The most widely believed myth about global warming is that it is a relatively new scientific theory and that scientists are still debating whether global warming is actually going on and what the cause of it might be. However, this is a myth.

Scientists have known for a long time that the Earth is getting hotter. Prior to the 18th Century, human beings burned very little fossil fuel. Most heat was produced by burning wood. The burning of coal began to skyrocket in the 1700s as a result of the Industrial Revolution. By the mid1800s, scientists in many countries had become aware of the fact that temperatures and sea levels were rising. European governments began keeping temperature records in the 17th Century when accurate thermometers became available. In the mid-1800s, the British government developed machines that could record sea levels accurately and continuously throughout the day. These machines, some of which are still in use, record sea level on a long sheet of paper. The first of these machines was placed in service in Liverpool in 1880. By 1900, machines like these began recording sea levels in New York, San Francisco, and many other cities around the globe. The chart below shows sea levels as recorded in Liverpool, England. As you can see, sea levels have been rising by 1-inch every 10 to 15 years since 1880 and the rate is accelerating. On the surface, a 1-inch rise in sea levels over a decade may not seem like a lot, but over 150 years, it adds up. Sea levels around the world have risen by over 9 inches since the late 1800s, and the rate is rapidly accelerating. There are only 2 possible explanations for why sea levels are rising. 1. A lot of water that was locked up in ice has melted and made its way to the sea and 2. Warm water occupies more space than cold water. However, only global warming could explain either of these.

Scientists have known for a long time that burning fossil fuels is the principal cause of global warming. There really is no debate among scientists as to what the cause of global warming is. They have known right from the start that it is the result of burning fossil fuels. By 1900, articles were appearing in both scientific journals and popular magazines bluntly stating that the Earth was getting hotter and that the burning of coal was the reason. In 1912, Popular Mechanics, one of America’s top-selling magazines at the time, said: “The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 (2 billion) tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 (7 billion) tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. This effect may be considerable in a few centuries.” As you can see, global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is not a new idea. While Popular Mechanics was wrong in its prediction of how long it would take for the effect of global warming to become a problem, they were able to accurately calculate how much carbon dioxide was being put in the air by burning coal. And remember, in 1912, relatively few Americans owned automobiles, and there was no aviation industry.

Global warming skeptics used to say that more research is required before we can be sure that the world is getting hotter; however, it has become increasingly difficult for them to convince people that the Earth isn’t getting hotter because the evidence of it is everywhere. Today, politicians who used to say that global warming is a hoax now acknowledge that the Earth is getting hotter, but they claim that it is happening so slowly that we have nothing to worry about. Donald Trump said at a recent campaign rally: “They say the ocean will rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years.” If only that were true! Many other politicians talk the same way.

Chesapeake Bay. The effect of rising sea levels has been very dramatic in some places. Many islands around the world have disappeared or have become uninhabitable. There used to be a lot of low-lying inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the people who lived on these islands were the descendants of the families that settled on them in the 17th Century from England. However, many of these islands have disappeared or become uninhabitable mud flats. One of the biggest and most populous of the Chesapeake Bay islands was Tangier Island. In the 19th Century, thousands of people lived on Tangier Island. During the War of 1812, over 1,000 British soldiers were stationed on Tangier Island. The island was the base of the British navy during that war. Tangier Island had a downtown shopping district, public schools, a city hall, an airport, etc.; but the island has lost 2/3 of its area and 2/3 of its population due to rising sea levels. The remaining population know that it is just a matter of time before they will all have to leave. Here is a PBS news story about it: Tangier Island.

A few months ago, the Republican candidates for president met in Milwaukee for their first debate. It was a very hot day in Milwaukee. The heat index was 114 degrees. It was so hot that the city closed all the schools for the day. At the debate, the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believed that global warming is real and that it is mainly caused by burning fossil fuels. None of them raised their hands.

THE SPIDER IN YOUR BATHTUB.

Here is another widely held myth, one that never goes away. When people see a spider in their bathtub, they almost always assume that the spider came up through the drain hole. After all, where else could it have come from? Some people put a plug in their bathtub’s drain hole when they aren’t using the tub if they see a spider in the bathtub, but that doesn’t do any good. Tenants have called me on the phone to tell me that there was a spider in their bathtub and wanted me to install a spider-proof drain pipe. There is no such thing as a spider-proof drain pipe. There is no need for such an invention because spiders do not get into bathtubs through drain pipes. Virtually every bathtub and shower stall in America has a ‘U’ shaped drain pipe underneath it. This section of pipe is also known as a ‘P-trap.’ There is always water in the P-trap. This trap prevents sewer gas from entering your house. It also keeps spiders from getting into your bathroom. Very few spiders can swim, and none of them can swim underwater.

