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Forum Post: "Climate Change Is Happening Now – A Carbon Price Must Follow", by James Hansen.

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 2, 2012, 9:50 p.m. EST by shadz66 (19985)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"Climate Change Is Happening Now – A Carbon Price Must Follow",

'The extreme weather events of 2012 are what we have been warning of for 25 years, but the answer is plain to see'.

by James Hansen.

Will our short attention span be the end of us? Just a month after the second "storm of a century" in two years, the media moves on to the latest scandal with barely a retrospective glance at the implications of the extreme climate anomalies we have seen.

Hurricane Sandy was not just a storm. It was a stark illustration of the power that climate change can deliver – today – to our doorsteps.

Ask the homeowners along the New Jersey and New York shores still homeless. Ask the local governments struggling weeks later to turn on power to their cold, darkened towns and cities. Ask the entire north-east coast, reeling from a catastrophe whose cost is estimated at $50bn and rising. (I am not brave enough to ask those who've lost husbands or wives, children or grandparents).

I bring up these facts sadly, as one who has urged us to heed the scientific evidence on climate change for the past 25 years. The science is clear: climate change is here, now.

Superstorm Sandy is not the first storm, and certainly won't be the last. Still, it is hard for us as individual human beings to connect the dots. That's where observation, data and scientific analysis help us see.

No credible scientist disputes that we have warmed our climate by almost 1.5C over land areas in the past century, most of that in the past 30 years.

As my colleagues and I demonstrated in a peer-reviewed study published this summer, climate extremes are already occurring much more frequently in the world we have warmed through our reliance on fossil fuels.

Our analysis showed that extreme summer heat anomalies used to be infrequent: covering only 0.1-0.2% of the globe in any given summer during the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. During the past decade, as the average global temperature rose, such extremes have covered 10% of the land.

Extreme temperatures deliver more than heat.

The water cycle is especially sensitive to rising temperatures. Increased heat speeds up evaporation, causing more extreme droughts, like the $5bn (and counting) drought in Texas and Oklahoma. It is linked to an expanding wildfire season and an increase by several fold in the frequency of large fires in the American west.

The heat also leads to more extreme sea surface temperatures – a key culprit behind Sandy's devastating force. The latent heat in atmospheric water vapour is the fuel that powers tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hurricanes. Stepping up evaporation with warmer temperatures is like stepping on the gas: More energy-rich vapour condenses into water drops, releasing more latent heat as it does so, causing more powerful storms, increased rainfall and more extreme flooding. This is not a matter of belief. This is high-school science class.

The chances of getting a late October hurricane in New York without the help of global warming are extremely small. In that sense, you can blame Sandy on global warming. Sandy was the strongest recorded storm, measured by barometric pressure, to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, eclipsing the hurricane of 1938.

But this fixation on determining the blame for a particular storm, or disputing the causal link between climate change and this or that storm, is misguided.

A better path forward means listening to the growing chorus – Sandy, extreme droughts and wildfires, intense rainstorms, record-breaking melting of Arctic sea ice – and taking action. Think of it like taking out an insurance policy for the planet.

We can fix this. The answer is a price on carbon. We must make the price of fossil fuels honest, reflecting their cost to society including the economic devastation wrought by storms like Sandy, the toll on farmland and ecosystems, as well as priceless human lives.

Whether that price takes the shape of a carbon tax, as some in Washington are now willing to discuss, or a carbon fee, as I have advocated, a price on carbon lets the market find the most effective ways to phase out our reliance on fossil fuels. It also moves us to a sustainable energy future where energy choices are made by individuals and communities, not by Washington mandates and lobbyists.

A carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies, will increase consumer costs. So the money that is collected should be distributed to the public. As people try to minimise their energy costs to keep money for other things, their actions will stimulate the economy, drive innovations and transition us away from fossil fuels.

If we make our demand for action clear enough, I am optimistic that our leaders in Washington can look beyond the short-term challenges of today to see the looming, long-term threats ahead, and the answer that is right in front of them. We can't simply allow the next news cycle to distract us from the real task ahead.

Back in the 1980s, I introduced the concept of "climate dice" to make clear the difference between natural variability and climate-change driven extremes. As I predicted, the climate dice in the 21st century are now "loaded". It's not just bad luck Sandy pummelled America's coasts, extreme drought devastated its midlands and wildfires scorched its mountains.

We loaded the dice. We changed our climate.

~

respice, adspice, prospice ...

~

James E Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen }

[Article copied verbatim under 'Fair Use' from : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/29/climate-change-carbon-price - so please use this to access all corroborating embedded links]

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897 Comments


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[-] 10 points by geo (2638) from Concord, NC 12 years ago

AGW is real, a carbon tax is not the answer.

A carbon tax will restrict energy usage for those that need it the most the poor, and won't restrict usage by the wealthy. The cost to industry will be passed along in higher prices on all goods to the rest of us.

We need to push alternative energy. Break the central distribution schemes of the utilities.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Note that - "More than 1,000 scientists across the globe - chained themselves to the doors of oil-friendly banks, blocked bridges & occupied the steps of government buildings on Wednesday to send an urgent message to the international community;the ecological crisis is accelerating & only a "climate revolution" will be enough to avert catastrophe.

""The science indicates that as fossil fuels continue to heat our planet - everything we love is at risk," he wrote ... "For me one of the most horrific aspects of all this - is the juxtaposition of present-day and near-future climate disasters .. with the 'business as usual' occurring all around me. It is so surreal that I often find myself reviewing the science to make sure it is really happening - a sort of scientific nightmare arm-pinch. Yes, it's really happening!" - from:

respice; adspice; prospice et caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

Scientists stark warning for next 5 years.

https://www.rte.ie/news/environment/2023/0517/1384030-climate-global/

"The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has warned that a warming climatic event in the coming months, combined with human-induced climate change, will have far reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment.

The WMO said people need to be prepared and that rising temperatures are moving us further and further away from the climate we are used to.

This stark warning from the WMO is contained in a synthesis of temperature predictions for the next five years from its 145 member organisations, led on this occasion by the UK Met Office.

It says that we can be practically certain that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest year on record, and that temperatures in the next five years will be warmer than the past five years.

What makes them so sure, are very strong signs that, late this year, we are likely to enter a positive El Niño climatic event."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"El Niño Is About to Accelerate the Global Climate Crisis. It’s Time for Action" by Gareth Dale

"The extreme heat of the upcoming El Niño years should compel us to subordinate profit motives to urgent climate goals."

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"James Hansen, who testified to Congress on global heating in 1988, says world is approaching a ‘new climate frontier’"! - from:

respice; adspice; prospice - et caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 months ago

Climate change will cause warlike economic damage by the end of the century.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report

"The economic damage wrought by climate change is six times worse than previously thought, with global heating set to shrink wealth at a rate consistent with the level of financial losses of a continuing permanent war, research has found.

A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product (GDP), the researchers found, a far higher estimate than that of previous analyses. The world has already warmed by more than 1C (1.8F) since pre-industrial times and many climate scientists predict a 3C (5.4F) rise will occur by the end of this century due to the ongoing burning of fossil fuels, a scenario that the new working paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, states will come with an enormous economic cost.

A 3C temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100” the paper states. This economic loss is so severe that it is “comparable to the economic damage caused by fighting a war domestically and permanently”, it adds."

"...by the end of the century people may well be 50% poorer than they would’ve been if it wasn’t for climate change.”

Our children and grandchildren will be facing an unlivable world. Scary stuff.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Is Earth Close to “The Great Dying”?! by Thom Hartmann:

NB: "Are the Great Conveyor Belt and the “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis” about to throw the planet into an existential crisis?" Meanwhile ...

"Every house burnt to the ground, every town forced to evacuate,every ecosystem lost to a wildfire is a necessary consequence of a business model like Shell's."

respice; adspice; prospice - et caveat actor!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

'23 Hottest Summer on Record, by a lot!

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/world/hottest-summer-record-climate-intl/index.html

"This summer was the hottest on record — by a significant margin

Summers have been trending hotter since at least the 1940s, and especially the past decade. Global temperature for June, July and August this year has surpassed that of summer 2019 — the previous record — by nearly a third of a degree Celsius."

"Typically these records, which track the average air temperature across the entire world, are broken by hundredths of a degree."

ALARMING!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president"! - by Dharna Noor:

"Rightwing groups penned a conservative wish list of proposals - for the next conservative president to gut environmental protections"! Meanwhile ...

sic transit gloria mundi!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"As Death Toll Hits 80, Hawaii AG to Probe Decisions and Policies on Wildfires"! - by Jessica Corbett

"Campaigners continue to call out fossil fuel giants, with Kaniela Ing saying "You can't claim to care about 'āina, but refuse to fight against the polluters that overheated our planet, warmed the air, and dried out our vegetation."

ad iudicium!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"The Climate Conflagration Rages .. from Maui to Montana"! by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan:

respice, adspice, prospice ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Plantation Disaster Capitalism: Native Hawaiians Organize to Stop Land and Water Grabs After Maui Fire"!

respice, adspice, prospice - et caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Study: New York Flooding 'Mostly Strengthened' by Climate Crisis"!

"Human-driven climate change is the primary driver, underscoring the urgent need for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts" one scientist said. Also, per the reply by bw below, consider this by same^author:

As -- "'We've never seen a record smashed by anything close to this margin,' one climate scientist said"!

caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

September temperatures off the charts!

These are scary times and anyone in denial is crazy.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/05/gobsmackingly-bananas-scientists-stunned-by-planets-record-september-heat

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

Note "Neoliberalism's relentless cheerleaders are largely unchallenged in their dangerous belief that capitalism's growth paradigm can be squared with sustainability. It may cost us the Earth!!

"The debate about the climate crisis should have been settled in the early 1990s. And yet, three decades later, the extent, imminence and even existence of a looming catastrophe are still hotly disputed. That is not by accident."

which ends - "In late 2021, a US Treasury panel concluded that the climate crisis was an “emerging threat” ... to the country’s financial stability, with the potential to wipe out trillions of dollars of assets.

"Nonetheless, when faced with the choice between addressing the climate emergency - or pursuing growth, the economic imperative triumphs every time.

"In January, at a meeting of the central bank chiefs in Stockholm - the head of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, urged his western colleagues to prioritise short-term goals, like fighting inflation - rather than address long-term need to fight climate change. “We are not & will not be .. a climate policymaker,” he said.

"The climate emergency, and the wider ecological crisis - will put this kind of Neoliberal orthodoxy under ever greater strain. Without a meaningful response, something will have to give. Already, the twin pillars of the West’s 'Liberal Democratic Order' are starting to crumble; the commitment to free speech and the right to protest.

"Ahead lie: ever more unaffordable energy bills; empty supermarket shelves; floods; heatwaves; wasted expenditure on resource wars and the more general symptoms of ecological collapse.

"Burying our heads in the sand a little longer won't make the coming battle go away. It will just make our survival even less likely."

adspice, prospice - et caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 months ago

The saddest environmental articles I've read in a while.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/16/world-faces-deathly-silence-of-nature-as-wildlife-disappears-warn-experts-aoe

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/16/nature-silent-bernie-krause-recording-sound-californian-state-park-aoe

World faces ‘deathly silence’ of nature as wildlife disappears, warn experts

"Loss of intensity and diversity of noises in ecosystems reflects an alarming decline in healthy biodiversity, say sound ecologists."

"Sounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become “acoustic fossils” without urgent action to halt environmental destruction, international experts have warned."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Rising Methane could be a sign that Earth's Climate, is part way through a 'termination-level transition'"! by Euan Nisbet:

NB "Scientists have found a methane reservoir below the permafrost seabed of the Laptev Sea — a reservoir that could suddenly release large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas."

UH-OH!!!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 7 months ago

4.5 Fahrenheit is the increase in global temperatures that many scientists now think is a reasonable estimate. Terrifying.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/world-scientists-climate-failure-survey-global-temperature

The rich will be protected but everyone else will not be.

"Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.

“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”

Five years. This is due to a lack of political will and apathy among the people. We're really in for it.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 months ago

Note "Gaza War Fuels Climate Crisis ... 'Massive' Carbon Emissions from Israeli Bombing"!

from^which, note ... "Their desire for bloodshed & conflict extends beyond practical considerations bordering on fanaticism. They crave war with Iran - disregarding the potential consequences"! And, finally also consider that the ruling class overlords the world over, are quite happy for millions even billions of the rest of us to perish, if that means that they can retain their positions in wider society!!

respice, adspice, prospice - et caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

Consider - "Scientists continue to find new places where these tiny shards of plastic waste — five millimeters and smaller — end up, and none of them are reassuring. Recent notable studies have discovered it everywhere from polluting clouds to the inside of human hearts"!!! - FROM:

UH-OH x 2!!!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 7 months ago

Climate scientists are deciding not to have children as they are "...starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/10/climate-scientists-starting-families-children

"They said they had not wanted to add to the global human population that is exacting a heavy environmental toll on the planet, and some also expressed fears about the climate chaos through which a child might now have to live."

Sad.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

RIP Wynn Bruce, climate activist whose self-immolation in front of the Supreme Court has brought to light the despair that many are feeling about climate change and the failure of governments to ameliorate it.

With respect to his desperate and sad act, I fear mental health is also an issue though I can't help but remember Mohamed Bouazizi at this time. He was the Tunisian who self-immolated when the police publicly humiliated him over his work as a street vendor.

Bouazizi's act of defiance, setting himself on fire, triggered the Arab Spring which subsequently led to the Occupy movement, which as we know, quickly spread all over the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi

So whether Wynn Bruce did this purely as a political act, I suppose we'll never know, but despair and the desperate acts that burgeon from it are sometimes the only things that facilitate change.

Many on twitter are belittling his action but in all seriousness, it was a courageous act to bring focus to climate change. Shame on all the media pieces out there that are speaking of what he did but not the why he did it, which is climate change and global warming.

It takes a foreign paper to find a decent article that a. doesn't have a pay wall and b. mentions climate change.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/climate-activist-dies-setting-himself-152701191.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFaftnofGRaFBtl9b6lMYME7amfM82Lgi-YXQinnv1MfHbHgzSSQmkt9EgUmXBDPI2384-bKHPnNWujhCCsTxSDcX07tSnu_xNwp4mLGymp-WaLzfrHoWS29B1miCSQg6Sg2rnrbdYUhMyYkSou-O_Te6yTYulBlg7C7UHxJe84i

“This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis."

What's it gonna take for we humans to start doing the right thing?

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

RIP "Wynn Alan Bruce: Climate activist died after setting himself on fire outside Supreme Court on Earth Day"!

So, "Devout Buddhist Wynn Alan Bruce, 50, appeared to foreshadow his death in 2021 Facebook post" & - “To express will by burning oneself, therefore, isn't to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that it, to suffer and die for the sake of one’s people”!

désolé.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Capitalism Won’t Fix the Climate Crisis - It Will Also Not Survive It"! by John Kendall Hawkins:

from which "'Hothouse Earth' is therefore a call to arms for us to act now to stop dangerous climate breakdown metamorphosing into a Climate Cataclysm. The near certainty of us shattering the 1.5°C guardrail also means that as well as doing everything we can to bring the emissions down as fast as possible, we are also now going to have to work to adapt our infrastructure,lives and livelihoods to a world that is slated to be unrecognizable to the one our grandparents were born into."

MULTUM in parvo!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Sea Levels to rise by nearly a foot due to Greenland ice loss. Why isn't this on the front page of every newspaper?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/29/world/greenland-ice-loss-sea-level-rise-study/index.html

The sea level rise from this melted ice will occur "regardless of any foreseeable future climate pathway this century," according to lead author Jason Box, a scientist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. "This water is technically already under the bridge."

"While the authors did not specify a timeline, they predict that the change in sea levels can occur between now and the end of the century."

"The research was solely to estimate a minimum, or "a very conservative lower bound," of sea level rise from melting in Greenland, "and in the virtually-certain event that climate continues warming, the sea level commitment only grows," Box said.

Massive ice sheets can melt rapidly when the air temperature is warm, but warmer ocean water is also eroding the sheet around the edges.

The findings come on the heels of a 2022 sea-level rise report released earlier this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which found that US coasts could expect 10 to 12 inches of sea level rise in the next 30 years. This will cause high tide floods to occur more than 10 times as frequently, and allow storm surges to spread further inland, according to the report.

Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melted, it could lift sea levels by roughly 25 feet around the world. Researchers point out that a sea level rise of 20 feet doesn't mean it will rise evenly around the globe, leaving some places devastated as the sea level falls in others."

"Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland recently triggered rapid melting, with temperatures around 60 degrees -- 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, scientists told CNN.

The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and 17 alone -- 6 billion tons of water per day -- would be enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Global scientists have said the trends at which climate change is accelerating are quite clear, and that unless emissions are curbed immediately, many more extreme melting events will continue to occur more intensely and frequently."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"The two crises of Climate & Debt are inextricably connected. Unless wealthy creditors such as the International Monetary Fund, rich governments, and Western banks and hedge funds take concrete action on large-scale debt cancellation, debt will continue to act as an accelerator of climate chaos." from:

"Pakistan causes less than 1% of global carbon emissions - but a third of it is now underwater - and rebuilding is going to be hamstrung by its $12.5 billion in debt repayments - due just this year alone!

"That debt - should now be cancelled."

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

The colonial system is still alive as long as that debt still exists between rich countries and poor countries.

Poor countries are the ones that are going to suffer the most from climate change. They will need money and lots of it to try to assuage the problem. These unjust colonial debts will hamper them from being able to protect themselves from the climate change brought on by their former colonial overlords.

Just can't make this up. Capitalism never stops exploiting.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/pakistans-debt-reaches-new-high-jumps-to-almost-pkr-60-trillion/articleshow/93592862.cms

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/04/pakistan-floods-reparations-climate-disaster

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62712301

Pakistan is 1/3 underwater now. They need help, at least, cancel their debt.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

In the U$A, as in Pakistan - the ruling class don't give a hoot for The 99%! and NB this by Sharon Zhang:

"Opposing disaster relief funding, appears to be supported by a large portion of the Republican caucus. As the Daily Beast notes,the largest internal GOP conference group, the Republican Study Committee, proposes slashing federal disaster relief funding in its latest annual budget proposal."

fiat justitia!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

East Antarctic Glacier Melting at 70+ Billion Tons a Year The glacier sits atop the deepest land canyon on Earth.

https://www.ecowatch.com/east-antarctica-denman-glacier-melting.html

"Now, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in September found that warm water is making its way into a dip beneath East Antarctica’s Denman Glacier, melting 70.8 billion tons of ice each year.

“These observations suggest that the Denman Glacier is potentially at risk from unstable retreat driven by warm water flowing into the cavity and melting the ice from below,” the study authors wrote."

"The Denman Glacier has enough water inside of it to contribute 1.5 meters (approximately five feet) to global sea level rise. Melting the floating part of the glacier, also known as the ice shelf, won’t actually contribute to sea level rise. However, the more it melts, the weaker it becomes, potentially ceasing to act as an effective barrier to the ice on the Antarctic continent that does contribute to sea level rise."

Yikes!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"'A Sobering Moment': UN Warns Planet Could See Cataclysmic 2.9°C of Heating by 2100" --- by Jake Johnson:

"These alarming findings - merit a transformative response at COP27" - said the president-designate of the upcoming climate talks."

respice, adspice, prospice!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

Ocean surface temperature at record high.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/08/headed-off-the-charts-worlds-ocean-surface-temperature-hits-record-high

“The current trajectory looks like it’s headed off the charts, smashing previous records,” said Prof Matthew England, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales."

“If this happens, we’ll see new records not just in the ocean but on land. This data is already suggesting we’re seeing a record and there could be more coming later this year.”

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

Scariest yet, Antarctic at lowest levels ever recorded!

Scientists don't know what is going to happen and are "scrambling for answers."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/04/everyone-should-be-concerned-antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-lowest-levels-ever-recorded

"The fate of Antarctica – especially the ice on land – is important because the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt."

“All the models project that as the climate warms, we expect to see [Antarctic sea ice] decline,” she says. “There’s widespread consensus on that. So this low sea ice is consistent with what the climate models show.”

Antarctic scientists are now scrambling to work out what’s happening. Are the drops in sea ice and the back-to-back record lows just a natural phenomenon in a continent notoriously difficult to study? Or are these records another clear sign the climate crisis is beating down on the frozen continent?

“Antarctica might seem remote but changes around there can affect the global climate and the melting ice sheets affect coastal communities around the world,” says Purich.

