Resolve for the decade?

[Jade]

Share your resolutions with us?

Note - no "must post less on the web" please




More personal carbon footprint reduction?

More tolerance towards people of other faiths?

Less meat?

Less alcahol?

More wholegrain?

More time with the Significant Other?

[/color]

[jean]

Less

[aqua]

Then, leave Toad alone.

You know it makes sense!

[jean]

I know that. aqua.

(So do you, now.)

[Jade]

Mine is about running. I must run more. And at some considerable speed.

[aubrey]

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

(Though I hope to be able to smoke more.)

[iamspecial]

Never trust a the Tories

ROFL

[lark descending]

This isn't exactly a "resolve for the decade" but now we have broadband I shall enroll in some OU courses - probably starting with a short course to see how I get on.

I'm not sure whether to choose Darwin (so I can respond to the creationists) or Weather (so I can respond to Marchesa).

[pippa]

i'm impressed Lark, what a brilliant idea. are they expensive and if so can you get discounts? there's stuff i'd like to study - b&w photography, psychology, arts related, etc. finding out and accessing courses is like hunting for needle in a haystack in these parts.
good luck to you.

[marchesarosa]

There's plenty of info out there, Lark. All you need is an enquiring mind. Just follow the data. Sometimes it will lead you up blind alleys, but that's unavoidable for the self-taught. It's a valuable part of the learning process, however, so long as you maintain a basically critical outlook. That which you have struggled to understand and acquire impresses itself more deeply, in my opinion.

The alternative is go to the realclimate blog and rote learn their FAQ section on how to deal with "deniers". That's the route travelled by little green gerda and the specialpeople. But you don't want to emulate them, I hope. Nah! Do it the hard way, lark! Independent learning is the way to enlightenment. I'm afraid that so-called mainstream "climate science" education is so deeply mired in ideology and its personnel so incorporated into the political and governmental elites and dependent on the state funding graveytrain that it is most adviseable to remain on the outside of it.

I am sure the OU will be more reliable re Darwin than re climate.

[pippa]

some of those OU programmes they had on bbb2 after shutdown, i think it was, were gripping. i remember watching one over 20yrs ago which i'm sure was closer to your premise on cimate, marchesa. i must say much of it went right over my head but it was basically about the poles shifting and the earth's electro magnetic field diminishing/altering again as it had done millions/billions?? of years ago when much of life was wiped out. i clung onto the bare threads of the message but am not equipped to enter your debates - although it would seem obvious that a grubby atmosphere (which we clearly live with) caused by what we pump into it is good for neither man nor beast.

[marchesarosa]

Well I certainly don't understand all that stuff, pippa! (No-one does, let's be honest - the climate is far too complex and chaotic for anyone to get a handle on it.)

Those who pretend otherwise are kidding you.

Mind you, the measurement of temperature, that IS something EVERYONE and ANYONE can understand. This is really all you need if your objective is to get to grips with the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis (or "myth", as I have come to view it).

And never, but never, take purportedly authoritative statements at face value. That is a lesson that has been hammered home by the Climategate revelations. Maintain scepticism in tact at all times. But then, that's just normal scientific procedure, if I remember right.

Who is looking at the contribution of the earth's interior to climate? Who is looking at the moon's effect? Who is looking at undersea vulcanism and its contribution to both temperature and atmospheric composition?

I think all this stuff would be fascinating to learn more about. But it won't happen so long as the influence of a trace gas preoccupies so-called orthodox "climatologists" to the exclusion of all else.

[lark descending]

Jan 3, 2010 11:27:06 GMT marchesarosa said:

There's plenty of info out there, Lark. All you need is an enquiring mind. Just follow the data. Sometimes it will lead you up blind alleys, but that's unavoidable for the self-taught. It's a valuable part of the learning process, however, so long as you maintain a basically critical outlook. That which you have struggled to understand and acquire impresses itself more deeply, in my opinion.
;D
The alternative is go to the realclimate blog and rote learn their FAQ section on how to deal with "deniers". That's the route travelled by little green gerda and the specialpeople. But you don't want to emulate them, I hope. Nah! Do it the hard way, lark! Independent learning is the way to enlightenment. I'm afraid that so-called mainstream "climate science" education is so deeply mired in ideology and its personnel so incorporated into the political and governmental elites and dependent on the state funding graveytrain that it is most adviseable to remain on the outside of it.

I am sure the OU will be more reliable re Darwin than re climate.

No, I wouldn't dream of resorting to a "how to deal with climate deniers" site. I'm not even sure I want to read a blog at all; it sounds so very ...well, non-U! ;D

Thinks stick in my head better if I challenge them and evaluate critically using outside material. I've always done well in exams by arguing the opposite view to the lecturer's, though that might not apply in the OU! No doubt there will be plenty of people on line prepared to point me in the right direction - or a direction, at any rate.

Pippa, the year-long courses are expensive; the short courses much cheaper at £150 for the science ones; other subjects seem to be more expensive. I shall let you know if they are good value for money.