Cold / Hot #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"At weather stations in the far North, temperatures have been dropping for 30 years. Sea coasts free of summer ice are now blocked year-round. According to some climatologists, within our lifetime we might be living in the next ice age."

Here's the rest of that global cooling documentary from 1978 (part 1) narrated by Leonard Nimoy:



They had 30 years of data from northern weather stations showing falling temperatures. I just have to wonder how that fits into today's "scientific consensus" that the planet is dangerously heated.

Was there "scientific consensus" about global cooling back in the 1970's?

Brazil declines

Brazil has had a bumpy ride for the last fifteen years and they're far behind where they were in 2002. Journalist Felipe Brasil lives in Rio de Janeiro, and he's not too shy to explain what he thinks has happened there.

Fact-based #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Hans Rosling's Gapminder Foundation is dedicated to help people base their view of the world on facts, on verified information rather than on outdated information.

Here is his TED talk of 2014, a classic that I still laugh at because Hans is so entertaining while he is teaching us about our world. Some of you have probably seen this already, but I yield to the temptation to post it again (because it's so fun).

Fact-based #1

(cont'd from last Friday's post)

If you are skeptical about atheist Michael Shermer's claims that life has gotten much better for many people on this planet, you are not alone in your skepticism.

That's where Hans Rosling (our favorite Swedish statistician) comes in. He found that most people have some inaccurate information about the world, so he created Gapminder to educate them. Graphics and moving charts visually show fact-based global statistics because:
"Almost nobody knows the basic global facts!"

Check out one of Hans' talks, "The World May Not Be as Bad as You Believed". . 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fortunate #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Shermer says, "if you believe the hype of apocalyptic popularizers you might conclude that climate change, runaway overpopulation, poverty, hunger, and disease will ruin the Earth and leave humanity's only hope for survival on Mars . . .

"It's easy to think this way, given that newspapers, books, television shows and documentary films are built around drama and pessimistic thinking . ." But the truth is:

Poverty?  "it will reach zero by around 2035"
Pollution?  "air and water in our cities is the cleanest it’s been in centuries"
Health?  "those born today will be healthier, live longer and have more opportunities than anyone in history"

Michael Shermer is scornful of God, scornful of faith, and I don't share his worldview. But he's clear-eyed about this: global living conditions have been rising dramatically for 40 years  - so don't fall for panicky pessimism.

His conclusion is, "We should be grateful for the blessings we have today, optimistic about the future, and continue to work toward a better tomorrow because none of this progress was inevitable. It was the result of people taking action to solve our most pressing problems."

For sure. We are all blessed when other people use their God-given abilities to solve problems and manage the earth for good results.

Fortunate #1

Dystopia has been the subject of recent books and movies, i.e. Hunger Games, The 100, Divergence, etc. Some people have the feeling that doom and disaster is coming for the world, whether through poverty or disease or aliens or climate change or . . something.

Materialists, those who believe in nothing but the material universe, tend to believe in a coming doomsday.  But Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, is a materialist - and he definitely does not think the world is getting worse.

photo: businessinsider.com

Shermer thinks we're fortunate to be living in the "most peaceful, most prosperous" time in human history. He says, "There is no period in history when it would have been better to be alive than today."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Retailers quit

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nine retailers have filed for bankruptcy in the first three months of 2017: Payless, RadioShack, The Limited, and more. If filings continue at this rate, the year 2017 could surpass 2008 (year that the great recession started) for retail bankruptcies. That year there were twenty.

JCPenney is closing 138 stores, KMart is closing 108, and CVS is closing 70 (none of these have filed so far). Check here for the other 3300 stores scheduled to close in the U.S.

JCPenney has been having less success with women's apparel, so home goods and beauty products are going to get more space while women's shoes will go to an "open sell" arrangement. They know they'll have to make changes in the stores that are still open after the 138 closings.

Hopefully the company can adjust to changing times. For a couple of years, rumor has linked it to possible bankruptcy.

Closing stores

Giant retailer Macy's will close 68 stores this year. Thousands of other retail stores will also close. Nine retailers have already filed for bankruptcy in 2017, an "alarming rate."

Customer visits to shopping malls have "declined by 50% between 2010 and 2013," and not every retail business can survive that kind of cut. It's not that these stores can be tweaked into success, according to this article, but that shoppers are "fundamentally changing" their habits, i.e. they're shopping online.

About 89,000 retail workers have lost their jobs since last October, including many low-skilled entry-level workers or those who need flexible hours. It's a niche in the job market where there are now fewer opportunities.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Iraqis hope

Islamic State (IS) captured the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, in 2014. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians left everything they had so they could run for their lives. Some went to refugee camps, some to relatives, some to go to other countries, but they have all suffered.

Three years later, about 300 returned home by bus just for the day to celebrate Easter in their homeland . . because the area has been reclaimed from IS, which left behind them their signature destruction of homes and churches.

"The town is well protected. Guards are on the rooftops around the church. The military is everywhere checking people going in and out of the village and those who are inside the church or in the vicinity."

Father Jacoub, the organizer of this effort, says "This means a lot to me . . Jesus can come into our hearts and that will comfort us, but coming to their homes is not possible for the people, so that is difficult for many. Of course, the message during the celebration this morning will be about hope, also for people to return.”

Victim

A week ago, Michael Nabil Ragheb was a father and a deacon in one of those Egyptian churches that was bombed last Sunday. This week, his 3-year-old daughter and his wife Sara are alone because he was murdered in the attack.