“Everyone should be concerned about what’s happening in Antarctica.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Four-Fifths of Board Members at America’s Top Six Banks are Climate Conflicted" by Rachel Sherrington:

"High level links between polluting sectors and bank directors .. could be acting as a block to climate action, campaigners warn."

radix omnium malorum - est cupiditas!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

Consider, "Oil Industry Completes Sweep of Congressional Energy Committees"! by Donald Shaw:

"Cathy McMorris Rodgers will take control of the Energy and Commerce Committee after receiving more money from oil and gas PACs than any other House Republican."

caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 1 year ago

What is this nuclear fusion breakthrough discovery? When will it make a difference? Seems 20 years or more and we don't have that much time.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/us/common-questions-nuclear-fusion-climate/index.html

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"A Looming El Niño Could Give Us a Preview of Life at 1.5C of Warming"! by Kate Yoder:

Note: "The hotter weather pattern might push the Earth into unprecedented territory next year." Consider, that this is an important read, which isn't too long, so I won't try to precis this piece!

et caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"In 2023, the relentless increase in global heating will continue, bringing ever more disruptive weather that is the signature calling card of accelerating climate breakdown.

"According to NASA - 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth. This is extraordinary, because the recurrent climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—known as 'ENSO'(El Niño Southern Oscillation) was in its cool phase.During this phase called La Niña, the waters of the equatorial Pacific are noticeably cooler than normal, which influences weather patterns around the world.

"One consequence of La Niña, is it helps keep a lid on global temperatures. This means that—despite the recent widespread heat waves, wildfires & droughts, we have actually been spared the worst. The scary thing is that this La Niña will end and eventually - transition into the better-known El Niño, which sees the waters of the equatorial Pacific becoming much warmer. When it does - the extreme weather that has rampaged across our planet in 2021 and 2022 will pale into insignificance.

"Current forecasts suggest that La Niña will continue into early 2023, making it - fortuitously for us, one of the longest on record (it began in Spring 2020). Then, the equatorial Pacific will begin to warm again. Whether or not it becomes hot enough for a fully fledged El Niño to develop,2023 now has a very good chance—without the cooling influence of La Niña—of being the hottest year on record." - FROM:

et sic transit gloria mundi?!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 1 year ago

For nuclear fusion, this breakthrough is analogous to the Hahn-Strassmann Experiment of 1938 for nuclear fission. Lise Meitner fleeing from "German Science" was pivotal in the realization of the actual implications of the experimental results.

It's shown by the U. S. that it's possible to create a tiny star hotter than the sun within a laboratory setting which generated more energy than that of the laser light beams which zapped near the star's precursor pellet held within a hollow gold cylinder (der Hohlraum). This configuration's geometry used to be highly classified due to its being applicable for creating hydrogen bombs but it's obviously no longer classified as a topsecret because the U. S. has already announced it in public. Maybe Global Plutonium Association should change its name to Global Hydrogen-Bomb 金三圈 Club to accommodate nuclear fusion.

The significance of the breakthrough is the net positive energy gain. Yes, mini nuclear fusion on Earth is feasible for energy production.

If we can "close the loop" by capturing the produced energy sufficiently efficiently to exceed the energy needed to drive the lasers, produce the pellet, capture the emitted neutron's energy, refine the higher-concentration heavier water (from the residual water of electrolysis and/or evaporation processes such as that of Norway's Haber-Bosch-process fertilizer plant during WWII) and diffuse it into the hollow pellets, etc. a self-sustained fusion power plant will be born.

The breakthrough has NO implication for the global anthropogenic climate chaos we have already experienced and shall experience within the next decades.

The electrification of global infrastructure is still a very desirable end to achieve because when nuclear fusion power plants come into existence, their output product will be electricity. Even if such plants don't come into existence, global electrification will enable using a diversified set of energy sources, which may reduce global economy's dependency on any specific energy source.

Of course, none of these will make any rational sense to anyone if there are powerful idiots amongst humanity who will detonate an EMP nuclear bomb to destroy their hallucinations. Everyone should stop using electricity in order to prepare for the arrival of the epoch of Idiotcene.

Pootin is pioneering the experimental living conditions of Idiotcene in Ukraine to adapt humanity for the oncoming Darkness of "What happens in Ukraine doesn't stay in Ukraine." Nor will it stay at Baetu Mountain. For any sweetness on our tongues before we swallow the bitterness, we'll have to lick Gold TriGlyceride (金三甜)。 He'll "fit right in with East New York" on a boisterous weekend. Welcome !

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Last 8 years warmest on record.

"UN says last eight years on track to be warmest on record"

https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2022/1106/1333488-wmo-report/

"Glacier melt records were shattered in the European Alps, with average loss of three to four metres of ice thickness throughout the mountain range - substantially more than the previous record year of 2003.

In Switzerland, 6% of the glace ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 and for the first time in history no snow lasted the summer, so there was no accumulation of fresh ice.

Between 2001 and 2022, glacier ice in Switzerland has declined by more than a third."

Will humans rise to the challenge the way the temperature is rising? Not if we are more worried about works of art (not being destroyed) by activists than we are worried about the future of the planet!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 1 year ago

"Big Oil’s Plan for Profiting Amid Climate Pressures - Internal Documents Reveal"! M.Ludwig

"Democrats on the House Oversight Committee recently released internal fuel company documents providing an insider’s view of what they say - is a multi-year effort, by four leading fossil fuel firms to greenwash their public image.

"The documents show employees & executives discussing climate policies & the pledges they knew would do more to protect their business model than secure a meaningful reductions in pollution"! &..

ends with: "The oil and gas industry, of course, is a dominant source of that pollution. Behind closed doors, executives wagered that agreeing to reduce at least some emissions, will secure the social & political “license” to keep drilling"!!

caveat actor et caveat emptor!!!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Penguins at risk of extinction in Antarctica. These types of results of climate change will continue.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/world/emperor-penguins-threatened-species-climate-scn/index.html

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Worsening Climate Change Could Make It Harder to Vote"! ... by Ray Levy Uyeda

multum in parvo!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

Looking on the optimistic side, 70.8 billion tons of ice will be melting each year to keep the Earth cool, despite the threat of geological-scale climatic warming.

East Antarctica, the greatest gun in stabilizing Earth's climate in the Age of Anthropocene, is coming out soon in force to the rescue of the peoples on this good Earth, from excessive heating originated from fossil fuel burning.

Coal keeps industrial societies energized. West Virginia, Kentucky, and Utah are thus the most energetic states in the Integral (smoothing over rough things by collectivization) of the Anglo-States of North America. Utah was a coastal state (Athabasca tar sand of Alberta Canada also lay in the Western Interior Seaway) growing lots of trees on the shores of the inland sea which had occupied the middle of the North American continent and geo-heated-to-coke (e.g. at or near Yellowstone) by mountain building process.

What keeps Life energized or growing (e.g. like a cancer, after a Warburg shift)? It's not exactly the artistic macroscopic Lion King's Circle of Life but this biochemical microscopic circular magic roundabout of the Krebs Cycle. Therein lies the eons-old key to solving the problem of removing from Earth's atmosphere the excessive amount of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. The Yellowstone bacterium Chlorobium, an ancient bacterium in anaerobic environment, can be FOUR times more effective at photosynthesis than most other modern plants. Note that as the concentrations of the metabolites in the Krebs cycles change, genes are switched on or off. It means that we have at least some control over cancers and diabetes via our diets (one way to avoid Type II diabetes is to eat a diet of "fancy-restaurant-multicourse" meals with a specific major-nutrient-group order: water maybe with a bit of vinegar to supply methyl groups needed to silence genes, vegetables or salads to nourish and wake up the microbiome to coat the intestines to slow absorption rate in order to avoid spikes of high blood sugar ( i.e. avoid hyperglycemia: hyper=excessive, glyc=sugar, emia=blood-borne; thus, hyperglycemia=excessive sugar blood-borne), proteins and fats to increase dwell time of foods in the stomach, carbohydrates such as cereals, fruits, desserts such as pineapples, cups of coffee, and/or mint chocolate to avoid hypoglycemia: hypo=under or too little; thus hypoglycemia=too-little sugar blood-borne; sugar is a slow poison but body metabolizes or lives mostly on a sugar glucose, without which there's quick death so moderation of blood sugar concentration allows living some or a long time before dying of metabolism's deleterious effects not repaired; in principle, humans don't have to die if we can repair our bodies on average as fast as the act of living destroys.) Food is drug, all being just biochemicals participating in the chemistry of Life. No one dies of "old age" anymore in the U. S. A., unlike in the stiff-lipped old-fashioned British Small-Red-Hermit-Crab Underseas Territories in which cave fish can do without eyes and thereby save 15% of their juveniles' energy otherwise needed to maintain their visual systems. Darkness is safe and efficient for life without any sharp-eyed predators.

I wonder whether in the dim depths of the Earth's oceans there are bacteria adapted to use a form of highly efficient photosynthesis as it was probably used in the dim days eons ago IN and on the young reducing-atmosphere Earth.

Maybe spinach being rich in iron is due to its using much ferredoxin in its photosynthesis. We may not need to go to the oceans to find variant forms of photosynthesis.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

The long story - short ... is this:

You narcissistic fucking moron!

et nosce te ipsum!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

Every long march starts with a single step. Humans created the Anthropogenic Climate Chaos so humans can change the climate forcing function.

I did away with edible-food waste and most dishwashing by adopting a few technologies from ancient cultures and combining them.

Indians put a little bit of drinking water to rinse clean their eating utensils after clearing their food containers, extract nearly all leftover food residue, and drink it all down.

Avars had their women lick their bowls clean after eating.

I use a me-only medium-sized round bowl which is a crossover to a plate, with good gentle S-shape-curved sidewall for easy big-opening-accessible eating and licking. After I have eaten all of the food in it, I add a little bit of water as the Indians do, slosh it around, drink and lick it clean as the Avar women do. Then I rinse it off with a little bit of water and the flared-opening porcelain ( I love porcelain for its beauty, strength, easy-to-clean properties; ceramics can last nearly forever if one doesn't drop the vessels formed from them -- Babylonians' clay tablets are still well legible after millennia and so are the still enigmatic Linear-A script { it probably has the word for horse because a genetic study of ancient Minoan skeletons showed them related to neither Egyptians nor Libyans but they might be Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans whose lifestyle enabling their wide geographical linguistic spread was due to their domesticated horses; https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/почему#Russian means "for 什麼"}; perhaps machine learning of peri-Anatolian languages used in a lingo-cognate-genetic study can yield a keyhole to understand Linear-A legacy; ancient Minoans might have the words to express horse shit befitting a free-range VFO ) bowl is air-dried and ready for my next meal.

The important thing to always keep in mind in any biological endeavor is the germ theory. Bad things can happen if germs get to the right conditions to proliferate. They move mostly via contact (touch) but some are liquid-borne and aerosols. They may die by visible blue-indigo-violet-end-of-the-visible-spectrum light, ultraviolet or even higher-frequency light, high temperatures, chemicals, salting, sunlight drying, etc. Time is needed to proliferate so we keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold and disallow mixing them up unless we'll quickly consume or preserve in some way the mixture.

Sanatoriums for TB patients often have bright light, fresh air, and being spacious They are on the right passive-and-natural-by-design track for infection control. (I let sunlight disinfect my indoor air by controlling windows and curtains; it's also good to exchange for fresh air by venting through a window for a half hour every morning if weather permits.) Russian prisons ( poor-man's pandemic-manufacturing bioweapon laboratories; Russia, of course, can't win with even more pandemics, especially homemade ones; even with modern-jet dispersal technology, state-secret intelligence headstart, infrared temperature scans at ground and air transportation hubs, AI-powered population control, and a near-monopoly controlling global PPE manufacturing and supplies, Red China couldn't step aside from "the then King Flu" which is now the homecoming "Emperors' Midas Touch" ) are probably proliferating multiple-antibiotic-resistant-strain TBs due to their not being built to sanatorium standard but use antibiotics for disease control, somewhat like our U.S. chicken factory farming or animal factory husbandry practices. Good sanitary and hygiene practices such as boiling eating utensils can prevent TBs and other contagious diseases from spreading to even living-together family members for decades. My family in shantytown only drank cooled-down boiled water from a Johnnie-Walker Red-Label whiskey bottle which my Mom refilled with very hot boiled water from a kettle every morning and again in the afternoon as needed. The whiskey bottle was of the right size, never cracked on being filled with boiling water, and rather tough (enough to shatter our white porcelain kitchen sink when I dropped it a few weeks before we flew away at a much higher altitude of 39,000 feet, following the demonstration of the prickly-legged Periplaneta americana, the archaic antedinosaurian La-Cucaracha jumbo-jump-jet.)

Once every few days, I use a little bit of detergent to give the bowl a more thorough cleaning, primarily to remove any food stain on its outside.

Most people can do these if we change our lifestyles somewhat.

It's important not to use much water for end-of-meal food extraction because after an oily meal, much water dilution of gastric content can cause the excessive secretion of digestive juices. It's therefore best to do as the Cantonese do -- drink the liquid, usually a soup, before eating a meal.

Chew every mouthful of food 28 times before swallowing it as the Seventh-Day Adventists do. They are religious about the perfect number 28, which equals the sum of all of its proper divisors: 28 = 14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1; 28 = 7 + ( 7+7+7 ); 28 days ~= lunar-phase-period cycle length... I do it because the many chewings smash up and mix up the food with saliva. The smashing increases the surface area through which digestive juices can interact with and break down the food. The saliva is a kind of digestive juice. Chewing a lot means much more efficient digestion as well as more time for the saliva to predigest the food. Good health results from a good dynamic balance between build-up rejuvenating processes and break-down correctly targeted destruction for reconstruction processes.

Yeah, having a long healthy life is all about keeping entropy in the body low via dynamic equilibria. Having low entropy in one's body also allows more time for one to stay young and grow wealthy as "it takes money to make more money [over time]." ( Money shouldn't be one's life goal but it'll help to have "a ticket," won't it ? "Live long and prosper." ) There are three causes of aging I've found: metabolic free radicals, telomere shortening, and advanced glycation end-products ( AGE ). Lowered caloric intake ( which if spaced out throughout the day thereby lowering blood-sugar level ) and moderate exercise ( "Life is in the blood" according to kosher practice so keeping one's blood flowing well nourishes the nearby cells but strenuous and excessive exercise increases free radicals from higher metabolism and telomere shortening from more cellular divisions thereby accelerates aging ) can reduce all three so I take the Japanese approach to eating: eat less but more varieties. Deviating from the Japanese approach, I avoid high-temperature oily and sugary cooking to reduce the AGEs. French fries, higher-temperature-baked goods ( but with liquid water present, temperatures can usually be limited to below 100C = 212°F, ) and doughnuts are thus seldom consumed.

Achieving high effiencies in processes or rethinking the necessity of processes can allow so-called cutbacks to become nearly painless as well as environmentally green. We'll break some etiquette rules ( "leaving much food uneaten to be discarded means that the guest has glorified the host's socioeconomic status for having provided excess food;" "the guest's cleaning up the bowl means the guest was being rude to the host and won't come back for another friendship meal;" "dogs lick their bowls, not humans !" I say that these etiquette rules be damned to save our world; when I first started living alone as a young adult, I hated doing dishes so the new way to minimize dirty dishes from piling up in the sink is very welcomed; with only a small quantity of dishes and pans to be washed, I make it my rule that every time I wash my hands I'll clean up all the dishes and pans in the kitchen sink; as the quantity of dirty dishes and pans is so small, I no longer use my automatic dishwasher; this is actually a far better way to live than my stupid childhood experiment of not doing my homework before it comes due the next day because I may just die that night as my Grandma did and do one fewer set of homework -- that was a bet I have always lost because I stayed alive and yet homework still came due ) but that's no big deal if the planet is endangered by our billions upon billions' behaviors. Of course, the savings from achieving high efficiencies can be diverted to serve other worthwhile purposes instead. Nearly zero food waste means less effort needed for procuring food, cleaning & cooking it, and disposing of the unwanted excess. There are "clean neat profits" there. Well, we have 7.9 billions people who eat.. so if a billion people adopt my high-efficiency eating etiquette, we can save quite a bit in the aggregate. A single step can start a long march. Stool-in sagte: 》ich bin Gott mit Mund.《 Poo-tin needs a dental bridge, not a land bridge due to chomping on a hard pebble at Mariupol for a very long time already. Maybe it's a "diamond in the rough."

In my personal opinion, JPMorgan Chase is a sperm bank: it makes truly seminal fluidity injections to fossil fuel industries by pumping the deposits and withdrawals of seminiferous fluidic moieties.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

So "I use a me-only" view of the world - U said^up^there?!

Yes, we know U twerp and d'U think I ever read your^crap?! +

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Wynn_Bruce

et temet nosce!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

Most people have control over what they do, especially at home, where energy end users ( that is everyone so the behavioral change may have a scale-up factor of up to 7.9 billion ! ) can have a quick and potentially vast impact on avoiding the global energy and climate chaos slow-motion train wreck.

I doubt very much that you've ever owned and operated your own business, and thus you're probably a "pie-in-the-sky" Leftist who just gripes and doesn't take matters into your own hands and change them. Anthropogenic Climate Chaos can be stopped and reversed by anthropes, to which I hope you belong. Have you ever wondered why in a far-worse-than-now economic catastrophe such as during the Great Depression in the U.S., there wasn't mass starvation ?

I doubt that at that time, people were growing green lawns and applying ample chemical fertilizers in order to gentrify their socioeconomic image to fashion after the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant colonizers who had originated from the much wetter England ( where the Gulf of Mexico ocean Stream meets the high-latitude coldness of northern Europe to create the famed "London Fog" which was formed with the condensation particle nuclei spewed from the smoke stacks of industrialized England to turn the sky rainy or "cloudy all day.") On U.S. television shows, there are many British-accent people scolding others and that is clearly acceptable for [White] Americans still having masochistic colonial cravings. Name one U.S. television show in which a Black person is scolding others. White Americans are constipated with British Colonial customs and habits ( I was sunstroke because of a clearly British formality so I sort of understood and sympathized with what Meghan Markle was getting herself into { it's a difficult job even for the ones who can bear it with aplomb; it's a fairy tale, not a darkey tale -- oh, say welcome to Harry having come to "where the sky's not cloudy all day !" } ) I wasn't joking that I adored U.S. troops donning wetted tampons on their foreheads, proving their having both thinking minds and initiative.

One can move people to tinder-dry parts of California desert but one cannot make most of them see why it's stupid to adopt English socioeconomic-status-enhancing etiquette of lush green lawns. Of course, I won't just bash California by itself. Arizona with much desert also has many backyard swimming pools filled with freshwater, not for drinking but for kiddie pissing. I can understand why some Californians need swimming pools with water in them to save their lives on the days when the wildfires come: they can hide in the swimming pools to avoid being burnt. Why is the water in the swimming pools but not in the tinder-dry woodlands ? People's water systems suck the water with anthropogenic-climate-chaos-intensifying pumps through [non-shielded -- can that be more idiotic in a desert environment ?] aqueducts into their swimming pools.

The 'me' in "me-only view of the world" can be you or someone else. If you've learnt of the [Islamic] genius of algebra, you may know that 'I' could signify an "Integer variable," replaceable by 'ImNotMe', as well as the classic 'x'. In an integral, we use "dummy variables" within the integrands f(x) f(y) f(¤).. and differentials dx dy d¤.., respectively. That's a similar idea of a specific-name-being-irrelevant-aside-from-its-being-distinguishable-from-others placeholder.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Alas, your US Supremacism; Sinocentrism, yet RW Sinophobia; Pro-Status Quo-ism; Pompous Prejudices; Self-Centred B-S & Presumtuous Projections mean nothing to me gropes - U fkn self-absorbed moron!!! U know N0THING at all about me, whereas I already know waaay too much about your reactionary unsubstantiatedly opinionated self!! Due to your endless spewing & logorrhea sadly! Yet U somehow see fit to try to cast aspersions and make baseless assUmptions about me, do U lol?

We don't get on and are politically at deep variance yet as U seem to find it necessary to spew on my posts and threads, maybe U should ask yourself why U do as U do - U irksome attention seeking RW fkwit?! Meanwhile, I am leaving this article here on my own forum-post and thread - AS PER THE OP:

intro:"For all the talk of renewable energy, electric vehicles & plant-based diets,there’s a gaping hole in the way we’re trying to solve accelerating climate change. We will not stay below 2°C of warming while pursuing economic growth — yet barely anyone talks about it.

"Since the end of World War II Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has been the metric of all human prosperity in Western nations,the idea being that if the productivity of the economy increases so will the wellbeing of the people within that economy.And for a while that was the case. But since the 1970s, the increases in GDP have, on average - have failed to translate into increases in wellbeing and happiness.

"It's not surprising, as research has shown that once a certain GDP threshold, or level of wellbeing, has been met, people gain little from consuming more “stuff” - a necessary requirement for continuous GDP growth."

temet nosce et per ardua ad iudicium?!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

"Earth given 50-50 chance of hitting key warming mark by 2026. In 2018, a major United Nations science report predicted dramatic and dangerous effects on people and the world if warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius."

