this one because she's got a better handle on what makes marriage.

Who Owns Your Genes?

Guess what? It's not you.

More than a quarter of human genes are patented, that means the belong to the patent owner.

The United States Congress has this to say from the Department of Commerce: United States Patent and Trademark Office (1-5-01)...

When Congress enacted the patent
statutes, it specifically authorized
issuing a patent to a person who
‘‘invents or discovers’’ a new and useful
composition of matter, among other
things. The pertinent statute is 35 U.S.C.
101, which reads: ‘‘Whoever invents or
discovers any new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition
of matter, or any new and useful
improvement thereof, may obtain a
patent therefor, subject to the conditions
and requirements of this title.’’ Thus, an
inventor’s discovery of a gene can be the
basis for a patent on the genetic
composition isolated from its natural
state and processed through purifying
steps that separate the gene from other
molecules naturally associated with it.

Don't worry about getting a bill, if you're healthy. But if you want genetic testing for something like the BRAC1 gene that's linked to breast cancer? Yeah, that's going to cost you.

One company - Myriad Genetics - holds the patent on BRAC1 and BRAC2 genes. No other company can experiment with the genes or find a cheaper testing option. The lack of competition means the price of testing will stay high, well out of reach of the average American.

And, before you attack someone, this is currently being discussed in the Supreme Court with very valid arguments for why gene patenting is a Bad Idea.

What's worrisome at this point is that anyone actually thought this was a Good Idea at some point. Take the whole idea to its logical conclusion:

"We own your genes! By the way, you owe us... um... let's call it one million for sharing that genetic material of ours with your Significant Other last night. Oh, and you need to pay rent on gene ABCD3, or we're going to chemically extract it!"

That's a plan worthy of a Batman villain. And someone set up the law so it could happen.

I have a new proposal. All law makers and scientists should be required to read science fiction before doing anything. We'll call the class Worst Case Scenarios In Science, and then make them take a course in bioethics. Trust me, the fiction authors of the world have all thought out the extreme consequences of scary science. It makes for great books, but not for an ideal reality.

Now, knowing you don't really own your own genetic code, would you like to comment (there may or may not be a fee for using your brain).

The model of DNA appears courtesy of the Image Library of Biological Macromolecules based in Jena, Germany, and was found at the UCalBerkely website.

What Makes Scientific Reports Suspect

There was a link running around Twitter last week that claimed watching FOX News made people less informed than people who didn't watch any news at all. It took me a day to track down the link people were referencing, and just reading it made me want to beat someone over the head with my keyboard, except I like my keyboard more than that.

Ignore the content of the study, that isn't necessarily the bad part. What is bad is what this represents as a whole, from the content of the study, to how the public views the results. If science were a gourmet meal this would be a moldy hamburger with roaches pulled out from under the dumpster. Sure, it's edible, there might even be people who enjoy roaches with their dinner, but it shouldn't have this kind of public approval.

Let's break down why this is Bad Science so that next time you too can tell if something is fact or fiction:

*NOTE* A poorly conducted study that qualifies as Bad Science does not mean the conclusion is untrue, it just means the conclusion is suspect and further research is needed.

1. Source Material
In the case of the FOX News article the source material most people referenced was an article in a rival news source. Huffington Post is usually a good source for news and they cite where they found their story fodder, in a poll done by Fairleigh Dickinson University which didn't just look at FOX News viewers but cited problems with other news sources as well (and praised a few).

For something as trivial as who knows more about the politics in Egypt this isn't a huge deal. I wouldn't ignore this information just because of the news source. But consider more serious things, like the choice to vaccinate your child or not. The doctor who originally published the study was barred from practicing medicine after being discredited, and yet someone will risk their child's life over that study.

When you see something touted as science, be skeptical. Ask for the link and the source material so you can see the research yourself.


2. Buzz Words
Notice the sensational headline "FOX News Viewers Known Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: STUDY" even though the first paragraph correctly acknowledges that this was not a study, it was a poll. There is a difference.

