A COUPLE OF THINGS ONE SHOULD AVOID

ONE IS, CATCHING A COLD; THE OTHER: FALLING OFF A BIKE. Neither is pleasant and, taken together, quite debilitating. I suppose anyone can catch a cold. It requires no special talent. Coming at it another way, it helps to wash one's hand frequently if in a crowded place and meeting strangers. I may have neglected these precautions a week or so back when visiting friends at the Chautauqua Institution. They did not have colds but there must have been one lurking as I came down quickly with a sore throat and the infection dived without delay into the shelter of my lungs.

Before my cold really set in, I was riding my bike back from the local library after a thundershower and thought to take a short cut to avoid traffic. The front tire of my bike struck a low kerb at about 45 degrees and slipped sideways, pitching me to the pavement. This must require some special talent as I have now managed this twice on the same bike. It may be bike specific as, in twelve years of riding it, I have never fallen off my other bike. The split second of falling affords time for just a small thought, 'This is going to hurt!'. As indeed it did.

A skun knee and elbow, as well a mashed and sprained thumb, do make for discomfort. Also, there are the hard to define aches from the fall. These have a special contribution when producing a hacking cough. Ah well, I am just about over it and in the mood to attempt a new posting. I celebrate escape from small miseries. Too bad I can't show photos. The good thing is, my bike was not even scratched.

Have you ever heard of the Hegelian Dialectic? Nothing to do with falling off a bike or catching a cold. This refers to a process whereby opposing views may lead to eventual agreement: comprising three dialectical stages of development: beginning with a thesis, followed by its reaction, an antitheses, contradicting the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.

Right now, in the political debate here in the US about health care reform, we are in the midst of clash of thesis and antithesis. I am keeping out of it. The last time I wrote about health, some reader slapped a 'possibly subversive' label on my blog! I must have said something sensible. Mostly, I despair of the political process and wonder if a useful synthesis can be attained. For an illuminating shaft of light, I invite you to look at Nicholas Kristov's column in NY Times (Health Care Fit For Animals), just right click on the title to go to the article.

The dialectic to which I mean to refer is the global warming debate. Not whether the world's climate is warming, which it has been doing since the end of the last Ice Age some 16,000 years back (with a slight backward step with the Little Ice Age). We are in one of those short inter-glacial periods with another Ice Age somewhere in the future. It seems like the next planet out from the Sun, Mars, is also warming. However, the Martians (who don't exist) do not seem to be part of the cause.

Back in the 1970s, the big concern was that our planet might be cooling, rapidly approaching the next icing over. Now we are concerned about the warming. We have had the most unreasonable weather around here (hardly any sunny days, rain, rain, and more rain, and lots of thunderstorms). The cause of this? Almost everyone agrees it is due to global warming; as well it might (or not, as the case may be).

My friend Brian, in Vancouver, recently drew my attention to the work of Lawrence Solomon who has just published a book, The Deniers, in which he displays the interplay of thesis and antithesis on the possible role of our use of fossil fuels, which may lead to catastrophic climate change effects. What, I thought, isn't this all settled? Everyone knows that our heedless use of fossil fuels is getting us into serious soup. So I jumped to good old Amazon.com and ordered the book. Two days later (how do they deliver so fast?) the book arrived and I have skimmed through it for the most part and read some sections really carefully. I was amazed to find that there are lots of serious, respected climate scientists, geologists, and the like, who do not agree that this proposition is any 'slam dunk'.

You may or may not be interested in this debate and I do not propose to bore you further, just to remind you of the wisdom of the old song, 'Tain't necessarily so...'. You can find out more by Googling 'Lawrence Solomon'. In my old age, it is good to find that things may not be quite as bad as they may be made to appear. With some years yet to run, I look forward to the synthesis.

In the meantime, no harm in using less gasoline (petrol), conserving energy, revitalizing our energy infrastructure, and developing alternate energy sources. I am not so sure about carbon credits, could be a lot of mischief down that track even though there seems mounting enthusiasm for this approach. Why not a simple carbon tax (like in Denmark where it seems to work quite well)? Well, who wants another tax? Maybe the government could do with the money. As for carbon trading, there may be a lot of profit in that and even the possibility of derivatives (future trading and option trading). Wait a minute, haven't we just had a bad brush with that sort of thing?

I have to go...I think I see someone dashing up, waving a "Possibly Subversive" sign.