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/earth-50-50-chance-hitting-key-warming-mark-2026-rcna28060

Very frightening.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Jeremy Corbyn gets it like few others!!

dum spiro, spero!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

So, "The US Supreme Court just made yet another devastating decision for humanity"! by Peter Kalmus:

"The EPA ruling means it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its greenhouse gas emissions goal"!

spero meliora!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"It’s Democracy v Plutocracy – this is the endgame for our planet"! by George Monbiot:

"The US supreme court is helping to destroy our climate. But it was a much smaller decision,

closer to home, that was the final straw for me"! From a UK p-o-v; yet highly U$A connected!

prospice et caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

More frequent heatwaves by 2050 will affect virtually all children on planet Earth.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/25/global-heatwaves-2050-unicef-report

"According to Unicef, 559 million children currently endure at least four to five dangerous heatwaves annually, but the number will quadruple to 2 billion by 2050 – even if global heating is curtailed to 1.7 degrees, currently the best-case scenario on the table."

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129852

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Yet, "The U.N. Climate Change Conference uses the same PR firm as oil companies under

pressure to pay for global warming costs."

quo vadis?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Alas, a - "'Deeply Depressing' Study Shows Planet-Warming Emissions ... Continue to Rise"!

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/11/11/deeply-depressing-study-shows-planet-warming-emissions-continue-rise by Jake Johnson

Consider that "If current emissions levels persist, there's now a 50% chance that global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded in nine years." Also ...

caveat!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

Sinophobia is certainly not what I have. A more accurate label might be Commiephobia but that's still off the mark because I don't really fear it and I do get a kick out of dealing forthrightly with it.

China is undoutedly a great country and [largely continuous, because the conquering barbarians adopted Chinese culture] civilization for millennia already and it may very well stay so for at least a while longer if Winnie the Pooh doesn't ruin it. The Cage-of-Crabs Party led by Pooh Bear is a parasite sucking the lifeblood out of China. All members of the Chinese diaspora should try to restore China to health.

The Chinese people have been cursed by the abundance of food from the millennia-old anaerobic nitrogen-fixing water-flooded rice paddy farming breakthrough in China. (I suspect that mountainous southwestern China necessitated terraced water-flooded rice paddy farming leading inadvertently to the anaerobic nitrogen-fixing breakthrough.) The taming of the Yellow River flood plain started the expansion of Chinese socialist engineering projects and Chinese culture. The Chinese people have been domesticated into neotenous robots by millennia of dynastic rule. To this very day, I'm still perplexed by the intricacies and mysteries of the Chinese agricultural calendar. When do I plant the seeds ? Consult the calendar ! When do I get to plant my seeds into my wife ? Consult the calendar ! When do I cut my hair ? Consult the calendar ! The calendar allowed authoritarianism to take root in China and the emergence of an élite class who knows why. The Cage-of-Crabs Party's decapitation and replacement of it by the hairpin-policy-turn fickle craving-for-power poet Mao Zedong led to the worst famine the world has ever known -- Mao's Great Famine as Mao admired Stool-in. What the fuck was "eternal revolution" theory advanced by Mao good for ? Revolutions are horrible things generally. When can people live in safety, comfort, & joy ? Of course, many strongmen want to hold on to power for life and only revolutions can dislodge them to the detriment of the countries. Democratic countries have safe off-ramps for powerful people so they suffer less destruction as they have elections instead of revolutions. Americas, Europe, British Oceania, & Japan have benefited from Democracy and become vastly more affluent than the left-behinds. Republic of Korea has about 20 times the per-capita GDP of its Big Brother neighbor the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which had a substantial industrial headstart due to the Japanese Occupation. That factor of 20 is about same order-of-magnitude disparity between oldtime Cold-War-era foes, U.S. and now Russia. Did Poo-tin forget his KGB economics training ( supposedly why he had learnt German and was deployed by the KGB to Dresden GDR to spy for the so-called 'secret' of East German productivity and prosperity; okay, here's my answer: the Abwehr and Unterseeboot were "incompetent" alright because they failed to kill off East Germany's future customer: my Dad, of Hong Kong, which was also what the ROK latched onto to become a global K-pop and microelectronics superpower; Hong Kongers tried to become apolitical and concentrate on making money after a mini-version of the Chinese Civil War had erupted on October 10th, 1956 into shockingly deadly and bloody violence which I heard of from my Big Brother who knew these 'things'; I can understand and sympathize with why Germany was initially passive and pacifist in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict but I know my lesson of the Second Sino-Japanese War passed down to me as ancestral warrior culture: border integrity is fundamental to any nation ) or contracted dementia of some kind to invade Ukraine ?

Millennia ago, my ancestors weren't Chinese but since centuries ago for much longer than the U.S.A. has been in existence, my ancestors were largely Chinese. China was a great country which my ancestors sought to work for (on military equipment for wars -- China wasn't huge to begin with, but military conquests millennia ago unified it) and join legally, or illegally (as "pirates" fleeing into China after a massacre at a war's final defeat; China had closed-to-foreigners seashore and called all [illegal] migrants & asylum seekers from the sea "pirates".) I believe that by citizenship via descent, by nationality, by birthplace citizenship, by education and culture, or by language and dialects, I qualified as a Chinese. It wasn't quite clearcut what that meant because I was born in a borrowed place during borrowed time loaned out by a defunct nonexistent dynasty both tepid-warring successors of which claimed my birthplace and ones born in it as being their own Chinese. As I was born during the British lease, I was a British Overseas subject. What is clearcut is that I am a U.S. citizen because I naturalized so I hold "American values" such as the rule of law, not of a strongman privatizing constitution, religious tolerance, equality before law, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, & freedom of the press...

Sinophobia and Indophobia are justified in contemplating anthropogenic climate chaos. Both have shown nationalistic behavior counting upon coal to pull 2.8 billions people in total into modernity. Red China may not build coal-fired power plants at home but has offered to build many more elsewhere so the Earth is fucked regardless of through which smokestack's hole it is fucked. Coal-powered electric vehicles will kill much human habitat, no matter what Elon Musk smokes or India/Red China puffs.

Both Red China & India were retarded in development for many decades because they believed Stool-in's lie about how great "Soviet" productive capacity had been ( those massive number of trucks the U.S. lend-leased to the Soviets overcame the logistical challenge of supporting the huge Soviet Red Army beyond the MUD of the Soviet Union <the Nazis came with horses in the mud but the Reds went back with U.S. trucks -- victory in war has much to do with the productive capacity supporting the war effort -- Russian heavy armaments were so good that the troops had outrun their provisions supplied by trains but Ukraine has off-road Rasputitsa, rivers, and newly blown-up railroad/railway bridges; and the Russians didn't have the massive number of supply trucks needed to sustain the troops who were starved, frostbitten, and frozen -- a very far cry from the happy ice-cream licking warmly dressed kids of [¿poor? -- while I was free-ranging in our shantytown, I didn't feel poor but I only knew later on that I was living poor and happy !] Yakutia; Yakuts eating ice-cream in some of the coldest inhabited places on Earth settled that it's not the difference in temperature between the ice-cream and ambiance making ice-cream enjoyable> This great productive capacity was actually American -- recall the mass production of the model-T Ford automobile learnt from that of the New-England sloop 《 New England grew big mast-worthy trees so it had shipbuilding and later-on also pleasure-boat building to assist the African slave { repatriating to England the slave-trade profits and commercial goods/ship provisions via the Gulf of Mexico ocean Stream in which my Dad's Appalachian-coal-hauling ship also sailed in a British convoy run, was Unterseeboot-torpedoed, boiler-exploded, and sunk }, whaling out of New Bedford in Massachusetts, and the India-to-China opium and silk-porcelain China trade resulting in the "New England Old Money" which benefited the endowment-funded knowledge educational craftsmanship industry of higher learning 》 What was indeed admirable about the Soviet intelligentsia was how quickly it had understood and grasped the significance of the Claude E. Shannon paper of 1948 (H=Sum_over_j -Pj Log_natural Pj and maximum channel capacity).

A small astute Japanese Inc. & Texas Instruments Inc. were also early licensees of the [bipolar-junction] transistor invented in 1947. Being 'bipolar' is very powerful, far more so than 'conducting' or 'insulating'.

These two post-WWII [computer-, telecommunication-, and information-age] epoch-making items have defined the domain of most of the technological advancements since the middle of the 20th century. The globe-encompassing tele- enabling optical-fiber communication also started in the regulated monopoly, the Bell System, with its motto "From Science Service." Alexander Graham Bell wanted to help his deaf mother and other deaf people but then even healthy-hearing people craved the disembodied hearing and later-on multisensory aids.

We now have the equivalent of Chinese-fictional 千里眼 and 順風耳, thanks to S.T.E.M., but certainly not 千年食。

Why is it that these foundational breakthroughs tended to happen postwar ? Scientists and engineers got wartime experiences doing new life-or-death defense-related tasks and in postwar peace gained time to ponder why hasty wartime patches worked: the invention of transistor grew out of pondering why it didn't matter what type of metal a wartime radar receiver's "cat's whisker" was made out of { as water has surface tension from its hydrogen bonds, metals have broken metallic bonds of its surface atoms }; Shannon's theoretical breakthrough grew out of experience with wartime code-breaking using vacuum tubes & electromechanical relays. As ancient Greeks believed Olympian gods had human vices { Zeus shape-shifted into a bull to spirit away Europa,} Shannon believed in no Human/Machine boundary.

I'm saddened by what'd happened to Hong Kong and Ukraine, being neighbors to the Big Red zombie bullies: Red China and Russia. Red China might have evaded the sanction banning any export of the SARS_COV-2 bioweapon of mass murders to the D.P.R.K., undermining its Juché regarding not catching CoViD-19. Sad. More than one million Americans have already been assassinated by this field-trial-proven bioweapon of mass murders.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

PER OP, "Degrowth Economy: The Climate Solution No One Is Talking About" by Erin Remblance

FROM WHICH THIS - "Robert F Kennedy eloquently summed up the inadequacy of GDP as a metric of wellbeing at a speech he gave in 1968:

"... the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry - or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."


Your unreadable, reactionary, psychobabble, RW screed was far shorter when it was first written but like the disengenuous interlocutor with logorrhea that U are - U have now added waaaay more nonesensical b-s to it! However, now as prior, the lines of interest to me were and still are .. right at the start and at the end, which happens to be just how I read your crap and so, just in case U change what U have written, I will quote U & then, deconstruct it and hand your conservative, reactionary ass back to U at a later date!

  • So, a) "A more accurate label might be Commiephobia but that's still off the mark because I don't really fear it and I do get a kick out of dealing forthrightly with it"

  • and b) "I'm saddened by what'd happened to Hong Kong and Ukraine, being neighbors to the Big Red zombie bullies: Red China and Russia."

  • & finally - c) "Sad. More than one million Americans have already been assassinated by this field-trial-proven bioweapon of mass murders."

respice, adspice, prospice; fiat lux et temet nosce

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

So both Erin Remblance and ImNotMe are "No One."

A better index may be Human Development Index.

Do you grasp the idea that only reactionary actions can result in non-arbitrary non-willy-nilly good-for-general-well-being rule of law serving the people ? I don't count the autocrats' desire for power to attain, with impunity, fucking, gluttony, money, wealth, luxuries, depravity, etc. as being worthy of any nation on Earth. These are unworthy of the nations taking reactionary actions to procure for the autocrat.

Caloric productivity of growing rice in flooded rice paddy (due to anaerobic microbes' nitrogen-fixing fertilization using organic debris { pea plants plowed under before their flowering } and water for creating the hydrogen-rich reducing anaerobic primeval-Earth environment; the water buffalo which plowed the pea plants under shat as it plowed fertilizing with quite regular intervals finely chewed, ruminated, and fermented by gut's anaerobic microbes phosphorus-potassium-rich urine and shit; it was quite an impressive integrated system of sun, water, microbes, organic timely plowing combine-fertilizer farming ! at the cost of stratifying society into the central-authoritative calendar makers and the neotenous synchronous-operations biological do-as-being-told-hopefully the dumber-is-better robots ) far exceeds that of growing e.g. wheat. This was why the world's population is centered around close-to-Hong-Kong low-latitude-for-solar-power down-river-from-Earth's-Third-Pole-the-rain-making-Himalayas Southeast Asia (where I was born so I was run-of-the-solar-water-pea-plant-buffalo-shit-mill.)

Modern societies have guano, chemical fertilizers (instead of the millennia-old Asian breakthrough of water buffalo urine and dung, plowed-under pea plants shortly before their flowering in flooded rice paddy) and mechanical combines (instead of water buffaloes -- it's unsurprising that my East-Asian-heritage family rarely ate beef of buffaloes because they were expensive means-of-production equipment: "organic combines") powered by fossil fuels (instead of sunlight, organic debris, and water reacting with microbes to make methane or hydrogen-rich organic moieties as energy source for anaerobic nitrogen-fixation) such as nitrogen's conversion using natural gas into ammonia in Haber process but ancient societies' anaerobic heirloom farming practices can function as a backup for the time when fossil fuels become very expensive or used up. Caloric yield rate enhacement can come from growing rice instead of wheat if solar energy, water supply, season, temperatures, etc. align well. Rainbands moving away from the Equator means new areas for farming will open up. It'll be needed as we grow even more from our current count of 7.9 billions of people. The key is the availability of freshwater and the retention of it for organic syntheses, perhaps in a well-managed artificially enclosed environment.

The Earth is indeed very special in our solar system, the site of a protoplanetary "primordial train wreck" (probably caused by Jupiter's gravitational field acting upon and thus disrupting the orbits of its protoplanetary neighbors as Jupiter fell towards the sun after it has formed) giving it a very high angular momentum, a "dual-planet" Moon providing gravitational shield against asteroids, and a Moon-sized crystalline solid core of iron and nickel exuding a magnetic field shielding its water from being fried away by the solar wind. Zeus of the Big-Brother planet [Romanized to] Jupiter came by. To this very day, there are fierce lightnings and storms on Jupiter as Zeus plays around with his lightning bolts, which Prometheus, a Titan had stolen for us mortals as fire and electricity to keep us warm and powerful (prefrontal cortex thinking gives us technologies of fire and electricity). "Life is electric fire burning slowly in water." (Membranes of lipids i.e. fats are needed to separate the different sides of ionic concentrations or the gradients of concentrations disappear too fast with waterflow quenching the fire too rapidly for life process to take place.) "There is food indirectly in them Shit and Pis." Myths can rhyme with Science as our planet should be called Water, not Earth.

I think that my happiness while I was living in my shantytown came from being able to do just about whatever I wished to do (with the rule -- no crossing any street with running cars) despite living in poverty. Garbage dumps were fascinating anthropological dig sites. Neighbors reported to my Mom my dusty condition at a dump. Upon my return, she handed me a bar of soap and told me to wash myself clean (e.g. after the noonday gun had been fired upon Victoria Harbor/Harbour so I knew that it was time to return to eat lunch.) I complied and loved soap for its miraculous power. (The U.S. governing philosophy is very similar to my Mom's -- action or crackdown is usually deferred for "the dust to settle" and regulations come later on as they become necessary; generally, actions hurting others tend to be taken seriously: e.g. drunken or underaged driving and second-hand or underaged smoking.) Bamboo forest was stunningly green shaded. Yellow chrysanthemums were gorgeous in the undergrowth under the swaying sunbeams filtering through the bamboo leaves from a blue autumn sky. The creek ( separating the bamboo forest from the other side's huge walled-in pigsty -- apparently when one is small, everything seems huge ) was making melodies. A few sparrows were pecking near the wells, etc. Even my Mom's salted spring-shoots, salt-and-fat flavored rice, & rendered pigfat residue tasted great ! I've only heard recently from my Big Brother that it was starvation diet while my Dad wasn't getting enough money ¿to own? home for us to live upon (perhaps due to his still supporting his Japanese family { my Big Brother told me about it after I had mentioned the beautiful plastic-sheath-clad silk Japanese artwork found 《according to my wife》next to a bank passbook left behind by my Dad in his passing } -- after that time, we started going to movies usually 007 series, which might be a sign of my parents' having quarrels over family finance; a sufficient amount of money being available to a family can reduce marital stress; my being his young child was probably how my Mom had triumphed eventually over my Dad's Japanese family, by getting him to ditch his Japanese family because she likened me to that very fat smiling Buddha and said that I had stabilized our family finance by turning my Dad into a responsible adult who stayed with working on the same ship for the rest of his career in shipping { before this he was choosy about which ship he would work on so he stayed ashore not earning an income while he was waiting for an acceptable ship }.) Ignorance was bliss... I thought that they were exotic gourmet delicacies. Hahaha !!! Ubiquitous low incomes below the party élites' Big Star practically attain the equality of the dispossessed-and-thus-very-cleaned populace's four Little Stars paying homage to the People's monoparty-"dispossessed-class"-dictatorship.

I'm still fat-positive (but which belt hole mattered) -- humongous blob of [electrochemical-process insulating] fat at top of my skull holding Prometheus makes me human: Homo sapiens sapiens -- actually Homo sapiens "sir Toppenfat", replaced by a Cybernetic Organism, or a CY'BORG. Claude E. Shannon believed in NO Human/Machine Boundary. Mechanical clearance allowing for thermal expansions and the laws of friction (ultimately derived from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) for interface protocols govern mutual coexistence and reduce wear&tear in the modular design of any cyborg. Albert Einstein asked where tea was being served and walked out from Shannon's talk so where's the Magic Bean juice being served for the Cyborg Age ? Still follow the Sundog ?

All changes require overcoming a precarious potential energy barrier which has created the existing island of stability shrinking into nonexistence. Energy enables instability so regimes seeking stability to retain power repress by sucking any energy out of any opposition. "Mao has to die before [West Taiwan] can rise." Beware of how the Manchus entered through an opened gate of the Great Wall to conquer China (being ruled by Ming Dynasty at that juncture). Regardless of how strong the defense is, the thousand-mile Great Wall was only as good against barbarian invasion as its opened gate. Germany was the opened gate for Free Europe to become Russia's bitch.

Without a will to fight and the logistical support, 90 billion U.S. dollars the U.S.A. had spent to rebuild Afghanistan to modernity (after breaking it to apprehend Osama bin Laden overcoming Taliban's refusal to hand him over due to his being protected by Taliban as a guest under Shari'a Law -- he turned out to be living in U.S. ally in the global War-on-Terror, Pakistan's, retired military commanders' community across the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan), were wasted but Afghanistan is very stable now with Taliban ruling again, isn't it ?

One advantage of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict's devastation, present in Ukraine and future in Russia (via economic devastation { Londongrad's sanction-held Russia's war chest of money has no retaining-in-Russia power over its young people; all society without young people must die no matter how slowly it will happen -- it's why there are short-lived animals which have no mouth parts or males never eat but still have sex parts, sex over food } -- recall the mirror held within the Book of All Wisdom,) is that Free Europe has vowed to start to take renewable energy more seriously than it has thus far.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

So perhaps any future metastasizing of this^now^two^line reply - can be prevented by quoting it here!

ergo - spero meliora!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

NB: "Americans Are Missing a Key Stratum of Modern Knowledge" - by Kendra Pierre-Louis:

"To understand how climate change is altering our planet, it helps to know a little Earth science."

By the way, IT'S ALL ABOUT "THE CARBON CYCLE" you dumb, ignorant, arrogant mthrfkers!

PS:Also^note how shit-spewer's reply has "metastasized" from 2 lines to 9 paragraphs of crap!

PPS: To see just how utterly fkn dumb some Americans can actually be, do also try to consider

respice; adspice; prospice - et caveat!!!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

I agree that we Americans may be missing formalized Earth-science education because of our educational system.

It's however untrue that we cannot understand Earth-science issues. In the latter half of the 1960s, I understood Alfred Wegener's fuller development of the continental-drift theory. It came with a statement that Earth-science "experts" had dismissed it for many decades, primarily because Wegener wasn't a properly credentialed "expert." Some geologists went into the field of studying Earth because it was truly the biggest thing they could reasonably get their hands on so they had an inherent bias against believing in such HUGE things as the North American continent's moving by inches every year. Whoever thought that was possible was considered to be a bit crazy at least.

The scientific establishment has pretty much accepted continental-drift theory's progeny, plate-tectonics (after discovering mid-oceanic ridges and their oceanic-core-samples' geomagnetization, etc.), as being verifiably true and useful ( yes, there was much real money made by believing in plate-tectonics theory and acting upon it ! e.g. major GPS-enabled-plateform-stabilizing deepwater discovery and recovery of crude oil and gas off of both South America's off-of-Brazil and Africa's South Atlantic coasts, which had been close to each other before the Atlantic Ocean formed ). What led the oldtime "experts" astray was that continents are indeed HUGE but they were both lubricated by hydrates as well as being pushed by HUGE forces.

