I, Atheist

Coming out as a Atheist is equivalent to saying to my ancestors, relatives, and some friends, that you are wrong about your beliefs, I am right, and that is too bad. All the resentment between religions, the intolerance, bigotry, hatred, even persecution results from the innuendo of you are wrong, I am right is re-lite in the religious person. This is the natural response of being a faith/emotion/tradition based person rather than a hypothesis based thinking, logical person. I am sorry that we all cannot go through this mental evolution at once.

I recognize that religion got our society this far, but it is now time to let go of traditions and venture into the future in a rational manner, with our eyes wide open and hypothesis in hand, make decisions that are good for the world, ourselves, and others. With the indicators of climate change growing so wildly, and no rational political process available, we likely will be forced into action. So what is the rational response? Test for accuracy all that we know and project those forward and see what it points to. That is all is hypothesis, and there is likely no god, no after life, and that which is not common to most religions is likely wrong. Compassion, logic, reason, virtue... for other humans should be the foundation of treatment of others. Tradition, aka religion... intolerance, bigotry, persecution must go. We must determine what is right separately and together, based on science, evidence and truth not tradition or "scared texts."  For this I am responsible. 

The causes of climate change have passed the point of no return; carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is over 400ppm in the atmosphere, and methane is over 1600 ppb in the atmosphere. In 1960 these numbers were 280 and 500. The Arctic is 20 degrees C warmer, the September sea ice is down to 25% of 1960 levels, and methane hydrate is melting, releasing more methane about 200 times the rate it was in 1980. By 500 ppm Co2, we will be suffering. The second whammy will be methane at 3000 ppb. The third will be nuclear winter. Few others care so why should I? Oh well. 

    

The world cannot support this level of population, and nobody will voluntarily reduce their life style. We all are becoming protectionist, which is not a bad thing, I think. We have gone too far in trading, and not in producing everything we can ourselves. Oh well, the carbon dioxide and methane will likely finish us baby boomers off. The survival of our species is at stake here and now.
  

I am not going to take on any of these issues, but knowing the obvious, sit back and watch the young whirl away. Until there is a government in power that places the people first, the problem will not be resolved. Note that I did not say solved, for the only solution is reduction in world population back to 3.5b or so and stabilized industry of profitable carbon fixing established. We are the species at risk, if this is not done soon. We current humans do not do well in a methane rich atmosphere. The next sapient species may be able to breath in a methane rich atmosphere. Oh well. 

We see that the only solution to radical Islam is there extermination, and radical christian attacks on Islam is similar response, we see the non rational evangelists deigning reality of evolution and rational development. We see the "out of sequence" artifacts as possible evidence of seeding DNA onto earth, and we know we are not the first nor alone in this universe. The third mass extinction is just irrelevant, as there is only one species we should be concerned with. 

When I was a young fellow in high school we talked about overpopulation, and potential climate change. Then it was particulate and dust that was the concern, nuclear winter scenario that was prevalent. We beat that but dust may be part of the solution for methane overload solution.

So here I sit, part of the problem, but unable and unwilling to go against the world, but need to. The first step is declaring the reality of one of the many problems, and start to develop a solution for myself.