The Readers: CO2, Sicko, The Times, In God We... What?

Here are some more excerpts from recent reader e-mail on various topics:

Here's a conspiracy theory on scant showings of the movie Sicko:

Will somebody tell me why Sicko is not being shown at our local theaters?? I called AMC and they gave me a weak excuse about "its limited availability" and therefore only one of their theaters in Tampa has it scheduled. Could it be pressure from insurance companies, drug companies or even the government that is limiting access??

Re: Sicko: I doubt there's a big conspiracy -- it's more a matter of Hollywood marketing and big chain ownership. There were similar complaints about Moore's Fahrenheit 911 and An Inconvenient Truth. If there were zero theaters showing it, I would call it an outrageous shame, but the fact is that documentaries are not going to get a fraction of the theaters as the latest Hollywood product.

I've gotten tons of e-mail about the Pinellas County Commission scandal -- thank you to everyone who wrote, and my apology for not being able to answer them all. Here's one with a different take, pointing out that the newspaper is just as responsible as the voters for the incumbents who are there:

You must remember Howard, the St. Pete  Times villified candidate Norm Roche, just for running against a long time incumbent...the democratic party mimicking the undemocratic position of "how can any democrat support a candidate, when we have a democrat in that seat, even if the candidate is a democrat too?  The Times made it their personal job, to protect Calvin Harris, who has sat on the board for a long time.  The people are tired of politics as usual, and want change.  Why would anyone stand up to run, when the Times gets in the game....of steering a race?  This was done...and the blogs are still full of it.  Your employer has helped the status quo to remain in office. -- HallahanFL

And here's a chain e-mail I've been getting about the new dollar coins, alleging that the motto "In God We Trust" has been deleted... see my follow-up afterward.

Please help do this.. refuse to accept these when they are handed back to you. I received one from the Post Office as change and I ask for a dollar bill instead.the lady just smiled and said way to go so she had read this e-mail.please help outour world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!! -- Jenny Ingram

Howard here. The reference is to a new series of $1 coins honoring U.S. presidents. In fact, the motto "In God We Trust'' is there on the EDGE of the new coins. You can argue that this is still kind of "demoting" the slogan, I suppose. Giving this claim even more credence is that some of the early Washington and Adams coins were missing the motto because of a minting error, which I imagine would make them more valuable.

For more on the coin rumors, check out my favorite hoax-busting Web site, www.snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/dollarcoin.asp

Lastly, on yet another story about a carbon monoxide poisoning resulting from a car left running:

WHY do cars NOT have automatic safety shut-offs after, say, a half-hour of unattended idling?  (A courtesy chime on the dash prior to shutdown would let the driver know to tap the gas if he wanted to keep idling). Otherwise, its absurd that the thing can sit and idle for hours upon hours by itself, until the tank is empty, like some kind of Kervorkian contraption. -- Tom

Makes sense to me, Tom. If they can make cars telling you to turn right at the next corner, after all...

Comments

[David Mathews]

"In God We Trust" on coinage is an insult to God. God isn't a citizen of the United States of America. God isn't an American patriot.

As to America's trust in God, I don't imagine that America should have such confidence in God's support during a time in which Americans are committing such horrendous crimes against the Iraqis and killing civilians by the thousands.

Any religion that values the greed & gluttony of 300 million over the health & well-being of 6.6 billion people isn't worth much. When the time comes, God will teach the United States of America a lesson in humility which humans will remember for thousands of years.

****

On a different note, The Economist magazine has noticed that human population growth is going to end:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9545933

The story contains a bit of naive optimism which will be tested to an extreme this century, in our lifetimes:

"Some regard this as a cause for celebration, on the ground that there are obviously too many people on the planet. But too many for what? There doesn't seem to be much danger of a Malthusian catastrophe. Mankind appropriates about a quarter of what is known as the net primary production of the Earth (this is the plant tissue created by photosynthesis)—a lot, but hardly near the point of exhaustion. The price of raw materials reflects their scarcity and, despite recent rises, commodity prices have fallen sharply in real terms during the past century."

Which reminds me of the principle: If you can drive safely at 120 mph don't assume that you can still drive safely at 150 mph. The residents of Pompeii probably never imagined that the volcano would eventually destroy their city. New Orleans knew for decades that a hurricane would destroy the city, but the threat was always in the distant future until 2005.

There are rather substantial problems appearing on the Earth right now, with 6.6 billion people; how much worse will the situation get once that human population has reached 10 billion?

Armageddon. Apocalypse. These words spring to mind when contemplating the next fifty years of human history.

Which leads to the next naive claim:

"Nor does the opposite problem—that the population will fall so fast or so far that civilisation is threatened—seem a real danger. The projections suggest a flattening off and then a slight decline in the foreseeable future."

The potential for a sharp decline in human population increases with every hungry mouth added to the human family. Just as the peak of Mt. Everest is a "death zone" for climbers the peak of human population also occupies a "death zone" for the entire planet.

The human population will reach 9 billion or 10 billion, but it won't stay there for very long. The scale of human suffering will vastly exceed anyone's most pessimistic imaginations. The scale of the apocalypse will exceed even that described in the book of Revelation.

When there are 9 billion humans and only sufficient food for 8 billion, what happens? Wait and see.

[RB]

Fascinating the selective use of separation of church and state. Want to put up the ten commandments in a courthouse and we grip. But write God on money, seals and say it in the pledge of allegiance and it's somehow easier to swallow. Interesting.

[David Mathews]

The August 2007 issue of National Geographic has a number of articles which should serve to warn us:

1. "The Maya: Glory & Ruins"

"But empires rise only to fall. We conclude with the cascade of catastrophe—natural and man-made—that precipitated the Classic Maya collapse, leaving nature to reclaim the grandeur."

( http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0708/feature2/index.html )

Empires rise only to fall. This is a principle which has been verified numerous times throughout human history. Global technology civilization cannot help but suffer the same fate.

2. "New Orleans: A Perilous Future"

" In its 289-year history, major hurricanes or river floods have put the city under 27 times, about once every 11 years. Each time, the fractious French, Spanish, blacks, Creoles, and Cajuns raised the levees and rebuilt."

( http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0708/feature1/index.html )

If 27 floods are not sufficient evidence that New Orleans is city which should not exist, the rising oceans will settle the issue by taking the city:

"The impact on New Orleans? A meter of sea level rise would be enough to turn New Orleans into the new Big Easy Reef—or a new Amsterdam, behind massive dikes."

If that is the case, imagine what a 20-foot rise in sea level would do to Louisiana.

3. "The Arctic's Shrinking Ice Shelf" (Interactive Map)

( http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0706/feature1/map.html )

Humankind has done this to the Earth. Destroying natural ecosystems and polluting the entire globe leads to consequences which are extremely unfavorable to the continued existence of civilization.

The ice is melting. When the oceans rise and take the coast humankind will lose $trillions worth of real estate and infrastructure. Rebuilding ports, refineries and industrial plants will not be an option because of the depletion of natural resources (especially fossil fuels).

Humankind needs to wake up and begin planning for a radically different future. Technological civilization is dying. If humankind cannot survive without technology humankind will not survive.