We choose our mindset and therefore our karma/future/destiny

Research reveals that if a reader doesn't agree with what an author writes they will quickly move onto something else. You only have a few chances to grab their attention somehow. By the third sentence you've either lost them or won them over.

They call this selective '_ _ _ _ _ _ _' (insert noun here). It may be selective cognition, selective attention, selective perception, selective reasoning based on selective recall, or how about this one - selective memory, often used by politicians when sitting in the witness box.

We know what we like and don't like. These preferences dictate pretty much the whole of our lives. It is only when we face a dilemma - when the feedback from reality says it isn't working - that we take the time to look deeper or explore outside of ourselves for other possibilities. 

Sense gratification involves our sense organs, the object of our senses, and the network of nerves that connects it all to our brain via electrochemical stimuli. Different stimuli produces different hormones and complex molecular compounds which then affect our mood. Like rats up the proverbial labratory corridor we are treated by commercial interests as mere money-making lifeforms that predictably repeat the same things over and over. For those moguls it is simple - give the consumer what they want and the public will hand over their money without so much as a blink of the eye.

Now.. if you have read this far it means you are most likely open to suggestions about how you can change your life. I'm not going to sell you anything. I'm not going to waste my time trying to get you to agree with my way of thinking. All I am going to do is respect you because you are aware that you have choices in life and know you don't have to react knee-jerk fashion to social elbowing, including the latest fashion, popular buzz words, facebook memes and trending wokeisms.

Congratulations. Keep up the good work. Most don't even realise they have choices!

Karma is usually held in abeyance

Three situations are operative all the time and it's a little more complicated than a simple 'past, present and future' scenario. There's reaction coming back at you from what you did in the past. There's reactions that haven't yet come back at you that you'll suffer or enjoy at some future time. And there's karma you do now that may be 'instant' but most likely you won't reap until the future. Only very rarely is it immediate - and for good reason! John Lennon popularised the concept of instant karma and as a result created a false impression... more on that later...

Actually there are three or more types – karma, vikarma, and akarma:

» Karma ('good karma') is action commended in accord with one's prescribed duties eg good deeds, helping others, or "doing the right thing", "obeying the law", "following my religion".

» Vikarma ('bad karma') is unauthorised action that is against or avoids the responsibility of carrying out one's duties eg dirty deeds, harming others, or "doing the wrong thing", "breaking the law", "going against your religion".

» Akarma ('cancelling karma') is action that frees oneself from the reaction to past deeds whether they be karmic or vikarmic ie "good or bad". Technically even good deeds cause bondage to the Material World because they come with a reaction such as a reward, a distinction or high place in society. Akarma frees oneself from even good reactions.

» There is another type of akarma known as naiṣkarma. This doesn't really apply to the average person because it only applies to highly realised souls who are either eternally transcendental or have achieved liberation. Naiṣkarma doesn't mean no action, it is spiritual action without any reaction that is performed 100% on the spiritual level – by elevated fully-realised Holy Teachers, Saints and Gurus such as Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Prabhupāda and numerous others. Such souls do not care for rewards, medals or sainthoods and go about their business without attachment or attraction to the fruits of their labour. These wise people are totally are karma-free, actually!

Back to karma and reaction being held in abeyance, and John Lennon's "Instant Karma". In hindsight there is no apparent connection between him being about to enter his apartment after returning from a recording studio and then being shot in the back other than that he was facing the door. Like most of us and our karma, he didn't see it coming.

The reason most karma isn't instant is to create the illusion of freedom from reaction so that the soul seeking happiness independently can do so without a constant reminder. This acknowledged accountability is for the theist ->to the Supreme Being, for the mystic or impersonalist ->to the Supreme Absolute Truth, and for the agnostic ->to the Universe or some other Higher Power. The atheist assumes total unaccountability. It is this very attitude that enables and maintains their illusory concept of life.

