Subject: FW: "letter to the editor" on your global warming issue Resent-Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 08:17:38 -0800 Resent-From: Karen Baker Resent-To: karen Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:37:03 -0800 From: "Ray Smith" To: "Karen Baker" , "Charleen Johnson" CC: "'Ray Smith'" Hi, Write an article for the 'popular press' and it may never end. Do I look like a 'global alarmist' advocating 'statism' (which I had to look up in the dictionary to know what it meant)? Here is the sequel to date. This is certainly one reason working scientists keep their head low in the trenches. Ray -----Original Message----- From: Ray Smith [mailto:ray@icess.ucsb.edu] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 9:14 AM To: siriram@kiit.com Cc: Ray Smith Subject: RE: "letter to the editor" on your global warming issue Dear Siri Ram Kaur, Attached, as a word document, is my response to Charles Frohman. Please let me know if you have trouble reading the attached file. Thank you for the opportunity to reply. Best regards, Ray -----Original Message----- From: siriram@kiit.com [mailto:siriram@kiit.com] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 12:13 PM To: Ray Smith Subject: "letter to the editor" on your global warming issue Dear Ray, Greetings from Espanola, New Mexico. I hope by now you have received a copy of the Environment issue of AT featuring your article on Global Warming. If not, please send us your mailing address. I received a letter from a reader that challenges some of the information shared in the Environment issue. It is the kind of letter an editor can appreciate from one perspective because it demonstrates firstly, that the reader took the articles seriously and secondly that he took the time to write. Would you kindly take a moment to share your comments regarding his statements in the excerpt below. Thank you. All the best.... Siri Ram Kaur Regarding the outrageous claims of global alarmists, Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, the second most quoted think tank in the world (after Brookings) and for whom I'm associate director of government affairs, clarifies that the warming rate for the next century "turns out to be a very modest value of about 1.7 degrees Celsius. The warming of the last century was 0.7 degrees. Life span doubled and crop yields quintupled. Does anyone seriously believe this is about to stop and reverse to the point that we will not adapt and prosper as we have?" The politics of kundalini should not be statist as implied in the recent edition of Aquarian Times. Rather, it should be libertarian, as implied in everything Yogi Bajhan and the great thinkers have said. For example, in the 1976 edition of "Beads of Truth," an article states the "aim of the khalsa" should be the "same as the founders of this country - government limited to only doing what's necessary to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Kundalini stresses the individual salvation of the person, and all the great thinkers have stressed the need for maximum freedom so the creative power can facilitate that pursuit of happiness (See E.M. Forster's, "Two Cheers for Democracy)." Every society has had its libertarians. The Chinese had Lao-Tsu, founder of Taoism, who urged the faithful to "withdraw," to "be quiet," as the statists rampaged against peaceful, hard-working citizens and businesses. In Germany, Goethe praised the experiment of the American colonies, Schiller wrote plays about Swiss (Wilhelm Tell) and Dutch (Don Carlo) independence, Beethoven had his "Ode to Freedom" changed to "Ode to Joy" by the kings who ruled in his time, and Menger, Mises and Hayek brought free market economics to America. In France La Boetie, Cantillon, Voltaire, Bastiat, and Say talked about individual rights and limited government. England gave us Smith, Ferguson, Lilburne, Wright, Gordon, Paine, and many others. I wish I knew about Indian libertariansm but I don't. But I figure as I grow as a kundalini yoga teacher I'll pick up information about that as well at some point. But the point of this "letter to the editor" is that kundalini is libertarian, not statist. So next time you write a political article, I would gladly volunteer to help make sure there's a balance with what I sadly have found is a "slavery to statism" bias among the faithful.