When I researched Pennsylvania’s greenhouse gas emissions for the then Pennsylvania Energy Office and the US EPA in the early 1990s,* I realized that any growing economy will of necessity under current power technologies emit increasingly more carbon dioxide, methane, and other GHGs. The current measurement of carbon dioxide, according to the U.N. Environment Programme as noted in its 10th Emissions Gap Report (2019), now stands at 407.8 ppm (as of 2018).* Where do we stand today with regard to emissions? NOAA figures that total GHG emissions have risen by more than 40% since I conducted that study.
 
With 300 million people, USA still has the highest per capita emissions, but in absolute tonnage, the 1.5 billion people of China emit double the GHGs of the United States. And in per capita emissions, China has now surpassed the E.U. So, yes, for those concerned about per capita emissions, USA is the bad guy, but in total quantities, China is. The U.N. researchers say that the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions annually by 7.6% to ward off a 3.2 Celsius rise in temperature by the end of the century. So, what are you doing about it? Are you cutting back your carbon footprint by 7.6% annually? If not, why not? Those climate guys say that if you don’t cut back 7.6% starting now, by 2025, you will have to cut back by 15.4% annually. Talk about falling off the wagon and going into fossil fuel withdrawal! Whereas the world emits over 50 gigatons of GHGs right now, it has to cut that in half to prevent any higher than a 1.5 Celsius rise of temperature by 2100.
 
Is there another side of the story? Unbeknownst by many, yes. That other side might be what we traditionally call “good news.” But before I get to that, I’ll ask, “Do you like being cold, really cold?”
 
So, here’s the other side of the climate change scenario. Earth gets warmer, yes, but it doesn’t go into one of the ice-advance episodes it underwent periodically over the past two and a half million years. Adding carbon to the atmosphere might just prevent another “ice age,” considering that until recently, most geologists and geoscientists categorized the present “warm period” as an “interglacial,” meaning that your era is merely a pause in the cycle of “ice ages.”
 
Modeling by Thomas Crowley and William Hyde, for example, suggests that unless the injection of greenhouse gases prevents it, another “ice age” will beset the Northern Hemisphere’s midlatitudes in the next 10,000 to 100,000 years, repeating the cycle that ended about 10,000 years ago.***  Here’s what the model identifies: The oscillations between cold glacial epochs and warm interglacials began about 2.5 million years ago with switches “roughly” every 41 thousand years and colder periods getting colder and warmer periods staying about the same. Well, the model predicted Earth was about to enter a new semi-permanent ice age, possibly one that could last tens of millions of years. But, then you came along. Well, not just you, but all your kind, opening and continuing the epoch now called the Anthropocene. And Crowley and Hyde are not the first to suggest that by burning fossil fuels, humans have possibly prevented another deep freeze during which glaciers one- to two-miles thick could cover Canada, northern Eurasia, and northern and high-latitude United States.
 
Paris Agreement aside, we keep emitting GHGs. Good evidence supports the conclusion that China, regardless of its public statements about GHG reductions, hasn’t curbed its emissions.**** Maybe the Chinese prefer warmth to coldth.
 
Cut back by that 7.6%? Your choice between being warm and being cold. So, what’s better, coastal cities under the waters of rising seas or mid- and high-latitude cities under crushing glaciers? Before you cut back by that recommended 7.6%, just think for a moment what the model of Crowley and Hyde implies: Without human intervention, the next “ice age” might last millions of years. Brrrr.
 
*Conte, Donald J. Project Director. 1 Dec 1993. Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Pennsylvania: An Inventory. Pennsylvania Energy Office/The Earth Systems Laboratory, California University of Pennsylvania. The US EPA then sent a letter to the PEO saying it would use my study as a model for other states to follow. Since that time, just about every country has made such an inventory. One shortcoming in my study is the absence of exact figures for NOx because I could not, at that time, trust the data sources.
**UN Environmental Programme. Emissions Gap Report 2019: Global Progress Report on Climate Action. https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/emissions-gap-report/2019/
 Accessed November 26, 2019.
*** Crowley, T., Hyde, W. Transient nature of late Pleistocene climate variability. Nature 456, 226–230 (2008) doi:10.1038/nature07365
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07365?error=cookies_not_supported&code=da074027-8dea-4c42-8bf1-fe82f334fd11#citeas  Accessed November 27, 2019.
Bunches of people have written about global warming and staving off the next ice advance. Here are several sources:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/416786/global-warming-vs-the-next-ice-age/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-thawed-the-last-ice-age/
Steffen, Will, et al. 1 Dec 2007 The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. Vol. 36. No. 8. 614-621.
See also: Scientific American. March 2005, Vol. 2922, No. 3. Did Humans Stop an Ice Age?
**** Miller, S.M., Michalak, A.M., Detmers, R.G. et al. China’s coal mine methane regulations have not curbed growing emissions. Nat Commun 10, 303 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41467-018-07891-7

