The Parable of the "Normandie"




Once upon a time the French built one of the most beautiful Trans-Atlantic Liners ever to sail the seas - the S/S "Normandie"- she was the fastest turbo-electric vessel ever constructed and achieved 32 knots. This magnificent ship competed with the Cunard Liners - the "Queen Mary" and "Queen Elizabeth" for the Blue Ribband in the late 1930s until the outbreak of World War II. These liners crossed the Atlantic to New York in under 5 days

This ship was taken over by the US Government to be converted to a troop carrier in 1941 and the modifications were being undertaken in New York Harbour when a fire was ignited by accident. The New York Port Authority set about putting the fire out with every endeavour possible. They put the fire out but as the leading Firemen in discussion said:
“Well, the fire went out”….
“Yeah but the ship sank”….
“I know that, but the fire went out!”
What you may ask has this collapse of a vessel weighing over 79,000 tons and measuring over 1000 feet in length onto the quay in New York got to do with current international issues? Here we have the perfect parable; the Firefighters concentrated on the fire, and indeed put it out, but the vessel was a total loss due to a stability factor called free-surface. The cogent allegorical connection is there - everyone is concentrating on one main issue and another equally serious matter is overlooked and disaster strikes.
Global Warming - hyperbole and hypocrisy rules the media on the subject - a big mistake because one cannot ignore all factors when dealing with the world or one gets a situation like the loss of the "Normandie".
I want to assure everyone that I totally support being environmentally conscious and proactive. It is wrong to dump plastics upon the world, to use resources indiscriminately, to virtually rape and destroy the world's pampas, rain forests, marshes, mangroves etc. It would be insane to think otherwise but I cannot subscribe to this new "religion" now be promoted by politicians and carpet-bag numpties.
Hyperbole? try Al Gore's claim that if all the Polar Ice melts the seas will rise by 23 feet - if it did happen [and that is questionable!] then it might be 23 inches.
Hycrocrisy? try the same person's residence - it is huge mansion with over 18 very large rooms and has an energy consumption that would power a small African town. The Prince of Wales, Charles, travels by train [to leave a small 'carbon footprint'] meantime the Jaguar is driven there to pick him up from the train!
A recent report suggests the Carteret Islands in the Pacific Ocean have be gradually sinking due to global warming over the past two decades and the islanders are having to move away. If one examines the case more carefully then it is a more complex story - other islands in the region including Bougainville Island are not being inundated. It also emerges that the islanders have been dynamiting the coral reefs to enhance their fishing thus destroying natural protection. All factors were not considered.
Some UK politicians are taking the Global Warming factor as an arguement for nuclear power and the building of more atomic power stations - they might well be right but the decision is being made in the light of flawed data and hyperbole. Iran could use the same logic......
I put to you the parable of the "Normandie" - to make momentous decisions have all the data to hand , carefully examine all factors, or something might jump up and more than bite your bum - it might devour you!
The advice given by the group of Canadian scientists to their Prime Minister was cogent and appropriate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AN ISLAND NATION

Image
AN ISLAND NATION Island Nation or EU satellite state? Last night Jeremy Paxman, on the 19th May 2016, presented an objective view of the European Union. It is clear that the EU intends becoming a federal state and that the United Kingdom would become subsumed into that bureaucratic nightmare. I give you an alternative - the open sea  and the Commonwealth. We are an island nation off Europe but not part of Europe.The Commonwealth needs us and we most certainly need them - they are the World. It is not a pipe dream, the building blocks are still there - just - and it is predicated on the following :- “The Charter brings together the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth - democracy, human rights and the rule of law - in a single, accessible document. The Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all peoples of the Commonwealth. The Cha
Read more

Where You Stand and Prejudice (2016)

Where you stand and prejudice. I  have written before on the Newfoundland aphorism of “where you stand depends where you sit.” With that saying in mind here are some of my thoughts on that most contentious of subjects - prejudice, -  racial or ethnic, take your choice.  I look to where I came from, my origins, and then look at what affects my life today.  I come to the inevitable conclusions that prejudice is illogical , not Christian, and most certainly not productive.   My Grandfather, William Hogan, and Grandmother, Mary Ellen, were part of the Irish diaspora that took place in the latter part of the 19th Century. William Hogan was born in 1857 in Cappoquin and Mary Ellen in 1860 in Cork. The Great Irish Famine took place over the years 1845 - 1852 when approximately one million died; the Irish population fell by 25% due to death and emigration. Ireland’s rural population had rapidly grown in the Nineteenth Century. This was because a large family was an insurance of continued
Read more

I was called a Flat Earther

Image
Gordon Brown called me a "Flat Earther" FPI trawler in ice. In December 2009 the Prime Minister, Mr.Gordon Brown, called me a "Flat Earther". His remarks were pointedly directed at anyone who harboured any scepticism of Climate Change and that included me. Now I am a retired Master Mariner so that epithet seemed somewhat silly as I have spent a life time sailing over the horizon and not falling over the edge of the world. Anyway I have decided to briefly write about my experieces at sea and let you judge me and tell me if I deserve the sobriquet "Flat Earther". In 1954 my Father indentured me to Sir William Readon Smith & Sons of Cardiff, tramp ship owners, as an Apprentice Deck Officer. I was just sixteen years of age. My life long affair with weather and climate started at the same time as my voyage to command and management in shipping. I was eight years with tramp ships, man and boy, and sailed away for anything up to a year circling th
Read more