The use of buzz words isn't new, but it is a little scary. Over in the genetics community people use the word "sexy gene" to describe a hot button buzz-word gene that catches both attention and grant money. Everything for "the depression gene" to "the warrior gene" are researched, although probably not as well as they should be. What garners the attention isn't good science, it's buzz words.


3. Sample Size
This is the biggest problem with scientific studies: not enough data.

In fact, Genomes Unzipped has an entire article devoted to why small sample size is Bad Science. In short, the danger of small sample sizes is that they very rarely have accurate results. A study done with 500 people might show a correlation that ceases to exist when you have a sample size of 5000.

The FOX News poll has a sample size of 612. That might be a good sample size if the topic of study was a rare disease that only 1000 people worldwide have. It is not a good sample size for the category People Who Watch Televised News.

This is really the biggest red flag for Bad Science. When you see someone claiming "90% of Men prefer X to Y!" it's time to ask them what the sample size was. Percentages mean nothing. I can go ask three children if they like to eat Brussel sprouts and get all three to agree that they love them. My research would then prove "100% of children love Brussels sprouts!" Would that be accurate? Of course not. My children are weird. That's the danger of a small sample size.

If you want to see something really scary, consider the original Autism/Vaccine study had a sample size of twelve. Feel free to recoil in horror.


4. Controlling for Other Factors
The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll does get points for trying to control for some factors, they asked which political party the victims/test subjects aligned with. It's a start, but not good enough. In a perfect world researchers are able to control for all possible variables. In the case of the FOX News poll the only controlled variable was Political Party. What they didn't cover was: age, income level, education level, primary source of news, other sources of news, work place environment, and social levels.

The poll focused on what people knew based on what televised newscast they watch, which makes the erroneous assumption that the television is the primary source of news for everyone being polled. Because the poll didn't address where the people were getting their news from, and how much of their news they picked up from conversations at work, online news, social networking, or other sources, it's hard to say how much of an impact the news shows really have.

Not a huge deal because all this will do is confirm some people's beliefs of conservative newscasts while it's ignored by everyone else, but this is a huge factor in other studies.

Take the vaccine example above. Autism is still being studied, there are still some people who debate whether the whole spectrum is one disorder or multiple similar disorders, and it's possible that there isn't one universal cause. Factors considered before the study was published: age, vaccination history, was the kid crazy... The tenuous link formed of the criminally small sample size was that all the children had their regularly scheduled vaccines, ergo the vaccines were to blame.


5. Cognitive Bias
As my friend said when I questioned the FOX News poll, "But I want it to be true!" And why not? A good percentage of the population already believes the headline, so why would they question the research? It simply proves what they've known all along, and a researcher is in more danger of falling victim to this than someone reading the results. This is called Confirmation Bias. People want to prove their prejudices correct and will seek out information that supports their beliefs.

Gosh! Could that possibly relate in any way to our FOX News example? Why, gentle reader, it certainly can. Viewers are most likely to watch a news station that tells them what they already believe, and the researchers (suffering from Experimenter's Bias perhaps) are most likely to interpret the data to reflect what they already believe. Just typing that makes me shiver in fear.

The human brain is not programed to question preset prejudices. When a scientist sees something they automatically agree with they must train themselves to remain skeptical. This is the most insidious part of Bad Science because we do it to ourselves. We see something that supports our way of thinking and don't read past the headline.



Bad Science kills people. Don't be a victim. Don't victimize yourself by passively agreeing with everything that supports your prejudices. Ask questions. If you see a fact thrown out in a discussion, check the data. Don't be content with the fluff news article, skip the hype and go straight to the scientific data. And don't be afraid to call shenanigans.

Questions? Comments? The box is just below, feel free to share your thoughts. All I ask is that you keep it clean and polite, and don't turn it into a political discussion.

The Health Benefits of Beating Yourself Up Over A Mistake

It's a common scene. You make a mistake, something simple, and you spend the rest of the day worrying it over in your mind. This sensation of "beating yourself up over a mistake" is closely tied to guilt and empathy, two things science says are good for you.