More on abeyance:

A thief would never commit a robbery if they knew they were going to be caught immediately. They only do so because they think they're going to get away with it. In this case it is obvious that the reaction to their deeds are held in abeyance unless or until they get caught. Even if they are arrested they may be let out on bail. Only on final sentencing might they actually have to pay for their misdeed. Even then, they could be later freed if there was a mistrial. Oh, how little we understand the workings of karma!

As for karma and vikarma, it is practically impossible to be able to tell if we are presently enjoying a reaction to something from a previous lifetime, something done in the past such as earlier in the day, last week, last year or even our childhood; something done in the present (virtually an immediate reaction, "instant karma"); or whether the effect will be held over – even into a future lifetime.

Often it can be very confusing. For instance, let's say a good Samaritan driving to Church stops to help a motorist who appears to have broken down, only to beaten up and robbed. A lot of people would think it makes no sense, making this world is unfair and meaning that there is no God. Well, these things happen without any apparent 'justice' because we don't understand what karma or vikarma is coming back from abeyance, which is being held over, and which is being created for the future; or which is "instant karma" (in this case none).

We have no idea when the results of all our pious impious activities will end, when 'our luck will run out', indeed how or when we will die - either meeting it accidentally, tragically or peacefully. But one thing is sure. We all have more than enough karma to force us to be reborn over and over again because we never stop accumulating it!

[Definitions of karma are as found in the Srimad-Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad Gita] 

आसन Āsana means sitting.

 आसन Āsana means sitting. 

"Eh what?" I hear you say, "I thought āsana meant a yoga posture!" (ha ha) 

Please allow me to explain. Contrary to popular misconception, what mostly everyone calls 'yoga' i.e. Haṭha-yoga, is actually just one small part of Aṣṭanga-yoga, which is in turn part of Jñana-yoga, a part of the larger picture of the three main yogas:-

1. Bhakti-yoga 

2. Jñana-yoga 

3. Karma-yoga

The practice of sitting to meditate is one of the Eight Limbs of Patanjali's Aṣṭanga-yoga. Separately, Haṭha-yoga is one such limb, a subset consisting of the discipline of regulated breath control achieved though various postures. Āsana actually means sitting - it wasn't until modern times (19th century) that it was used to mean the various yoga postures i.e. standing, lying, bending, etc of Haṭha-yoga. 

To Patanjali, āsana meant holding a positition in order to meditate. The best posture to maintain prolonged trance is sitting. If you lie down, chances are you'll fall asleep. If you stand, you'll fall over. To the modern yoga practitioner in the West it means anything but sitting! This is because the first Indian yogis who introduced it to America and Europe did not emphasise meditation - they were stuck on that level, that yoga rung, and could not rise higher on the yoga ladder due to bodily identification - possibly from doing too much Haṭha-yoga and not enough meditation haha! (or japa, or kirtan, or bhajans etcetera) 

To this day, mention the word 'yoga' and the first thing that enters people's minds is 'exercise positions'. It is a sad state of affairs because that posturing only makes up about 1-5% of the complete Yoga Ladder with all its various rungs. You can blame that on Vivekanda. 

The idea is to start at the bottom and work one's way up once each level of perfection is attained on subsequent rungs. It begins with Karma-yoga, charitable work. Practically every thing we do in life is aimed at reaping the fruits of our labour - and the first principle in yoking with the Divine (the etymological root of yoke is 'yog' Sanskrit for to 'join up') is letting go of selfish gains. 

Karma-yoga is a 'physical' yoga (if you like), and Haṭha-yoga is the next logical extension, using the body and controlling the breath in order to balance the airs, the vital life-forces that move between the chakras.

The purpose of all this is to be able to meditate undisturbed as in Jñana-yoga. By practicing breath control and postures (Haṭha-yoga) one is able to quieten the body so as to be able to sit (āsana) for long periods in order to go deeper and deeper into meditation.

The focus, the object of meditation (Jñana-yoga) is the Supersoul, the part of God that resides in the heart of every living being. The Yogi meditates on the Supersoul to seek union with the Divine. That is the true meaning of yoga - not a paid-for workout on foam mats in a class, or a trendy display of gymnastic ability. That is not Yoga, real in its true essence! 