So, if spiders aren’t getting into your bathtub through the drain pipe, where do they come from? Spiders can enter a house or apartment through very small openings. They can crawl through and around window screens, and they can easily slide under exterior doors. Spiders are pretty good at climbing walls, but once a spider gets into a bathtub, they are usually trapped there. Spiders are not good at climbing up smooth surfaces, like the sides of a bathtub or shower stall. So, when a spider falls into a bathtub, it will usually stay there. It has no place to go. Since bathtubs and shower stalls are usually white, spiders are more visible there than in other places in your home. Spiders really aren’t coming in through your drain pipe.

HEBREW TATTOOS.

A lot of people commented on my article last month about tattoos made by tattoo artists who flunked spelling. Another mistake that people make is getting tattoos in a language that the artist cannot read. This sometimes happens with tattoos in Chinese and Hindi, but most often, it happens with tattoos in Hebrew.

Finding a tattoo artist who can read and write in Hebrew can be difficult. Orthodox Jews have always prohibited tattoos, but prior to World War 2, there were many reform and non-religious Jews who got tattoos. That came to an end because of the war. When Jews entered Nazi concentration camps, the first thing that happened to the ones who weren’t immediately killed was that a number was tattooed on their arms. As a result, Jews began associating tattoos with the Holocaust, and today, there are very few Jewish tattoo artists.

Below are pictures of 2 Hebrew tattoos with spelling errors in them. It is easy to make mistakes like these because there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet that look similar. The first tattoo says ‘matzah’. I think it was intended to say ‘strength. ‘ Perhaps someone fluent in Hebrew can tell me for sure what it’s intended to say. The error in the second tattoo is more obvious. It is supposed to be the name of God in Hebrew, but it actually says: ‘He shall be pregnant.’  I feel pretty certain that wasn’t what it was intended to say.

There has long been a debate over who was the smartest U.S. president. While he was president, Donald Trump repeatedly told reporters that he is a “genius”. However, I think America’s smartest president was James Garfield, but read my story below and judge for yourself.

James Garfield grew up in extreme poverty. He was mocked by other children for the tattered clothing he had to wear. Nevertheless, Garfield was recognized as a genius at an early age. At the age of 3, he was attending school and reading adult books. He paid his way through college working as a janitor at Williams College and graduated summa cum laude. He then began teaching at Hiram College. At the age of 26, he became president of the college. (Imagine – a 26-year-old college president.) Garfield could speak 9 languages. When the Civil War began, Garfield joined the Union army. At the age of 30 and after a series of victories, Garfield was promoted to the rank of general. He became nationally famous after his army permanently drove Confederate forces out of eastern Tennessee, even though Garfield had no artillery and only half as many men as the Confederates. Garfield won every battle he fought.

James Garfield might have been a great president, but unfortunately, he was shot and killed just a few months into his presidency. Garfield was in a train station in Washington, D.C. chatting with Robert Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, when a lunatic walked up behind Garfield and shot him in the back. Strangely, a lot of people died that way – shortly after meeting Robert Lincoln – but that’s a story for another day.

HOW TO GET RID OF CLUTTER AND HELP OTHERS TO GET RID OF THEIR CLUTTER.

There are a lot of books on the market about decluttering, but the advice in most of them seems like nonsense to me. The most popular of these books are the ones written by Marie Kondo. Her big idea is that you should only keep things that make you happy or that “spark joy” as she puts it. She says: “If it does (spark joy), keep it. If not, dispose of it.” That may sound like a profound idea, but it’s irrational to get rid of things that you need, whether they ‘spark joy’ or not. I have a spare tire in the trunk of my car. So do you. But why? Nobody keeps a spare tire because it ‘sparks joy’. You keep a spare tire because you may need it.

Cluttering vs. Hoarding. These words don’t mean the same thing. Here is how I define the difference. Cluttering is a large accumulation of possessions in someone’s home. Hoarding is when that accumulation gets to the point that rooms or parts of a house can’t be accessed or used for their intended purpose. Like most landlords, I’ve had to deal with hoarding in my business. I once had a tenant who rented a 2-bedroom cottage from me. He had so much stuff in his bedrooms that he had to sleep in the living room because he couldn’t get into either bedroom. None of his stuff had any apparent use or market value. I had another memorable tenant in that same cottage several years later who also slept in the living room because both of her bedrooms were full of pianos. It was impossible to get into either room. She used to check newspapers and Craigslist looking for free pianos. You might be surprised how many free pianos you’ll find on Craigslist. When I checked this morning, there were over 50 free pianos listed on Craigslist in the San Francisco bay area, including a couple of grand pianos. Whenever I see a piano store, I wonder how they stay in business. There are always a lot of free pianos available, but I digress. Below are some of my ideas on how to reduce clutter.