Fascinating story, this. IBM’s Project Debater AI system debated itself onstage over whether or not AI posed a threat. The debate occurred on November 21, 2019, at the Cambridge Union in the UK.* The result: “AI will do more good than harm” was the winning side.
 
Here’s a sketch of how the debate worked: “Speech-by-crowd technology makes it possible to collect free-text arguments from audiences and automatically deliver persuasive viewpoints whether to support or argue against a topic.” Supposedly, according to Noam Slonim, an IBM engineer, this tech could link decision makers and the people they impact by their decisions.
 
Maybe. I guess we could use all the input we can get before we make decisions. But it’s a bit of a mob-rule thing, or should I say, mob-rule think? “Project Debater digests massive texts, constructs a well-structured speech on a given topic, delivers it with clarity and purpose, and rebuts its opponent. Eventually, Project Debater will help people reason by providing compelling, evidence-based arguments and limiting the influence of emotion, bias, or ambiguity.”  That is, unless it receives fudged evidence and falsified information.
 
Therein lies the problem with almost any AI at this time. And it also lacks the key to most debates: Winning the emotion and not the mind of the audience. Let’s assume that AI can deliver the tightest of logical arguments. Haven’t we witnessed numerous times when logic is deemed flawless, but humans decide to do the irrational that sometimes turns out to be a good decision?
 
Decision-making is often hit-and-miss. Whereas it is true that getting numerous ideas from numerous people CAN provide us with a larger base of knowledge and perspective, it is also true that numerous ideas from numerous people CAN also distort knowledge and perspective. Yes, I agree with you that I should gather as much information and as many different perspectives as I can before I make any decision, but like you, I’m finite. Of necessity, I make many decisions on the fly. I make none omnisciently and none with knowledge of the unexpected. Unintended consequences will probably accompany all of us throughout our lives, even if we have access to Project Debater AI and an audience of the most astute people in the world to provide possible perspectives for our self-debating process.
 
So, in what circumstances would you yield to the arguments of AI? In matters of great importance to a society? In matters of great importance to you personally? But what of those decisions that are six-of-one and half-a-dozen of the other? What of those decisions that are merely a matter of preference? And what of the time element for your finite existence? Do you really have time to allow an AI to digest the thoughts of a crowd to be submitted and processed before you make your decisions? In times of urgency, I think you might tend to act alone.
 
But, AI aside, aren’t we living in an Age of Speech by Crowd? Aren’t we inundated daily with so many voices we choose to apply the filters of bias and preference? That’s the way our decision-making often goes, and it often works out all right when we act without crowd influence. Any crowd can become a mob, even an “intellectual” mob. Remember, one of the reasons that America’s Founding Fathers decided on a democratic republic rather than on a pure democracy is that the passion of a mob can switch with gossip. Just because a majority group-thinks doesn’t guarantee that the majority’s decision is the best decision.
 
What would have happened if Harry Truman had used AI before he dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What about any president making any decision on the world stage. Time to wait for AI to gather as many sides as possible to resolve the issues in a debate? Maybe the decisions you make don’t have consequences for thousands or millions of others, but on the international stage some do have to make such decisions. And that’s one of the problems that has to be addressed in developing AI: How do ethics (or morality) figure into a debate and the final decision? Using AI? How does one decide how to decide?
 
At the end of that onstage debate at the Cambridge Union, the audience voted on the winner of the debate. Note that. The audience voted. Think all those people in the audience were perfectly rational in assessing the winner? If so, then why did some vote for one side (51.22%) whereas others voted for the other side (48.17%), and some abstained (0.61%)?
 
 
*Cohen, Nancy.  26 Nov 2019. AI debate machine argues with itself at Cambridge Union. TechXplore. https://techxplore.com/news/2019-11-ai-debate-machine-cambridge-union.html  Accessed November 26, 2019.

