Untold Stories: Downtown Ft. Myers

Ford, Edison, & Firestone

 I agree that preserving the history of an area is important. Seeing architecture of a time long past creates a sense of culture rooted in history. Besides, it's always fun to take that detour into the historical district of a city and just have fun exploring! It's been a while since I've been to downtown Ft. Myers and I am looking forward to going there perhaps tomorrow. It's also nice because it gives you a sense of history in relation to the present which, puts a dot on the map, so to speak.

 I've visited the Edison Estates once before and it felt nice to know that I was walking in what used to be the property of Thomas Edison. You can't really let things like that go to waste and be forgotten, especially when it's right here. It's hard to imagine what Ft. Myers would be like if such were the case and nothing was preserved at all. Downtown Ft. Myers has it's own little sparkle with a lot of potential if more retail businesses would move in. They've done a good job of renovating and making it look pretty. I used to sometimes go there to see how it has been developing.

 The area near the bridge in downtown that overlooks the water is such an amazing view. One can only imagine what life was like before roads were abound. I imagine life was quite difficult. Nowadays we have performing art centers, community colleges, and the newest university to join the state university system, FGCU. Though I can appreciate the history to get the point we are at now, I am definitely glad to be here today in this time. Yet, the area will only continue to grow, so it is best we think about the direction it should head while we remember it's past.

Dimming the Sun, Entry #9

You'd think that people were doing something right with reducing air pollution (aerosols). Then you find out that there are two competing counter-effects: global warming & global cooling. I had never heard of such a thing as global dimming, but at first it seemed to contradict the idea of global warming because they are opposite. Global dimming has a cooling effect. It can easily make someone think that global warming is not as threatening anymore or that it shouldn't be an issue. Yet there is evidence of global dimming in highly polluted areas of the world. Global dimming due to pollution in certain areas had blocked the sun from getting through and caused a decline in evaporation. Pan evaporation is where there is a decline in water evaporating yet the global temperatures are increasing, which alters rainfall. It almost seems like this has the potential to take the focus off of global warming altogether in a political sense. They are in a tug of war with each other, but both are bad and lead to horrible outcomes if not curbed. You can't really ignore one or the other. On the one hand, we can't necessarily compromise our health in order to make the two effects more even. The same looming problem is that we need to lower emissions, or get rid of them completely. I think this is the more feasible alternative. We already know that we can't keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We can imagine the fate of the world if we don't stop. The peculiar thing about these two competing effects is that continuing to reduce aerosol, while at the same time we continue to increase C02, will lead to a disastrous rise in temperature. Sadly, I don't think it will be that easy to reduce CO2 because everyone is reliant on oil. We would have to go completely solar and use all electric cars. Oils are used to make just about anything, like plastics and rubber. Our lifestyle is one of convenience and over-indulgence. How do you change that!?

Rewriting the Science, Entry #10

I am not surprised about this video. Clearly, Bush didn't want oil to be regulated for various interests that are interrelated both politically and economically. Our society is just too dependent on oil and it drives our whole economy. Supporting anything that required urgency which limits the burning of fossil fuels would have created chaos. The alternative approach is a moderate one that relies on technology that slowly makes things more efficient. Yet the scientists said that this is an urgent situation and there is a great danger if we don't take action now.

 I don't think that it is right to label science as not sufficiently reliable especially when they know more about it than anyone else does on this planet. Those scientists are the ones who have devoted their lives to studying climate change. It does not seem ethical or legal to limit what a scientist has to say about something that effects the entire world. It is indeed a form of free speech. I don't understand how the White House's review process was able to get away with rewriting the science. In fact, I have never heard of such a screening process when it comes to a report or press release involving NASA scientists. No wonder they are angry, as I would be too. It makes sense when you begin to examine what the players in this game have to gain. For example, what does the scientist have to gain by over exaggerating a climate report versus what that particular lawyer had to gain? Turns out the lawyer was a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. No wonder he edited out some of the words that were in the report. His ethics must've went out the door when he took on this assignment because when a lawyer is practicing law (in the sense of representing people and making a case for them) they are not supposed to represent someone when there is a conflict of interest. In other words, the lawyer cannot represent someone if he/she has a financial interest or can gain in some kind of other way. I suppose that since he was a "former" lobbyist for the institution is what allowed this one to slip through. I only wonder if he had held stocks in any type of petroleum company at the time he edited those reports. Maybe then he would be in trouble because he would have had an interest in keeping the reports from potentially harming the petroleum companies. Then again, he is a lawyer so I am sure he found some way of limiting his liability for what he had done and it was all legal somehow.

 The wording is very important in every document when it comes to what lawyers do. In fact, it is something that I have been learning in my law classes. Every word has a meaning, and you have to be careful with how you word things. For instance, the word "may" leaves a choice. It may, or may not happen. It is not definitive. Yet when you use the word "shall" that means there is no choice. It is a definitive word meaning that you will do what it says. I am not surprised to learn that in the video the word "is" was changed to "may be." The word "is" is like the word "shall" in terms of the words meaning something absolute. Lawyers are taught two different standards of proof. They are beyond a reasonable doubt and preponderance of the evidence. Beyond a reasonable doubt means that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever. This standard represents something which is unquestionable, that there is not one single contrary piece of evidence. This is the most difficult standard to prove. The latter means that the evidence proves 51% or more that someone is likely guilty. This is the standard that leaves room for doubt. The lawyer changed the word "is" to "maybe" because the topic of climate change had not been debated beyond a reasonable doubt. To this day there are many people with conflicting thoughts about it and many who deny it altogether. To use the word "is" means that there is absolutely no doubt that global warming is threatening. To change it to the word "may be" means that we realize it is threatening but we don't realize to what extent so that's the better word to use. The funny thing is that we can't definitively know to what extent until we reach the point we are able to look back and see it. For example, when there is a hurricane we realize that it's going to be disastrous if it hits people's homes, but can we ever really know exactly to what extent a hurricane is threatening? I don't think we can. I think it is the same thing with global warming. We can predict that if we delay our actions any further that something threatening will happen but we can't exactly know how threatening it will be. This is the loophole, and it is caused from that aspect of uncertainty. It is
also where the play on words occurs. I think that the two fields of study collided in a bad way.

 When everyone with power has the ability to rewrite science it makes you realize how dangerous a thing that is. I am not in any way against government because I know why government in necessary. We need laws in order for our society to run well and people need those guidelines both for their own good and for the good of others. However, we should always remember that people in government are people like you and me. As humans, we have the potential to lie, to cheat, to steal, to abuse, etc. I suppose that is our only weakness, that we are not perfect at all times. Don't take your eyes away.