Pitiful. All that could be mustered by my office colleagues on the roofgarden in Glasgow's only snowfall this year. Climate change is ruining our snowmen production.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Stunted snowman victim of global warming
Pitiful. All that could be mustered by my office colleagues on the roofgarden in Glasgow's only snowfall this year. Climate change is ruining our snowmen production.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Many mansions, many doors?
Increasingly I have found the narrow path less comfortable. It seems an inflexible and limited route. There is a lack of latitude over the way taken for deviation, carelessness and loss of bearings. In all of our times, in all of our journeys hasn’t there always been a multitude of pathways. Isn’t it the direction and destination that count?
Its too hard to accept that this is all there is, the one and only chance. The evidence for evil is too powerful and pervasive. A three score and ten without any resolution, any meaning, is too unbearable and a curtailed life even more so.
If I were asked now about the ultimate destination, the pie in the sky thing, then I would affirm my belief in heaven. I cant say what heaven exactly is. I would say it’s an afterlife with God. I think it’ll be brilliant beyond our imagining. More colourful, more noisy, and as crowded or as solitary as we can ever desire.
It’s the getting there. We don’t have to do anything. That’s enormously comforting. No anxious earning of approval. In by grace and by the faith. Yet how will they know unless He is preached? So may didn’t know and will not know. They will not be ‘in.’ Or will they be there? Will they be because of other ways? Will we visit many mansions? Will there be many surprises? Shall we be eternally stumbling upon Muslim brothers and Hindu sisters that we never knew and that like us they travelled there too? Perhaps in parallel with us or in a diametric route but still able to satisfy the Truth and finding the Way?
Of course taking a narrow path needn’t mean singular. I don’t think believing the magnanimity of God and his blessing of many paths affects my witness to Him. Rather I think it strengthens it. Its clear to me that I can show people to the door that I know best as it has been revealed to me. I cant and wouldn’t direct people to the path along to the mosque, temple or chapel because I know nothing of it. So I can only point to the door where Jesus stands and knocks.
Its too hard to accept that this is all there is, the one and only chance. The evidence for evil is too powerful and pervasive. A three score and ten without any resolution, any meaning, is too unbearable and a curtailed life even more so.
If I were asked now about the ultimate destination, the pie in the sky thing, then I would affirm my belief in heaven. I cant say what heaven exactly is. I would say it’s an afterlife with God. I think it’ll be brilliant beyond our imagining. More colourful, more noisy, and as crowded or as solitary as we can ever desire.
It’s the getting there. We don’t have to do anything. That’s enormously comforting. No anxious earning of approval. In by grace and by the faith. Yet how will they know unless He is preached? So may didn’t know and will not know. They will not be ‘in.’ Or will they be there? Will they be because of other ways? Will we visit many mansions? Will there be many surprises? Shall we be eternally stumbling upon Muslim brothers and Hindu sisters that we never knew and that like us they travelled there too? Perhaps in parallel with us or in a diametric route but still able to satisfy the Truth and finding the Way?
Of course taking a narrow path needn’t mean singular. I don’t think believing the magnanimity of God and his blessing of many paths affects my witness to Him. Rather I think it strengthens it. Its clear to me that I can show people to the door that I know best as it has been revealed to me. I cant and wouldn’t direct people to the path along to the mosque, temple or chapel because I know nothing of it. So I can only point to the door where Jesus stands and knocks.
Café Scientifique: Edinburgh, Moscow and Recife
Friday 29th Feb 09: Today I was taking part in a videoconference on climate change via a 3-way videoconference with people in Moscow and Recife. It was great to be taking part in a real-time adaptation solution and seeing this in action. Dialogue without air travel.
Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change were the main topics. How do we get the push and momentum amongst confused and indifferent publics? How much more did we feel our respective governments need to do? How much to we wait for top-level action or act ourselves?
The urgency is clear; we have breached 450 ppm of CO2, the highest level for 600,000 years, taking us into uncharted territory beyond the known naturally cyclical parameters. There was a call for clarity on the need to measure the true scope and increasing speed of the problem- ensuring the whole range of GHG were being accounted for; something highlighted by the thawing of permafrost in Russia and consequent methane release.
Optimism was notably absent. Yet we in Edinburgh seemed coy about our early success in having legislative action in both Westminster and Holyrood. The first climate change legalisation in the world after all!
Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change were the main topics. How do we get the push and momentum amongst confused and indifferent publics? How much more did we feel our respective governments need to do? How much to we wait for top-level action or act ourselves?
The urgency is clear; we have breached 450 ppm of CO2, the highest level for 600,000 years, taking us into uncharted territory beyond the known naturally cyclical parameters. There was a call for clarity on the need to measure the true scope and increasing speed of the problem- ensuring the whole range of GHG were being accounted for; something highlighted by the thawing of permafrost in Russia and consequent methane release.
Optimism was notably absent. Yet we in Edinburgh seemed coy about our early success in having legislative action in both Westminster and Holyrood. The first climate change legalisation in the world after all!
Cloverfield - Mission Implausible
28th Feb 08: I misspent an hour and half today watching this minicam monster movie. It’s tediously compelling. The sheer pointlessness was almost disturbing.
I wasn’t sure what was in the mind of the makers. “Lets do a Godzilla movie but like really, really realistic?” The script was vacuous and didn’t help the earnestness of the performances which were actually pretty good. I’ve never seen a movie so undiversified in its characters. NY seemed to have eliminated all elderly and children.
There was no higher purpose. It was “ohmigod lets get outta here” again and again. There wasn’t any sacrificial heroism. What do movies like this say about us? That we should empathise with the shiny beautiful young yuppie people? That we should readily accept that they implicit represent of all humankind? That America and Manhattan in particular is symbolic of our highest pinnacle of civilisation? That we should be shocked and in awe if its under attack and losing? I just couldn’t relate or even care about them.
What worked though was the unrelenting grinding and overpowering soundtrack. The shudders, thuds and shrieks build up into a convincing and head throbbing crescendo. And when the military strikes build up too the sense of jeopardy oozes off the screen. But the hero’s search for his loved one didn’t cut enough through all the effects to make a satisfying climax. It was bleak and brutal. That’s another thing that worked though, the realism (although the spawned aliens was a reference too far and didn’t add much to the horror anyway.)
I wasn’t sure what was in the mind of the makers. “Lets do a Godzilla movie but like really, really realistic?” The script was vacuous and didn’t help the earnestness of the performances which were actually pretty good. I’ve never seen a movie so undiversified in its characters. NY seemed to have eliminated all elderly and children.
There was no higher purpose. It was “ohmigod lets get outta here” again and again. There wasn’t any sacrificial heroism. What do movies like this say about us? That we should empathise with the shiny beautiful young yuppie people? That we should readily accept that they implicit represent of all humankind? That America and Manhattan in particular is symbolic of our highest pinnacle of civilisation? That we should be shocked and in awe if its under attack and losing? I just couldn’t relate or even care about them.
What worked though was the unrelenting grinding and overpowering soundtrack. The shudders, thuds and shrieks build up into a convincing and head throbbing crescendo. And when the military strikes build up too the sense of jeopardy oozes off the screen. But the hero’s search for his loved one didn’t cut enough through all the effects to make a satisfying climax. It was bleak and brutal. That’s another thing that worked though, the realism (although the spawned aliens was a reference too far and didn’t add much to the horror anyway.)