#Note: I heard from one source that in 1811 or 1834 possibly the Sritattvanidi of the then Maharaj of Mysore, Krishnaraj Wodeyar III (1794 to 1868) wanting to compile a manuscript/treatise of South India of that time, funded the effort to put everything together including instructions and illustrations of 122 postures. 

Some of the first Haṭha-yogis who became famous in the West after introducing 'yoga' were Swami Vivekanda in the late 1800s and his disciple Pramahamsa Yogananda in the 1920s. They did not teach much (withheld?) if anything of the rest of the limbs of Patanjali's Eightfold Yoga System and virtually nothing on the other two main paths. Although karma was discussed there was little mention of Karma-yoga eg the kind of community service performed by Christians and other charitable institutions and philanthropists. There was no emphasis on Bhakti-yoga as introduced by Śrīla Prabhupāda in the 60s, and only a little of the Jñana-yoga of meditation popularised from the Hippie era and onwards by 'hip gurus' such as Gurdjieff, Rajneesh (the Orange People), Muktananda, Chinmoy, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM (Transcendental Meditation) and Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) of the Divine Light Mission etcetera. That is why everyone thinks of āsanas when you say the word 'Yoga'. 

Very sad indeed. Only 1-5% of the real meaning of yoga.

Cosmology is not astronomy!

Astronomy and Astrology (which is generally considered a 'pseudo-science' in Western academia) is used to calculate movable feasts and Holy Days in religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Vaishnavism, etc.  

Old observatories located in Greenwich, Baghdad, Ujjain, and even Beijing were and still are used to monitor the movements of heavenly bodies, continuously making minor adjustments to their astronomical and astrological tables and refining the methods of calculating and predicting such movements.

In ancient ages planets moved at different speeds to the present time and continue to change velocity over extended periods. Even in our relatively short lifetimes, perceptible errors are recorded – as for instance, over decades the Earth's orbit varies and doesn't always concur to expected movement! Hence the need for observatories.

Puranic or Vedic Cosmology is a separate field of knowledge and is never used for such calculations. It deals with the mysterious heavens and the spiritual and metaphysical nature of the Cosmos. Most of this cosmology deals with the Universe outside our Solar System – what might be termed an impartial objective view as opposed to the purely subjective view of the heavens as seen from Earth. Therefore Vedic Cosmology does not necessarily represent an "Earth-view" of the Universe. Astronomy can only be subjective. It indeed has to be or it wouldn't be relative to us on Earth and wouldn't work. Even if the Universe is viewed from a satellite launched into space it still represents a singular subjective view. Combining several of those to get some sort of perspective still doesn't amount to objectivity. It is only collective subjectivity.

The original Surya-Siddhanta was spoken by the Sun demigod (Surya is another name for Vivasvan, there are many) at the end of the last Satya Yuga. Vedic scholars date this to over two million years ago, circa 2,163,102 BC. The Surya-Siddhanta closely aligns with the understanding of our solar system as western astronomy. Without it there would be no calculation method for Ekadasi.

Śrīla Prabhupāda's spiritual master, as a young scholar named Bimal Prasad, translated Surya-Siddhanta into Bengali around the turn of the 19th century (1800/1900), for which he was later awarded the title Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. It is highly unlikely that as pure devotees in the line of disciplic succession neither would Bhaktisiddhanta have ever touched nor would Srila Prabhupada ever mentioned such books if they were bogus just because they align with western astronomy.

We should therefore accept the Srimad-Bhagavatam and the Surya-Siddhanta as bona fide even though they appear contradictory, because they are accepted by great Vaishnavas, Their Divine Graces Bhaktisiddhanta and Bhaktivedanta.

All this Flat Earth, Moon Landing Hoax, the Moon is further away from the Sun arguing, etc is a complete waste of time. It distracts us from the real point of Bhakti-yoga and appears to be prajalpa, idle talk, nonsense jibber-jabber.