Nick Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Bath, makes an interesting point about our heritage: Primates have long been violent species. This is the way he says it, “In fantasy and science fiction, we wonder what it might be like to meet other intelligent species, like us, but not us. It’s profoundly sad to think that we once did, and now, because of it, they’re gone.”* How so? Longrich notes that of the nine human species that inhabited the planet 300,000 years ago, only one, Homo sapiens, remains. Longrich then goes on to explain that after our species evolved about 260,000 to 350,000 years ago—give or take a week—in southern Africa, the other species gave way to our eventual dominance and sole ownership of the planet.
 
Is there built into our very being a competitiveness so pervasive that everywhere and at all times it makes peace only a fleeting reality but always a long-term dream? Longrich seems to make a good argument that we have practiced genocide on eight cousin species, including the Neanderthals with whom we apparently shared some genes. It’s difficult for any of us to conceive of the time over which this massive extinction occurred, given that in the West we really only started keeping track of years from first the founding of Rome and second from the birth of Christ (though we are probably off by four to six years, thank you, Dinoysius Exiguus). Christ lived just two millennia ago, but millennia themselves are difficult to comprehend.
 
Human species have been killing off one another even before our emergence 300 millennia ago, probably for some five or more million years, or five thousand millennia—remember, Christ lived “just” two millennia ago. That’s a long history of murder and war, a long history of suffering, and there’s apparently no end to the killing in sight. If we don’t nuke ourselves into instantaneous extinction, ensuing generations will likely see continuous genocide, or, at the very least, continuous murder.
 
Should we be surprised by the seething anger and continuous violence today’s news presents? Are there “good” humans out there “doing good”? Sure, there are many, and you might be one of them. But the job of “doing good,” is like keeping up with the dust on the coffee table. Regardless of anyone’s or any group’s efforts to make the world peaceful, the next generation has always faced the same task in the face of the same kinds of adversity. We all understand that surrendering to the conditions of violence and hate won’t make it subside, so “doing good” seems to be a reasonable option for lessening the historical and current drive toward extinction of individuals or groups. It’s a bit too late to save the other eight human species we’ve eliminated. Let’s hope it isn’t too late to save from extinction the one human species that remains.
 
Longrich, Nick. 21 Nov 2019. Were other humans the first victims of the sixth mass extinction? The Conversation. Online at https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638  

You know those slide shows you run across on the Web? Well, I got suckered into looking through half of one just a few minutes ago. It was posted on the UK Telegraph’s website, which I had been rummaging through for news that didn’t center on political bickering. Anyway, I stumbled on one entitled “When Prince Charles Becomes King, What Happens to William and Kate?”
 
Do I really care? Not much. What the Royals do can stay with the Royals, just as what you do can stay with you—this isn’t to imply that your life isn’t extraordinarily interesting, what with all those daily harrowing adventures and extensive world travel to places that receive you as a visiting dignitary. So, as I wasn’t saying, I looked through 16 slides without much interest, finding surprisingly little new information—I knew Prince Charles had served in the Royal Navy, but I had forgotten that he did fly a helicopter and captain a minesweeper (although why I knew that in the first place is a bit of a mystery unless I just put that fact among the trivia I’ve accumulated).
 
Slide 17 announces that Prince Charles is interested in architecture. Lo and behold! A guy born in Buckingham Palace with innumerable (an exaggeration) country manor retreats available for his use, would, I think pick up some interest in architecture. Aren’t we all a bit interested in buildings, large (like America’s mansions, including the Biltmore Estate) and small (like Lincoln’s childhood cabin home). Heck, I suppose we could say that children playing in big gift boxes are also interested in architecture.
 
Now, I’m not downplaying the role of the Prince. He’s burned enough fossil fuel in his attempt to save the planet from fossil fuels that I can find no end of praise for his efforts on “my” behalf. And I’m not wallowing in envy for a royal lifestyle provided by not only a current country’s economy, but by some fifteen hundred years of English kingships during which wealth flowed into the royal treasury. People have different lifestyles, and many of those are merely a matter of happenstance, that is, of being born into a family with wealth and national purpose. With those lifestyles—yours, too—comes some readymade interest, like architecture. If your family is royalty, you get to stay in some pretty magnificent abodes, even when you are on the road. I’m guessing, but I don’t know, and I certainly don’t want to pigeonhole a guy who spent about five years in the military, that the Prince ordinarily doesn’t take Camilla to a Days Inn when he’s out saving the planet all around the planet.
 