Remember that most people overvalue the things they own. This is the #1 reason why people can’t get rid of stuff. How can you convince someone to give away a cookie jar that is worth $5 if the owner believes that it is worth $500? Wild overvaluations like this are very common.

Why do people overvalue their stuff? People often think about what they paid for an item, which may have no relationship to what it is worth now. Things that were expensive when you bought them may now be worthless. That can be hard for people to accept. Things like clothing, furniture, and electronic products lose most of their value as soon as they leave the store. A desktop computer that you paid $2,000 for 10 years ago is probably worth nothing now.

People think about what things used to sell for. There are a lot of things that used to be expensive but that aren’t anymore. Silverware is a good example. I can remember when every department store had a silverware department. Silverware was the most common item at bridal registries. In many homes, the silverware was the most valuable thing in the house. Today, very few people want silverware. Manufacturers figured out ways of making stainless steel that looks just like silverware but that never needs polishing. Also, big formal dinners are now a rarity. Most silverware that is purchased by pawnbrokers or at auctions these days is bought for its scrap value and melted down.

Tastes and attitudes change. My stepmother collected carved ivory figurines. She spent tens of thousands of dollars on her huge collection. When she died, her ivory sold for a fraction of what she paid for it. As elephants began disappearing in Africa and Asia, attitudes about ivory changed. There are now international treaties restricting the sale of ivory. A lot of antique dealers won’t buy the stuff anymore regardless of the price. There are lots of things that used to be highly collectible and expensive but that are now nearly worthless; things like tobacco jars, Hummel figurines, Thomas Kinkade prints, British royal family commemorative porcelain, and most signed sports memorabilia. The FBI estimates that between 70% and 90% of all signed sports memorabilia is fake.

How to find out what your stuff is really worth. This has become a lot easier than it used to be. That’s because we have eBay. Ebay provides us with a simple way of finding out what our things are actually worth. If you know someone who has a wildly inflated idea of what something he owns is worth, suggest that he go to eBay and see what other people are selling that thing for. That may pop your friend’s bubble, but you’d be doing him a favor. I know that checking prices on eBay has made it a lot easier for me to get rid of things.

How to get started. Look around your house. Think about an item that you never use, preferably something that takes up a lot of space or that is in the way. Then ask yourself why you keep it. Then go to eBay and try to find that item or something just like it and see what it is selling for. You may be surprised. It may be worth more than you think, but usually it will be less. Remember that some people list stuff on eBay at unrealistically high prices, so look for average listing prices of items like yours. Also, if you decide to sell an item on eBay, think about how much time you will have to spend listing and selling it, packaging it up and shipping it. Plus, eBay and PayPal will each get a percent of your sale. Most of the time, you are better off giving away an item to a charity thrift shop.

TATTOOS AND SPELL CHECKERS.

I’ve been teaching history at junior high schools for a long time. One of things that has largely disappeared over the years is spelling errors in student essays. They used to be very common but not anymore. Students now write their essays on computers with spell checkers and auto-suggestion. If you’re not familiar with it, a computer’s auto-suggestion feature analyses a sentence and suggests an alternative word or phrase. For example, a student of mine once wrote: “My family took a tour of Notre Dame cathedral last summer. The tour was given by a French priest. He spoke very good English, but we couldn’t understand a lot of what he said because the agnostics in the church were terrible.” Well, the agnostics in the church may have been terrible, but a computer these days would probably have suggested that he substitute ‘acoustics’ for ‘agnostics.’ One place where I still see a lot of spelling errors is in tattoos. I think that’s because tattoo pens don’t have spell checkers in them. Take a look at the tattoos below.