I present my unqualified opinion in the hope that we can all drop this endless riddle and move on. 

Hare Kṛṣṇa 

Pure tuning for guitar

How to tune a slide guitar to pure pitch: (you might first like to skip to the paragraph titled 'Important'). QUICK METHOD just tune the top two. 

Tune the low E to a D, but 2 cents sharp. For the time being we will leave the A and D in standard tuning to make this simple. Later you can make them beatless using harmonics if you can be bothered.

Using the G string as our root note (you may therefore want to tune your A string to a G as well) the B string is a major third up, so we will tune this 14 cents FLAT (it's actually closer to 13.7 but 14 will do).

The top E we now tune to a D (the perfect 5th of G) but again, 2 cents sharp so that it is 702 cents (perfect) instead of 700 cents (Equal Temperament).

We now have DGDGBD. The D's and G's should be 2 cents wide. You can check this by playing the harmonics, which should be beatless (not the band). The B is 13.7 cents flat to the G.

Playing the slide across any part of the neck, or indeed fingering a Grand Barre chord across a single fret, will result in a Pure Major Chord, absolutely beat-free and solid. At first this may seem dull and lifeless because all your life you've been listening to beating thirds that are slightly out of tune. You may hear this beatlessness as a lack of 'vibe' but actually the notes are all vibrating together better than ever but our ears aren't used to the different tuning or the lack of beating. Of course you can always later on add vibrato to get it back but that's not the exercise here.

This is what Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and all the Masters heard when they composed music BECAUSE EQUAL TEMPERAMENT WASN'T UNDERSTOOD PROPERLY until at least the late 19th century. In fact it wasn't until 1917 that W.B.White came up with a formula for tuning a pianoforte accurately to ET, all based on the piano tuner counting the beats between every single string and note, sometimes as much as 7 or 8 beats per second (a real skill). 

That's what piano tuners do - what makes ET what it is and facilitates total freedom in modulation. Every INTERVAL must BEAT on a well tuned ET piano because they are all somewhat out of tune. 

Up until 1917 it was hit and miss, actually constituting a type of quasi-equal temperament. Some of the black keys were still "off" a little! Like harpsichords and clavichords, the first pianos (invented by Bartholemew Christofori) were tuned to meantone or well-temperament as made famous by Johann Strauss and his Das Wohl Temperirte Clavier 24 Preludes.

So when the Grand Masters played music, composed music, or listened to music, equal temperament did not exist (hadn't been invented) so therefore the majority of it was either in pure tuning, meantone, or later, well-temperament. String quartets invariably played using pure tuning, the strings tuned to beatless perfect fifths or fourths (eg viol, viol de gamba) depending on the instrument. Inherently the open high E string is therefore quite out of tune with a fingered low C. Violinsts therefore will always use their fingers to play a high E. Learners use the open strings which is why they sound so bad.

Open strings must be used judiciously, usually only played simultaneously with stopped strings as a fourth or fifth drone, the thirds and sevenths being avoided because of the out-of-tuneness. Interestingly, fiddle players do the opposite and may utilise the open string/s as a major or minor third to add an 'edge' to their playing. That's why fiddles are so often 'off' yet raucous!

Pianos were originally shunned by orchestras because they didn't fit in with the strings and brass which naturally tend towards pure intervals. In those days they weren't yet used to Equal Temperament. In fact a modern violinist has to learn to play their major thirds deliberately sharp by 14 cents to make their instrument be in tune with the other ET instruments. A well-made violin will often "go dead" playing an ET major third because the ribs were filed and sanded by luthiers back in the early days so that the strings resonated with all the main keys eg C, F, G, Bb, Eb etc (or so the myth goes... why the Stradivarius was so special, apparently). The quarter comma meantone that I use on piano was common in the period of the Masters, especially on harpsichord and clavichord, meantone having being developed and formularised by Pietro Aaron since before the 1500s.