So what is the health benefit behind beating yourself up over every little mistake? THERE IS NONE.

Guilt is part of empathy. It lets you understand you've hurt someone else, or done something socially unacceptable.

Empathy is what separates adults from infants and psychopaths. The child who pulls out your earring and giggles while you scream and bleed doesn't understand you're in pain - they lack empathy. Hopefully the infant will outgrow this trait before they become and adult and start torturing people for fun.

Beating yourself up over small mistakes or social errors has no benefit. It is a symptom of depression, but other than being a warning sign it's not helping you at all. The good news is that depression is treatable. You don't need to beat yourself up over things any more! Awesome!

And if it isn't about depression? Let it go and be happy. Not sure how? If you don't feel like Googling "How To Be Happy" then here's the short list...

Volunteer - Doing something nice for other people is always a mood booster.

Get outside and Get moving - Sunshine and exercise are both great for mood boosting.

Get Some Sleep - Sleep deprivation not only causes hallucinations, but it makes you cranky too

Eat Something - Low blood sugar affects your mood (eat healthy!).

Address Underlying Causes - Undiagnosed illness, bad relationships, unhealthy habits... all those can lead to a state of near-depression where you find yourself beating yourself up over mistakes. Get out of toxic relationship and get your health checked.

Build Healthy Relationships - Even introverts need a few close friends they can go to when stressed. It doesn't matter if they're family or not, find people who understand you and can help you on the gloomy days.

Laugh - It really is the best medicine.

Don't Worry What Other People Think Honestly? Most people are way too busy wondering what you are thinking about them to have the time to judge you. We all get stuck in our own little bubbles sometimes, it happens. Don't assume it's all about you.

Find The Good Change the way you think. Instead of noticing all the negative things (something we're trained to do by society and mass media) look for the positive in people. On the train ride to work try to think one nice thing about everyone you see: cute shoes, nice hat, good smile... Then turn the trick on yourself: super cute shoes, awesome smile, fabulous personality :o)

Have a happy weekend!
Liana

Happiness photo found here and used under Fair Use license.

The Answer is in the Eyes

Let's take a minute to discuss eye color, because whenever it becomes a major feature of a work of fiction the author is doing it wrong.

Let's start with what most people think they know about the genetics of eye color:

1 - Like most physical traits there is a dominant and a recessive gene and a mix gives you a third color (like flowers being red, white, or pink).

2- Brown is the dominant color and that's why so many people have brown eyes.

3- Blue is the recessive color.

4- Green must be a mix of brown and blue.


Options one through four are all lies, in case you hadn't guessed the surprise twist of this post.

There are not two alleles that code for eye color, there is a combination of at least three (on different chromosomes) and some studies cite as many as 17 different alleles that factor into eye color selection. Those genetic factors code for more than eye color, they code for pattern and pigment depth, because your eyes are really layers of color not a single solid sheet of color.

Brown eyes are dominant, but not because of the standard reasons certain features are dominant (like the genetics behind hair color - which is another post for later). Brown eyes are considered the base color for humans. Congrats! If you don't have brown eyes you are a mutant!

But eye color is not a set base like the red/white/pink flower analogy so often used to illustrate Mendelian genetics.
In basic biology classes students learn that traits look like this. Big A is dominant, little a is recessive, and a cross will be a blend or the dominant Big A will, well, dominate. Not so with eye color. First, you need a much bigger punnett square. Second, eye color is on a spectrum. The basic spectrum is roughly:

black - brown - light brown -gray - blue - green

Falling outside the spectrum are violet and red. True purple eyes are associated with albinism, as are red eyes. Elizabeth Taylor, the famous violet-eyed actress - actually had deep blue eyes and excellent makeup (poor color quality in some of her films didn't hurt either).

That debunks all the books where someone realizes the child is theirs because they have blue eyes and the kid has blue eyes but the "parents" both have brown eyes. Brown-eyed parents who are heterozygous (Aa type of thing) can have children with a variety of eye colors.