SOME FOOD MYTHS YOU LEARNED IN SCHOOL. The food processing industry has a lot of clout in deciding what is taught in public schools about food and nutrition. They also have a lot of clout in deciding what foods should be in school lunches. Here are some things you probably learned in school about food but that aren’t true. THE FOOD PYRAMID.    The Department of Agriculture created the food pyramid in the 1970s. You can find posters with the food pyramid on it in school classrooms all over the U.S. These posters are supplied to schools free by the Department of Agriculture. But – the job of the Department of Agriculture isn’t promoting public health, but promoting farmers and the food industry. Lobbyists working for the food processing and dairy industries had a lot of influence in the construction of this pyramid, and their influence is obvious. The most profitable sector of the food industry is making processed carbohydrates: breakfast cereals, breads, cookies, cakes, pasta, etc. Look at how heavily weighted this chart is in favor of carbohydrates. Imagine – a child eating 11 servings of carbs every day. Milk. Another criticism of the food pyramid is that it was designed for white Europeans. Look at the dairy section of the food pyramid. The food pyramid teaches kids that they need to consume 2 to 3 servings of milk or other dairy products every day for good health; however, over 75% of native Americans, black Americans, and Chinese Americans are lactose intolerant. There is no accounting for that in the pyramid. You can find this same food pyramid on the walls of schools where most of the students are black as well as schools where most of the students are white, even though 70% to 80% of black kids can’t digest dairy products. This is called disparate impact. It’s unintentional discrimination, which is very common in our society. In other words, the people at the Department of Agriculture who constructed the food pyramid weren’t trying to make black kids sick when they published it. They just didn’t think about it. IS BREAKFAST THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY?    No. No one meal is more important than another. The idea that breakfast is more important than other meals can be traced back to the late 19th Century when Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a physician and nutritionist, said so. This idea was picked up by his brother, Will Kellogg, who found the idea a good marketing tool. Beginning in the 1930s, Kellogg radio ads claimed that “Nutrition experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” The company continued making this claim for decades in its advertising. Although this started off as just an advertising slogan, it is now taught everywhere as fact. WILL CAFFEINE STUNT A CHILD’S GROWTH?    No. If you are short, it isn’t because your parents let you drink Frappuccinos at Starbucks. Kellogg’s arch-rival was C.W. Post. He also created advertising slogans that became accepted as fact. In 1895, Post invented Postum, a caffeine-free alternative beverage to coffee. Postum is still made. It is made from roasted grain and molasses. It has the color of coffee, but it doesn’t taste anything like coffee. I don’t know anyone who likes it. In order to get parents to make their kids drink Postum instead of coffee, Post claimed, without evidence, that caffeine stunts a child’s growth. Postum ads were designed to make parents feel guilty for letting their kids drink coffee. The Postum ad below shows a sickly child in a classroom and says “this boy never had a fair chance” because his parents let him drink coffee. The ad says that coffee “robs children of their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes” and most importantly “hampers proper development and growth.” This is scientific nonsense, but a lot of people now believe it’s true.   Personally, I think giving caffeinated beverages to young children is a bad idea, but a lot of parents let their kids drink Coca Cola with their meals, even though they won’tlet them eat Hershey bars They say it’s because of the caffeine. Recently, a woman wouldn’t let her daughter eat one of my chocolate covered mocha Oreos because of the coffee in the mocha filling. However, there is relatively little caffeine in chocolate compared to caffeinated beverages like coffee or Coke. A small cup of coffee at McDonalds contains 100 mg of caffeine. A medium size Coke contains 60mg. A Hershey bar contains 9mg. A child would have to eat a lot of Hershey bars to get a caffeine buzz.

WORST APPLICANT EVER. IT’S IN THE STARS. Berkeley used to be a cheap place to live. Back in the 1970s, you could rent a 1-bedroom apartment in central Berkeley for $100 a month. I knew some people who were paying less than that. Even adjusted for inflation, rent in Berkeley was cheap, especially compared to other cities near San Francisco. That is why the ‘hippies’ came to Berkeley in the 1960s and 70s. In every generation, counterculture people need to find places to live that have cheap housing. However, people looking for cheap housing don’t come to Berkeley anymore. Rental housing here has become tooexpensive. One bedroom apartments in the new buildings in my neighborhood are $3,000 to $4,000 a month. They can be even more expensive closer to campus.   A lot of strange people came to Berkeley in the 1960s and 70s from the East Coast, attracted by the culture, climate, and cheap housing. I have saved some of the rental applications I got back then. Below is an excerpt from a tenant resume I got in the late 1970s. I don’t get applications from people like this anymore. “What I’m Looking For. Ideally, I would like to find a landlord who is either a Gemini like myself or a Sagittarius. Sagittarius is 180 degrees from Gemini, so we would get along very well. I would consider renting an apartment from a Taurus or a Cancer, but obviously they would not be my first choice. The owner of the building where I am living now is a Virgo, and I’m a Gemini. Our signs are at a 90-degree angle, so we don’t get along. I can’t rent an apartment from a Virgo or Pisces. Their signs are at right angles to mine, so their Sun is in a Sign which is square to mine. Landlords born very close to 91 days apart will have their Sun square the other, which would be a real challenge for me! Moon square Sun is also difficult, but I am willing to risk that. For example, a Leo would irritate me at times, but with patience, we could deal with each other.”   At the bottom of this resume, in the ‘References’ section, it says: “Madam Lastardo is my astrologer. She will have to do a chart on my new landlord before I can sign a lease.”Several days later, I received an astrological questionnaire in the mail from Madam Lastrado, but I did not fill it out or return it. I know nothing about astrology, but I know 2 people who know a lot about this subject, and both of them told me that this woman knew what she was talking about. It’s not just gibberish. However, I rented the apartment to someone else.   P.S. – A lawyer told me that it is legal for a landlord to refuse to rent an apartment to someone because of an applicant’s astrological sign, although he added that he wouldn’t recommend it. Apparently, discrimination laws do not cover ‘astrological incompatibility’ – at least not yet!