Sara says that Michael had a sense of impending danger, so he asked his family to sit apart from him in the service. “He asked me to wait for him after the service. But he never came back.”

In the middle of the mass, there was a huge explosion, smoke, people screaming. Sara screamed his name and ran to find him.

"“What I saw on my way to him was horrible, like a massacre had just taken place. The bodies of dead church members and even body parts were scattered among pools of blood. Then I saw my husband. I was in shock. He was just lying there, in a pool of blood like the others. Gone to heaven like he had sensed would happen.”

Planet Earth 2

A second "Planet Earth" has come along from the BBC and it looks beautiful. Eventually I'll watch and enjoy it. But John Stonestreet already has, and found something weird.



The script makes statements like these:

"This frog “discovered a way to avoid wasps by becoming transparent,” these hummingbirds have “traded convenience for longer beaks,” this jaguar, sloth, penguin, or bat has “found” a unique solution to the challenges of its environment."

Really? A frog discovered, a hummingbird traded, a jaguar found? No hummingbird has ever weighed the pros and cons of trading away convenience to get a longer beak. The writers of this script know that but they can't resist saying it this way . . for a pretty good reason: intuition.

It's almost impossible to learn about this incredible world and conclude that it's all just random. Our universal intuition says it was designed intelligently. Either our Creator did that, or (according to the BBC) the hummingbird designed its own features.

Targeted

Sorry to give you whiplash, but we need to follow up on Monday's story about the attack on Christian churches in Egypt.

photo: ontheworldmap.com

Christians make up 10% of Egypt's 92 million citizens, so they're a minority but a sizable one of about 9 million. They've taken hit after hit from Islamic State (IS) which threatens more violence. Some have decided they are too grieved to celebrate Easter this year, occupied with digging graves and going to funerals instead.

Some doubt that the government wants to protect them. Though IS recently published warnings, there was almost no security present at the churches last Sunday.

A priest at one of the churches said, ""We were not expecting people who live with us in the same country, people with whom we've shared love and friendships, and with whom we're familiar, to do these things."

Many are "furious at a state they believe will no longer protect them from neighbors bent on their murder."

Trap Kitchen

"Take Risk And Prosper," that's the deal behind every business start-up, and that's how these four young men came up with their name. They make their food and advertise on Instagram . . and it seems to be working.

"Every day that's all I think about - how can we improve our company, how can we improve our food."

Church bombs

Yesterday, Palm Sunday, was the start of Holy Week with Easter 2017 only a week away. Our family went to church without any fear. Egyptian Christians were at church too - but 43 of them were killed there. Islamic State says they did it and promises more of the same.

photo: cnn.com

The dead were not the only victims of the bombings at two churches. There were 78 injured people whose lives are now changed - those who lost a limb or an eye, or who will lose the employment that supported their family. 

Prayer:  Father God, we ask your provision and comfort for those who are suffering today because of these bombings. Show your people how to protect themselves from the evil that is directed toward them.

Rialto Bridge

It might survive for its 1000th birthday.  Originally built of wood in the 1100's over the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, the picturesque Rialto Bridge was rebuilt of stone in 1591.

Whether it would survive throughout history was never in question - until now. Only good Italian police work saved it a week ago from Islamic extremist barbarians.

photo: stream.org

MSR 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"[I]f we could somehow harvest all the thorium in the Earth's crust and use it in this way, we could power civilization for tens of billions of years." 

"The technology is viable, the science has been demonstrated."

It's clear that this efficient, reliable, safe, inexpensive energy source does work. Two prototypes of molten-salt reactors were built in the 1960's - and then closed.

Today in America certain entrepreneurs have the faith to make a big investment in this technology. Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer, believes that thorium-powered MSR's will bring revolutionary change to the world's energy needs.

He started Flibe Energy to get this technology into production because  . . 

"We Stand at the Dawn of the Thorium Age"

Here is Sorensen's TED Talk:

MSR 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

This "new" power source is a nuclear reactor that uses thorium for fuel instead of uranium. It requires much less pressure, which means less danger of explosion. A "meltdown" can't happen, which means much less fear of radioactive accident. In short, it is safer by far than most other energy sources.

photo: http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/

This fuel, thorium, is 3x more abundant than uranium. It produces very little waste, which breaks down much faster than nuclear waste today.

Sounds like the energy source our world needs. So who is doing something about this? That's tomorrow's post.

(taken from businessinsider.com, "A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here's why we aren't using it," Feb. 25, 2017)

(cont'd tomorrow)

MSR 1

Despite all the talk about moving to "green energy," most of America's power consumption comes from fossil fuels:  petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Then nuclear reactors supply about 20%.

Nuclear power is steady (in contrast to solar and wind) with no carbon emissions (in contrast to fossil fuels). But reactors are expensive and slow to construct, the fuel (uranium) is more rare, and there is waste to deal with.

Ideally, every nation would like to get its energy in some way that is safe, reliable, emits no carbon, produces no problematic waste - and of course is cheap. 

Looks like there really is such a thing and it's called molten-salt reactors (MSR):

"US engineers proved such a system works during the 1960s. However, the military canceled the project and it was nearly forgotten."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Hope definition

America's founding and early history grew from a culture better acquainted with the Bible than our society is today. You could quote scripture in the expectation that people would generally know what you're talking about and approve of it.

You could even write a dictionary and use Bible references to illustrate your definitions . . as Daniel Webster did in his dictionary of 1828. Check out the way that HOPE was defined:

2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense.

A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

3. That which gives hope; he or that which furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good. The hope of Israel is the Messiah.

The Lord will be the hope of his people. Joel 3:16.