Important:

The Human Ear has difficulty discerning difference in pitch of a few cycles per second and only begins to hear separate notes at around half a dozen cents (5-6 % of a semitone). Worth noting here is the difference between cents and cycles per second. Two notes that are X cycles per second apart will beat at X cycles per second. NO-ONE can hear one cent difference as a difference in pitch. But anyone can hear two notes beating, wo-wo-wo-wo-wobble, because of the difference in air pressure as the sound waves hit the eardrum.

Octaves represent a doubling of Hertz eg A as 220, 440, 880 etc. Cents on the other hand divide each semitone into one hundred. At high frequencies a cent may be several Hertzes; in the low register it is the other way around - for instance, the difference between a low E on a bass guitar at 41.2 Hz and the F at the first fret 43.6 Hz is only 2.4 Hertz yet they're still 100 cents apart.

In Equal Temperament the only interval that is perfectly in tune is the octave. The fifth is two cents flat and the fourth is two cents sharp - which explains why it is impossible to tune a guitar using harmonics unless you count the beats and tune adjacent strings so they waver a little - about two beats per second. It is a skill I have yet to master and thus I still rely on a digital tuner. If you tune the A to the E using the harmonics at the 5th and 7th frets, the resultant interval between the two strings will be 2 cents wide - 702 cents instead of 700 in ET. By the time you get to the G (E-A, A-D, D-G) you're 6 cents wide - an out-of-tuneness that the ear CAN discern. That resulting G will sound terrible when fretted to make the major third G# in E major because the ET maj 3rd is already 14 cents sharp and adding 6 cents results in a fifth of a semitone difference. If we can't hear that, we should give up playing music. 20 cents is WAY out of tune in anyone's book.

Roughly speaking pure major intervals (3rd and 7th) are 14 cents flatter than ET, and pure minor intervals are about 17 cents sharp. As mentioned before, the so-called Perfect Fifth and Perfect Fourth are anything BUT perfect, both being out by 2 cents, but we can't hear it other than the beating. The minor and major seconds and sixths are far closer in both temperaments, so much so that substituting them will hardly cause any noticeable difference. But once the ear has learnt pure major and minor thirds and sevenths there is no denying the difference. It is sort of like not having enough sugar in your tea or coffee, or too much, more than the usual. There is a Goldilocks zone where the pure intervals sound 'just right'. It has to be learnt - ear training - if one is accustomed to only hearing music played in Equal Temperament.

Perhaps the most obvious example, where everyone can perceive the difference, is like when listening to a brass band or a string quartet (those musicians if unaccompanied by ET instruments will automatically gravitate to pure intervals because they sound 'thicker', 'stronger', 'better') ... and then the piano or guitar comes in and ruins everything. Whether or not you have realised it, in listening to the brass or strings playing pure intervals for some time, your ears have adjusted and gotten used to it. The introduction of ET piano or guitar will invariably seem an out-of-tune intrusion, an uncomfortable awkward mismatch. In the same way that brass bands sound out of tune (although they're actually playing in tune!), once the ear adjusts to pure intervals suddenly Equal Temperament doesn't sound "quite right". It's a subtle difference but well discernable once learnt. 

1.3% of 3% of 0.04% of atmospheric CO₂ =?

See if you can get your head around this.

Australia contributes 1.3% of world CO₂ emissions (man-made carbon dioxide). Human emissions are 3% of total CO₂ in the air. The air is 0.04% CO₂. So that's 1.3% of 3% of 0.04% of atmospheric CO₂ = ?

The answer is 0.000000156%. If Australia immediately converted completely to renewables and stopped all use of fossil fuels in industry and power generation that's the miniscule effect it would have on carbon dioxide, one of several of Earth's Greenhouse Gases. 0.000000156%! Can you even imagine, let alone perceive, the tiny fraction of a degree of temperature reduction that equates to?

Even if those figures aren't exact it gives a good indication of the size of the factors in play. The cost of reducing carbon emissions is in the zillions of dollars globally, in the trillions for large countries and billions for others like Australia who have comparatively small GDPs.

