Earth Day and You

What is the purpose of Earth Day? To me, Earth Day is a day where everyone can hop onto the "going green" bandwagon, and for at least 1 day out of our calendar's 365, we can all say that we have done the Earth some good. Ultimately people go back to their everyday lives, as living as we do on Earth Day simply isn't realistic every single day of the year. But if Earth Day does nothing else to affect us over the course of the year, it does do one thing: it reminds us that the Earth needs to be cared for. Without Earth Day, we would all too easily forget about our impact on our planet. It's similar to the "Earth Hour" in which everybody turns off all their electronics for an hour, in an effort to save energy. Realistically, the energy that we save in one hour will have little effect compared to the rest of the hours in a year that we are not saving that energy, however it is important as a reminder.


So even though Earth Day completely skipped my mind, and I had no recollection of it until the assignment for this blog post was posted, the important thing is that we remember, so that we may make decisions between now and the next Earth Day that will have a more positive impact on our planet.

Motivation

What motivates me to learn the chemistry that we are learning this year?

There are a lot of things that interest me, for which there is no immediate outside cause for my motivation. I believe, personally, that I am naturally curious with the how, not so much as the why, for all sorts of things. Even if something does not have a clear application in the real world, it may still interest me in knowing how it works.
I believe this is the cause for my interests in different subjects at school, my motivation to do well in them, and as a result my grades in these subjects. A curiosity for explanations of how things work lends itself well to subjects like science or mathematics, which aim to explain how things work. Subjects like English or History are not as concerned with the explanation of how things became the way that they are, and do not lend themselves well to such explanations. As a result, I am not as naturally interesting in these subjects, and do not do as well in them. But things like math and science naturally interest me, so I need no outside source of motivation to learn them well. This, I believe, is my source of motivation to learn the Chemistry that we learn.

Science and Politics, and You

The Freemasons censor scientific progress in order to keep their idealistic political control.
Only joking...

So what do Science and Politics have to do with each other? And what does that have to do with you?


Science (or as some like to call it, Magic) is at its prime. As a species which thrives on tools, science naturally lends itself well to our interest and practical neceseties. Scientific advances lead to improvements in such tools, which end up affecting each and every one of us almost constantly during our everyday lives. If you looked at the difference in technology between now and 30 years ago, you may find many of the same objects, but you will find many differences between those products. Cars, for one thing, certainly have made major advances since the 70's.
But how much of our research haven't we heard about...? How much of it has been barred from the collective public's ear?

As it turns out, if you are a scientist, it's not quite as simple as making a breakthrough discovery one day, and then having it become commonplace use the very next. There are many intermediate steps between discovering and utilizing, as far as technology goes - and this is where the politics play a role.

Charles Darwin (Happy Birthday, Chuck 'n Abe) is one well known example. After he first began to theorize his ideas about evolution, he spent years making sure that his observations were scientifically sound, but also spent time carefully planning how to best present this to the public. Creationism was a widely accepted public belief, so a theory about evolution such as Darwin's would be rejected and critisized if it were thrown out willy-nilly, as other researchers working on similar ideas at the time could have done. That's not to say that Darwin's theory of evolution was widely accepted, or ever even widely accepted. Even now, there are many people who oppose his theory. Luckily Darwin remained physically unharmed after proposing such a theological travesty, unlike poor Galileo...

The main point that I guess I am trying to convey (I forgot where I was going with that...) is that science and politics do not mix. While science is concerned with the absolute truth of things, politics is concerned with whichever truth is best for the general public. Especially when it comes to controversial topics, these truths do not always overlap. What does this mean for you? Nothing, if you don't consider it. That's the beauty of censorship.

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power is a bad idea. It's a bad idea for the same reason procrastination is a bad idea. Don't get me wrong, I love to procrastinate. I consider myself a chronic procrastinator (I have put off writing this blog post for two weeks).

At first glance, nuclear power seems like a great idea. You take some matter and turn it into clean, abundant energy. Problem solved. Oh, except that as a biproduct, we are left with extremely dangerous radioactive material that would stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years. What's more, we have no way to get rid of this stuff safely, except to bury it in the ground and hope that eventually we will figure out what to do with it before it causes any harm.
This reminded me of a funny quote about procrastination: Hard work pays off later, procrastination pays off now.
To be honest, this is not all that different from the type of mindset that I'm picking up from this nuclear power idea. Basically, the payoff of cheap energy is immediate, and the consequences are put off until later.

In addition, the argument is made that nuclear energy does not contribute to global warming, which makes it a good thing. On the one hand, if the decision came down only between facing a global warming apocolypse in the near future, or a mass nuclear waste spillage cenario tens of thousands of years in the future, I would choose the latter. The reality of it is, however, that it is not a black-and-white choice between two sources of energy. There are many shades of gray, as we are discovering with our "go green" fad and our frantic search for an alternative energy source. Hydrogen fuel is a good idea, except that as abundant as water is, it is still not a renewable resource. The best option in my opinion would be solar energy. It may as well be renewable; once the sun is burned out, though most likely billions of years after humans have seen the last of this planet, life here would be screwed anyways.

Got a little off topic there. In short, nuclear power is like procrastination. Though we would not have to deal with it in our lifetime, eventually somebody would. That is what we are counting on by supporting nuclear power, that eventually, somebody would come up with a way of dealing with this. But what if nobody did? Are we really willing to play dice with the fate of our race?


Well that was pretty unorganized, as usual. Got to stop writing these so late at night...