The other common problem I see in books is that Green Eyes = Irish Lass. Or some heroine from the highlands. Green Eyes and Red Hair seem to be two things people can't seperate in their minds. Which is sad, because the statistics say the Irish Lass only has a 16% chance of being Green Eyed. Now a woman from Iceland, she has an 87% chance of having blue or green eyes. File that under useful information.

Brown eyes are the dominant color world wide, but in Asia and Africa pigment is deeper than the "honey-eyed" European variants. Gray eyes are most common in the Middle East, blue and green eyes are common in Siberia and Scandinavia (also the Scots and Irish have some but that's genetic history and cross-breeding and invasions... long story).

The good news is that as we build international relations we're cross-pollinating our little hearts out. Sci-fi writers can decide if there are still phenotypes (physical appearances) that can flag genetic history, or if the characters have blended into a broader worldwide appearance.

Personally, I like giving my futuristic characters profiles we would consider mixed-racial in modern terms. I think it's unrealistic to say that vast majorities of people will have strong regional/ethnic features 900 years from now. There will be trends, and there will be mutations. But the more borders and mixed-racial taboos fall the more alike humans are likely to look.

Of course, if you're writing a historical novel you best pay attention to what your character is going to look like. The isolation that arose from limited travel and generations without waves of invasions (yes- it happened) gave rise to mutations like the blue eyes and to breeding for features in humans. That's why you can look at someone and guess their genetic nationality today. And why you probably won't be able to in a few hundred years.

Science vs Religion

For some reasons these two ideologies can't co-exist in a peaceful manner, which is funny considering they both work for peace and the betterment of mankind. I've been seeing more and more religion-bashing in the name of science. Frankly, it makes me sick.

What I see is a bunch of five-year-olds who aren't mature enough to see another person's point of view or respect differences squabbling over the Origin of the Cookie. One group claims the cookie came from store bought ingredients and was assembled over a period of time that involved mixing, baking, and cooling. The other group claims the cookie came from their lunch box and they brought it from home.

Both groups are correct. The cookie did come from ingredients, and the cookie was also in the lunch box. A mature person can look at this argument from a distance and see where each group is coming from. I suggest we take a similar approach to the Science vs Religion debate.

On one side we have a group of people who have a body of historical and physical evidence. They have eye witness accounts to support their views. The have hunches, or theories, that they are actively searching for evidence to support. They have established modes of research that can be replicated on a reliable schedule.

On the other side we have a group of people who have a body of historical and physical evidence. They have eye witness accounts to support their views. The have hunches, or theories, that they are actively searching for evidence to support. They have established modes of research that can be replicated on a reliable schedule.

Test time: Which group is which?

This is where each group will start spluttering in protest. Let's break down the arguments, shall we?

Point 1: Religions each have a text of some kind. Science argues these are of no value because they could be fiction, but not the historians who use the exact same thing for their research. INVALID

Point 2: Religion has people who claim they have seen miracles. Science argues that the eye witnesses are unreliable because they are claiming something that could not happen. Not only is this a circular argument but it invalidates most science. How many have you seen an abyssal plain? Anyone? Walked on the moon? No? INVALID

Point 3: Religion claims that if you follow a set pattern you will see the same results they record, allowing for free will or chaos theory. Science says that all true facts must be able to be recreated in an identical fashion every single time. Anyone who has taken a science class and missed a problem on a test knows this doesn't happen, especially in math. The scientist will argue that you did something wrong, which is exactly what the religious will say. INVALID

We can reverse all these arguments and insert things like evolution, big bang theory, and calculus for the religious terms.

What it comes down to is the reliability of witnesses, which is such a dicey place to be. A hundred years ago there were scientists giving opium to infants because it calmed them down and made them happy and was therefore a Good Thing. You can guess how much my eye twitches at that idea.

I know Science is screaming, "I'm not like that any more! I don't dig up bodies for kicks any more! That's ancient history!" And I give science full credit for evolving past the primitive form. On the other hand, a large part of the science group likes to judge religion based on the most primitive forms. I'm afraid neither group can fully divorce itself from the skeletons in the closet (even the ones that are correctly labeled).

