Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/556850
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Some have asked me if I wanted to com- ment on the Fox News "debate" on Thurs- day, August 6, featuring candidates they had selected as the "top ten" for the Re- publican nomination for President. I was a little reluctant, but the more I thought about it the more I felt I needed to com- ment. Duringthe"debate"we were driving home from San Francisco and the heavy traffic pro- vided us am- ple time to lis- ten to the event. I say "event" be- cause it was not a true debate; it was, however, a well hyped me- dia event, show- casing the power of Fox News and careful stagecraft. I thought about the time I was asked to be the de- bate coach at Ben Franklin Junior High School in San Francisco. Our school was lo- cated in the Fillmore District of San Francisco; it was the heart of "Japan Town", but the Japanese Americans were whisked away to internment sites during World War II, presumably to keep the rest of the country safe. In their absence a significant number of African Americans moved into their old neighborhood, and by the time I was teach- ing in the late 1960's the neighborhood was seen as a black ghetto. Our school had one token Japanese American student; the rest were African Ameri- cans, many of whom lived in public housing projects and did not have a permanent fa- ther in their households. The school had been with- out a debate team for many years because the Principal felt it could not be competi- tive. I was encourage to start one because I was new and didn't have the courage to say no. Our team managed not to embarrass itself, but it was difficult to train students who neither felt comfort- able with public speaking, nor were accustomed to re- searching both sides of an is- sue. Most were like Fox News today, they only saw one side of an issue. The reason I thought about that experience was hearing Donald Trump braying about this or that; it reminded me of an incident during a de- bate in 1969. One of the debates we com- peted in was against the team from Herbert Hoover, a school which sent a ma- jor proportion of its student body to the open enrollment college prep Lowell High School. Kids came from up- per middle class homes, and were polished presenters with a certain amount of self confidence my team lacked. The site was at Hoover. Our subject was pollution; one of our students, Cynthia, mentioned in passing, that we would have to return to the days of horses and bug- gies if we did not solve our pollution problem. In the time for rebuttal one of the Hoover debaters took her to task, belittling her state- ments, and ending his re- marks with a sneer and say- ing, "as for horse and buggy, where are you going to get all those horses?" Our debater, Cynthia, was clearly unsettled by his re- marks as she made her way through her prepared re- sponse, and then with an em- barrassing blush she impro- vised, "as for horses, you get them the same way you get people." To add to her em- barrassment, the audience clapped as she made her way to her seat. She did not like the attention she had gar- nered, and did not realize the applause was a tribute. The reason why I remem- bered that incident from over 45 years ago was of Donald Trump's recent demeanor; it resembled that of the snide Hoover student who just couldn't resist looking down his nose at an opponent and saying in blunt terms what was on his mind. Of course, part of the set up for the Fox "debate" last week was the manner in which questions were pre- sented, often with pointed prefaces, or even mini edi- torials, that were also a lit- tle like sneering. The hyped audience reminded me of "The Price is Right" or sim- ilar shows where there are prompters to tell the audi- ence when to whoop and cry. Things were dummy downed; for example, in the questions about the Iran ne- gotiations nothing was men- tioned about the other five nations involved in the ne- gotiations, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Ger- many. It was viewed as "Obama's deal." That descrip- tion was consistently echoed by the candidates who were eager to please. If it is true that Trump has touched on a nerve of dis- content that plagues the cit- izenry of our country, then we are in more danger than I thought, particularly if we condone such braying. But if the exaggerations and placat- ing exhibited by some of the other candidates can cam- ouflage true exploration of the issues, we are in for more of the "mushroom farm" ap- proach in treating the elec- torate. Most of you remem- ber the "mushroom farm" analogy; that farm is a place where the mushrooms are kept in the dark and fed a certain byproduct. Maybe when the 17 candi- dates are whittled down to a handful we can hear some true debating and in depth discussion of issues and dif- ferences....but I am not hold- ing my breath. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop Debate,debacle or dummying down? Cartoonist's take Global warming, or climate change as it is more frequently referred to now, is considered by many to be the greatest cri- sis of all time facing human- ity. The Obama administration has repeatedly declared that "Climate change is our number one priority." Articles from Time Maga- zine to Newsweek to the Wash- ington Post are sounding the alarm, warning that the conse- quences are likely to be worse than many scientists had ever imagined. Reading through the article, it's not hard to believe their point is valid. As of 2015, the Carbon Dioxide in our atmo- sphere has reached 403 parts per million. Over the past fif- teen years, it has been growing by around 2ppm every year, a trend which looks like it will continue, even accelerate. Last year, close to thirty-five billion tons of carbon dioxide were emitted into the atmosphere. Our planet has warmed up eight-tenths of a degree Cel- sius since 1850, half of which has occurred since just 1980. Sea level has risen close to five inches in the last sixty years, and the rate of