Fire Destroyed the new unopened Holiday Inn in Jackson

Holiday Inn Fire

Interesting article about Brian Welch

Just read an article that was in CT about the former guitarist for KORN and his journey to faith. I remember talking about this with some of my students when it hit the news in early 2005. Check it out if you don't know his story.

Ayles Ice Shelf now "ice cube"

I haven't paid much attention to the whole global warming controversy over the years. Mostly because I didn't really feel like anything had changed, at least not in my lifetime. But this year seems remarkably different. It's January 5 and today was the first snow I've seen in a month. Odd for Michigan. Feeling the warming trend probably got me interested enough to watch Al Gore's documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. It's funny how timely things like that can be. Here's why...

I was in the laundry mat the other day (really long story involving my cat... don't ask), and I overheard the CNN news report about polar bears being added to the endangered species list. Now, usually I wouldn't pay too much attention to these little factoids except I remembered polar bears being an issue in the documentary. So, I walked around the bank of washers & dryers to watch this little segment. Read about the crisis polar bears are facing here.

Then my wife mentioned to me the other day that a chunk of ice broke off in the Arctic. So I checked it out and learned that it actually happened 16 months ago but nobody noticed because it's so far away. (I guess the world is getting smaller but it's still pretty big.) Here's a few quotes about what happened...

The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 kilometers (155 miles) away picked up tremors from it.

The Ayles Ice Shelf, roughly 66 square kilometers (41 square miles) in area, was one of six major ice shelves remaining in Canada`s Arctic.

Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor.

"It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906.

Maybe we need to take this stuff seriously. I like polar bears.

An Inconvenient Truth

Last night the wednesday night group got together at my house. Somehow we got talking about global warming so we decided to watch An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on the scientific evidence regarding global warming that ought to concern all of us.

In the film, Gore quotes Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." I think the result of that truth has led to a general doubting of the science surrounding global warming warnings. I think it might be time to question those doubts. Gore talks about the danger of going from doubt to despair. And if you see the film, you would recognize how an inconvenient truth could lead to despair.

After watching it I got a sense that I should at least try to do something myself. My first thought was, "I should sell my gas guzzeling truck." Unfortunately this isn't necessairly going to do any good. If I sell my truck then some other guy will be burning the gas in it. Obviously this doesn't really solve anything. This is just one example of how it can seem overwhelming to address issues such as these. What are we supposed to do anyway?

www.climatecrisis.net is the web site dedicated to helping people better understand this issue. There are several simple and practical explanations of what you can do to help. You can even calculate your impact.

At one point in the film there was a picture of a giant scale with gold bars on one side and the world on the other. I'd suggest checking out the DVD and the website to see if you think it's worth what it might cost us to do nothing.