Wait! This is making me look like someone who is, in fact, wallowing in envy. That’s a shame because the Prince and I do have much in common, well, at least, an interest in architecture in common. He’s probably far more worldly than I (Should I say, “more cosmopolitan”?), also, having in his background those travels to the far reaches of the planet, meetings with famous people and people in-the-know, and a Jaguar. So, I want to give the Prince credit for the experiences for which he alone is responsible. And I certainly acknowledge that his worldview is probably an expansive overview of life on Earth. I also feel sorry for him. He was in love with Camilla, but Momma Queen didn’t find her an appropriate mate, so he married Diana, and he then waited almost a decade after Diana’s death to marry his first love. Regardless of all the perks the Prince has had, he still had to deal with the emotional downturn in a postponed love.
 
Remember; this all started with my being suckered into looking at a slide show on the Prince that I found on the UK Telegraph’s website. But the news on that website that first attracted me was an obituary of Shuping Wang, the doctor whose life was the storyline of The King of Hell’s Palace.* Dr. Wang also had cosmopolitan experience. Born Zou Shuping in Henan Province, she was the daughter of a teacher (father) and doctor (mother). Both parents were publicly humiliated because of politics, a spectacle she had to witness. After she courageously exposed epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C in China, Dr. Wang had to flee her native country.
 
There’s an obvious contrast between the slide show story of Prince Charles and the obituary of Dr. Wang. It’s a contrast that we often overlook in a fast-paced news cycle. For some humans, doing the right thing is a bit easier than for others. There’s no way I want to denigrate the Prince’s efforts to “save” the planet. He has the pulpit, so let him preach earthly salvation from a palace or manor. But in a world with many good people acting to save others, I never knew about Dr. Wang’s efforts and sacrifices to curb the advance of diseases. Certainly, her having to flee her country makes her willingness to take a stand in the face of a hostile government heroic. One woman against a government, as opposed to one Prince who gets to make speeches and drive an electric car seems like the contrast worth noting, not my relatively uneventful nonroyal life.
 
Back to my knowing any trivia about the Prince, such as the fact he served in the Navy, I have to say I’m sorry my trivial knowledge (my Jeopardy knowledge) didn’t include facts about Dr. Wang’s life. And that makes me wonder what lies beneath all those tombstones in all those cemeteries I’ve passed over the years. What other stories like Dr. Wang’s should I have known at least as a passing fact? What about your story? I don’t know anything about you, your hardships, your sacrifices, or even your princely perks.
 
Well, I’ve made a start to reeducate myself. I knew some stuff about Prince Charles—though I don’t know when or where I learned it—and I knew nothing about Dr. Wang until now. I have another seven billion or so slide shows to learn in part or whole to cover the living and about 100 billion stories to learn to cover the dead. That’s a big job. I hope I’m up to the task and that I live long enough to get that degree in human lives.  
 
I better get started on those slide shows. Can you send me some pics?
 
*Owen,Jason.Royals.  http://yourbump.com/prince-charles-becomes-king/?spadid=2002724&spcampid=97622&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=yb_us_d_outbrain_8929_97622&utm_content=00b8ab4a2b4c29afbb4577290635aec09a&spsecid=00bb26248401835cc75f000e6d5f80423d&sppubid=The+Telegraph+UK+%5BG%5D+%28Telegraph+Media+Group+Ltd%29&utm_term=Telegraph&spap=1&dicbo=v1-b2be325c3e4b7a942ccf605edc5ff61d-00a57274a46f47e101d624fd775748bcaa-gazwkyzsg42tkljumy3tkljug44tqllbgjrwgljqmi2gknbvhazwgyzxha&spcid=72435a350afb95354f3a098c9de06df4   Accessed November 23, 2019.
 
**Telegraph Obituaries 20 Nov 2019 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/11/20/shuping-wang-doctor-forced-flee-west-exposing-epidemics-hiv/  Accessed November 23, 2019.

“Pass the mustard, please. I want to put some on my salad. Are you going to eat that radish? If not, I’ll take it.”
 
“Go ahead. I’m full. I’ve filled up on basil and mint.”
 