If we believe in the scientific Genesis of the Cosmos from the primordial quark-gluon soup, we can say that God, the Supreme Dice Player or an overloaded highly frustrated sub-minimum-wage graduate-student teaching assistant grading students' term papers by using a staircase-sorter "mass spectrometer," splashed this soup UP this nuclear binding energy curve starting from the lower-left corner. The higher up a local peak is, the likelier that we get more of that chemical element because its nucleus is stabler. We have Fe-Ni meteorites because both Iron and Nickel are near the global top and they aren't as volatile as the lighter ones consisting of ice(H2O), soot(C), sand(SiO2) etc. Note that H, C, O, Si, Fe, Ni are all at least locally stabler elements according to the curve (Earth has abundant carbon in its reductive lithosphere: coke/char/coal and much O2 in its oxidative atmosphere; subduction of tectonic plates with carbonates creates out of common olivine/serpentine rocks or their precursors carbon-rich gases in the form of methane ice, for example; it's possible to make carboniferous fuels from carbon dioxide, hydrogen of water or hydrates, energy, and reducing agents such as rocks). It's not accidental that we build skyscrapers with reinforced concrete using these commonly available elements. We can also see why Red China was exploring the far side of the Moon. They want to mine He-3 which like milk that has its lactose digested by enzyme still holds much energy to be released if compressed sufficiently to merge. Compare with the upper-right side where the fissile nuclear material U-235 and U-238 are marked. He-3 has far more energy to be released if compressed sufficiently to merge in nuclear fusion. He-3 is the flying ember flung out by the sun. Structuring chaos is how Cosmos was made. It's not just Aufbau Prinzip used for structuring electrons around atomic nuclei to give rise to Chemistry; it's also Abbau Prinzip structuring the splashing of the quark-gluon soup in nucleosynthesis. Western Australia was probably an earliest part of the Earth's crust to solidify and it hadn't been perturbed much by plate-tectonics so it holds very ancient rocks and some earliest lifeforms such as stromatolites. The reddish rock often has iron rust which also gives Mars its reddish color (much blood is reddish for the same reason arising from the iron which role in a less oxygen-rich ancient environment may have been played by a different transition element such as copper resulting in greenish or bluish blood {ionic radius is an important property of an ion which determines its softness/hardness potential in creating its minerals with low/high melting-point temperatures; ionic radius is related to surface charge density which is important in Biology and catalyses involving ions such as molybdenum 6+ with a very strong positive charge and can thus easily suck away electrons from molecules and it's a strong oxidizer; iron 3+ is also a strong oxidizer for the same reason so excessive Fe 3+ in one's body can acclerate aging because "life is electric fire burning slowly in water" burning quickly instead of slowly means it's over sooner; in order to live long and prosper, one must control the fire well -- slowly burning but enough that it doesn't go out easily; a fire is ions mingling in a dance so to make it slow, a lipid membrane corrals them in order that a gradient of their concentrations can exist for a while longer } ).

Plate-tectonic movements are both blessings and curses. India slamming into Asia illustrates this very well with earthquakes (e.g. Allah's Afghanistan's Khost Abbau,) tallest mountains (Himalayas), oil/gas/coal deposits in its periphery (e.g. Xinjiang has likely been bumped higher up than before so its rivers may have changed course directions), geological faults (e.g. the ones running from southwestern to northeastern Red China where close-to-the-Yellow-Sea there is oil and gas), volcanoes (e.g. Paetu/Baetu on the border of Red China and North Korea) etc.

I was an "honor student" in high school so it's true that I didn't study Earth science in a U.S. high school. I think that Earth-science and Biology used to deal with subjects so complex that they became bogged down in nomenclatures. Then teachers resorted to teaching [descriptive] gross simplifications which sort-of became superficial "fast foods [for thoughts]." One got stuffed but still felt unsatisfied. Every field of study "achieved" initial "breakthroughs" with gross simplifications without much detail. In the beginning, there were only black and white, no gray whatsoever. In the beginning, there were only one and zero, no 0.707. In the beginning, there was only cellular nuclear DNA but now there is mitochondrial DNA. In the beginning, there were only DNA-RNA-protein cellular genome-to-proteome phenotype expression but now there is epigenetics (related to what the scientists didn't understand so they simply called the vastly longer lengths of non-gene DNA the junk DNA to hide their own ignorance; it seems that the overwhelming amount of junk was necessary to make possible humans who have a lot fewer genes than the fruits and vegetables they eat).

If I ask you this question, "if carbon dioxide is now 410 parts per million and nitrogen is around 780000 parts per million, why isn't the overwhelming moral-majority nitrogen causing global warming and wacky weather instead of the moral-minority carbon dioxide ?" how will you answer me ? A random shot of a light-/heat-ray particle through air has about 780000÷410 ~=1,900 i.e. many more times chance of hitting nitrogen than hitting carbon dioxide. I could sort of guess at what an Earth-science teacher of mine might have answered me with, probably something like: "We don't study gases' moral-psychology here in this [scientific] class !"

Why shouldn't it be IT'S ALL ABOUT "THE NITROGEN CYCLE" you dumb, ignorant, arrogant mthrfkers! ?

I haven't been taught Biology's Krebs cycle three times as the climate journalist has but I was taught Thermodynamics four times. Now can't I be regarded as being an "expert" ?

Thermodynamics' Laws are:

0th: When any two bodies are each separately in thermal equilibrium with a third, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other.

1st: You can't win, with any energy conversion process, hoping to gain in total energy.

2nd: You can't even break even, unless you reach absolute zero.

3rd: You can't ever reach absolute zero, regardless of whatever you do.

Quantum physics: There exists zero-point energy, an absolutely inexhaustible source of energy, if you should reach absolute zero; otherwise it always serves to mess up all your precise "ultimate" measurements. (cf. Soviet-style disinformation ordained by ¿hermaphrodite? God as loincloth to cover up [primordial] kaon.)

Almost all dads are mthrfkers (as robobabymakers can't make номо for any dad; where else did babies come from besides mthrs ? carried home atop chimneys by storks ? picked up from public toilets ? 《only microcephalic babies could fit their heads into a toilet bowl's drainage pond -- there's insufficient space there》 maybe you couldn't make it to be a dad yet because it did require a fk and more ? did you or do you give a fk ?) and everyone is a douchebag thermodynamic loser.

If one views a human being as a conglomerate of molecules which transmit information to the next instant of time to form a new conglomerate of molecules, one may say that a human being has survived if the new one is sufficiently reproducing the old one. Claude E. Shannon's 1948 paper showed that this communication process can be as error-free as one desires as long as its data rate doesn't exceed the channel's capacity. Humans certainly have some regenerative mechanisms: in the extreme case, new babies are indeed made.

Yes, near immortality is possible, even if limited to one's own body. The trick is to trigger the regenerative mechanisms without causing data rate to exceed the channel's restorative capacity possibly by using redundancy-containing coding techniques such as in Deinococcus radiodurans.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Re. "The Carbon Cycle" - perhaps consider:

Why are U replying to me on my threads with

reams of your Utterly Unreadable Horse $hit?

ad iudicium?!

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

I take your point but please also see :

"As negotiators try to replace the ageing Kyoto protocol, failed negotiations could result in more emissions." We are developing new oil fields whilst being fully aware of the real repercussions & Emperor Nero and his fiddle come to mind !!!

e tenebris ...

[-] 6 points by geo (2638) from Concord, NC 12 years ago

I get that... but prudent action is better than action that will punish the wrong people and not bring about the desired results... and we will still be on fossil fuels.

Next will come Carbon Trading and Wall Street will get filthy rich while We again still have fossil fuel usage, and be the ones penalized with no alternative in place.

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

The Precautionary Principle is in order, so we agree but an entire reappraisal of the way we understand : money ; cost ; gain ; profit ; benefit ; loss and 'Capitalism's Externalities' - also has to occur if we are to find holistic solutions, going forward.

pax et lux ; nunc et semper ...

[-] 3 points by geo (2638) from Concord, NC 12 years ago

I agree.

PS. I sent you a message.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

I got it and replied. Thanx for the great info :-)

pax ...

[-] 3 points by Ache4Change (3340) 10 years ago

'New Satellite Maps Show World’s Major Ice Caps Melting at Unprecedented Rate' -

http://www.nationofchange.org/new-satellite-maps-show-world-s-major-ice-caps-melting-unprecedented-rate-1409640129

'Ice caps are melting at an alarming rate in both Greenland and the Antarctic. And researchers warn of their observations. Is it finally time to start worrying?'

Never Give Up! Occupy The 99% Issues! Solidarity.

[-] 2 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

"shuttin down wall street now" Mic check!!!

http://new.livestream.com/jamesfromtheinternet/events/3416732

In case you didn't getthe memo

[-] 2 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 10 years ago

save the ice

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"How The Cult of Bill Gates .. is leading us towards a climate disaster"!

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Climate Tipping Points - could topple like dominoes, warn scientists"! .. by Damian Carrington:

adspice, prospice et caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Earth Is Trapping ‘Unprecedented’ Amount of Heat, NASA says"! - by Victoria Bekiempis:

omnia causa fiunt!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"With US Heatwave ... 'Surreal' and 'Distressing': Climate Experts' Predictions Come True"!

"The current heatwave & drought leave no doubt, we're living the dangerous effects of the climate crisis." Also note that ...

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Northwest Heat Wave Is a Symptom of Terrifying Runaway Climate Feedback Loops"! ... by William Rivers Pitt:

uh-oh et sic transit gloria mundi?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

Miami is the most vulnerable coastal city in the world! Like the Northwest heat wave it is ridiculous to not consider climate change as a major, if not the biggest, factor.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/miami-is-the-most-vulnerable-coastal-city-worldwide/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Top US scientist on Melting Glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’" (by JM)

"Diana Six, an entomologist studying beetles near Glacier national park in Montana says the crisis has fundamentally changed her profession."

omnia causa fiunt!

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Beware: Gaia May Destroy Humans .. Before We Destroy The Earth"! ... by James Lovelock:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/02/beware-gaia-theory-climate-crisis-earth

"COVID19 may well have been one attempt by the Earth to protect itself. Gaia will try harder next time with something even nastier."

"James Lovelock is an independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist and, futurist. He first proposed The Gaia Hypothesis, in which the Earth functions as a superorganism.His most recent book is "The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning". Also NB:

"In 2m Harvard scientist Prof. James Anderson provides the best explanation you’ll hear of the delicate interconnectedness of the climate system and why losing Arctic ice “will be profoundly damaging to life on Earth.” All journalists should listen to this. Everyone should." - from:

caveat!

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

Capitalism is killing the planet. Read George Monbiot's latest brilliant piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction

"Human civilisation relies on current equilibrium states. But, all over the world, crucial systems appear to be approaching their tipping points. If one system crashes, it is likely to drag others down, triggering a cascade of chaos known as systemic environmental collapse. This is what happened during previous mass extinctions.

Here’s one of the many ways in which it could occur. A belt of savannah, known as the Cerrado, covers central Brazil. Its vegetation depends on dew forming, which depends in turn on deep-rooted trees drawing up groundwater, then releasing it into the air through their leaves. But over the past few years, vast tracts of the Cerrado have been cleared to plant crops – mostly soya to feed the world’s chickens and pigs. As the trees are felled, the air becomes drier. This means smaller plants die, ensuring that even less water is circulated. In combination with global heating, some scientists warn, this vicious cycle could – soon and suddenly – flip the entire system into desert.

The Cerrado is the source of some of South America’s great rivers, including those flowing north into the Amazon basin. As less water feeds the rivers, this could exacerbate the stress afflicting the rainforests. They are being hammered by a deadly combination of clearing, burning and heating, and are already threatened with possible systemic collapse. The Cerrado and the rainforest both create “rivers in the sky” – streams of wet air – that distribute rainfall around the world and help to drive global circulation: the movement of air and ocean currents.

Global circulation is already looking vulnerable. For example, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which delivers heat from the tropics towards the poles, is being disrupted by the melting of Arctic ice, and has begun to weaken. Without it, the UK would have a climate similar to Siberia’s."

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

An estimated 126,000 gallons of crude oil has spilled into the Pacific Ocean last week, now causing a serious “environmental catastrophe” in South California - according to the mayor of Huntington Beach. Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Orange County to hasten the cleanup and containment efforts and visited the area on Tuesday. Coast Guard officials are investigating whether a ship’s anchor could have struck a pipeline on the ocean floor, The AP reported. Responding to reports that the agency delayed investigating the spill for 12 hours, the Coast Guard told The AP it didn't have enough evidence at the time to do so!!!

fiat lux ...

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Record-Breaking Heat Waves Have Arrived Decades Earlier Than Predicted"!! ... by Sasha Abramsky:

UH-OH!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

"The Arctic Ocean began warming decades earlier than previously thought, new research shows"

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/24/us/arctic-ocean-early-warming-climate/index.html

"The Arctic Ocean has been warming up for much longer than we previously thought," Muschitiello told CNN. "And this is something that's a bit unsettling for many reasons, especially because the climate models that we use to cast projections of future climate change do not really simulate these type of changes."

"A recent UN state-of-the-science report on the climate crisis found the Arctic will continue to warm faster than the rest of the planet as long as humans continue to burn fossil fuels and release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. On top of that, Muschitiello said the Arctic Ocean may experience further warming due to Atlantification.

"When I talk to my students I always try to make them aware that the Arctic is warming very, very quickly, and much faster than any other area on the planet," Muschitiello said. "It's very unsettling and very troubling, especially because we still don't have a full understanding of feedbacks at play."

"We're still slowly getting to know how the whole system works," he said. "And my fear is that by the time that we do crack the problem, it's going to be too late."

Horrible news.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

So "After the failure of COP26, there’s only one last hope for our survival"! ... by George Monbiot:

Note: "It’s too late for incremental change. By mobilising just 25% of people, we can flip social attitudes towards the climate!"

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 3 years ago

Forests in Siberia and the Russian Far East are burning, often deliberately let-it-be uncontrolled because they aren't worth the money of putting them out. ( Maybe Russia has the great foresight to institute the non-interventionist policy imposed upon our Yellowstone National Park after its major conflagration had taken out the underbrush [due to the perennial lack of the Trumpery raking] and much more: if the fires aren't artificially started, they're in God's plan, let them burn ! )

I think that Russia hasn't MBA-optimized its forest-fire policy enough yet. No forest fires need to be put out even if they're artificially started because God created Man so all which came of Man such as starting a forest conflagration is in God's plan. Our omniscient and omnipotent God knew that the conflagration would happen to serve a mysterious purpose in due time so let the Will of God be. Our omnipotent God could just send the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean upon Siberia and the Russian Far East to put out the conflagration if it's so Willed, by God Himself. Or simply act as Aquarius of the fire-victim-refugee-resettlement building did, to pour out the blessings of the heavenly chamber pot off of a side of the building. A shantytown boy, I, was thus chosen and "baptized." Hmm, when I come to think of it, is this why I'm urine-headed because of God's plan to make me golden boy by flushing me down from up on high ?

Heat waves will become much more common with all of that carbon emission into the atmosphere. Expectations needed to include feedback effects. The great news is that we are being hedged against the global cooling effects of a eruption of a supervolcano such as Baetu or Yellowstone. Pray for a supervolcano's eruption to halt global climate warming and great wildfires to prevent excessive cooling after the eruption ( great wildfires may be a bad idea due to the soot they may produce to exacerbate the cooling so they are removed from the prayer list ). This was Einstein's explanation of relativity in a concise form: when we stick our heads into a cold refrigerator and place our feet near a burning fireplace, time greatly slows down and on the average, we'll be comfortable after these separated upheavals.

Russia has lots of trees that act as sinks for greenhouse-warming gas so they burn to become sources. Russia's forest being burnt help with the warm-up ( or is it the cool-down due to the soot ? ) possibly uncorking the me-thane champagne, which really isn't French anymore in Russia by law but Russian in Siberia. Everything seems bigger there. Much soot being released will cool the Earth so God is fulfilling His Promise to make Earth endure forever.

Don't worry, wealthy people: hard-disk magnetic domains will retain their magnetization so your "money" is still "safe," ( i.e. as long as there isn't a EMP attack nearby to scramble the binary digits; the likeliest source of such is the DPRK. Do you see why nuclear non-proliferation is necessary to keep you "wealthy" ? The U.S. couldn't print U.S. dollars fast enough to stabilize the world's financial system in 2008 after the Crash so it outsourced a part of that urgent task to... )

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Top Oil Lobbyist Caught On Tape - revealing 11 senators 'crucial' to ExxonMobil - 'We've asked for everything'" says "Keith McCoy - a senior ExxonMobil lobbyist on Capitol Hill"!!! OMfG U$A!!

"Even if carbon emissions were quickly reduced after 2020 .. experts say states like Florida will still see impacts from stronger hurricanes, rising seas and other changes associated with existing high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

"“Climate change is not a black-and-white situation. It’s not like an asteroid hitting the Earth,” Raimi said. “But we know we’re in for some major impacts. It’s important to know where we’re vulnerable so we can make informed decisions about possible solutions.” BUT who can trust the bad actors like Exxon & co?!

e tenebris - tenebris?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Biden Made Big Compromises on Climate - and Movements That Backed Him Are Livid"!

Note - "Biden himself has a great deal of responsibility for this state of affairs, by negotiating with Republicans and appeasing conservative Democrats."

caveat actor!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Exxon Lobbyists Tricked Into Naming Senators They Use to Block Climate Action" by DemNow!

multum in parvo!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 3 years ago

Miami knew that the recurring inundation had been coming for quite a while already. Global Anthropogenic Climate Change is real and has been happening for quite a while, too. There is no avoiding its dire consequences because Red China has state sovereignity protecting the continual operation of its recently and newly built coal-fired power plants. There is no carbon tax possible there. Red China wouldn't even raise water price ( to spur water conservation via tried-and-true classic economic mechanism ) to address its problem of running out of potable water due to the rampant pollution and environmental degradation so it gets its final word: Hegemony.

All those gleaming "electric this, electric that" there in Red China are actually highly polluting "coal this, coal that"-powered and "cancer this, cancer that."

Traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, however, is largely hydroelectric powered which is far more environmentally friendly ( but have the coal-fired ¿cast-iron? samovars been retired yet ? they or their cousins could have worked great for Texass when they had their outage of self-reliant-and-strong/Juche electricity for weeks in the bitter cold; Texass, an energy giant { with abundant wind, oil, gas resources and production/generation facilities }, "erected a wall" to keep hoi polloi out in order to avoid its electric energy being sapped so the electricity from hoi polloi couldn't get in to help thaw its Big frozen Ass, either; some New York gasoline stations experienced a similar problem during Superstorm Sandy: despite having gasoline in the underground storage tanks, there was no gasoline available because the electricity-operated gasoline pumps couldn't work in the electricity blackout ) than flights in airplanes for traveling the same distance. Red China is into airplanes big time, though. Its "One Belt, One Road" initiative can use the Trans-Siberian Railroad for shipments to become environmentally friendlier.

Having Red China's important trade route being under Russian control will make Red China think twice and thrice before attacking Russia which can probably sell electricity fairly easily to Red China which should shut down its hundreds or by now a thousand or more of coal-fired power plants. ( India and Turkey are next in line backing up Red China with building more of their own coal-fired power plants even if a snowball-in-Hell-not-melting miracle were to happen that Red China would shut down its numerous and high-capacity coal-fired power plants -- it looks like our World is heading for becoming toast with multiple backups to ensure that we 'succeed' in melting as a snowball in Hell.

Look up at the morning ( or evening ) star ( the beautiful and bright planet Venus low in the sky near our sun Sol, best visible during a sunrise or a sunset while the sun is under one's viewing horizon due to the contrast between the darker-than-midday sky and the very bright Venus ) -- we're Venus-forming to reach for our "sister planet's" impossible 'living' conditions. старина phosphine in its atmosphere was touted as a potential evidence for Venusian life: is anyone except for the zombie Soviets still interested in living with that новичок ( newbie, which was half-virgin-birthed using the "defence conversion money received from the West"; Russians could have done extremely well by using that money as capital for scooping in the peace dividend of the tech boom made possible by the ending of the Cold War; for Christians who aren't the Son of God, full-non-virgin birth is the Way/Mode ) ancestral-phosphine-derived poison ?

Russia has much freshwater resource ( yeah, Crimean peninsula's short-of-freshwater problem was a "nostrils-pointing-downwards" fiasco of freshwater-rich Russia ) and the technology to use it well. What's all that Pluto-surface-size land in Russia doing without any human labor: gathering freshwater as watersheds, or if mismanaged, as cesspools, highly radioactive ( keeping facts under a tight lid helps to save face for сталининский ) or otherwise, just being able to yield a few Biblical pre-Exodus plagues ( of water turning red as blood, animals dying in great numbers, tormenting bugs, boils on people, etc. ) perhaps like Lake Kivu.

India was friendly towards Russia so it may well still be willing to buy cheap hydroelectricity from Russia. If Russia shakes off its hegemonic arrogant attitude from olden times ( it was crazy { and stupid of Stalin } that Big Brother U.S.S.R. couldn't convince Little Brother Finland to help with defending against the coming onslaught of Nazi Germany and had to resort to using military force in the Winter War, ) and not-so-olden times, it may well find an eager customer of hydroelectricity from Turkey, too, even if Turkey already has much of its own hydroelectricity capacity. Turkey obviously doesn't have enough electricity if it is going for building coal-fired power plants to generate more electricity.