Factor in that most of the temperature rise since the end of the last Glaciation period is solar and completely natural - therefore global warming will continue regardless of CO₂ reductions - and that fossil fuels are a dirt cheap source of power for developing economies, it's easy to see why governments that intend to impose restraints on economic development from 'dirty fossil fuels' are unpopular in countries with communities that are struggling.

We see this in Australia where the opposition party failed to win the election by riding largely on the Climate Change ticket. The ruling party stuck with the Prosperity ticket and people voted with their hip pocket. It seems no-one wants to pay for expensive Climate Change policies if it's going to damage their quality of lifestyle and economic security. Due to peer pressure everyone agrees that "Climate Change is terrible and we must do something about it" but when it comes down to a secret, private ballot that cannot be scrutinised they vote with their feet. "Not In My Back Yard" as the saying goes!

The Affliction Known As Cricket.

Also known as Crest Ticket, Done-ay International, Bag Bish or imited lover 20/20, the affliction known as cricket is a Personality Disorder sometimes diagnosed as an incurable mental illness characterised by an obsession with wearing either brightly coloured pyjamas or plain, completely white attire; a sandpaper fetish, secretly carried by concealing it in the underwear; and a peculiar fascination with getting constant updates on the health of the batsman ('how is he?').

The aim of the game is for one side to repeatedly launch small red round missiles at the defending batsman who attempts to either dodge them or deflect them away without getting hit. If successful, sometimes the paired batsman at the missile launch end will instigate a furious scampering up and down the wicket where they change ends. Sometimes they can't seem to decide which end they wish to stay at, and, if the missile is retrieved and then thrown at the empty end when one or both are in the middle, one of them then walks off the ground disgusted - swearing, spitting, and bashing or throwing his bat on the turf.

Seemingly gluttons for punishment, the ridiculed team sends another hapless victim out to face more missiles. This continues until the defending team has run out of willing participants and the two teams change positions.

That  gives the team that was initially attacked a chance to extract revenge - now it's their turn to launch missiles at the other. This goes on for a set number of overs, hours or days depending on the format until they either give up, get sick of it, or are too injured to continue.

In the end, if a truce isn't called one team may be declared the victor; invariably this results in the losing side declaring war and demanding a rematch. There seems to be no end to this madness, teams always seeming to be able to find someone else to stage another battle with if the losing team vanishes.

Lots of money changes hands. There's the TV rights; players have to be paid in order to coerce them into facing more missiles: and spectators pay money to enter the stadiums and/or place bets on who will survive. Even more afflicted fans of the idiotically suicidal practice follow the sport via media, either in their homes as lounge lizards flat out drinking, or as wandering nomads tinkering with their mobile phones wherever they may be.

Such is the affliction known as cricket!

Climate Control

Climate Control is a (strikethru powerful tool strikethru) fanciful imagined situation whereby humans feebly attempt to manipulate the weather, showing total disregard and contempt for the laws of nature. Based on a flawed belief system using falsified unscientific government propaganda about carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, naturally occurring fossil fuels are intended to be phased out and replaced with renewable technology such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave and tidal power generation, thereby crippling the economies of developing nations, effectively keeping billions of people in starvation. In the old days this philosophy was referred to as 'the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer'. These days it is marketed as a virtue-signalling politically correct Green Movement on an unprecedented global scale.

The idea is to preserve dominant capitalist western economies and minimalise the rest of the world. The recent rise of China with its cheap labour force has sent economic shock waves through the US, UK, Australia etc now scrambling to prevent India (with its even cheaper labour force) from dominating the market.

What a lot of Australians don't realise is that it is our coal (as the world's biggest exporter) that is fueling expanding Asian economies yet there is no end to the amount of polly-speak about conforming to Kyoto protocol, Paris accord, blah blah blah meanwhile we continue to sell out. How many Australians see through this farce? It is our coal that ran China's and now India's Gross National Product yet we spend billions on converting our power sources to renewables! By the way, China and India have always expressed (at COP24 & 25) that they have no intention of reducing carbon emissions until 2030! Meanwhile they enjoy easy access to cheap sources for power generation (fossil fuels, heard about them?) thus ensuring their economic expansion.

