A Spirited Introduction Involving Bad Music and a Glass of Milk

It was stuck, and wasn't coming out very easily. He had procured a tool to help dig it out, and it was turning into a long, tedious process of digging away bit by bit. It was pretty old; had to be for it to be this stuck. But he really wanted it; it was worth all this work.

The radio was playing in the background, an obnoxious DJ barking something about winning concert tickets before playing the latest high-pitched bubblegum rock song that he had already played roughly a million and five times in the past three hours. Man. The radio sucked. But the young man chipping away didn't like silence, and his radio only picked up that station and a country station. He figured the alternative rock station was the lesser of two evils.

Deciding to take a break from his work, the young man walked over to the fridge and grabbed a gallon jug of milk. Not soy milk, mind you, or that watered down skim bull crap. Hell, this wasn't even whole milk. No sir. This here was the good stuff. Half and half.

He grabbed himself a nice tall glass and filled it all the way up. Right to the top. Grasping the glass in both hands as if it were the Holy Grail itself, he took a long, generous gulp of the rich, creamy milk. Oh yes. That was the good stuff. And as soon as he finished working, it would go great with great big piece of-

His train of thought collided with a jumbo jet as several men came crashing through the windows of his house. All of them were in full on crazy-ass SWAT dress, each holding a semi-automatic with a laster sight pointed at various parts of his body.

Damn. Guess those old brownies were gonna have to wait.

Are We Living in a State of Fear?

It would seem that we really are living in a state of fear. The whole Global Warming issue is something that politicians have projected at us as being definitely happening; stuff that is going to affect us very soon. Sea levels are going to rise and destroy Beijing and San Francisco, the polar bears are going to die, seasons are going to become all screwed up, new diseases are going to spring up out of nowhere, people will die!

It’s all huge, end-of-the-world type stuff. They try so hard to make it seem like that if we don’t do something about our planet then we’re pretty much dead. Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has many of these supposed facts about the sea level rising and creatures dying in itself. The IPCC released a report saying that the glaciers in the Himalayas are going to melt in 25 years, something that, due to the elevation and depth of those monsters, makes actual glaciologists laugh.

We are living in a state of fear. The politicians want to scare us into believing that there really is some bad crap right around the corner, and so far they’ve done a pretty good job on most of the world.

Is Kenner Creighton's Mouthpiece?

I believe that Creighton uses Kenner as a mouthpiece in ‘State of Fear’, mainly because all the facts come from him. You have a character like Evans that I think represents most of America; he thinks that Global Warming is complete and utter fact and there is no one in the scientific community who believes otherwise. But he can’t back up anything he thinks; he claims to be environmentally conscience but really doesn’t know why.

Then you have Kenner, who always comes in with the facts; long explanations, graphs, charts – proof that Global Warming isn’t quite a open and shut fact. It feels like Creighton is using Kenner to show his side of the story. Where he is in the debate. He wants people out there, even though this is a fictional book, to get a taste of the reality behind Global Warming.

Of Media and Sheep

Is the media over-hyping Global Warming?

It’s hard to walk down the street or watch your favorite TV program these days without getting slapped in the face with Global Warming issues. America has gotten itself into a Green frenzy set about by one thing; the media. The mainstream media has one stance on Global Warming that it stands firmly next to. That stance is that Global Warming is real, it's happening, and we are going to kill the planet and ourselves if we don’t do anything about it.

My problem with that is that they only present one side of the issue; their side, their ‘facts’, their evidence, without giving anyone a broader picture. I respect the fact that there are multiple points of view out there, but it feels like the media is trying to herd us all into one pasture. This is the pasture you want to be in, because we say so, and pay no attention to that other one over there. And most of us go along with it like happy sheep. Or cows.

One thing I'm now learning is that Global Warming isn't quite as open and shut as the media would have you believe. The scientific community is far from decided on what exactly is happening, and what exactly is causing it. It goes back and forth between a chart that shows a rise in temperature over the last 20 or 30 years, then someone will show a chart that shows the rise and fall of temperature over the span of thousands of years, and then the other side will come in and counter that there is no way to accurately tell temperature that far back, and it goes on and on.

My point being that the debate over Global Warming is far from over, and mainstream media is telling us that, yes, it is a real threat and we are the problem as if it was a fact. Reason for this? Well, a lot of people are making a lot of money off of this Global Warming issue. Such and Global Warming poster boy, Al Gore, who has several investments in companies such as Silver Spring Networks that benefit from the focus on energy-saving and clean energy development. Coincidence? Maybe, but we also have proof that politicians are bending the truth in scientific reports to meet their needs, so is it possible that they are giving little guiding nudges to people in the media? Again; maybe. Just saying.

While I'm really in no position to say whether Global Warming is happening or not, let's at least give the American people the whole truth, instead of a small fraction.