“Who would have believed that here we are, tens of millions of miles from Earth, and we’re having a tea-room lunch courteous of research by Prague University’s Jan Lukacevic.* Thank goodness he had the foresight to develop aeroponic techniques for growing plants like mustard, salad leaves, radishes, basil and mint. When you’re this far from home, there’s nothing like a salad leaf and mustard sandwich.”
 
“You know, back on Earth I visited The Land, a hydroponic display garden in Disney World. They had some big vegetables in that garden. I wish I could have some of those right now.”
 
“Wonder why we just got mustard and mint to grow on Mars. Couldn’t Jan have developed a Martian zucchini, maybe a Martian cow for meat or dairy?”
 
“Couldn’t fit the cows on board the ship, and there’s no grass to eat on Mars. Looks like a vegan trip for us, er, a vegan life in our new home.”
 
“Almost like living at Burger King, what with its new vegan Impossible Whopper, but without the refillable drinks.”
 
“Yes. But mustard, basil, and mint for toppings, and no chance to drive across the street for a spicy chicken sandwich at Chic-fil-a or a Big Mac at MacDonald's.”
 
“Will we be able to grow potatoes on Mars when we get there? I have a hankerin’ for fries.”
___
 
I’m not sure why people are so dissatisfied with this planet that they are opting for a one-way trip to Mars. Maybe you have some ideas why so many people want to live on Mars. The Washington Post reports that 78,000 people have signed up to compete for the four seats available on the initial flight that’s set for 2024. Dutch company Mars One, a nonprofit, has named the top 100 contenders for those four seats.
 
We’re talking big commitment in an age when 1.2 million married couples divorce each year in America and an uncounted number of POSSLQs decide to go their separate ways. Astronauts (Marsonauts?) headed to Mars on that one-way trip will literally be committing to a lifetime in a very limited social group. The Post has information about those who signed up, like Sonia Micole Van Meter (Speaking of the Dutch, Jan!), a political consultant, Oscar Matthews, a nuclear engineer, and Leila Rowland Zucker, an emergency room doctor.
 
Bunch of unhappy people? Adventurers looking to be the first explorers? Bunch of foolish risk-takers seeking a rush or Internet fame?
 
Fewer than 600 astronauts have taken up temporary residence on spacecraft or the moon over the past five decades. Not a big number compared to the seven billion humans currently alive or to the 100 billion humans who have inhabited Earth over the past 200 to 300 thousand years. No doubt many or all of them thought those temporary stays were wondrous events in their lives, but the key term is temporary. But a one-way trip to Mars?
 
I’m always amazed at the number of people who languish in ennui on Earth. Isn’t this place often wondrous and amazing? When I took college students on field trips, often to the tops of mountains, where magnificent vistas spread below us, I would say some version of “Feast your eyes and drink the wonder. Isn’t this a great planet? Aren’t you glad you chose this one?” But for some, like Sonia, Oscar, and Leila, this world isn’t, apparently, a best choice. They want to live on the Red Planet, not the blue one. Are they among a growing number of the Worldwide Unhappy who live in a wonder and amazement famine?
 
There is, believe it or not, a World Happiness Report.** Based on surveys in more than 160 countries, the report uses a 1 through 10 scale of happiness. Guess what? People aren’t really very happy, even in affluent countries. The USA participants scored 6.88, Canadians and Australians were a bit happier at 7.18, the Swedes, at 7.37; Norwegians at 7.44; Fins at 7.86. Russians aren’t very happy at 5.51. Indians are worse off at 3.82. Afghanis and South Sudanese score in the 2.8 range. Let’s face it: Most of the seven billion plus people on the planet don’t think they live in bliss. Yet, this is the only planet everyone but those four individuals  and a few International Space Station astronauts will inhabit in several years. Of course, if the Chosen Four make it to Mars and survive on Lukacevic’s aeroponic food without becoming Martian Cains and Abels, then others might follow, four to six at a time, probably carrying more seeds for the perchlorate soils of Mars.
 
You aren’t going, right? Too much time already committed to life on Earth. So, having decided to stay here, where do you put yourself on a scale of happiness? Ten? Five? Three? I’m guessing that even the South Sudanese and Afghanis would still probably prefer life on Earth to life on Mars, even though mustard, salad leaves, radishes, basil and mint will be, I suppose, plentiful. When that unsolicited Mars One’s phone call rings with a survey about your desire to sign up for a life of aeroponic food on the Red Planet, just quickly say, “No thanks, I’m full on local wonder,” before hanging up.
 
