Don't get too worried about this school in Montana's cancellation of this Global Warming seminar, Chances are their tiny population isn't having that much effect, and Montana's Four thousand feet mean elevation will protect it from rising sea levels. Let their schools concentrate on things relevant to them, like MAD Cow Disease.

It would be a much higher priority to educate the Million plus that live in New Orleans, (average elevation two feet below sea level). Educate these people, then evacuate them to higher ground (Montana maybe). You will end up with an educated population in Montana and never again will you have to rescue hurricane survivors from a city that NEVER should have been built. But the Global Warming that really concerns me is the one referred to in Revelations, in which everything burns up, but the only thing we can do about that one is to stop living Un-GODly life styles and that's not a popular theme these days!

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I had a student come up to me yesterday and asked me if I "believe" in global warming (during a fire drill as we stood out in the snow of some of the coldest weather this region has seen in decades). I responded, "that's like asking if I believe that standing in the snow long enough without the right clothes will kill me--its not a question of belief." Two sides to a story my ass. Its important that we educators quit bending to the will of the ignorant to make them feel better.

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Are you teaching your students today out of the same text books you studied when you were in their grade? No you are not. Why because they have been revised with new knowledge. Decades from now will they still be using the same text your teaching from today? No they won't....So at least part of what you're teaching today will prove in the future to have been incorrect. I assume you associate incorrect knowledge with those you call ignorant. The Bible says "Thinking themselves to become wise they became fools".

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Americans become 'tupider and 'tupider...
And this town in Montana is part of the "Middle America" that US politicians always coddle.

Just how great it would have been for the small town to have professor (and Nobel laureate) speak at their school. But now, now they are just a laughing stock. And this story will likely be picked up overseas. So all of America will be seen as a laughing stock when it comes to the issue of science education. Actually, since America comes in near the bottom is international surveys of science knowledge (and given the other stories in the news about boards of education banning the teaching of evolution, etc, and never mind our moronic president), we already are the butt of this joke.

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The only pleasure I take in people's head-in-the-sand disbelief of global warming is that some of them will suffer or die right alongside me.

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So I followed the link to the Choteau Acantha (paper). Here was a front page story. Hmmm wonder what happened. It appears that Running spoke to a crowd of 140 on Jan 10. These apparently were interested community members.

From the article.....
Climate scientist shares global warming research
By Nancy Thornton-Acantha reporter

It took just 12 days for the ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980, to circle the earth, a clear indication that the atmosphere is perpetually in motion and able to affect the climate on a global scale.

So began Nobel Peace Prize recipient Steve Running who spoke to an audience of 140 people in the Choteau High School auditorium on Jan. 10. .................. more follows in the paper

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As a sophomore undergraduate student in Physics, your homework may include
figuring out when the second coming would be required, assuming that the bible
was 100% true in the year zero. That is, when would the bible be down to 50%
true? The popular and professors' answer in 1965 was the year 500. The true
answer: A friend of mine was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. As an adult,
he came here and stayed. After 25 years, he visited his home town of Budapest.
He was unable to communicate with his high school classmates because the
Hungarian language had changed so much. The correct answer is less than 25
years. The first gospel was not written down until 50 years after the alleged
events and then in a different language. The people who told the story were at
about the same level of civilization as "wild Indians", I mean Native Americans
before Columbus got here. We have all played or seen played the game called
"Telephone" in which a story is passed down a line of re-tellers. By the Sixth re-
telling, the story has no resemblance to the original. The gospel story had to have
been re-told at least 6 times before it was mis-translated the first time. [Note that
whoever wrote it down the first time was free to write whatever he wanted to.
The storytellers were illiterate and unable to check his written text by reading it.
Besides that, he wrote in Greek rather than Aramaic.] Conclusion: There is no
truth anywhere in the bible, and there never was. There is no way to know what
"jesus" or "mohammed" or any other such character actually said or did.

ALL of the jurisdictions that were formerly in the jurisdiction of religion have
been taken over by Science. There is no longer a need to debate the issue.
Religion is an unfortunate side effect of a major and ongoing step in evolution.
[Not that evolution has a predetermined direction. We could devolve, but we have
to get over religion or go extinct. "God" will not save us from the consequences
of global warming or an asteroid impact or a tornado because there is no such
critter as "god.".]
Ethics and morality are instinctive, not derived from religion. Female instinct has
greater force in morality than male instinct because the female is in command of
the sexual encounter. Look up "Sociobiology". The origin of the Universe is the
subject of Cosmology which is part of astronomy which is part of the science of
physics.
Religion is a SCAM. ANY religion, there are 10,000 to choose from at any one
time. People keep inventing new religions [for the benefit of the "prophet," of
course] and forgetting other religions. ALL preachers, priests, imams, rabbis,
iatolas, etc. belong in jail for "grand theft, bunko type".