I want you to pause for just a moment and think about world starvation. The best way to stimulate the economies of developing countries is to facilitate the development of industry using the same implementation that current world powers took advantage of. In case you haven't been paying attention that means fossil fuels.

Now... technically nuclear isn't a renewable energy source, being mined like coal, oil and gas. However, there is an abiogenic theory about the origin of fossil fuels (popular in Russia) where they are supposedly generated from within the Earth's core unlike the minerals uranium and plutonium which are a finite source. But given that the traditional scientific theory that carbonaceous fuels originating from the Fossil Era are a result of heated and compressed organic matter is more popular and accepted, this places them in the unrenewable category with nuclear fuels.

Mankind has always loved to play God. The idea of being able to control the weather has fascinated the human psyche since the beginning of time. That it could be regulated is a kind of blasphemy akin to going against nature - pardon the pun, but the theory is actually quite 'unnatural'. Yet this obsession is the reason behind the whole Climate Control ideology. The concept of being able to control the entire planet's weather systems by reducing or at least containing just one trace gas's level to 1/2500th of the atmosphere is, well, more like religious fanaticism than well-grounded science.

Yep - CO₂ at 400 parts per million equals 0.04% of the atmosphere. Before the Industrial Age which began in roughly 1850 it was more like 0.03%. It took a little over a century to add the first third of that 0.01% increase, about forty years for the next third, and the last third was added since 2000. You can see in the graph (I have superimposed the temps over CO₂; the X and Y axes are the same for both) below that there doesn't seem to be a proportional increase in global temperatures, making the 'science' somewhat dubious!

Notice also the downward temperature trends from 1880-1910 and 1940-1975, indicating that there are other factors at work here and that Climate Control isn't as simple as reducing carbon emissions. The most glaring anomaly is that although one third of all carbon emissions from fossil fuels has been dumped in the last two decades there is no corresponding proportionate temperature increase. According to the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory they should be going through the roof. But they're not. We hear about 'hottest year on record ever' but were talking about a decimal point of a degree - as in 0.01 or 0.02°C. That's all it takes to rewrite the records.

The thermometer was invented by D. G. Fahrenheit in the 18th century in 1709-14 but it wasn't until the mid-1800s that temperature recording was perfected and accurate temperatures were kept. So we can take it for granted that since the beginning of the 19th C. Industrial Age we have fairly accurate data. Even though modern digitals measure to the decimal point, old thermometer readings were either rounded up or down or estimated to the decimal point by the person making the meteorological observations. More importantly, older instruments didn't respond to split-second rises and falls (known these days as digital noise) but often took ten minutes or so to visibly reflect any change of temperature. This greatly impacts on daily maxima and minima - modern digitals often producing higher and lower values than mercury and alcohol thermometers. So when we hear a press announcement about record temperatures it should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, how many of us can discern a change of 0.01°C?

More to the point - there are plenty of early record temperatures from the late 1800s and early 1900s that have been expunged or 'adjusted' by authorities to fit the CAGW agenda because 'it couldn't have possibly been that hot then so the equipment must've been faulty'. Well hello, back in those days sailors could circumnavigate the globe without falling off the edge. Modern science needs to stop painting those days with the tarred brush of the Flat Earth myth. In fact hardly anyone believed in the Flat Earth nonsense back then. It is a ploy invented by atheistic scientists to discredit the Church. Ever since ships have sailed the Earth landlubbers have witnessed them disappearing over the horizon, proving that the Earth wasn't flat.

Given that water boils and freezes at definite temperatures at sea level (a quick refresher course: 100°C and 0°C; 212°F, and -32°F and  given normal barometric pressure) there is no reason to suspect that old thermometers weren't calibrated properly. Even so, they wouldn't have been out by much. That's how it was done then and that method of calibration based on the characteristics of water still applies today. Despite global warming (one degree in the last century) water still behaves in exactly the same way that it used to in the 18th century (or any other for that matter).