Ferri Tales

One tactic used by the GOP is the straw man fallacy whereby one misrepresents another's position, then argues against the misrepresented position. An old example is when the GOP claimed that Al Gore said that he invented the internet. Gore was instrumental in the legislation that allowed the creation of the internet, but he never claimed to have invented it.  John Fedorchak used the straw man fallacy against Gore (why always Gore?) in his Review letter of Sept. 21 where he misrepresented the claims made in Gore's 2006 documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth .  Most of Gore's predictions were accurate, a few probably premature (Kilimanjaro ice cover), but overall the average global temperature has and will continue to rise, sea levels have risen and will continue to rise, and the ice minimum at the north pole has shrunk and will continue to shrink. The south pole is gaining less ice each year and will lose ice in the future. Republicans and Tru...

In late August (8/21/2016), I went outside to get the newspaper (the Review, of course) and found that someone had put a Donald Trump sign on my front lawn bordering York Avenue in Towanda, PA. This is ironic since I’ve had anti-GOP signs in my front windows for almost a decade. They’ve been there in the sunshine long enough to almost totally fade away, just like the GOP is doing with Trump as the sunshine. I’ll explain. Trump’s speeches, proposals, insults, and his general bigoted obnoxious behavior define the GOP platform, except that Trump has no filter and is not subtle. His intentions expose the heretofore-disguised agenda of the Republican Party. Trump has shone the sun on the GOP and exposed them for what they really are. The GOP and Trump are one and the same -- except for a growing population of Republicans who disavow him. In Florida, under Republican control, the Zika virus is spreading because of reduced mosquito control. It took Florida decades to develop effective ...

How long do the people of Earth have before we run out of energy? According to the DOE/EIA 2011 report, world energy consumption has increased by 1.8% per year since 1990 and is projected to increase at that rate to 2035. Subsequent calculations will use a growth rate of 1.8% per year. Funds in an account that offers 1.8% annual earnings would double every 39 years. Annual world energy consumption varies depending on the source, but an average seems to be about 500 billion billion joules. A joule in a unit of energy similar to the familiar kilowatt-hour; one kilowatt-hour equals 3.6 million joules. The population of Earth is currently using energy of all forms (coal, oil, gas, nuclear, and renewable) equal to the annual electrical energy usage of 12 billion average U.S. homes. To simplify the calculations, I'll use 1 WEU (World Energy Unit) as the current world annual energy consumption. What energy resources are available for the world to use? According to the BP 2010 World En...

In Arthur Clarke's science fiction novel "Childhood's End", benevolent aliens from forty light-years away visit Earth, end all wars, help form a world government, and essentially create a utopia. When asked why they were helping mankind, their reply was, "Your race has shown a notable incapacity for dealing with the problems of its own rather small planet." On the real Earth, we can expect no help from non-Earth entities or from mythological super beings. We are on our own and had better shed this "notable incapacity" to deal with our problems. Earth really doesn't care if humans go extinct. The planet will do just fine without us. As with any problems, a solution first requires the realization that problems exist. And yes, we have a multitude of them. The top problems, from a quick internet search include: species extinction, war, nuclear proliferation, malnutrition and hunger, clean water, health care, population growth, peak oil consumpt...