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Religion is caused by any one or more of about half a dozen mental illnesses.
The truth about religion can be found in these books:

"The Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs" Dr. Michael A. Persinger MD,
psychiatrist 1987 "Religious people are just like my temporal lobe patients"

"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind" Julian
Jaynes Professor, Harvard University 1976 "Religious people are just like
schizophrenic patients"

"The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice" Roger A. MacKinnon, M.D.,
Robert Michels, M.D. W. B. Saunders Co. 1971 "Religiosity is a common
symptom [of] schizophrenic patients"

"The God delusion" by Richard Dawkins. "Religion is caused by a kind of
computer virus that infects the living computer, the human brain."

"The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer, 2004 "Morality and Ethics
are now in the jurisdiction of Science and greatly improved thereby."

Many books in the new science called "Sociobiology": Morals and ethics are
instinctive and they evolved.

"God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger Scientific proof that god does
not exist.

"The God Part of the Brain" by Matthew Alper 1996. "The USA is anomolusly
religious because many early founder groups were religiously insane and fleeing
prosecution in Europe. Religion is a genetic disorder."

"The Accidental Mind" by David J. Linden, 2007 Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press. Religion is caused by the extreme klugeyness of the "designed"
by evolution brain. In particular, the narrative creation system cannot be turned
off. It generates false narratives that are believed by the generating person. This is
seen in experiments done in the laboratory. This book has the best explanation of
resistance to evolution: "There has also been an assumption that if one accepts the
idea that life developed without divine intervention, it necessarily follows that all
aspects of religious thought must be rejected. Those who take this line of
argument to extremes argue that when religious thought is rejected moral and
social codes will degenerate and "the law of the jungle" will be all that is left. It is
imagined by religious fundamentalists that those who do not share their particular
religious faith are incapable of leading moral lives." These suppositions are not
true many times over. Linden later mentions that the creationists [intelligent
design advocates] are exactly 180 degrees wrong rather than just a little wrong.
Being exactly wrong, they are unable to unlearn their error. See Sociobiology or
Sciobio.

"Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism" edited by Petto &
Godfrey, 2007. The ID and creationist crowd are trying to do away with science.
They see science as a "godless religion." The ID and creationist crowd say
training in science is brainwashing. The creationists are seriously mentally ill. It
is religion that is brainwashing.

"Manufacturing Belief" by Lewis Wolpert
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert/

"The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris

"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon", by Daniel Dennett
Let's do scientific research on religion and find out what causes it.

"Origins of the Modern Mind" by Merlin Donald 1991 "So what did you expect
from a brain that is based on the Chimpanzee brain?

Other authors: Christopher Hitchens

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In "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Jared
Diamond discusses how religion has played a role in the collapse
of many civilizations. Christianity contributed to the collapse of
the Greenland Viking civilization. If the Greenland Vikings had
spent their money on iron to make weapons and tools, they would
have had a better chance of survival. Instead they bought stained
glass windows and religious goods at a time when their sickles
were worn down to the point of looking like box cutters. The
Greenland Vikings stuck to their "Christian" and European values
when the Inuits [Eskimos] could have taught them how to hunt
whales and some kinds of seals. The Greenland Vikings stuck to
their dislike of fish while starving to death. The climate got
colder as well, but the Greenland Vikings could have survived if
they had been willing to give up their old time religion and values.
The Greenland Vikings killed the Inuits [Eskimos] they met when
they should have married into Inuit [Eskimo] society to get the
benefit of the successful Arctic lifestyle and culture of the Inuits
[Eskimos].
The inhabitants of Easter Island destroyed their environment and
caused their civilization to collapse to make more of their statue
gods.
If the Americans continue to choose religion and coal burning
over science and nuclear power, the civilization you are now part
of will collapse when global warming causes the drought in
Atlanta, Georgia, California, Australia, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel,
China and other places to grow to the point that agriculture
collapses.
Religionists will, of course, resist any change in values
regardless of the fact that a change in values is necessary for
survival. This is an issue of the preachers' income. In the end,
the preachers may be eaten, but it is too late by that time.
[Cannibalism has been proven in the case of the fall of Anasazi
civilization in Chaco Canyon. The Anasazi hunted their
neighbors at the end.]

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Global Warming is the ONLY environmental problem that will
cause the EXTINCTION OF HOMO SAPIENS [US, Humans,
People] in about 100 years, and the fall of civilization much
sooner. Global Warming is the ONLY environmental problem
that IS causing a truly major extinction event NOW. Global
Warming is therefore the ONLY problem, not just the only
environmental problem, worthy of attention at this time; except
for the problem of escaping from Earth and setting up a self-
sustaining colony on Mars, just in case. The fall of civilization
will happen sooner and the fall of civilization may have the
following "benefit": The burning of fossil fuels will crash along
with the crash of civilization and population. That might prevent
the even bigger disaster of human extinction if civilization crashes
before natural positive feedbacks are triggered. The bad news:
YOU should expect to be in the 99.99% that dies in a typical
civilization crash.