Boris Nemtsov's acoustic laser idea might have already been realized and used in recent years' attacks of U.S. diplomatic corp. and others such as C.I.A. and defense personnel fielded to сталининский cuntries. As I've already classified the number of hamburgers and frankfurters I have eaten in the past year as yet another "state secret," I fell in line with the cuntries which had "nothing to hide". In the late 1970s ( there was Détente after the late 1960s' U.S. diplomatic intervention which helped settle the almost-having-gone-nuclear border attacks between the U.S.S.R. and Red China { with a rogue U.S. Military commander having ordered a nuking but the order was intercepted and stopped in time with a few seconds to spare to the launching of a nuclear attack on Red China } when the U.S. gained enough good relations with both countries that there was indeed a U.S. Embassy in Beijing and in Moscow; my guess is that cuntries love half-virgin births even after publicly proclaiming having experienced the miracle of full-virgin birth since they have been born again even as adults; Matt 5:37, ) U.S. diplomatic corp. in Moscow experienced symptoms purportedly inflicted by microwave or acoustic waves. A newly built U.S. embassy building had to be demolished due to its construction being outsourced to spying-subsidized ¿Russians? who used 'micro-concrete' of ordinary concrete mixed in with numerous micro-acoustic-listening-and-broadcasting devices. Piezoelectric devices can convert sound waves into electrical signals.

Baby boomers earned our keep ( Cold War and post-Cold-War peace begat prosperity 》Arbeit macht frei《 of the Baby Boomers, of whom demographers often classified me as a member near its ending: I perched upon my Big Brother's shoulders when viewing the parades/celebrations { I was always reminded by somebody regardless of whichever culture I happened to be living in at the time } and I read some of his high-school textbooks when my watery childplay became impossible due to a political power struggle between authoritarianism and colonialism; yeah, my Big Brother was correct to have warned me of the Big Chunky Anus: KGV School's Colonialism { on Dunbar Road and its vicinity } being evil -- there's no surprise there, for me being a subject of a British Crown Colony who had wholeheartedly become a less-colonial-than-old-Great-Britain American citizen sworn to uphold our Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights, part of which aimed to stop and prevent the abuses by the old British Crown ) by not having nuclear-boomed the World in dozens of very close calls.

Authoritarians often "win" Pyrrhic victories or bloody anuses ( like Muammar Gadhafi, by his people ) and noses, or free rides on nooses ( like Saddam Hussein, by his people ).

Here's a great tip to help anyone interested in avoiding getting into Big Troubles with the U.S.: understand the Holy Bible for moral guidance and redemption. We were a slave-holding but morally striving Christian [and secular, but nevertheless or actually because of secularism, the World's most religious, in terms of the percentage of population believing but just don't ask what they believe] nation. During Détente, I gained intellectual-prowess respect towards the U.S.S.R.-led bloc. In recent years, I also liked ( and gained respect towards ) the [¿grumpy? perhaps, but righteousness redeems the sharp-incisive brusque manner] Russians who griped about the misery and de facto DPRK-imposed slavery suffered by the North Korean expatriates working in Russia.

I understand and feel Exodus [biblical] stories. Russia has a [somewhat damaged by the intervening Soviet atheistic rule with its lie, lie, lie -- lie more lies, "state secret this, state secret that"] Christian culture, to which I can relate.

Christianity isn't rational but it's a significant part of U.S. thinking. We being massive in several dimensions aren't going anywhere else fast so deal with it. 1 Corinthians likes happiness.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

STOP spewing self-referential, RW b-s on my posts and threads gripes - U utter fkn dolt!!! + Consider:

multum in parvo?

[-] 1 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

complete end to fossil fuel use

"it's the only way to be sure"

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"15 things biodiversity protectors are watching for in 2022"!

spero meliora!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Greenland Ice Sheet Shrunk for 25th Year Straight in 2021, Report Shows"! - by Jessica Corbett:

"We're at the brink, and every year with CO2 emissions continuing as usual exponentially increases the probability of crossing the tipping point," Boers warned. "It might have passed [the tipping point] but it is not clear. However our results suggest there will be - 'Substantially Enhanced Melting' in the near future, which is worrying." Also consider:

caveat!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

'Shrank' is the past tense of 'shrink', not 'shrunk'.

4C global warming by the year 2100 is likely even with the best effort to reduce anthropogenic climate change so

Greenland is quickly opening itself up just in time to accommodate the billions upon billions of climate asylum seekers from Red China et al. Western Antarctica will be ready, too. Hurray ! Mother Nature is very considerate indeed.

Golden Lives Matter ! Exercise Voluntary Apartheid as directed by Authority. Beware of your surroundings if your number-1 local train is diverted to the track for the number-2 and number-3 express train to go into South/East Harlem. If you don't have White privilege, don't pick up any strange-looking plant material in a plastic bag or other small package near a playground or a school because it could be cannabis and land you in prison. Police and courts act on White privilege ( Whites can have much cash and not have it be confiscated but not large sums of cash Blacks have because they have probably just robbed somebody, perhaps Asian restaurant or nail salon owners or German tourists, or it may be cash from drug sale; with the expansive laws to confiscate drug assets and money, some corrupt jurisdictions took to the practice of confiscating cash and setting up speed traps of different sorts; it's another good reason to practice Voluntary Apartheid recommended by Authority in order to avoid the poorer parts of the U.S. South -- not only do they want the money but they still hold grudges from having lost the [American/U.S.] Civil War; the grudges weren't confined to the South and were expressed via intimidating-to-Blacks displays in totally inappropriate high-traffic areas; I found the displays being odd but I didn't know what they actually meant as I was not Black and was as a new immigrant ignorant of this peculiar White-Supremacy-over-Blacks symbolism; I know that regional accents exist because I have lived in different parts of the U.S. so if I were to open my mouth in the Deep South, I would immediately disadvantage myself in any encounter; Flori-duh is somewhat different because of its great influx of New Yorker retirees who had fled the northern U.S. cold winters and high income tax rates, as well as the tourists from everywhere due to the Mickey Mouse(R) effect of Fun; it's why I exempted Flori-duh from Voluntary Apartheid; I could handle a just not-handicapped-right-from-my-starting-to-talk deal.)

My Dad who had out-of-luck-in-Apartheid-South-Africa Golden privilege, but neither White nor Black privilege, might have known of the precipice along Morningside Drive being an important-to-remember life-or-death boundary to observe in upper Manhattan. I liked fireflies/lightning bugs so we went to Riverside Park.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Actually, the only thing here that has SHRUNK is your RW brain .. which first SHRANK when U spouted irrelevant, self-referential crap on this forum & which will continue to SHRINK the more U do so - U FKN MORON!!! And note - I'm totally uninterested in your racist; self-referential; Gweilo-hating; Bible bashing; utterly reactionary horse shit - so stayTF off my comments and threads, U b-s spewing gimp!! Finally, fyi:

multum in parvo?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Chomsky: We Need Genuine International Cooperation to Tackle the Climate Crisis" - by CJP:

From which: "Global warming is accelerating, bringing the world close to the edge of the precipice. Heat waves, floods and deaths are major news and as Truthout has reported, “this summer’s record-breaking temperatures caused by climate catastrophe that until recently, even the most pessimistic climatologists, thought was still two or three decades out.” Yet, as Noam Chomsky points out in the interview, corporate media devoted almost as much coverage in one day to a space cowboy, than it did for the entire year of 2020 to the biggest crisis facing humanity."

And which ends ... "Rosa Luxemburg and the Wobblies sketched the kinds of “system changes” toward which humanity should strive - in one or another way. Short of the goals they envisioned, steps must be taken towards engaging an informed - and concerned public in international institutions of solidarity and mutual aid, eroding borders, recognizing our shared fate,& committing ourselves to working together for the common good instead of “cutting each other’s throats.”

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Average Global Temperature Has Risen Steadily Under 40 Years of Neoliberalism"! .. by C.P. Polychroniou:

adspice et prospice!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

Note that "It Just Rained on Greenland's Summit .. For The First Time in Recorded History"!

UH-OH!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

2021 Europe's warmest summer on record.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0907/1245188-europe-warmest-summer/

What is it going to take to get governments to respond to this crisis? I feel like the people get it, it's the governments that are lacking.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Hungry and desperate: Climate change fuels a migration crisis in Guatemala" Denise Chow & Carlos Beltran for NBC:

"Starving and in debt, farmers whose land has been destroyed by climate-related weather events are becoming migrants."

adspice et prospice ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 3 years ago

"Developing countries" such as Red China, India, and Turkey have chosen coal for Earth's future. None of the other countries will matter. Paris Climate Accord excluded the strong, strong, stronger, developing, developing, and "still developing" Red Whale.

It'll be up to our children and our children's children ( if any ) to live in earnest with Anthropogenic Climate Chaos ( and far more new Asian plutonium bombs coming online ).

The Cold War went away in a whimper ( due to the rational chess players involved ) but The Hot War of Mewtwo may well go the opposite way.

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago
[-] 2 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 5 months ago

The carbon tax would be refundable and therefore help with wealth inequality as well as carbon, none of our puny efforts will turn around the problem untill we have a carbon tax.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 months ago

Imagine had a 3rd party emerged in 2016, how much farther along we would be with mitigating climate change.

What you say is true, though.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 4 months ago

Do you for a minute think that Jill Stien who went to Russia to dine with Putin would have addressed climate change, how navie are you?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

Well, I was thinking more of Bernie Sanders, but you're so obsessed with Jill Stein.

Here is her plan currently: https://www.jillstein2024.com/planet

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

BTW do you ever even look at what Hansen is posting now? https://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

Bernie supported Hillary in 2016 and did all he could to help her get elected while you were still asking people to vote for Jill, I do have a memory, yes Jill has a website and a politcal party which she competly owns much like Putin owns her and Trump, it is funny as hell how the "indenpdent" Greens nominate the SAME person EVERY time! In 2016 YOU called for people to toss thioer vote in the trash and YOU got Trum,p elected and it is because of YOU that he did ALL that he did!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

Are you blaming JILL STEIN for the temperature increases?

You are forgiven if the heat in Arizona is getting to you. It seems pretty awful there.

Bernie has been sworn to the Democratic party either by force or by choice, I really don't know, but that doesn't mean the Democratic party always does things right. Clinton was a terrible candidate, much disliked across the country. Get over it.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

No problem, Dobbs rolls off my back like water off a duck, doesn't get you wet does it?

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 4 months ago

Imagine if we had joined together to defeat the GOP? Dobbs would have never been, Chevron ruling GONE! No Trump corporate tax cut and climate change action! If only people had acted together to defeat the evil that is the GOP but many tossed their votes away to make a statement, they think their way is the only way so they go off throw away thier vote on a third party and let Trump WIN! I hope you are pleased with all YOU did to elect Trump!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

How are things going over there in your state of Arizona? You want a weak left by constantly voting for moderates, that is what you are going to get.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

idk we got rid of Sinama and Ruban is looking pretty good, Hobbs is okay and generally we are not throwing our votes in the totlet and electing the GOP like you want everybody to do, how did you liike the first Trump term? are you proud of all you did to elect him? are you going to do it agian?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

You lack an understanding of what democracy is. It certainly isn't always holding your nose and voting for who you don't want just because they can beat the other bad guy.

Are you aware of how democracy works in other countries around the world where you actually get to vote for people you like and then those people are forced to work together in a coalition but no one is silenced? You want to silence people and take away their right to have a say in their government. That is not democracy.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

Do you know where you live? Do you know how our system works? People vote and someone wins pretty sure it's the same other places as well, in France recently a bunch of people dropped out so the strongest person could defeat the right wing nutjob, even though they had many disagreements but they knew they neeeded to win that's how democracy works do you need more examples?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

Yes, I'm aware of what happened in France. Actually, the far left won, the New Popular Front. They won because they formed a coalition, but they also won because their parties, socialist, ecologist, anti-capitalist, etc, are strong and vibrant because in a typical election the French vote FOR what they want, not against something.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

and you are also aware that you helped elect donald trump and you are reasponible for Dobbs i hope you enjoy all you've done, in France they took their heads from their butts and figured out how to beat their verison of the GOP befor it was too late they stopped sliptting their votes and acted together to save France will you join forces to defeart the GOP or will you call for people to remain splitted so the Right can win? oh who are you going to vote for now that RFK has dropped out? and endored Trump.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 months ago

You don't understand how democracy works. That is your problem, not mine.

Had Hilary and company done a single solitary thing to collaborate with the left, she might have beaten Trump. Therefore, the blame lies with Clinton and the Democrats for why Trump was elected. QUIT pointing the finger at the left. You will never get anywhere by trying to insult and alienate millions of people.

[-] 0 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

Look Hillary was alfuf I was clear about that at the time see my post reffering to Shawshank, but I understood Trump was worst and i made an effort to win while you pouted in the connor.

[-] 0 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

You on the other hand was never there helping Bernie when nhe was fighting for the nomination you didn't wiegh in till he had lost because your real mission is to hrut the Dems and help the GOP you love Trump.

[-] 0 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 3 months ago

I did the same thing that Bernie did i did all i could to get a liberial nominated and once the battle was over i did all i could to get the winner, Hillary, elected if you could say the same we mifght have won and beat Trump you stayed true to Stien and allowed Trump to win, that's what actually happened you can try to rewrite it all you want.

[-] -1 points by redandbluestripedpill (333) 11 years ago

Agreed. Society needs psychological restructuring and control over media as well as government by the people is an a solute need in effecting this.

However, corporatism has a hold of both gov and media. Which is why ART5 is absolutely needed. In the current ows forum, cognitive infiltration is so complete, people cannot discuss solution, only the sensation of the problem dynamics increasing.

[-] -1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

Wheres repubs at these demonstrations?

http://wtvr.com/2013/02/14/rfk-jr-arrested/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"'Sleeping giant' Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find", by Jon Watts:

"Exclusive: expedition discovers new source of greenhouse gas off East Siberian coast has been triggered" ... BUT DOES TRUMP GIVE A FK?!

omnia causa fiunt ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"The Planet Cannot Survive Our Remorseless Pursuit of Profit" (important link) by Owen Jones:

"Oil companies knew 50 years ago the huge damage they were doing. Their motive to ignore it is the same now as it was then."

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Consider "After nearly 1,000 days locked up, please know I could not have made it without you and your letters, visits, and kindness. Thinking tonight of the Indigenous Peoples - still victimized by @Chevron in the Amazon.Tomorrow my half-life ends; time to fully live." - by:

fiat lux et fiat justitia!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

"Green New Deal Is Essential for Human Survival: Noam Chomsky & Robert Pollin" with C.J. Polychroniou:

MULTUM in parvo!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

So "What If 401(k)s Could Fund the Green New Deal Instead of Wall Street?" by Alexis Goldstein:

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

People can help when they paint their buildings' roofs if they use titanium-dioxide-based white paint.

Most buildings strive for avoiding big fluctuations in temperature. White roofs reflect more sunlight thus reducing the sun heating up the buildings. This can reduce the buildings' cooling bill. Their surroundings are also cooled down, thus alleviating global warming on at least two fronts: less carbon-dioxide emission from fossil fuels burnt to generate electricity to cool the buildings with and less sunlight-induced heating during the day. At night, the white roofs can keep the heat inside of the buildings, reducing any heating needed to keep the buildings warm and any carbon-dioxide emission associated with that.

With the ultraviolet light contained in sunlight, the titanium dioxide catalyzes the breakdown of air pollutants thus cleaning up the air we all breathe.

White insulation or insulation under the white paint can also be used. Titanium dioxide is the whitening substance used in many toothpastes.

Doing so can save heating and cooling costs, reduce greenhouse gas emission, improve air quality, and alleviate global warming. We thatch "rooftop multi-year ice."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

But "This election (wasn't) about the next four years. It's about the next four millennia" .. by Bill McKibben:

Now feel free to spout wildly, as is your wont .. but try to do so after reading the actual article perhaps?

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"As Biden Considers Climate Nominations, He Must Go Beyond an Obama-Era Reboot"! by Wenonah Hauter:

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 3 years ago

NB "Biden’s Climate Plan Is a Catastrophe in the Making"! .. by Robert Belano:

respice et prospice!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Re. Australia's Fire Storm Summer …

e tenebris, tenebris?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"'This Scares Me,' Says Bill McKibben as Arctic Hits 100.4°F—Hottest Temperature on Record"

"100°F about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle today in Siberia. That's a first in all of recorded history. We are in a climate emergency."

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] -1 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

Calm down. Join the grave dancers. Brew yourself a cup of British-inspired sweetened milk tea. The British had fought at least several wars over tea and produced a few colonial "Son of a Gun/Bastard," such as Hong Kong ( Opium Wars -- one thing led to another starting with the craving of tea ) and the U.S. ( Revolutionary Wars were likely triggered by the "Boston Tea Party." ) Most people can afford that cup of tea without destroying our Earth.

Not all teas are suitable for making this milk tea because the tea flavor would be muted by the taste of milk and honey/sugar. It offends the sensibility of some people to do this sacrilegious act of defiling the purity of good quality tea but it doesn't offend me as long as it's not my tea. I suppose that even the billionaires in Hong Kong drink this sweetened milk tea with pleasure. Imagine having an egg tart with it ( shrimp on a piece of fried French "toast" { sliced bread } made with sweetened egg batter and scallions will be great, too ) during tea-time in the afternoon... Heaven.

Tea-time is a very nice British custom ( it's perhaps transmitted from Central Asia to China to Japan.. to Williams Adams, the English samurai, and the British to my Dad; our former U.S. Army General Stanley A. McChrystal understood how important it was to drink 'Cha' with the local Afghan natives in order to fight terrorism effectively; the Anbar Awakening in Iraq didn't just happen to come out of thin air or Washington D.C.'s hot air, either ) so I understand why Dad wanted me to get to learning about tea-time eagerly, shortly after I had learnt all 26 Roman alphabets and 2x26=52 Globalese { i.e. English, its name is being propagandized in the same fashion as Putonghua/Mandarin } vocabulary words: from 'apple', 'arm', .. to 'zebra', 'zoo'. That vocabulary book seems to be prophetic of New York, N.Y.'s evolution. Yeah, I'd heard of "The Bronx Zoo" even when I was a kid; it's world-famous. The "Bronx High School of Science" also launched a number of Nobel Prize winners. Maybe some proud traditions just balk at crossing racial ( or more accurately to me anyway cultural ) boundaries created by Whites' flight.

Hmm, shouldn't we be instituting Affirmative Action Programs for the True Whites by kicking out the Fake Whites&Blacks ( Al Qaesians of the Arabian Peninsula ) first?

In Scandinavia ( or maybe the ¿High Arctic?,) it's still not that many days late to dance around a maypole ( instead of a grave, it's more fun anyway,) originally making its first appearance in the New England Colony as an 80-foot-tall priapic pine. Now, having sung of the glory of the true North, for how much less will Canada sell Ladakh to our Trumpanzee, the artful wheeler-dealer?

No one of a maying mind needs to peruse Rosalind Franklin's epoch-making photograph of area 51 to understand how symbolically prescient about DNA strands the dancing around the maypole was. The law of the conservation of angular momentum is an eternal law.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

So, 100 deg.F in the Arctic Circle & your suggestion is tea?! At least it was only 2 paragraphs! +FYI:

ad iudicium?

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

Tea or 'Cha' has an exceptionally great ability to calm agitated people down. That's what many people need these days, not more alarming news about Russia's Siberian Arctic.

It's very important news for policymakers but not for the masses.

Note that this human settlement/city has the widest temperature range in the whole world so 100.4°F is just yet another new extremum. If one takes a look at why it's like that, one sees that it's hundreds of miles inland, far away from any ocean except the Arctic Ocean. The photographs didn't show many trees at all to ameliorate temperature swings. The Arctic Ocean closest to it is nearly ice-free so ice melting cannot cool it down much. If one's into shipping refrigerated fish from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, one should rejoice that there may well be a completely ice-free and much shorter route for one's ships.

There are many different perspectives on the disappearance of ice. It's horrible for the polar bears for sure but they have been breeding with other bears so they will largely disappear but live on as hybridized bears. We can choose the perspective relevant to us.

Beware of the methane bomb going off although it's not going to affect me much anyways. Our progeny may well be so-called "fried" but I quote my Mom talking about my birth, "New Governor takes office. Old Governess leaves office." Few people can choose their own parents and inherited karma is karma ( by the time I was born, we already had nuclear bombs, heavy-lift rockets, microchips to put us right at the center of the crosshairs, radioactive tritium-laced drinking water, and antimatter-shooting bananas.)

