Classic Slides (My parents' pictures)
My Global Warming Page
My War Page
Feedback
Well, here is a little background.
I am a retired physics teacher from a community college. Besides 32 years at the community college, I taught high school a little bit and did the assistantship thing in graduate school. Also, I spent a little bit of time at an engineering college.
Then there were two years when I was teaching in a German gymnasium. As a note to English-speaking people, that has nothing to do with athletics, it was a college-prep school starting with grade 5 and continuing through what we Americans would call high school and a little bit beyond.
Check the Alps picture just to the left.
Many years ago I did manage to get educated. BS in ED. from Eastern Illinois University in 1964 and PhD from Ohio University in 1971. Physics major - both times.
Much of what I am putting on this site grew out of my classroom work.
About twice a year, I was invited to give a talk to a Humanities class called "Living with Space, Time, and Technology". My talk was on the technology of war, and I became more aware each time I gave it of the horribly rapid pace at which this technology is improving. Of course "improved" war technology is designed to be very lethal to more people, more rapidly, more accurately, over longer distances. We have been getting much better at that as the years have gone by.
This kind of technology is not always set loose to do its work all over the world at once. Thats nice. But you have to wonder what will happen the next time we all decide to repeat the Second World War.
Anyway, that is what I am trying to get at on that part of my web site.
Then there is global warming.
When I went to work at the community college in 1974, I was aware of this idea. It was one of many environmental and other warnings about the future. I did not pay too much attention to it at first given the crush of other topics to teach. It just seemed like a theoretical projection into the distant future based on some fairly crude computer models. The general idea of the theory seemed sound to me though, so I tried to keep up with what the researchers in the field were doing.
Then a funny thing happened as the years passed. Global warming gradually turned into an actual experimental and observational science, and the theoretical models kept improving. As the science improved, the consequences of loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gas started looking more dangerous -- not because the most severe warnings were becoming credible but because the credible ones are still dangerous.
For example, I watched the 1995 movie "Waterworld" in which the whole world was covered with water, due, it was said, to the poles melting, and only one patch of dry land remained. That, of course, would be Mt. Everest. At 29,035 ft above sea level it is the highest land in the world. But the water would have to be above 28,255 ft (5.35 miles), the height of K2, the second highest peak, located in Pakistan.
Just think, Everest climbers along the Southeast Ridge encounter a bit of level land called "the Balcony" at 27,600 ft. In the movie, it would be underwater. But the South Summit, at 28,700 ft, would at least be dry. Climbers on the Northeast Ridge now encounter the near vertical rock faces called the "First Step" at 27,890 ft, the "Second Step", at 28,140 ft, and the "Third Step" at 28,510 ft. In the movie only the Third Step would remain dry.
But where would that much water come from? Antarctica and Greenland have a lot of ice, which is piled up a couple of miles high in some places. But they are only a small part of the world. How do you translate 2 miles of ice in these small areas to over 5 miles of water everywhere? You don't. So there is one extreme that won't happen.
Actually, only a few feet of sea level rise are expected in the 21st century, maybe 3 feet, more or less. But here is the problem. Even than much sea level rise could affect some island nations and many populated coastal areas. Therefore it causes massive dislocations anyway. Add to that changes in weather that could make agriculture more difficult amidst a growing world population, and the real effects are bad enough.
I taught several classes for non-science students. In fact most of my students were not majoring in science. So I could work up material to teach this subject in a way that (I hope) is accessible to people without scientific backgrounds. I followed the work of climate scientists more closely all the time as I worked on this and tried to improve it each year.
Now that I am retired,I am still at it. So the global warming part of my site is an attempt to show that there is a lot of science, not just hot air (haw! haw!) behind the warnings now current about global warming and climate change.
So why should you believe me? Well, maybe you shouldn't. There is a lot to be said about thinking for yourself. But that is hard work, and to do a good job of it, you need to at least take an occasional peek at what others are thinking.
So at least let me offer something to think about. And while we are at it, maybe you can return the favor.
Here is my feedback page. If you have read this far, maybe this is a good time to use it, and give me something to think about. If I get a lot of response, I might turn that feedback page into a blog someday.
By the way, I am the little one. The other one is my dad, and he was the one in the navy.
