Is all the talk about climate change just a lot of hot air?

Some will say that Hurricane Sandy turning Manhattan into a swimming pool is further proof of global warming and climate change. Others are doubtful. Mainstream thinking is that climate varies from decade to decade and true change occurs over centuries. Critics are correct to assume that no single storm—not even a superstorm—proves climate change. However, a cluster of extreme weather events occurring in a short period time, does suggest a pattern.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), climate change accelerated during the last ten years, and extreme weather events, including drought, floods, heat waves and dangerous storms, greatly increased during the decade spanning 2001 to 2010—a decade that was the warmest since measurement began in 1850 (See article).

Is it merely a coincidence that this century’s first decade is the warmest on record? There’s good reason to think so, and many do. After all, we’ve only been keeping records since 1850. Yet, the WMO, an agency of the United Nations, which represents 183 countries, believes otherwise. WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud claims, “… climate change is happening now and is not some distant future threat.” A more conventional view is that climate change occurs over centuries and our recent warmer weather is merely coincidental. Rather than get excited about a warm decade that could be a statistical fluke, why not wait another 50 or 100 years until there’s more proof?

Why not? Because if we wait it may be too late. But, if we act now, we have nothing to lose. Am I saying we should invest millions of dollars in technology that may be unnecessary? That’s exactly what I’m saying. Eventually oil based energy will either run out or become so expensive that few can afford it. So, why not invest in renewable energy and cleaner burning fuels? Even if you think vehicle exhaust fumes aren’t a health hazard, you still don’t stand around traffic islands during rush hour if you can help it. So, why not promote technologies that will create cleaner air?

Some resist making expensive investments in unproven technologies without the certainty that we’re addressing a real problem. But, the investment is worthwhile even if the problem is imaginary. We no longer have a significant presence in space, yet the space program gave rise to important technologies that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Similarly, any investment aimed at developing clean burning, renewable energy is money well spent. Having air and water that are cleaner is worthwhile if only for the sake of our comfort, if not for the sake of our health.

Investments in new technology will pay dividends even if their aim is to solve imaginary problems. If we do not build those technologies, someone else will. Critics argue the administration wasted stimulus money on green energy companies like Solyndra, that failed to become commercially viable. They fail to acknowledge that Solyndra wasn’t competitive because the Chinese government subsidized its manufacturers. The facts don’t prove that green energy isn’t useful. They only prove that the Chinese are more interested in green energy than we are. If we don’t get interested soon, Chinese investments will reap economic advantages while our economy declines due to our failure to advance our technology.

Finally, if there is some truth to the argument, even a little truth, and we take action to reverse climate change, we can prevent human suffering by reducing the frequency, or severity, of forest fires, floods, tornadoes, and glacial and polar melting caused by climate change.

Understand digital prepress

Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications

Claudia McCue
Nonfiction 352 pages
Peachpit Press. 2009

When there’s a lot at stake and it’s got to be right, a little know-how goes a long way. I wrote “Graphics Essentials for Small Offices” to help beginners learn the basics of design. Claudia McCue takes the process much further. The digital revolution has simplified designers’ prepress tasks in many ways, but there are still numerous gotchas that they need to be aware of. Too many books treat the graphics applications they discuss as if their solutions can be poured, like breakfast cereal, straight from the box. McCue knows better. She knows the pre-digital history of graphics, the challenges designers used to face preparing work for print, and the challenges that remain. This book provides the knowledge that designers need to guide their work process toward problem free print outcomes. This book covers a lot, but it really excels in providing the kind of knowledge designers get on the job rather than in art school.

He read it all and lived to tell about it

The Arabian Nights : Acompanion

Robert Irwin
Nonfiction 342 pages
Tauris Parke Paperbacks. 2004

Henry Reeve discussed the translations of the Arabian Nights available during his time, saying, “Galland is for the nursery, Lane is for the library, Payne for the study and Burton for the sewers.” Burton’s version of the Arabian Nights is full of archaic language, gratuitous vulgarity, and racism. It is also the most readily available complete translation, and the one you may have to read if you want to become thoroughly acquainted with this story collection.

During the time Burton was translating it, a Middle Eastern superstition claimed that no one could read the entire Arabian Nights without dying. Author, Robert Irwin, writes that he read the entire Burton translation without dying, but not without pondering suicide as an alternative to slogging through it. Fortunately, if you wish to be better acquainted with the Arabian Nights, you can read Irwin’s Companion instead.

Irwin explores the Arabian Nights from a variety of perspectives as evident in his chapter titles, including, “Street Entertainments”, “Low Life”, and “Sexual Fictions”. Of particular interest is Irwin’s discussion of how stories mutate, merge, migrate, and reappear elsewhere. For example, a short story about partners plotting to kill each other is the plot of “The Pardoner’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales. Later it’s a movie plot in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Other versions of a story from the Arabian Nights, “The Tale of the Woman who Wanted to Deceive her Husband” also appears in Sanskrit in the 11th century, Latin in the 12th, and in the 14th both Persian and Italian in Bocccaccio’s Decameron. In the 20th century, Thomas Mann reused the plot once again in his Dr. Faustus.     

Besides Mann, other modern authors have found inspiration in the Arabian Nights, including James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Jorge Luis Borges, John Barth and Salman Rushdie.

Irwin’s The Arabian Nights : A companion offers an expansive and thoroughgoing look at this great work. There is little that he doesn’t touch upon. If you don’t want to risk death by reading the entire Arabian Nights, then read Irwin instead.