I consider it to be a success that my generation hasn't blown up this world so far with our tens of thousands of nuclear weapons ( the Soviet Union generally had higher-yield nuclear weapons than the U.S. because U.S.S.R. guidance technology wasn't as accurate as ours so they hacked by compensating inaccuracy with a larger kill radius; attaining extremely high accuracy in targeting allows using very little to kill a person, any person; the delivery vehicles can likewise be much smaller in their carrying capacities; the U.S. doesn't require using a strategic nuclear bomber with hefty carrying capacity to deliver a nuclear strike; it's unsurprising that the U.S. has accidentally dropped airborne nuclear bombs on itself and Spain, { a N.A.T.O. ally, sorry about the accident! } during the Cold War; maybe the Soviets also lost some, too, but it should be a smaller number than the U.S. because the Soviet ones tended to be less fly-able than the lighter nukes of the U.S. Except for its psychological impact and at the siege of Sevastopol, Nazi Germany's really BIG gun Gustav didn't do much in reality in WWII because it had to be carried upon railroads, limiting where it could be; just think of how Russia, the land of many rivers and muddy "lofty banks", which even has a law against people driving dirty ¿muddy windshield? cars, is ¿suitable? for the extremely heavy Gustav lumbering and operating there ! ) Xi math has: "..little people don't amount to a hill of beans..." so "Here's looking at you, kid."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Do U Need Good Clean Water For Tea? If U think so and know anything about tea, go read this ...

Why has your first reply to me acquired 4 more paragraphs, gropes? WhoTF is reading your $H!T? NOT me, for sure! STOP replying to me &/or infecting my threads with your reactionary RW drivel and/or your senile dementia gripes. U've been warned before. IF U need to vent a furore scribendi, do Forum Posts!

et temet nosce ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

Absolutely but clean air comes first. Of course, we have the Orange primate in charge of our Brothel, relaxing the clean-air regulations so people can become more toxic and nerve- and brain-damaged. We are getting to a breaking point alright. We already have WalkingwhileWhite, WaitingwhileWhite, etc.

Yeah, I got WalkingthroughWhites' and almost did RippingoutWhites'Apple. I was told as a young immigrant NOT to do WalkingthroughBlacks' and taught to recognize physical indicators for dangerous neighborhoods ( I learnt the meaning of 'zebra' from Americans in Manhattan, all over again, as my kindergartener vocabulary word was newly understood; Tessa Majors being robbed and killed was why I thought the prejudice/immunity inculcated into me was extremely valuable and life-saving; it's important to know where a white stripe of the 'zebra' ends and a black stripe starts and vice versa; here's a safety tactic I hadn't learnt to my own detriment, leading me to be jumped from behind and robbed: surrounding myself with extremely high-speed traffic by walking in the middle of the street on a traffic island when I discovered three dark-skin folk stalking me; it was so narrow that I could have easily knocked them out into the traffic one by one; motorists tend to get involved calling the police once they start running over the robbers or crashing themselves trying to avoid running over the robbers.) It promoted domestic tranquillity, I believe.

A policeman told me after things had been stolen from me that I should become more careful next time to guard against thefts ( yeah, I needed to carry a tarp and wear a burqa for males ! ) Blaming the victims is a traditional cure for crimes, at least in the Islamic and patriarchal world. I don't expect much improvement with an übermatriarchal world, either ( biologically females who had risen to power in a patriarchy turned out to behave even worse--"maler than male"--than the biologically males; besides, most people ordinarily don't grab at the nearby crotches to determine convexity; it's the behavior/behaviour that matters.) However, having more young matriarchy to help balance our geriatric one-foot-in-the-grave-already patriarchy makes sense.

Maybe SlappedinthefacewhileWhite with a laughing "Happy Thanksgiving" or "Merry Christmas" being delivered won't be far off, as the Whites had said before to the "boys." Yeah, boys will still be boys, albeit packed with a punch. Where's the clean up of the air, water, food, etc. so that they don't have the toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, etc.?

The pandemic has so far done a GREAT job in cleaning up our air !!! Smell the viral fresh air. The sky is so blue recently. I haven't seen such "blue blue sky" in many decades since my preschool years crouching in a "foxhole" searching for "enemy" aircraft. Wow !!!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Sadly the COVID19 CoronaVirus has left U even more Full of SH!T gripes! Fk off & read this ...

multum in parvo ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

I reckon that I had already caught SARS_CoV-2 in early afternoon on February 8th, 2020 and become a CoViD-19 survivor by late afternoon on February 12th. I didn't get tested due to the CDC guideline in effect, then requiring a fever and I used a high-tech electronic touch-to-the-temple "Made in China" thermometer with likely stale batteries ( as I had been healthy for years since I caught the H1N1 flu in 2009--my preparedness just laxed off; I should've kept some fresh batteries on hand for the thermometer.)

Electronic thermometers which fail more abruptly rather than give faulty readings may be better or one can go low-tech and highly reliable with Galinstan(R) eutectic-metal( Ga, In, Sn )-mixture somewhat-toxic-if-inhaled-or-toxic-if-ingested but mercury-free thermometer. I'm an adult who tries to avoid inhalation or ingestion of broken thermometer materials so I prefer this better than the cumulatively neurotoxic [ turning organic after reacting with dust, for example ] mercury. Henceforth, I plan to keep both types of thermometers, using the liquid-metal one to calibrate the convenient and high-tech one but largely using the convenient one to reduce the chance of breaking the liquid-metal one.

I have detailed my experience, advices, and predictions about CoViD-19, masks usage, oxygen concentrators, namaste, decongesting orange-rind tea { citrate turned out to be an anti-coagulant, exactly what I had needed to ward off my potential blood clots coming on--I started seeing shadows of small blood vessels when I blinked my eyes, } flushing my gastrointestinal tract and with water, Texass and other hitherto spared Red States soon to go gloriously red, etc. for months here already. The blowing up of CoViD-19 cases in the U.S. is entirely within my expectation so it doesn't alarm me, as a former unwitting grave dancer in childhood 《採山花,覓樹果》, eating a guava and sucking flower buds' nectar from a cemetery. It's all under the Maniacal Artist's control, as it was predicted.

The Maniacal Artist whose name in Physics is Alpha is taking care of the air we all breathe. It's thus written, "Speak to the earth and it shalt teach thee," and, "The meek shalt inherit the earth."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"Siberian Forest Fires Increase by Fivefold in Week Since Record High Temperature .. Warning Signs!" by Eoin Higgins:

Ever noticed how all your b-s responses are replete with "I, me, my, mine" gripes? Narcissistic much?

nosce te ipsum ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

What Siberia has a lot of is wood. Wood burns if it has dried up and reached ignition temperature, maybe from a lightning strike or the "fiery" animals ( i.e. we ) which have harnessed fire ( i.e. plasma ) but accidentally lost control. Between "fire" and the water of a watershed is where we love to live. In Siberia, it's where there is wood, natural gas, oil, or electricity, and river ( fresh ) water.

My seeming Narcissism is the result of self mining done on one's inner passage, Reiyukai, ( "Care about others," the spiritual underpinning of the Rise of Post-earthquake-nuclear-calamity Modern Japan ) to reach 元神: 元神是太虛幻境的一部分一般人較難感悟其存在和功能.. 修煉此法者人生最重要之事在於深層感悟並開發元神的功能...

As explained in the quote above, there are two directions for reaching the origin: inward towards oneself and outwards towards the Universe. Regardless of which direction one takes, one will see the "Face of God." It's because we ALL came from the same primordial source of cosmic fields--the Big Bang. It's like us being in the drop of water my Mom dripped into the bowl in the silvery full-moon light shortly past midnight which caused ripples of the cosmic fields to spread so-called "out."

"There's a fairy crew out boating.. Boating, boating, in the sky." "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?" In whichever direction one goes, one aims to reach the origin although the inner ( self ) passage into the funnel is less distracting. Much of what's in us, oxygen, calcium, etc. has literally come from the stars ( i.e. the cosmic nuclear bonfires like the flying sparks from a firework exploding in the sky.)

A flying saucer in the sky caused the stalling of a car when it came close by. It probably interfered with the electrical ignition system which included the solenoid and the spark plugs, to cause engine misfiring and stalling. It had to have very strong electromagnetic mechanisms onboard. It also spooked the farm animals which were sensitive to subsonic or ultrasonic vibrations such as those shortly before an earthquake. The flying saucer had vibrations inside it indicating internal moving parts. A straight line and a circle are dual under a conformal transformation: inertial guidance gyroscope wraps linear momenta into angular momenta.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Meanwhile ''Greenland's Melting Ice - Passes Point of No Return!

omnia causa fiunt ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 4 years ago

"When it comes to climate change, what happens in Greenland does not stay in Greenland. The Greenland ice sheet is the largest contributor to global sea level rise, the paper pointed out. It currently raises ocean levels by more than a millimeter a year, CNN reported. And sea levels are expected to increase by around three feet by century's end.

"There's a lot of places, like in Florida especially, where one meter alone would cover a lot of existing land areas," King told CNN. "And that's exacerbated when you get storms and hurricanes and things like that, that then cause extra surge on top of a higher baseline."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''How MIT whitewashed the climate change denialism of a major donor, David Koch'', by M. Hiltzik:

honi soit qui may y pense ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''The Big Lie we’re told about Climate Change is that it’s our own fault: How to deal with despair over climate change.'' by Mary Annaise Heglar:

per ardua ad astra ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Only Rebellion Will Prevent An Ecological Apocalypse''! by George Monbiot:

''No one is coming to save us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response.''

''Had we put as much effort into preventing environmental catastrophe as we’ve spent on making excuses for inaction, we would have solved it by now. Everywhere I look, I see people engaged in furious attempts to fend off the moral challenge it presents.

''The commonest current excuse is this: “I bet those protesters have phones/go on holiday/wear leather shoes.” In other words, we won’t listen to anyone who is not living naked in a barrel, subsisting only on murky water. Of course, if you are living naked in a barrel we will dismiss you too, because you’re a hippie weirdo.

''The political class, as anyone who has followed its progress over the past three years can surely now see, is chaotic, unwilling and, in isolation, strategically incapable of addressing even short-term crises, let alone a vast existential predicament. Yet a widespread and wilful naivety prevails: the belief that voting is the only political action required to change a system. Unless it is accompanied by the concentrated power of protest – articulating precise demands and creating space in which new political factions can grow – voting, while essential, remains a blunt and feeble instrument.''

ad iudicum ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

https://rebellion.earth/

verb. sat. sap. ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Why Extinction Rebellion Might Succeed - and in Many Ways, Already Has!'' by Diana Stewart:

spero!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''CO2 hits record high of 416 ppm but saddest thing is .. that this won't be breaking news!"

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 4 years ago

Not one question on climate in last Dem Debate.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/26/horrifying-aoc-green-groups-criticize-debate-moderators-asking-zero-climate

Thankfully, Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate on climate change.

See his Green New Deal plans here:

https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/green-new-deal/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Note ''Joe Biden Pays Lip Service to Climate But Has Fallen Short on Action.'' by Sharon Zhang:

In tweet vid.above Biden refers to "the Amazon burning" but there's no sign that he's sure of anything!

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"Big Oil Takes $1.9 Billion in CARES Act Tax Breaks Intended for Small Businesses!" ... by Eoin Higgins:

"CoronaVirus relief legislation has virtually rescued climate-killing industries!" Thieving Lying Bastards!

multum in parvo!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"A New Trump Rule Could Help Big Oil Crush The Climate Movement"! ... by David Sirota:

NB: "A rule backed by oil interests tries to keep retirees’ savings locked in climate-threatened assets. Meanwhile, the government says the military must avoid those kind climate-threatened investments."

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

"How the Decline of Bee Colonies Could Collapse Our Food Chains .. A New Film Shows''

respice; adspice; prospice ..

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

"Moved by a moral obligation to “tell it like it is,” more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries have released a statement warning humanity of the “catastrophic threat” we face as the climate emergency continues apace. Without transformative changes to save the biosphere, they warn, there will be “untold suffering due to the climate crisis.” Since the statement was published on November 5, thousands more scientists have signed on to it.

''The statement in the online journal BioScience pointed out that, despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, the world has “generally conducted business as usual and largely failed to address this predicament,” with only minor exceptions. As a result, they say, global temperatures have reached crisis levels and climate disruption is accelerating faster than most scientists expected, now “threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.” The danger includes potential climate tipping points that could lead to a “hothouse Earth” beyond any ability for humanity to control and that could even make “large areas of the Earth uninhabitable” according to the warning.'' - excerpted from:

which ends: ''In some of these countries are the Trumps and Bolsonaros of the world who are actively accelerating the climate and extinction crisis by expanding fossil fuel extraction, wiping out regulations & protections for humans & other species & mowing down rainforests. In countries of … “enlightened” capitalists, leaders pay lip service to the problem - but are prevented by workings of the systems they head to do what’s necessary to deal with the crisis, and so continue with “business as usual.”

''All this continues despite the clear, repeated warnings pointing to a global extermination of species, increasingly powerful storms (especially devastating the poorest on the planet), and the specter of complete climate catastrophe.

''The question for all of us, for humanity as a whole, is: Will we rise to wrest control from the hands of a system that is destroying planetary life? Will we transform human social relations, or succumb to the inexorable death spiral capitalism has wrought?'' + also NB:

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Microplastics Found In Human Blood For First Time"! - by Damian Carrington:

"Exclusive --- The discovery shows the particles can travel around the body and, may lodge in organs"! Implications of this & similar has been known for decades but has been ignored, hidden & suppressed! Capitalism's true costs are almost always externalised - such that wider society picks up the real costs!

The Hydro-Carbon Industry is the father & mother of Plastics & Pharma & all are implicated in the mass environmental AND physical human poisoning that's been going on for many decades but The Bankers' Profit Over People Ethos still holds sway & rules the day!!! So - can this situation continue?!! Can It Fkf!

ergo, respice; adspice; prospice - et caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

New Zealand sea levels rising 2x faster than expected!

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0502/1295542-new-zealand-sea-level/

"The sea level is rising twice as fast as previously forecast around parts of New Zealand, according to new research, putting the country's two largest cities at risk decades earlier than expected.

Government-backed data amassed from around the country's coastline found some areas are already sinking three to four millimetres per year, speeding up a long-expected threat.

The projections, labelled "a bit terrifying" by one expert, are the result of an extensive five-year, government-funded research programme - NZ SeaRise - that was the combined work of dozens of local and international scientists.

Their prognosis means authorities have much less time than expected to introduce climate adaptation plans, including relocating coastal communities."

WOW, great job humans, "microplastics in our blood," sea levels rising. Is there time to fix this?

Thanks for that shocking piece above. Just sickening!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Meanwhile, consider .. "Jessica Reznicek never hurt anyone, but her actions led to a delay in Dakota Access Pipeline's construction & ~$3mm in damages. She is now behind bars for eight years due to a "terrorism enhancement" sentence." - from:

WTaF?!!!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

It appears ''ExxonMobil Is Still Bankrolling Climate Science Deniers!'' by Elliot Nagin:

fiat justitia!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''The Coming Flood: A Data Error Is Corrected .. And Our Future Is Rewritten''! - by Jeff Goodell:

''A new study (below) on sea level rise, reveals parts of Asia and the Middle East are in far more peril than we thought!''

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''The destruction of the Earth is a crime. It should be prosecuted!'' ... by George Monbiot:

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

60% of wildlife lost in last 50 years.

It's a horror story. George Monbiot is right. He's called for militarism and was arrested, himself with Extinction Rebellion.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/weve-lost-60-of-wildlife-in-less-than-50-years/

"The WWF’s latest Living Planet Index reveals just how rapid and dramatic those shifts are, calculating that the population abundance of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish has decreased by more than half in less than 50 years. The report attributes the declines to habitat loss, pollution, climate change, over-exploitation and the spread of invasive species and diseases, underscoring environmentalists’ concerns that human activity is taking a heavy toll."

If that seems bleak, the detailed findings and lack of commonly agreed solutions make it bleaker still, with current targets and actions amounting “at best, to a managed decline,” according to the report."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Note: "California Is Living in the US’s Dystopian Future'' - by Stephanie LeMenager:

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

IF "the emerging science of collapse ... suggests that civilization in its current form, premised on endless it is growth and massive inequalities, is unlikely to survive this century (THEN) it will either evolve into or be succeeded by a new configuration, perhaps an “ecological civilization”, premised on a fundamentally new relationship with the Earth and all its inhabitants—or it will, whether slowly or more abruptly, regress and contract.

"What happens next is still up to us. Our choices today will not merely write our own futures, they determine who we are, and what our descendants will be capable of becoming. As we look ahead, this strange new science hints to us at a momentous opportunity to become agents of change for an emerging paradigm." - from …

sic transit gloria mundi?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"Amid Climate Crisis, Many Americans Still Don’t Know What the Green New Deal Is!"... by Elan Young:

"A 2020 poll by the Center for American Progress Action Fund showed a similar level of confusion about the policy proposals in the Green New Deal. A whopping 53 percent of Americans could not say whether the Green New Deal was favorable or unfavorable. They simply don’t know what it is."

"The age of Climate Denial and Climate Incrementalism, may be coming to a close, but it is not over yet. Even Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said in hearings that she does not have firm views on climate science. What is more ... her father was a longtime Shell Oil lawyer - and Shell has a major case before the Supreme Court. With the help of such government inaction - fossil fuel companies continue to distract people from their role in the crisis with Greenwashed Marketing Campaigns and carbon footprint apps that focus on individual actions rather than collective action on climate. Meanwhile - Global Climate Catastrophes continue to play out across the country, impacting vulnerable communities the hardest, but impacting everyone in some way. Given all the time constraints of the climate fight - this election has the power to set the course for far more than the next four years. It’s no wonder this 2020 election has been dubbed the most important election of our lifetime."

prospice et caveat!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png

This chart shows why China and India probably control the future of the Earth as far as how hot it gets. One can take out one of the other major emitters ( note that they all either reduced or kept emission unchanged over the past few decades despite largely growing wealthier so the narrative about "collapsing the economy" has obviously been bogus; we knew for a long time already how to "green" our energy environment without "collapsing the economy;" I suspect that East Germany has also become both wealthier and greener than in 1991 when it was freed and joined West Germany; the Communist bloc's enamored idea about having coal and steel heavy industries making a country rich has just been plainly wrong--just compare the GDP per capita of the DPRK with the ROK; same people, nearly same climate but different "neighbors," different systems--DPRK got the Soviet and Chinese neighbors' help and possessed the heavy industries and mineral deposits; ROK was rural and being "raped" by its American occupiers and "exploited" by its American "neighbors;" well, here are the ranking about how well-off they are now compared to each other--oops, DPRK being high-proof must have evaporated due to its truthy physics learnt from me and Mom ) and it won't make a difference in the trend at all to reach: 1-800-HOT-HOTT.

Why's this trend in recent years so pronounced in China and India? Both have determined to modernize using their extensive coal deposits ( Turkey, another populous country, vowed to go the coal route, too.) The coal-fired power plants there will keep on spewing carbon dioxide for the next few decades. The climate battle has been lost so it's time to move on to mitigation.

Here's my mitigation plan for myself: To die before that consequence hits. I know it will work.

How does "the global panic to save us all" feel now?

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

Anthropogenic Climate Change is not just a problem created by the rich world. The U.S. started worrying about this problem in 1989. Red China didn't give a shit afterwards. For a long time, it has been completing the building of a new COAL-fired power plant EVERY WEEK. A larger coal-fired power plant can spew the carbon from one ton of coal (close to 100% carbon) in every second.

Can it really be a surprise that the greatest emitter of pollution and greenhouse gas is NOT the U.S.A? It's Red China. The fastest grower of these was also NOT the U.S.A. It's Red China. As if not enough, Red China has proposed to build many more coal-fired power plants for many countries in its One-Belt One-Road Initiative across Eurasia and Africa. Usually a large coal-fired power plant has an operational lifetime of 30 years or more so most of the recent coal-fired power plants will be operating for at least the next 20 years to the year 2040. I doubt very much that we will see ANY reduction in the annualized level of atmospheric carbon-dioxide level at least until the year 2040.

Besides Red China, despite India's already suffering from the terrible effects of Anthropogenic Climate Change, India has pledged allegiance to using coal for bringing its billions plus people to the modern age of high-energy-usage living.

Of course, there are numerous other populous countries such as Turkey which has already planned to go down the same coal-fired power plant path as Red China and India. It's mostly about costs. The U.S. has been de-carbonizing much faster than before due to its fracked natural gas displacing coal as fuel for new power plants. It's true that hydro-fracking can produce leaked methane (the major ingredient in natural gas) due to leaky pipelines or not flaring it, or using it to turn it into carbon dioxide. This leaked methane however is MONEY BEING LEAKED so every hydro-fracking/natural-gas company has an INCENTIVE to prevent the leaks or using the methane for some useful purposes such as heating.

The U.S. level of emission of greenhouse gases went down due to the 2007-2011 Great Recession so yeah, there is something which will definitely be coming to save us all -- a Global Panic.

A U.S. dropping off of the Earth will NOT alter the outcome. Nor will Europe, not to mention Germany since it's but a part of Europe. The reason why I looked up to Germany for coming up with a solution that will save us all without a Global Panic is because Germany vowed to convert to using renewable energies and it's one of the world's premier technologically advanced countries. The technologies Germany develops on its quest if deployed to the countries which truly matter such as Red China, India, and Turkey can make the big difference needed globally. I'm however pessimistic because costs are the primary driver for these countries which vowed to go the coal route. Great Britain, Germany, and the U.S. industrialized by using coal but this is NOT the 18th and 19th centuries anymore when the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide was much lower.