 
*Reuters. 31 Oct 2019. Czech lab grows mustard plants for Mars. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-czech-science-mars-plants/czech-lab-grows-mustard-plants-for-mars-idUSKBN1XA28S   Accessed November 12, 2019.
 
**Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban and Max Roser. Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Our World Data. Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2019) - "Happiness and Life Satisfaction". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from:
 https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction   Accessed November 22, 2019.

Want to feel young? Stand beside an old redwood. At two to three millennia old, the towering trees are among the oldest living organisms on the planet. Want to feel even younger, stand beside a bristlecone pine. Possibly four to five millennia old, they were alive before the current redwoods were saplings by about the same amount of time that separates you from the first Christmas. To feel your youngest, stand beside the oldest baobab. It was a sapling a millennium before the oldest bristlecone pine or about the same amount of time that separates you from the Vikings.
 
That there are such old trees is remarkable, given the penchant of humans to destroy on a whim, for utility, or ideology.* When you consider how ancient architecture that was itself once a hope for a brighter future now lies in ruins, you might ask yourself how or why some human structures vie with those trees for the title “Oldest.” Truth is, if the pyramids and stone structures of Egypt, South America, and Central America weren’t so massive, they, too, would be reduced to rubble by someone or some group. Those Mayan and Incan walls had the added protection of hard-to-penetrate, isolating tropical forest or treacherous location. Consider, also, how ancient cave-wall graffiti of Lascaux that had survived in isolation for more than 17 millennia had to be re-isolated because thousands of curious visitors introduced destructive humidity and mold.  
 
Size and isolation appear to be the only mechanisms that guarantee survival. Sorry. That might seem pessimistic. Redwoods and baobabs are big; bristlecone pines on tall mountains and Upper Paleolithic cave-wall paintings are isolated. The former two are the Egyptian pyramids of plants; the latter two are the analogs of Mayan cities hidden for centuries in inaccessible places. Those ancient redwoods, bristlecones, and baobabs have endured many threats, from changing climates to destructive animals. But all the threats of past humanity pale by comparison with the threats posed by you and your contemporaries armed with chainsaws. Keep in mind that just the visitors’ breath was enough to threaten those paintings at Lascaux.
 
Go to a redwood forest. You will probably take a selfie by a standing tree because as you pose in awe. You will also, on a summer’s day, take a selfie with a group gathered around the redwood picnic table on the redwood deck attached to the redwood house. One of the best ironic encapsulations that juxtaposes awe and destruction is a cartoon by Gary Larson: Two characters stand at the base of a giant tree they felled with a two-man tree saw. One of them ironically points to a tree ring that demonstrates how the downed tree had once survived a fire.  
 
There’s no way of knowing how long redwoods, bristlecones, and baobabs will survive over the next two to six millennia. Sure, they managed to escape destruction from a time we call “ancient,” but we have really improved our ability to destroy, to change places according to our will, as slash-and-burn has demonstrated in Brazil, where vast tracks of virgin forests have been turned to smoke and ash.**
 
Awe and destruction: Look at the gawking that accompanies the destruction of a stadium, bridge, or building that was once considered “magnificent” and useful. Look at the delight people take in constructing dominoes just to knock them down. Come on, admit it: Like most people, you just can’t resist pushing over the end domino to watch the mesmerizing cascade.
 
Anyway, you can always reset the dominoes, right? So, what’s the big deal about the potential loss of a redwood, a bristlecone pine, or an ancient baobab? What’s the big deal about a loss of ancient art or architecture? What’s the big deal about introducing light and people, and thus, algae and mold, into a place where only darkness and isolation had preserved ancient drawings?
 
When I was a child, the US government allowed the televising of nuclear blasts in Nevada. Not understanding what the consequences of having atomic bombs meant for all that life, both plant and animal, had ever grown or built, I was eager to sit in front of the black-and-white, small-screen TV to watch a fuzzy picture of the explosion. Adults gathered in Las Vegas and elsewhere, supposedly at a safe distance—without realizing the effects of gamma rays—to watch. Since that time, the world’s nuclear powers have added thousands of such bombs to their arsenals. To what end?*** Will some future generation look in awe as skyscrapers fall like redwoods? New term: Destructive Awe.
 
