Page 14 - Enclosure_Spring-Summer_2023

Thoughts from Newman

Can We Predict the Future?

By: John T. Newman, P.E.

ow long will it take to ship my about the soon coming of the end of Thus, in my opinion, this is why it is im-
Hglovebox? When will those draw- the world in some form or another. possible to truly predict the weather.
ings be finished? What time will you The ways are vastly creative, whatever Good thing predicting the outcome
be home? Will the lawn get mowed man can dream up, from great floods, of a glovebox project is not quite that
by tomorrow? These are questions asteroids, alien invasion, Mayan calen- complex. So, let the butterflies fly.
that I get asked all the time. Every time dar, Y2K, nuclear war, and the list goes Although, I got to laugh at all these
I turn around someone is asking me to on and on. You know, the common climate zealots who run around yell-
predict the future. If I could truly pre- theme here, absolutely none of it has ing about all the bad weather that will
dict the future, I might be able to give come true. At least not yet. Usually, it happen a hundred years from now if
an accurate answer. All I can really do always comes down to some kind of we do not immediately conform to
is make a guess, or as I like to say, a monetary goal for the perpetrator. their ridiculous ideas of eating bugs
“swag” which means “scientific wild “But I’ve got the Christal Ball, he said, because cows fart too much. Did you
ass guess.” But, can we humans really and held it to the light” (Frank Zappa, notice that those telling us that the
predict the future? Cosmik Debris, 1974).
oceans are rising are at the same time
Some people say they can. All those Then there are the weather predic- buying multimillion-dollar beachfront
self-proclaimed psychics will be hap- tors. I got to say, they are getting bet- properties? How can you believe any-
py to tell you what your future holds, ter at it, with all the technology we thing when we cannot even get to-
but only for a nominal service charge. have, but they still cannot seem to morrow’s forecast right? What a scam!
If they could truly predict the future, ever get it 100% right. And besides, Uh oh, now I stepped in it, sorry, bear
with me while I get it off my shoe.
You know, it has always bothered me
Good thing predicting the outcome of a about this carbon dioxide thing. I got
to ask, how does the carbon dioxide
glovebox project is not quite that complex. go up into the atmosphere, and cause
this so-called greenhouse effect,
when it is heavier than air and does
they would most likely be picking I think there are way too many vari- not rise at all? I think that the imme-
lotto numbers and not bothering us. ables that must be accounted for in diate danger, would be all of us suf-
Surely, that is what I would do. order to accurately predict the out- focating, way before the planet’s tem-
come of most events like the weather. perature rises, right? And, what is up
There are many great prophecy
sayers, like Nostradamus, that we It is governed by “Chaos Theory” and with this one-degree temperature rise
“The Butterfly Effect.” Chaos theory is thing anyway? How does that do any-
are always trying to fit our current an interesting branch of science and thing? Where I live the temperature
situation to match their predictions. mathematics that deals with the study swings 80 to 100 degrees every year
With a lot of interpreting, we like to of apparently random or unpredict- as we change from winter to summer.
say they predicted this and that, but able behavior in systems controlled According to “the science” that I know,
it never quite matches up. Along by known physical laws. The butterfly this is caused by the earth tipping
with the writings in the bible, which effect states that a butterfly can flap its on its axes by a few degrees, which
are quite vague and up to many in- wings in Africa and eventually cause changes the amount of sunshine that
terpretations by the reader. And all a tornado in Oklahoma - recognizing we get. Pretty sure it has nothing to do
the end-of-the-world predictors are that very small changes in a large com- with the carbon dioxide level in the
continuously spewing their chicken plex system can have a huge effect on air. One-degree temperature rise is in
little “the sky is falling” babble. All my the outcome of a particular system. the noise. The planet will be fine, it is
life there has been a constant drone

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