While I applaud the waking up of much of our younger generation of what is coming, I believe that Greta Thunberg is barking up the wrong tree.

I've decided that the problem doesn't matter much to me personally anyway because I'll most likely be dead by the time the changed climate matters. I tried so I gave up the cause to the new generation but of course, I'm NOT going to change my energy-usage-conscious ways to minimize my deleterious impact on the World. Every little bit by anyone helps but not changing the minds of the policy makers in Red China, India, and Turkey will matter FAR MORE.

It's why I turned my attention towards what's happening in Red China A LOT more these days. It's the future of the our planet at stake, in many ways. Do you want to live under a one-party dictatorship with face-recognition video cameras everywhere capturing your every move to assess your "social credit?" It's more important to me than the climate in 2100 because it may be coming in the next few years from Red China.

There are two kinds of important things: those that will come due very soon and those that may have earth-shaking consequences in the long run if not attended to. Surveillance autocratic statism is of the first kind and very hot climate in 2100 is of the second kind. When surveillance autocratic statism prevails, people like Greta Thunberg will likely be silenced or simply disappeared.

The DPRK comes into my mind because it's hell-bent on having nuclear technology so steering its expertise towards electricity-generating peaceful usage makes sense. The coal may be retired and the nuclear experts have some new tasks to attend to, which need their knowledge. Of course, the displaced coal can still be sold to Red China next door which will probably be running its coal-fired power plants regardless of what happens to Earth's climate at least well into the 2040s. Hauling the coal from next door North Korea instead of from very far away (hundred(s) or thousand(s) of miles) Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia may actually reduce the emission of greenhouse gases due to less truck transport on a ridiculous travail "road" (days of traffic jam for drivers to camp out near it over nights) which is less efficient than rail transport from North Korea. If DPRK has excess electricity from nuclear energy to sell to Red China, it will decrease the emission of greenhouse gases much more.

Cooling usually uses even more energy than heating so closing that refrigerator door is important. Recycling scrap paper is likely next in importance depending on what they do with the recycled scrap paper because nowadays much "recycled" things are simply burnt or buried in landfills since Red China banned importing many recyclable materials. Lights if coming from LEDs or CFLs, but NOT incandescent light bulbs are often using the least energy. Yeah, anyone who is still using incandescent light bulbs should replace them with LEDs or CFLs, LEDs being environmentally more benign since they are often made of gallium nitride which is not environmentally polluting as the very small amount of mercury present in CFLs. Besides, converting to higher efficiency light bulbs such as LEDs and CFLs has an additional benefit other than a lower electric bill and often reducing mercury pollution at the coal-fired power plant making the electricity: these higher-tech lights last a very long time so the need to change the light bulbs is greatly reduced, probably reducing falling accidents coming from changing of the light bulbs in high-up or hard-to-reach places.

Time of using electricity also affects greenhouse gas emission. In the U.S. with nuclear power plants generating much of the base-load electricity used from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., whatever one does with the electricity tends to have less greenhouse gas emission. For example, washing dishes in the automatic electric dish-washing machine during these hours can reduce greenhouse gas emission as compared to running it at 9 p.m.

A car trip to fetch that gallon of milk can often be cut nearly in half if one plans ahead and fetches it while coming home from work. Combining trips can save a lot of gasoline or diesel, time, pollution, and greenhouse gas emission. Every activity presents an opportunity to save money, time, reduce pollution, alleviate Anthropogenic Climate Change, save lives in perhaps faraway lands, etc. One needs to know about watts, calories, joules, various efficiencies and their ratings and make better decisions. It's the reason why I say that the World is both overpopulated AND underpopulated. Ignorance and poverty pollute.

If the French can go by with only taking a bath every two or three days, Americans can certainly do the same and not take a shower every morning. From my personal observations (yeah, you can probably guess correctly that I'm a male with "wandering eyes,") French women seem to age slower than American women. I wonder whether it was due to this difference in bathing habit. I know that hot water and soap wash away the skin's own natural oily secretions so with less oil on American women protecting them (many cosmetics try to replenish this oil with chemicals such as what my Mom used, especially in winter: glycerin which is a 3-carbon oily sugar, coconut oil, palm oil, etc.) they may have developed wrinkles a lot earlier. In general, one associates wrinkles with aging. I do.

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

"The dominant narrative around climate change tells us that it’s our fault. We left the lights on too long, didn’t close the refrigerator door, and didn’t recycle our paper. I’m here to tell you that is bullshit. If the light switch was connected to clean energy, who the hell cares if you left it on? The problem is not so much the consumption — it’s the supply. And your scrap paper did not hasten the end of the world."

She apparently hadn't run something between a rock and a hard place. It's not that people don't have the desire to use clean energy instead of fossil fuels. It's mainly because of the costs involved in converting to a clean-energy economy. Convenient clean energy has been a precious commodity for a long time. I take it to mean abundant on-demand electrical energy without severely polluting impact. Such thing underlies "development" and is globally desirable.

Anthropogenic climate change is manmade and it must be mansolved. For example, among the three actions she cited, (lights, refrigerator door, and scrap paper) which is the most important one to remember to do to have the most impact? People may not know or care.

In the environmental mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Which action has the most impact? Reduce. It doesn't have to mean austerity but it does mean being conscious of energy expenditures and making better decisions. Energy is involved in everything we do so we can and must tackle the problem from ALL sides: demand side, supply side, substitution side, sublimation side, etc.

Raising a child involves the greatest expenditure of energy most people will ever make. Bucket list's energy impact depends on what are on it. Travel plans are usually overblown in their purported significance. Some people travel in order to be able to claim that they have visited famous places. I'm not in this group. My most enjoyable travel experience was to study intensively about a destination and then go visiting there for real with a well-laidout plan. Inevitably meeting up with reality, the plan sprang surprises! Getting mansplainingly lost on "a scenic route" but never "topologically (i.e. manly) lost" can be fun because I experienced serendipity (the most beautiful mass variety phytosexual display I've ever seen but it was obviously missing from my well-planned itinerary!)

My most miserable travel experience was an impromptu one without a plan ahead of time. I succumbed to the charm of "socialism." ( With over 100,000 people living in Flint, Michigan drinking that municipal water, someone would have surely known the pitfalls of using Flint river's water as feedstock. Alas, not even one! ) The ensuing fiasco cured my wanderlust for at least a generation. What could go wrong? Nearly everything! Never underestimate a linguistic barrier or a leadership of all equals, even with many similar people who were just as linguistically challenged (yeah, we had linguistic equality of ignorance!) despite being in a world-class foreign city ( or in some cases just a domestic "enclave" using foreign labor. ) A little bit of "superficial" language skill can go a long way, sometimes. Hmm, maybe that's why my Dad had wanted me to know of the German word for eggs: Eier ( which might have proven his German connection to one of his captors so he was eventually released upon their reaching near his "home" away from home, "home is where the heart is," ) Japanese: water 水 (mizu,) ice water 氷水 (kōrimizu,) and about British teatime.

All travel is actually about getting information. That information can largely be acquired from afar nowadays in comfort and convenience without all of the drawbacks of travel (flight delays, waiting in lines, lost items, items that should've been brought along from home or left at home, security stripping, confiscations [or stuffing oneself with Hawaiian papayas before boarding a flight instead of having them be confiscated], luggage repacking, luggage too heavy and its vacancy too small to accommodate souvenirs, weather being too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, too rainy, too sunny, shoes being uncomfortable or downright abusive, travellers' ailments: flu from flights, diarrhea from bad water and foods, lying in a hotel bed [in "paradise!" no less] with a high fever while a companion { never go to "paradise" without a companion who can become a друг (drug) but of course, a disbelieving Eve was the downfall of Adam and all in the Book of Genesis } searched for an apothecary, etc.)

[-] 6 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

Flood Wall Street on September 22, 2014

http://floodwallstreet.net/

"Stop Capitalism. End the Climate Crisis."

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

"Population growth is actually in the poorest countries where emissions are incredibly low, so that's not a problem. The problem is, unfortunately, the richest - the richest people on the planet are responsible for the majority of the emissions. So we do have to do something about their emissions. But, ultimately, we're not saying this is solely the responsibility of people in that richest 10 percent. You don't have to be that rich to get into the top 10 percent in terms of salaries in the U.S. or Europe. But the real problem here, the real blockers are the divested interests in the fossil fuel industry, sort of, the carbon barons. That's a tiny elite and they're the ones who are really holding back progress."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Alas ...''The scientists are virtually unanimous that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already causing devastating problems in the United States and around the world. And, they tell us that if we do not act boldly the situation will only become much worse in years to come in terms of drought, floods, extreme storms and acidification of the oceans.

And ... ''Sadly, we now have a Republican Party that is more concerned about protecting the profits of Exxon, BP and Shell and the coal industry than protecting the planet. While fossil fuel companies are raking in record profits, climate change ravages our planet and our people – all because the wealthiest industry in the history of our planet has bribed politicians into ignoring science.'' - from:

ad iudicium?

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Why your comment has zero points is beyond me. Who tf would vote that down or why would you start out with zero points? You, of all people! Just freaking outrageous. We don't have time for petty bull shit anymore.

2015 was the hottest year on record.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/earth/2015-hottest-year-global-warming.html

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/us/noaa-2015-warmest-year/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/20/2015-smashes-record-for-hottest-year-final-figures-confirm

I put a few links regarding this because in doing my google search I could see that there are a few nutters out there trying to deny it. We must fight back.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

I really don't know why I have ''zero points'' either! Apparently my points should be frozen (no biggie per se) & I should start with ''0'' (admittedly annoying) & also be unable to cast my vote for yours or others' comments (fundamentally unfair) too!! Alas such are the petty tyrannies I & others have faced here - for nearly 4 & a half years but we stumble and struggle on for Bernie & The 99%!!! Thanx for your solidarity & links & in compliment and by Paul Krugman ...

fiat justitia ruat caelum ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Never give up. Your contribution here has been second to none.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Consider that: ''The scientists are virtually unanimous that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already causing devastating problems in the United States and around the world. And, they tell us, if we do not act boldly the situation will only become much worse in years to come in terms of drought, floods, extreme storms and acidification of the oceans. Sadly, we now have a Republican Party that is more concerned about protecting the profits of Exxon, BP and Shell and the coal industry than protecting the planet. While fossil fuel companies are raking in record profits, climate change ravages our planet and our people – all because the wealthiest industry in the history of our planet has bribed politicians into ignoring science.'' - from ...

prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Hillary Clinton Touted Fracking Across the Globe, and Only Bernie Sanders Can Be Trusted to Save Us From It:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sainato/hillary-clinton-touted-fr_b_8564764.html

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''The Climate Crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us!'' by George Monbiot:

''The media largely relegate the greatest challenge facing humanity to footnotes as industry and politicians hurtle us towards systemic collapse of the planet.''

Alas Bernie is now out of the chase ... because he shot his own fox! I'm still getting over it, tbh!! ONLY Dr.Jill Sanders is saying what he did .. and more & Bernie Sanders & Nina Turner are sadly missing a historic opportunity - by still being so hopelessly attached to Banking Oligarchy's Corporate Duopoly!!!

spero meliora ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Occupy the Planet!

"Arctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest level ever recorded"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/16/arctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-second-lowest-level-ever-recorded

‘Tremendous loss’ of ice reinforces clear downward trend towards ice-free summers due to effects of climate change"

And, let's not forget the connections between the economy and the environment. Occupy Wall Street! End Capitalism as we know it today!

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Yep, ''let's not forget the connections between the economy and the environment" .. and USA's War Macine ... deprives The 99% of the fruits of democracy and the services like Healthcare; Education, Debt Free College - that The 99%'s taxes SHOULD pay for! Per the thread & your reply, pls consider:

Your ''Guardian'' link would not open for me btw bw, and you may want to consider checking the url. +

S17 Solidarity!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

"Chomsky: The US is to an unusual extent a business-run society, where short-term concerns of profit and market share displace rational planning. The US is also unusual in the enormous scale of religious fundamentalism. The impact on understanding of the world is extraordinary. In national polls almost half of those surveyed have reported that they believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common ancestor with the ape. There are similar beliefs about the Second Coming. Senator James Inhofe, who headed the Senate Committee on the environment, speaks for many when he assures us that "God's still up there and there's a reason for this to happen," so it is sacrilegious for mere humans to interfere."

Yep, we're in trouble. And, I fixed the link above and add it here again:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/16/arctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-second-lowest-level-ever-recorded

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''Jill Stein 'Debates' Clinton & Trump''(Video & Transcript by Democracy Now!):

Thanx for a great excerpt & the worrisome link & I went off at wee tangent in reply!

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Pelosi’s Actions on Climate Fall Woefully and Inexcusably Short of What We Need'' by Democracy Now!

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Studies Warn of Increasing Sea Level Rise'', by Dahr Jamail:

caveat ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Scientists Are Stunned by How Rapidly Ice Is Melting in the Arctic'', by Dahr Jamail:

respice; prospice; adspice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Ice disappearing faster than normal this summer.

"Arctic Summer Melt Shows Ice Is Disappearing Faster Than Normal"

https://www.bloomberg.com/technology

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Eventually, We Will All Be Climate Refugees'' ...

omnia causa fiunt ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

Correction: "Eventually, We Will All Be Climate Asylum Seekers"

Refugees are those who have found a refuge: such as the Teapee Hole-in-One Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey? On which hole will Stormy Daniels be bedding for stormy action, as prophesied?

How many people have found long-term refuge away from Earth's climate? Zero. 90% of Americans have above-average American intelligence.

Yep, it's our Blue Origin -- Big O to 0.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Over One-Tenth of Global Population Could Lack Drinking Water by 2030'' .. by Dahr Jamail:

caveat!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''One rich American is responsible for much of the ongoing destruction of the Amazon — and he happens to be a top donor to Trump and McConnell'' ...

fiat lux et fiat justitia ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Global warming is worse than expected.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/02/climate-change-european-heatwave-likelier

"The record-breaking heatwave that struck France and other European nations in June was made at least five – and possibly 100 – times more likely by the climate crisis, scientists have calculated.

Such heatwaves are also about 4C hotter than a century ago, the researchers said. Furthermore, the heatwaves hitting Europe are more frequent and more severe than climate models have predicted, they said."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Why the DNC Must Change the Rules and Hold a Climate Debate'', by Naomi Klein:

ad iudicium ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal unveiled. It will pay for itself in 15 years.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/the-green-new-deal/

Reaching 100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by 2050 at latest

Ending unemployment by creating 20 million jobs

Directly invest an historic $16.3 trillion public investment

A just transition for workers.

Declaring climate change a national emergency.

Saving American families money by weatherizing homes and lowering energy bills, building affordable and high-quality, modern public transportation

Supporting small family farms by investing in ecologically regenerative and sustainable agriculture

Justice for frontline communities

Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world

Meeting and exceeding our fair share of global emissions reductions.

Making massive investments in research and development.

Expanding the climate justice movement.

Investing in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Tho' "Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal Is the Hail Mary This Planet Needs'' ...

''The elites will attempt to kill this plan - just in the same way that they are killing the planet!''

fiat lux et fiat justitia!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Global Climate Strike - September 20

https://globalclimatestrike.net/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Again https://globalclimatestrike.net/ & NB:

''The climate crisis has moved into everyday life and it can feel overwhelming.

''Hurricane Dorian, which left more than 70,000 people homeless, was an instance of this climate breakdown. A hotter ocean means stronger storms, a higher sea means worse flooding, a hotter atmosphere means more rain. Worsening wildfires in California and elsewhere, devastating flooding in our agricultural heartland, swaths of dead forest in the Rockies, the global collapse of coral reefs — these are just a few examples of the long and lengthening list of the catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown.

''The evidence that human-caused global heating is dangerously disrupting Earth systems is unequivocal, and it no longer takes a scientist to see this. Denying this reality puts billions of lives at risk, and will surely come to be condemned by history.''

prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

"Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse" - George Monbiot

"No one is coming to save us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/15/rebellion-prevent-ecological-apocalypse-civil-disobedience

As Greta Thunberg faces attacks from, largely, adult men who must feel threatened, Monbiot points out how lacking arguments against environmentalists from the right are:

"The commonest current excuse is this: “I bet those protesters have phones/go on holiday/wear leather shoes.” In other words, we won’t listen to anyone who is not living naked in a barrel, subsisting only on murky water. Of course, if you are living naked in a barrel we will dismiss you too, because you’re a hippie weirdo. Every messenger, and every message they bear, is disqualified on the grounds of either impurity or purity."

Monbiot's call to arms: "Those who govern the nation and shape public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth. There is no benign authority preserving us from harm. No one is coming to save us. None of us can justifiably avoid the call to come together to save ourselves."

[-] -1 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

BTUs, watts, calories, joules, various efficiencies and their ratings are largely in adult men's domain of knowledge, don't you think? Women tend to know Calories instead.

I've talked with a Muslim woman who seemed to be indoctrinated with learned incompetence and grievances. I think that it's cultural. Our females in the West are generally far more capable although I admit that they are often lacking in extreme physical strength relative to our males. In doing things, most women can do what men do without compromise but men can't bear a child because we lack the moistware.

This difference in physical strength is why I support the separation of physical sports into men's and women's so that the women may get a better chance to shine than otherwise.

For the same reason, I think that transgender females who have not been cut to stop the testosterone can have an inherent advantage over the cisgender females when competing in a physical sport. We generally disqualify cisgender females who inject themselves with testosterone from competing in a female-only physical sport. A transgender female with testicles is biochemically similar to such a cisgender female injecting testosterone. If one is disqualified for drug usage, the disqualification of the other should also be considered.

Testosterone does tend to make one physically stronger, regardless of whether it's coming from a testicle or an hypodermic needle. Testosterone level is an important difference between people but I haven't seen study results showing the color of one's skin makes a causal difference in one's physical strength. Of course, what one's ancestors had survived through can make an evolutionary difference such as superior physical strength in the male descendants of the African slaves in the U.S. The U.S. is NOT backwards in development as Africa is because of imported malaria-resistant African slave labor but we are certainly paying a social price daily for this long-ago deal with the Devil. Mosquitoes made a huge change in the U.S. as their larvae also did in my own voyage away from my childhood shantytown. Mosquitoes (cotton farming in the U.S. South and my first pets of mosquito larvae) and tea (Opium Wars/Hong Kong and the Tea Tax, Boston Tea Party, and embargo imposed on Boston Harbor which precipated the American Colonies breaking away from the British Empire) were great determinants of developments.

We know how to create superior breeds of human beings: through generations of inbreeding and massive culling. Without these, we are far better off with creating mongrels which can be achieved so much quicker than inbreeding and without bloodshed from the massive culling or sterilization of human beings. To this very day, Hong Kong is in turmoil and some cities and towns in the U.S. are still suffering from the correlation, not causal linkage, of slavery with skin color.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''87% of Americans Unaware There's Scientific Consensus on Climate Change''*, by Pam Wright:

Two years old ... BUT wTf has actually changed in U$A between then & now?! And then there's this ...

hmmmmmm ....

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

London climate like Barcelona by 2050.

"Global heating: London to have climate similar to Barcelona by 2050"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/10/global-heating-london-similar-climate-barcelona-2050

Nearly 80% of cities to undergo dramatic and potentially disastrous changes, study finds

TRULY FRIGHTENING.

"Concern about the world’s lack of preparedness for the effects of global heating is mounting among experts. Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction, last week told the Guardian that climate crisis disasters were happening at the rate of one a week, but that countries were not investing in making urban infrastructure more resistant."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Fracking boom tied to methane spike in Earth’s atmosphere'' by Stephen Leahy:

''The chemical signature of methane released from fracking is found in the atmosphere, pointing to shale gas operations as the culprit.''

omnia causa fiunt ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

‘The Harms of Fracking’: New Report Details Increased Risks of Asthma, Birth Defects and Cancer

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-harms-of-fracking-new-report-details-increased-risks-of-asthma-birth-defects-and-cancer-126996/

There is nothing good about fracking. This article does a thorough review of the many harms to earth and human health. Horrible.

“With fracking,” says Steingraber, “we had six peer reviewed articles in 2009 pointing to possible public health risks. By 2011 we had 42. Now there are more than 1200.” Some states are indeed listening to the scientists. New York, Maryland and Vermont have banned fracking, and even Florida’s state legislature is seriously considering a ban."

Of course, corporations are using money to wield political power to maintain that fracking is safe so they can continue to profit through the exploitation of mother earth and human health.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

So ''Let’s Make Friday the Biggest Day of Climate Action in Global History'' by Bill McKibben:

And ...''How To Live With The Climate Crisis Without Becoming A Nihilist.'', by Peter Kalmus:

Thanx for the excellent article re."Fracking" - which is being pursued despite the overwhelming evidence that it is the worst Hydro-carbon extraction method. It would NOT be possible without record low interest rates btw! Here is the essential embedded link - http://www.psr.org/resources/fracking-compendium.html

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals'', by Martin Lukacs:

''Stop obsessing with how personally green you live .... and start collectively taking on corporate power"!

