Dreaming of SCIENCE

My brother from the same mother over at Pilot's World made a post this past week recalling and discussing the attack against the World Trade Center towers in 2001. It just so happened that at this time I have been listening to Dream Theater again. I had stopped listening a few years ago as I will usually obsess over a band and listen to them too much and get bored.

I bring them up in regards to the two towers because they were in New York recording an album at the time. Four of the five members were born and raised there. On a future album they wrote a song about the attack. And in a band where all the members write lyrics, who is the one that got to write the song about an attack in their own city? James Labrie, the Canadian from a small Ontario town called Toronto.

I don't know the circumstances of this decision, whether he just showed up with the lyrics or if it was planned but I love this. Get a 'neutral' party to do it instead of trying to decide who to get. I say neutral but I think while Canadians can disagree with Americas response and can also see that things they've done in the past may have provoked it, in this case, America good, Hijackers bad.

But, moving on, this re-introduction into Dream Theaters catalogue has reminded me a bit of other points in history. One song in particular is a middle ground discussion on stem cells back when that was the biggest argument everyone had.

Remember that? That one dried up pretty quick.

Was it killing babies? Murder? Doesn't matter anymore because Science found a way around it. I think that is probably one of the most brilliant things about the scientific community. They don't want to argue about this stuff. They just want to get 'er done, mostly ethically. When I look at our current climate, both towards science and the physical weather, I think something like this is going to have to happen again or millions will die.

I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that either. Methods of pulling shit out of the atmosphere are already running, they just need to scale up. The oil industry is too greedy, the common worker doesn't understand and the people to make all that clear don't care enough (Thanks, Trumoe!). So, the only other option is to figure out how to fix the planet whether or not they want help or not.

One common think I always hear is "What about China!" I could (and have) go into how Sask is worse on a per capita basis than China but I also don't think that's completely fair. Sask has such a spread out population that just naturally means we need more roads, power lines, etc. We have to pay more for all that and naturally just means a higher carbon footprint. I don't think that's a bad thing as long as we are being responsible about it. Which we aren't (Thanks, Coal!).

My go to now is this: If you were in a boat with five other people, far off shore, and it started taking on water, what would you do? You'd start bailing water out while someone drives it to shore as fast as they can. Now what if one of those people said "I don't think we are going to make it. I'm not going to help." and they just sit down. What are you going to do then? I'm going to keep bailing.

China and many, many others (including much of our own population) may have stopped bailing, but I don't want to go down so I'm going to keep throwing buckets of water overboard.

Also, in this metaphor, as in real life, I'm shit at swimming.