Read the following:

Books: "Under a Green Sky" by Peter Ward

"Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas. See a summary at
http://www.marklynas.org/2007
/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-summary
-of-six-degrees-as-published
-in-the-guardian

"The Long Summer" by Brian Fagan

"Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared
Diamond. Rated graphic: Cannibalism has been proven to
happen in when societies fail.

"Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy", by B. Comby
English edition, 2001, 345 pp. (soft cover), 38 Euros
TNR Editions, 266 avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris, France;
ISBN 2-914190-02-6
order from: http://www.comby.org/livres/livresen.htm
Read a review of this book by the American Health Physics
Society at:
http://www.comby.org/media/
articles/articles.in.english/
HealthPhysics-NUC-July2002.htm

Articles: http://www.sciam.com/article.
cfm?articleID=00037A5D-A938-150E-
A93883414B7F0000&sc=I100322

http://www.geosociety.org/meetings
/2003/prPennStateKump.htm

http://www.astrobio.net/news/
modules.php?op=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=672

http://www.astrobio.net/news/
modules.php?op=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=1535

http://www.astrobio.net/news
/article2509.html

http://astrobio.net/news/modules
.php?op=modload&name=
News&file=article&sid=2429
&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Reliable information URL:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/

32 nations representing 2/3 of humanity have nuclear power
plants, only 9 nations have nuclear bombs.

The Canadian Candu reactor runs on UNenriched uranium. That
means that the expensive enrichment process can now be skipped
by everybody who buys a reactor or technology from Canada.

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The "know nothing" contingent of conservatives and fundamentalists in this country are like poison ivy in a garden. If you don't cut it back everytime it rears it's head it takes over. If you let it go long enough it goes to seed and takes over everything it can cling to. We've let these twisted idiots effect our schools for too long. Fight Back!

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Science fully replaces religion but science is not a religion. Science is a process
and method of determining truth by doing Scientific experiments and a simple
absolute lack of faith and religion. Nature isn't just the final authority on truth,
Nature is the Only authority. There are zero human authorities. Scientists do not
vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature owns it. We find out
what Nature's vote is by doing Scientific [public and replicable] experiments.
Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the only source of truth. [To be
public, it has to be visible to other people in the room. What goes on inside one
person's head isn't public unless it can be seen on an X-ray or with another
instrument.] Science is the ultimate Protestant Reformation in which Religion is
reformed out of existence.

If you want to know the truth about morals and ethics, go to a library and look up
sociobiology or Sciobio. Sociobiology is a new branch of Science but there are
already hundreds of books on it. The origin of the Universe is the subject of
Cosmology which is part of astronomy which is part of the science of physics.
Science has taken over all of the jurisdictions formerly reserved for religion and
philosophy. Philosophy and religion are obsolete.

ANY culture that goes unmodified for 1000 years will endanger its practitioners.
In all of those civilizations that fell, failure to adapt to new circumstances and
failure to foresee problems that had not been experienced in living memory or in
written memory helped cause the downfall. SCIENCE is what enables us to
foresee problems that have never happened to people before. Paleontology tells
us about problems that happened hundreds of millions of years ago. God will not
solve our problems because there is no such critter. We have to solve our own
problems or go extinct. We know a lot about gravity. We can certainly measure
and compute gravity. God is not measurable and therefore does not exist.

IF you happen to be a Viking living on the island of Greenland between the years
800 and 1500, THEN you need to overcome your old culture and religion and
marry an Eskimo to survive. Since that is in the past and those Vikings all died of
starvation in the past, that particular adaptation is no longer applicable. There is a
new adaptation that you need to make to survive. You have to quit mining coal
and replace coal fired power plants with nuclear power plants. Religion is an
impediment to progress. Religion is an impediment to survival. Science allows
us to constantly modify and advance our culture so that extinction events and
civilization collapses can be avoided. Constant modification is necessary for long
term survival.

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If you want to know why religion has stalled at a pre-rational, pre-modern level, pls. read the genius Ken Wilber's book Integral Spirituality.

--------

These articles by (perhaps another genius, or at least a very smart person) Steve Kirsch on global warming are must reading (although very depressing), even if you think you know what's going on - (His other articles are good, too, like his "Who would make the best President?") -

Steve Kirsch's website

rti

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Mainstream media also insists on reporting on "both sides," even when there is only one side or where there are more than two. Instead, we should demand that 1) propaganda and lies propagated by moneyed, religious, and other illegitimate interests not be published, and 2) all credible sides of a story are reported. If necessary we should change the Constitution in order to do so.

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