increase has accelerated in the last couple of decades. However, while I believe that there may be problems in the future, I see no reason to believe that we're heading to- wards some sort of catastro- phe. The planet is far more re- sistant and capable of repair- ing itself than most of us, even scientists, often give it credit for. Numerous doomsday pre- dictions in the past about cli- mate change have failed to materialize. For the record, I happen to believe that the climate has warmed over the past century. I also believe that it is at least partially, if not primarily, be- ing used by humanity's ac- tions. It is even likely to cause us some difficulties in com- ing years. However, the sto- ries about horrific, devastat- ing consequences to come are wildly exaggerated and often sound like mass hysteria. Just to name a few of the frightening predictions about the future of climate change: "June 11, 1986, Dr. James Hansen of the Goddard Space Institute (NASA) in testimony to Congress (according to the Milwaukee Journal): "Hansen predicted global temperatures should be nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years, 'which is about the warmest the earth has been in the last 100,000 years." October 15, 1990 Carl Sa- gan: "The planet could face an 'ecological and agricultural ca- tastrophe' by the next decade if global warming trends con- tinue." National Geographic — 12 December 2007 "NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than pre- vious predictions." In 2008, a documentary came out on ABC news called "Earth: 2100". It was about what was predicted to hap- pen if we did not take immi- nent action. What it predicted for then-future 2015 was: $12.99 for a carton of milk, $9 for a gallon of gas, New York City underwater. That day is now and no such thing has oc- curred. In fact, gas prices have dropped considerably. Another one made by James Hansen, considered one of the country's leading climatolo- gists, claims that the ocean will rise ten feet in another fifty to eighty-five years. To put that into perspective, the lat- ter number would require the ocean to rise over thirty five millimeters per year; the rate over the last twenty years is about three millimeters, less than a tenth that number. The frequently cited quote that ninety-seven percent of scientists believe in climate change is true, but like many statistics, is still misleading. Yes, most agree the earth is warming. However, there is sharp dis- agreement over how much of the warming is caused by man, along with what the long-term effects will be. Opinions range from believing the effects will be mild to those who proclaim Earth will be a lifeless desert at the dawn of the 22nd cen- tury. It is impossible to know for sure what exactly the results of a warmer planet will be, and what it will do to global weather patterns. Models are only as good as the people who create them. After Hurricane Katrina, I heard on the news many claims that hurricanes and other tropical storms would become more frequent and deadly; that hasn't hap- pened. Quite the opposite; the United States has not been hit with a major hurricane (Cate- gory 3 or higher) for over nine years, the largest gap since re- cords began. Another problem is that every big weather event is stated to be caused by cli- mate change. Every time I read about a large tornado, or a hurricane, a heat wave, it al- ways seems to be because of climate change. Yes, I'm sure it's affecting weather, but blaming it for every event is dubious, and I'm being very generous with that term. Cli- mate change has become the go-to culprit for everything from the California drought to the rise of ISIS in the Mid- dle East. Nor do we know how much the climate will warm over the next 100 years. Most past models have overestimated the extent of global warming, such as ones during the 1980's which predicted a one de- gree Celsius increase every de- cade. What the "climate sen- sitivity" is varies enormously from model to model; climate sensitivity is the feedback be- tween CO2 and temperature rise. A doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, depending on the model used, has been es- timated to be between 3 de- grees C (IPCC) to 10 degrees (Al Gore). What these models often fail to realize is that the CO2 con- tent of our atmosphere has not merely been going up over the past few decades; it has been increasing the 19th century. Pre-industrial CO2 content is estimated to be at 270PPM; the latest measure gives our cur- rent CO2 level at 403 PPM. As a result, the planet has warmed by eight-tenths of a degree Celsius. That is an in- crease of close to fifty percent, and yet the warming has been modest. Not to say, of course, that climate change won't cause us any issues or that we should do nothing; fossil fuels may be the primary driver source of energy for at least a couple of decades, but the source is not infinite. I'm all for investments in energy, of developing power sources like wind, solar, geo- thermal, biofuel from algae, hydrogen, thorium, etc. I just don't think we need to com- pletely restructure the econ- omy or return to subsistence farming to avoid Armageddon. Yes, climate change is real. It is at least partially man- made, and it may cause us some difficulties in future de- cades. However, it is not the end of life on Earth. It is not the sixth mass extinction. It is not the end of mankind, or even the end of civiliza- tion. Humans are very adap- tive, able to survive in many different environments. Yes, there may be some cause for concern, but let's try to keep things in context. Trevor Bacquet lives in Tehama. Trevor Bacquet While real, climate change predictions are o en overblown Of course, part of the set up for the Fox "debate" last week was the manner in which questions were presented, often with pointed prefaces, or even mini editorials, that were also a little like sneering. Joe Harrop OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, August 15, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A10