So, that brings me to the famous words of Robert Oppenheimer about the world’s entry into the age of atomic destruction. “We knew the world would not be the same. Some people laughed; some people cried; most people were silent…I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu was trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”****
 
Awe? Destruction? Awe and destruction? Our choice.
 
 
*Think of ISIS’s destruction of Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra or of the Taliban’s destruction of ancient Buddha statues.
** Vast tracks of forests have disappeared under saws and axes. In tropical lands, most of the nutrients lie in living matter and not in the rather barren soils. As many Brazilian subsistence farmers and ranchers have learned, once they cut and burn to alter the landscape for their use, they get only a few years of growth from those nutrient-depleted soils. And then, they move to slash and burn more forest.
***Mutually assured destruction would mean the end of the government that uses such weapons. Think of the absurdity of the current Iranian leadership threatening Israel, supposedly doing so in support of the Palestinians. If Iran were to acquire and use nuclear weapons, they would almost certainly destroy the very people they currently support (in addition to bringing on their own destruction). Nevertheless, no one can ever predict whether or not a pathological individual or group would invariably refrain from using those weapons. Precedent suggests that such individuals or groups of destroyers will continue to plague every generation.
****Oppenheimer’s version of the passage.

I suppose you’ve been wondering whether or not this writer is an actual human being. In this era of budding AI systems like GPT-2, I might be just a machine. How would you know? After all, OpenAI, which in February, 2019, said it was holding the release of its text-generating algorithm, is releasing it (Or, should I say, “me”?).*
 
The initial concerns about releasing the algorithm centered on the manufacturing of “fake news.” For example, if a “real” human writer generated a sentence like “Aliens landed in New Jersey this morning,” the AI would generate an entire, supposedly believable, story that would generate panic ALA Mercury Theatre’s “War of the Worlds” episode in October, 1938.
 
Putting its fear of fake news aside, the company stated its reason for changing its policy and for releasing GPT-2: “We’ve seen no strong evidence of misuse so far.” That’s reassuring, isn’t it? So, how is one to know whether or not this essay, written after the release of that justification, isn’t the first among many as-yet-to-be-generated paragraphs written by AI and not a human?
 
You really don’t have any guarantees, do you? You have to rely on assumption and trust that I exist unless you know me personally, and even then, you don’t have a guarantee that I haven’t, like Darth Vader, “gone over to the Dark Side” to rely on a writing algorithm because, for example, I might be just too lazy to type and too dumb to come up with the more than 1,200 essays I’ve posted on this site so far. What’s a modern reader to do with all these websites, all these blogs? What’s a modern reader to do with all the headlines on all those “news” websites?
 
Although I want to assure you that I do exist, I’m sure you have now at least toyed with the thought that I might not be real (or sane). But that’s okay on this website because my stated purpose is to offer points of departure for your thoughts, which, I think I’m safe in assuming, you, and not some artificial intelligence algorithm, are thinking. You can trust yourself, right?
 
Say you believe your thoughts have not been somehow manipulated and that what you think is the product of your own mind. Then what role has cultural inculcation played in fashioning what and how you now think?
 
 
*Cohen, Nancy. Fake news via OpenAI: Eloquently incoherent? Tech Xplore. 9 Nov 2019. https://techxplore.com/news/2019-11-fake-news-openai-eloquently-incoherent.html
Accessed November 11, 2019. 

Remember that Montreal Protocol, the one that made anathema using CFCs to propel your deodorant? It apparently worked in a relatively short time. Now there is a record of the smallest ozone hole in years. Get out there to sunbathe. Forget the 100 SPF tanning lotion. You’re free to wander the planet partially naked without the risk of skin cancer.
 
Well, not quite. But the juxtaposition of two stories on ozone makes a point I’ve made before: Whenever we mess something up and then try to fix our mess, we almost always mess up something else. Anyway, this is a story of partially good news vs. partially bad news. You want the partially good news first?
 