From the outside there is no real difference between science and religion. For the average person the difference between differential equations and praying to the moon goddess for the right answer is nonexistent. Most people have a very limited understanding of the world in general.

Religious people probably understand what they, personally, believe. This is generally not a direct reflection of what their religion believes, or even what their religious text teaches, it is simply what they believe.

Scientists are usually pretty good with their own specialized field. Outside of that, well, biologists will have trouble explaining physics and good luck getting an engineer to explain biochem. Neither group is well grounded in history, and the historians don't understand nearly as much psychology as they need to explain human nature.

Neither group has all the details. There is a tendency to discount the unfamiliar as ridiculous lies. Or, far worse, dismiss something based on one experiment.

"I went to church once and ever since I've known religion was a pack of lies."

"I flew a kite once and it got stuck in a tree, that proves gravity doesn't exist."

That is Bad Science, a crime that should be punishable by death, it really should.

Then people go an top Bad Science with bullying. Every time I see a protestor with some sign about how their religion proves you are a horrible person I have to resist this crazy urge to beat them to death with their own poster. Then I turn around and seeing a scientist ripping apart religion with their supposedly superior intellect and the most circular arguments ever invented. It's enough to drive a girl to overdose on Godiva.

Bullying gets you no where, although I wish it would land you in jail. It doesn't. It just means you are so unsure of your own standing that you can't state your beliefs in a non-confrontational way. Check my Albert's quote up top, that's it really. If you can't state your views in a simple, peaceful manner you don't understand them well enough to be stating anything.

Personally, I have no trouble reconciling science with religion. In my years of study I have never found anything that conflicted with my religious beliefs (Well, the opium thing, but that's ancient history right?). I've invested time studying both science and religion. I enjoy learning about new religions even if I don't agree with them, and I think that may be the key.

You do not need to agree with an idea to study that idea. You can study religion, science, literature, or music and not agree with the concept, or that the piece is art, or that there is any merit to the existence of this thing, but that doesn't mean you can't understand why other people might hold different views. When you resort to "only an idiot would like this" you have put yourself on an island of ignorance.

You say, "I refuse to learn. I refuse to respect you. I refuse to allow differences." Well Hiel, Hitler. You might as well start the bonfire and burn some witches. Different point of views are what allow culture to grow. Those differences fuel creativity and invention. Forcing people to goose-step to your ideology is intellectual death.

Here's a better idea. Say, "We're different. We don't agree. That's cool. Tell me what you believe, and I'll share what we believe. We can find a common ground. We can share our truths. And we can both walk away a little better for this discussion."

Even if the only common ground is "oxygen is good" the hate stops.

Questions and comments welcomed. You are entitled to your own view, even if you don't agree with me, but please don't bash each other.

Global Warming

Global warming is always in the news, but it's not something everyone understands well. So let's break this down. Next time someone from Greenpeace attacks you for global warming you can hand them some hard evidence that is not our species' fault (not entirely at least).

Anyone familiar with weather patterns knows there are cycles: El Nino and La Nina, flood cycles, seasons... Not only are these patterns natural, they are predictable to a certain extent, and they are healthy. Believe it or not, change is good for the environment!

One of the hardest lessons we've learned as a species is that not every natural event can or should be controlled. Fire fires are horrific, they burn land, they kill animals and people, they destroy property. For centuries people worked to find ways to control the fires, only to find we were mucking about with the natural order of things and the lack of fire was actually detrimental to some habits and species.

There's a whole field of FIRE ECOLOGY that I highly recommend you look into if you aren't familiar with it yet.

So, this is step one. Understand that the weather changes from year to year and that there is a natural cycle of heating and cooling. One of the most common fallacies is that the weather is constant.

Remember the portraits from the 1500s when everyone is buried in layers of fur? Can you imagine going out today dressed like Hans here? Not only would PETA be speechless with rage but you would swelter to death. Go back in time 500 years though, and you'll find all those layers made sense. There was no central heating, and they were in the middle of a mini ice age.

