Wednesday, April 23, 2008

STOP global climate change! Really?

One of the sponsors of NPR (at least in the NH-area) is wecansolveit.org, and their NPR tagline claims they want to "stop global climate change". They don't want to, say, eliminate human influence on the global climate (if there is any that is significant...), they actually just want to stop the whole darn climate from changing, period. Pesky physical processes of the universe, always shifting things around when it's most inconvenient for us. I assume the tagline is simply an unfortunately shallow and hysterical distortion of the actual views and goals of the people at wecansolveit.org. But the fact that this tagline has been playing on the radio -- for weeks at least -- is still an indicator of how carried away it is easy to get about global climate change.


I suspect that we would do better in the long run to focus on a much better understanding of global climate change and plans to mitigate harmful consequences for humanity of such change. And, in the meantime, we should continue to make serious efforts to transition to using renewable energy sources, especially ones that don't contribute to a global food crisis. I hope I'm not the only one who finds it ironic that people who want to "stop global climate change" are sponsoring NPR reports about how biofuel initiatives are contributing to a global food crisis. At least they're sponsoring NPR; I suppose that's one measurably beneficial effect of their organization.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Volition's Crucial Ignorance

Of the papers I've written, this is my current favorite; I think it's always fun when I manage to find an excuse to worry about free will and determinism. In this paper I argue that ignorance is fundamental to volition, whether we like it or not.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

I wrote this paper for a class on Kant. You might find it interesting, or not. Be warned -- reading Kant is like chasing very important and delicious butterflies through a minefield. In this paper I've attempted to collect a few of the butterflies in a small room, so perhaps you will find the morsels closer to hand, and, I hope, just as tasty.