NASA and NOAA reported in October, 2019, that the ozone hole was the smallest such “hole” (actually, a lessening of O3) since 1982. That’s only partially good news because the increase in ozone appears to be related to warmer stratospheric temperatures, and not to human efforts. In raising Earth's temperature (a supposedly bad thing), we seem to have decreased the ozone hole. Nevertheless, since ozone protects us from UV rays, let’s take the news as mostly positive.*
 
Juxtaposed against this “partially good news” is a story of partially bad news about China’s air pollution. Ozone, which is good for us when it lies in the stratosphere, isn’t good for us when it lies in the troposphere. You don’t want to breathe the stuff if you can avoid it. And it so happens that as China attempts to reduce its fine particulate matter pollution, it’s increasing its ozone pollution.**
 
Try to do one thing, and you end up with another. There always seems to be that unintended consequence or some unintended actor. The very thing that we must supposedly guard against, that is, a rise in temperature, appears to be the primary actor in the diminution of stratospheric ozone. And the attempt to reduce harmful particulates seems to have generated a mechanism for increasing surface ozone.
 
I am tempted to say…Oh! What the heck! I’m going to say it: What we anticipate is rarely a problem.
 
The problem lies in our inability to anticipate all the consequences of our actions. But what choice to we have? Rather than simply tossing purpose to the winds of chance, we’re probably better off when we act purposely, and that seems to work for us individually and socially. Will we ever avoid bad consequences? No. But we will probably get some “partially good news” more often than we will hear wholly bad news. Messing up is human, but so is recovering.
 
* https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145747/2019-ozone-hole-is-the-smallest-on-record  and https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/2019-ozone-hole-is-the-smallest-on-record-since-its-discovery
 
 
** https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-08-22/ozone-pollution-is-becoming-a-bigger-threat-to-chinas-air-101453900.html

In one of his fragments, Heraclitus says the sun is the size of a human foot. I understand how he might have thought that 2,500 years ago. With respect to Heraclitus and probably to his contemporaries, I want to acknowledge that the Sun, regardless of its almost million-mile diameter, does seem to be quite small. And in a strange coincidence brought about by time and tide, the Sun also appears to be about the size of the moon, our 2,000 mile-diameter satellite.* Let’s not fault Heraclitus for his misperception. There are probably people alive today who think both of these celestial bodies have identical diameters. Not that such misperceptions have anything to do with our too-frequent utilitarian search for bread, milk, and eggs: If appearances are knowledge enough for matters on the periphery of daily existence, so what? Thus, all of us probably hold similar misconceptions. Truth is that appearances are sufficient for most of us most of the time, so much so that we act on what we perceive to be reality.
 
In many ways, we find ourselves in the midst of apparent equivalences like the sizes of the Sun and moon. As long as such apparent equivalences do not affect our daily lives, we have no need to pursue their underlying realities. Apparent equivalences, like those of Sun and moon, become the bases for perspectives, and nowadays, for perspectives on moral equivalence as seen by agenda-driven media.
 
Let’s look at an example from the Washington Post. After U.S. special forces killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the paper ran an obituary entitled “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48,” a title that underwent a change in response to reader outrage. Al-Baghdadi was, after all, responsible personally for rapes and deaths and both indirectly and directly responsible for torture and genocidal massacres, not to mention the displacement of hundreds of thousands who fled from their homelands and the brutality of al-Baghdadi’s savage fighters.
 
But in an age when appearances are more important than substance, should we not expect such moral equivalences? We do live in an age when many expect trophies just for participating, when some won’t acknowledge differences in skill or intelligence, and when some (or many?) in the media believe that appearance is a reality equivalent to reality?  Calling al-Baghdadi an “austere religious scholar” means that the writer or editor saw his “scholarship” as equivalent to or greater than his depravity. And to what end?
 
The same acceptance of appearance as equivalent to realities has recently surfaced in another media platform, as ABC seems to have buried the story of Jeffrey Epstein because of his associations with those who “appear” as ABC executives think people should appear. Thus, exposing Epstein’s association with American politicians and newsmen and with British royalty would alter the appearances media moguls have become accustomed not only to hold onto, but also to protect.
 
So, again, let’s not fault Heraclitus, an otherwise bright guy, for believing the Sun was the size of a human foot. And let’s not fault our twenty-first century co-habitants for their ignorance of Sun and moon. In today’s mode of thinking, all that appears equivalent IS equivalent. In fact, let’s just accept that the Sun is equivalent to a human foot. Why does it matter, anyway?
 
 
*Because the moon continuously moves farther from Earth (about 3.8 cm/yr, or 1.5 in/yr), this similarity in size will eventually fade—but not in your lifetime.