How do we know this? Ice cores.

Ice cores are amazing things. They're a little like tree rings for the air quality of the planet. By counting a tree's rings you can tell how old it is, and by looking at the spacing you can tell how much the tree grew in any given year.


An ice core is a frozen timeline of the Earth's climate. When it's all laid out we get this:
Take a look at the blue line. On the far left we have the present day. On the far right we have 400 thousand years ago. Notice the peaks? The tops of those peaks are what we as humans call "liveable temperature" that is, above freezing. All those long troughs? Those are ice ages.

At a glance, what have we had more of?

Mmm, hmm. Ice ages. Long periods of freezing cold where the ice covers most the planet followed by rapid heating, short periods of above freezing temperatures, and rapid cooling periods. Those are called Glacial Periods.

The peaks are Interglacial Maximums (IGM).

This is step two, recognize that global warming and cooling is a pattern. Another great fallacy of the global warming debate is that all of this has never happened before and that it is all the fault of your greedy, gas-guzzling car.

I promise, there were no cars during the last IGM. What's more, the last IGM was still averaging nine degrees hotter than it is today, and water levels were 21ft (6.5m) higher than they are today.

This is the place where most people get a little confused. We've established that global warming is natural, that is has happened before, and that it probably isn't your fault. Now people want to throw their trash in the ocean and go party guilt-free.

It's not that easy.

You see, global warming is a misnomer. Scientists aren't worried about the warming trends, they are worried that the warming trend won't stop.


The current theories for what causes global warming are varied, but one of the more solid theories that is supported by the evidence is the Milankovitch theory. The theory states "that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth through orbital forcing."

In other words, the Earth wobbles and the climate changes. Our orbit around the sun isn't a perfect circle. Every few thousand years we wobble in the wrong direction and the northern hemisphere fries. Then we wobble backwards and we freeze. Really, 21 degrees of wobble and spring break means wearing five layers of rabbit fur over six layers of muslin.


And this involves your cute car, fast food habits, and lifestyle how? Good question.

What scientists have no way of proving is that the temperature will drop again. Theoretically, it should. If everything follows the established pattern we will probably get a littler warmer (each IGM has been warmer than the previous) and then drop into a rapid cooling phase (several thousand years of cooling) down into an ice age.

The concern is that we have damaged the environment to the point that the temperatures will never drop.

There are even some debates over whether we have proof that this isn't going to happen. There is the hockey-stick debate (has the temperature shot through the roof or no?) and several scientists have submitted research saying they have no evidence that the temperatures have increased in the past five years, some say as far back as 1998.

Which is always nice to point out when someone says you shouldn't have that child, eat that food, drive that car, or wear those clothes because you have destroyed the balance of the planet in doing so.

But, personally, I think that concern is short-sighted. The temperatures are pretty much out of our control, what we need to do is worry about having the resources to survive temperature fluctuations. Higher temperatures mean an increase in storms, hurricane activity, flooding, rising sea levels... Dropping temperatures mean croplands covered in ice.

Step three is being prepared. There is more to green living, or sustainable living, than giving up a gas-guzzler or riding a bike to work. That's a short-term plan that will have a limited impact on the environment. You'll be healthier and save money, but it isn't going to save the polar bears. They need to evolve like the rest of the universe or they will die out. That's evolution in action. Blame Darwin if you're angry.

We do have enough resources to feed everyone on the planet. We have the money. We have the food. We have the water. All the shortages you hear about are artificial or localized. No, Somalia doesn't have enough rain. But if we got our collective rear-ends I know several places who would love to share their flood waters. It's just a matter of collecting the rain and shipping it - bottled water anyone?

Global warming exists, but it is not the great dramatic tragedy that it's made out to be in the media. Any questions? If you need something clarified or explained hit the comment box, or my in box, I'll be happy to give you an answer. And if I don't know it, I know how to find out.


Image of Han Holbein found HERE. Image of climate chart found HERE. All works copyright and courtesy of the original owners. Used with thanks under Fair Use laws.