''Listen to The Scientists'' says Greta Thunberg .. mostly because despite having a society that is built on science - far too many Americans are in deep denial about its lessons & principles! Ho hum at dumb..

et spero meliora!

[-] -1 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

Reason to listen: Science works! (and pays.)

My grade-school teacher's advice was, "Look before you leap!" My rejoinder is, "No action IS an action." If Germany can't, nobody can! We can always carve a new wooden god (as we of the U.S. haven't got into a war with [the regular armed forces of] Russia yet although there were near misses. Turkey, a NATO member, shot down and killed a Russian pilot who might have violated its airspace and also a defensive U.S. nighttime airstrike killed "hundreds" of Russian mercenaries who were probably sold out {unwittingly contracted} to Iran to attack embedded U.S. force in East Syria. The U.S. soldiers probably didn't know whom they were fighting against in the murky darkness since the deconfliction with Russian command had yielded that no Russian troops were involved in the attack on the U.S. soldiers who had shown the U.S. flag in an attempt to avert conflict. Self defense is always permitted.)

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating ClimateTragedy'' ...

respice; adspice; prospice!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Half of Australia's coasts damaged.

Extreme weather has damaged nearly half Australia's marine ecosystems since 2011

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/28/extreme-weather-has-damaged-nearly-half-australias-marine-ecosystems-since-2011

No coasts around the world are safe.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''How the world’s dirtiest industries have learned to pollute our politics'' ... by George Monbiot:

Nothing is safe, secure or sacred when Crapitalism leaves ''Externalities'' to be dealt with by others!

caveat emptor!

[-] 2 points by gsw (3420) from Woodbridge Township, NJ 5 years ago

The oil and gas industry intends to spend $4.9tn over the next 10 years, exploring and developing new reserves, none of which we can afford to burn. According to the IMF, every year governments subsidise fossil fuels to the tune of $5tn – many times more than they spend on addressing our existential predicament. The US spends 10 times more on these mad subsidies than on its federal education budget. Last year, the world burned more fossil fuels than ever before.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Oil and gas companies are desperate to stop the wave of lawsuits seeking to hold them financially responsible for their role in climate change. Should these suits get to trial, their executives would have to testify about whether they knowingly misled the public about the climate threat posed by their products going back to the 1970s.

''A federal district judge in a recent ruling made it harder for the defendants to shut down a lawsuit filed by the state of Rhode Island to have the industry pay the costs associated with climate change.

''The discovery process in litigation — which allows the plaintiffs to get company documents and interview oil company executives — will play a large role in answering that question. There is already substantial evidence that oil and gas company executives created campaigns to convince the public that climate change was not a threat. It was discovery that changed the course of tobacco litigation. And damning documents are imperiling opioid manufacturers in court.

''Needless to say, the oil companies are doing everything they can to stop discovery. Shell, Exxon and other oil companies do not want their executives testifying under oath about why the companies were upgrading their own facilities to prepare for climate change while publicly proclaiming that climate change wasn’t happening.'' - Excerpted from ...

fiat justitia ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 4 years ago

Climate Change linked to infectious disease as a warming world leads to increases in diseases like Coronavirus.

"Climate change is predicted to cause 250,000 more deaths per year from infectious diseases, non-communicable disease like heat stress, waterborne diseases like cholera, and many more."

https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3051700/climate-change-and-coronaviruses-warming-world-encourages-emergence

We simply cannot deny the connections and must unite to fight the degradation of our environment.

Bernie Sanders is the candidate who scores best on Climate Change.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Capitalism is the Planet’s Cancer: Operate Before it’s too Late'', by G. Monbiot:

e tenebris, lux?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 4 years ago

COVID19 leads to drop in air pollution.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-pandemic-leading-to-huge-drop-in-air-pollution

I guess everything has a silver lining.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

On a COVID19/CoronaVirus tangent and from August 2019 - please calmly consider:

Thanx for your link but maybe the "silver lining" was generated in a poisoned chalice!

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 4 years ago

Trump weakens environmental protections.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-coal-mercury/trump-administration-expected-to-weaken-mercury-rule-for-coal-plants-idUSKCN21Y1IW

"The Trump administration is expected on Thursday to withdraw the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that forced coal-fired power plants to cut their mercury emissions, according to three sources familiar with the matter."

Ellen Kurlansky, a former air policy analyst at EPA who helped develop the MATS rule, slammed the move.

“This action, which is a gift to the coal industry at the expense of all Americans, is an attack on public health justified by a phony cost-benefit analysis that purposely inflates the cost of MATS and ignores the value of the human health benefits,” she said."

So while pollution decreases due to us all staying home and not buying as much shit it goes up because of Trump. What a sorry state of affairs.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"Climate Change Multiplies the Threats of Infectious Diseases" important link by Daniel Ross:

"Global warming can lead to compromised immune systems, which in turn makes individuals more susceptible to diseases."

&, "So while pollution decreases due to us all staying home and not buying as much shit it goes up because of Trump" (& his Chumps) "What a sorry state of affairs" indeed! TY 4 your strong linx bw.

caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Greed trumps and destroys everything, it seems. Love, beauty, health, planet earth, humanity. Just sickening.

[-] 6 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

"If You've Ever Wanted To Go To Mars, Head To Canada, Apparently"

"Winnipeg was colder than the freezing, inhospitable planet Mars on December 31."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/canada-frigid-temperatures_n_4531041.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Weird stuff. Perhaps we better start paying attention.

[-] 3 points by ImNotMe (1488) 9 years ago

''From Rising Seas to Walruses, the Arctic's Endangerment Affects Us All''.. by Dahr Jamail:

Yep ''Perhaps we better start paying attention'', once Yule, Solstice, Xmas & New Year are done!

multum in parvo ...

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

"...the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at least twice as fast as the average global temperature increase."

"Loss of habitat and the drastic reduction of animals' hunting ranges due to receding sea ice now threaten polar bears, walruses and several species of seals, among other animals.

The landscape is changing dramatically as well, and the implications are dire not only for animals in the Arctic, but for all of us."

"Arctic sea ice plays a critical role in the Arctic climate system and marine ecosystem, and as we're learning, its disappearance is having broad effects well beyond the Arctic: from weather patterns to animal migrations to ocean current systems to food webs," she told Truthout. "Its loss will be felt directly and indirectly by billions of people."

[-] 3 points by Viking (417) 8 years ago

The good news for the crew and passengers of the Crystal Serenity is they haven't encountered much ice (so far) on their voyage (via the Northwest Passage) from Seward, Alaska to New York. The bad news for the rest of us is the same.

http://www.adn.com/arctic/2016/08/16/luxury-cruise-ship-sets-sail-for-the-arctic/

It seems that many people in AK see Climate Change just as an opportunity.

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Human beings are their own and the earth's worst enemies.

"More than anything, the cruise is a symbol, a harbinger of the tourism and commercial traffic that is likely to fill the once-isolated, ice-choked waters of the Arctic. Many scientists have projected that the ocean could become virtually free of ice during summers at some point, perhaps as soon as the next few decades.

That would leave the passage open to a wave of ships that could transform what, until now, has been among the least traveled places on Earth. Such a scenario has caused angst among those eager to explore the Arctic as well as those who want it protected."

How totally idiotic these people are. I just saw a show on people buying up pristine, undeveloped islands on Vanuatu and Patagonia to "develop." Unbelievable.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

Quantity has a quality all its own. A few people "developing" pristine places for people to "get away from it all" ruin the pristine quality once the number of people there has increased enough.

In my lifetime, I have seen many pristine forests, mountains, lakes, islands, deserts, etc. that I used to haunt "developed." They have just lost that quality through the numbers. We can never get away from ourselves. I wonder if we've already detonated the methane bomb with these "End-of-the-World" craters in Russia.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 9 years ago

Re. COP21 & the horse trading going on in Paris right now, please consider:

From which: ''Negotiators at the 21st UN Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris are rapidly moving toward a global climate agreement that promises death and destruction - especially for certain small island and African nations.

''If negotiators finalize the deal, it will lock each and every one of us into a world that promises nearly 3 degrees Celsius of planetary warming above preindustrial levels and - operates within a framework that fails to recognize the reality that capitalism is inherently unsustainable as a system that demands infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.''

Thanx for your excerpts above. There is much more going on in Paris than meets the eye OR that we'll be told about .. until (at best) much later - when it'll be too late! Seasons best wishes at you and yours.

tempus fugit ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

"James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks 'a fraud'"

“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud

And, this great quote from your truth out article above:

"But even as France hosts world leaders to address climate change, the government's blessing in allowing league soccer games and the Christmas market on the Champs Élysées to move forward reminds us, as it did after 9/11, why we must look beyond Western state actors for answers to global problems: because the highest civic duties in so-called "developed" nations are consumption and the protection of the capitalist markets that are fueling the climate crisis."

Because, truth is, if we don't stop consuming so goddamn much, we aren't going to be effective at saving the planet.

[-] 3 points by ImNotMe (1488) 9 years ago

Note ... ''Climate Awareness Icon James Hansen Calls Paris Talks 'Fraud' Over Lack Of Carbon Emissions Taxes'', by Chris Tognotti:

From which - ''Hansen's take is basically that all the good intentions and optimistic pledges in the world won't really bring about meaningful change, unless steps are taken to re-balance the financial incentives that cut in favor of dirty forms of energy like oil and coal energy. To that end .. Hansen supports a fee on carbon — as The Guardian noted, the believes the word fee might work better than tax, given the loaded political implications of taxation''

Thanx for the quote, link & excerpt. Crapitalism Causes Climate Change & is a clear & present danger!

veritas vos liberabit ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

In light of what Hansen said we must face the fact that global warming is going to and is leading to flooding, more often, and more deleterious than we've seen before:

"UK floods: Homes evacuated amid heavy rain"

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35181139

In U.S. "15 million face severe weather today"

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/26/us/severe-weather/

"Storms bring double-digit rain totals to Alabama, Mississippi"

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/25/us/severe-weather/

All from today, 12/26/15, and yesterday.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

At what point do we humans accept that record temps, rainfall and flooding across Northern England, South Eastern USA & many, Many, MANY other places worldwide, is connected to Anthropomorphic Global Warming?! Thanx for the eye-opening links and furthermore, please also consider that ...

''The great delay in climate action has dramatically increased climate change impacts and the amount of carbon dioxide that we must now deal with to prevent even greater impacts. Delay has been caused by the debate casting doubt on climate science in ways that have proven to be very effective in similar debates about smoking, acid rain & ozone-depleting chemicals. Because of the doubt - fundamentally important new climate science has failed to escape the confines of academia & then proceed into the public realm where it can move policy - literally - into the 21st century.'' Excerpted from ...

which then ends - ''In stark contrast to the ongoing denial circus in the United States, key US allies like France, Germany, Canada and Mexico, along with the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund & the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - all recently made statements in support of having the world put a price on carbon emissions in an effort to work to mitigate ACD.

Therefore, ''All in all, the United States lags behind the rest of the world considerably when it comes to acknowledging the brutal reality of anthropogenic climate disruption. This reluctance to face facts puts the whole world - and particularly the world's most marginalized people - at risk.''

ipsa scientia potestas est ...

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

2015 smashes record for hottest year, final figures confirm:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/20/2015-smashes-record-for-hottest-year-final-figures-confirm

Pretty outrageous innit? Thanks for your great reply above.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

'' * '' = TWINKLE & what's beyond ''outrageous'' and well past ''nuts' and deep into ''psycho'' is bizarrely the fact that ONLY POTUS 2016 candidate with any sort of resemblance of a rational response to our Anthropomorphic Climate Change is Bernie! The oldest guy in the game!! All the others have climbed into bed &/or up the asses of Gas/Oil/Chemical Corps! Thanx for your excellent link & in compliment:

fiat justitia ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

"Best candidate for the environment: Bernie Sanders"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/7/2/1398742/-Best-candidate-for-the-environment-Bernie-Sanders

"Sanders is the only major presidential candidate to support a ban on fracking..."

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''The 2016 election is make or break for the climate. We don't have time to make a mistake in our selection for our 2016 leaders.'' - which is how your excellent link, ends. Also fyi ...

fiat lux ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

"Donald Trump Tells Drought-Stricken Californians There Is No Drought"

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/28/3783022/donald-trump-drought/

However, as the article points out: "California has been grappling with an unprecedented drought that covers nearly 95 percent of the state, and experienced one of its driest years ever in 2015. The past several years have been marked by wildfires, water rationing, and mountaintops without snow. And because California is the nation’s top agriculture producer, the situation threatens to upend the United States’ food production system."

Hillary Clinton barely beats this lunatic in polls. So, Bernie Sanders either pushes through at the convention, goes third party, or we're basically screwed, sorry to say.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''Trump Tells .. Californians There's No Drought''!!! That's just the kind of head in the sand; ass in the air thinking that tRUMP excels at!! So that is exactly why his ass must be kicked & ONLY Bernie can do that with any certainty! Thus, fyi:

ad iudicium ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 7 years ago

Solidarity with March for Science. Today, April 22, 2017. Over 600 marches around the world.

Historians say the marches today are unprecedented as scientists realize the need for "political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/22/historians-say-the-march-for-science-is-pretty-unprecedented/?utm_term=.14f8e64e316f

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

It looks like the braggadocio in chief, straw-brained scarecrow in chief, or lunatic in chief will be anointed due to Mx. Cheese's funkiness. Tera eRex barging through the bamboo wall to devour Mx. Cheese is indeed a scene from our monster v. monster movie. I can see the ripples in the glass of water and I can hear the thumpets.

California is not stupid though. It has Stanford University which is really world-famous for its students who have dropped out of Stanford and molded the modern world (the U.S.A. is famous for its dropouts of many kinds, from the Old World, from the Empire, from college, from the Vietnam war draft, from unsustainable mountains of debts, etc.). I hope that however retarded the politics is at Stanford, it still promulgates scientific facts and saves California.

California's coastal cities can build a parallel system for seawater distribution so toilet flushing can use seawater instead. It can also try, on federal and multi-state level, to get some meltwater diverted from the Continental Divide drawing water from the vast Mississippi Valley's watershed. California's agricultural industry can improve its water efficiency with better technologies. New buildings can be built in ancient Roman style as a roof-size giant funnel with a cistern underneath to collect and use rainwater for gardening, cleaning, and flushing. These are infrastructure projects that can enrich Trump Construction.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

Re. Science March in DC and across US & tho' ''Historians say the marches today are unprecedented as scientists realize the need for "political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest'' (from your excellent link), alas this is what's happening elsewhere ..

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Hundreds of species face extinction.

This is utterly sad.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/environment/hundreds-of-species-face-extinction-as-scientists-warn-of-global-biodiversity-collapse/25/07/

“While most of us are familiar with the impact of climate change on the polar regions, it is also having devastating consequences across the tropics – and without urgent action could undermine local conservation interventions.”

“Fifty years ago biologists expected to be the first to find a species, now they hope not to be the last.”

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

Earth's ''Sixth Mass Extinction Ushers In Record-Breaking Wildfires and Heat'' - by Dahr Jamail:

Your link about Arctic Sea Ice is beyond alarming. Capitalism is at fault. Internationalism is the solution.

prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

98% of insects extinct in rainforest of Puerto Rico.

"Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/15/insect-collapse-we-are-destroying-our-life-support-systems

"Data on other animals that feed on bugs backed up the findings. “The frogs and birds had also declined simultaneously by about 50% to 65%,” Lister said. The population of one dazzling green bird that eats almost nothing but insects, the Puerto Rican tody, dropped by 90%."

“We are essentially destroying the very life support systems that allow us to sustain our existence on the planet, along with all the other life on the planet,” Lister said. “It is just horrifying to watch us decimate the natural world like this.”

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

http://www.extinctionsymbol.info/ and https://twitter.com/extinctsymbol

This of course is THE issue of our times & Crapitalism is the problem!

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/arctics-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record

"The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer."

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 6 years ago

Hundreds of species face extinction.

Pretty much EVERYTHING above the level of a bacteria or a virus, face extinction due to the wealthy few and their bought and paid for servants of governments around the world. All for the wealthy few's insane greed!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Endangered Species Act is at risk as the Trump administration seek to roll it back.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/25/politics/endangered-species-act-animals-saved-from-extinction-trnd/index.html

Like you point out, everything is at risk. It's easy to think of wolves and polar bears, but it's everything, all living matter that is at risk. And, all living things are connected, affect one, and you affect many.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

Are we there yet? I wonder how the Artic is holding up.

What is the carbon dioxide emission from the Arctic? Cold water can hold more carbon dioxide than warm water so have we got the champagne bottle uncorked? Warm water tends not to have ice covering that reflects sunlight so it can warm up much faster than ice-covered cold water. Is the permafrost melting enough to have great emission of methane? Is effervescence coming soon?

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Global Warming Puts the Arctic on Thin Ice

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp

[-] 2 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 8 years ago

that is cause and effect not a correlation of incidental

[-] 1 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 8 years ago

probably

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

Did you notice the building up of the hockey stick in the graph? It will be sad if we haven't built up the hockey stick enough to play before the arctic ice rink melts away. I guess an uncorked bottle of champagne is enough of a consolation for us. It'll be bubbly time!

[-] 0 points by Viking (417) 8 years ago

Here's another despairing link for you.

Russia Warming Over Two Times Faster Than Rest of Planet

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/25/russia-warming-over-two-times-faster-rest-http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/25/russia-warming-over-two-times-faster-rest-planet

The idea that we can tweak, and keep an economic system that brought us to this point is ludicrous.

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

The Anthropocene, a new geologic epoch, has been entered.

"Human impact has pushed Earth into the Anthropocene, scientists say"

"...the scale and rate of change on measures such as CO2 and methane concentrations in the atmosphere were much larger and faster than the changes that defined the start of the holocene.

Humans have introduced entirely novel changes, geologically speaking, such as the roughly 300m metric tonnes of plastic produced annually. Concrete has become so prevalent in construction that more than half of all the concrete ever used was produced in the past 20 years.

Wildlife, meanwhile, is being pushed into an ever smaller area of the Earth, with just 25% of ice-free land considered wild now compared to 50% three centuries ago. As a result, rates of extinction of species are far above long-term averages."

How totally depressing. And, when you look back at the history of all of this, the root cause always goes back to capitalism because capitalism doesn't care about anything but profit. We humans need to start controlling our economic system rather than letting it control us because it's ruining us and our beautiful home.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

The most painless solution is a global revenue-neutral carbon tax and subsidy.

I could not gather enough negative energy to stabilize the wormhole to escape so my escape pod will just be a wooden box six-feet under the tree of life. There will still be worms and a hole alright.

[-] 3 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''The problem is Big Oil. Simply put, Big Oil is a bad investment fueled by irrational exuberance, chronic cronyism and an increasingly indefensible misallocation of capital. And decades of throwing good money after bad has produced a distorted economic system that socializes risk, privatizes profits, externalizes costs and misallocates capital. This continues because policy makers sustain it with taxpayer-funded subsidies, costly tax breaks and low-overhead access to publicly held resources.'' from

caveat actor ...

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

'An underlying problem for federal rangers is that, in some ways at least, they’ve been hung out to dry on the range. In a 2015 report, the US Forest Service reported that the steady growth of 'Western wildfires had sucked the agency’s non-fire funds dry, creating tensions as delays fueled a sense among locals that federal agencies take arbitrary actions. Because of a $115 million dip in funding, “the agency [has had] to forego opportunities to … meet public expectations for services,” the report, “The Rising Cost of Wildfire Operations,” stated.' : http://news.yahoo.com/ransacked-oregon-refuge-shows-disdain-toward-america-rangers-193649213.html

Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) has deadly consequences, such as more wildfires in the American West, draining the budget to take care of the land, leading to arson, and eventually armed occupation of federal facility and killing an occupier. Ranching in the West became harder and incomes of the mostly white people were hit hard.

It seems eerily like what had happened in Syria. ACC led to economic stress of the populace which found the government as a scapegoat when it did not respond benevolently. In Syria, the difference between Alawites and Sunnis fueled the growth of the rift apart. In the U.S., the "black" administration and the whites of the American West accustomed to much frontier freedom have racial undertones that can form a rift apart.

Continuing using oil and coal can worsen ACC but we should only migrate people's livelihoods out of the fossil fuel sectors in an orderly way. Pulling people to replacement sectors (such as installing equipments for wind-generated electricity, diverting some water from the Rockies to the Colorado River to feed and sell water to the sun-drenched American Southwest including Los Angeles, generating hydro-electricity in the process, and converting timber into biofuels for trucking [which a carbon tax will help]) instead of pushing them out of fossil fuel (the American West has significant oil, gas, and coal sectors dragged down by the low prices of these commodities) sectors without livelihoods can alleviate the pain.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''Goodbye Petrodollar: Russia Accepts Yuan, Is Now China's Biggest Oil Partner''

verb. sat. sap. ...

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

Renminbi is under pressure to be devalued so Russia is creating a demand for it which is great for stabilizing it. China previously ordered banks to hold more renminbi reserves. IMF tried to entice central banks to do the same by including renminbi in the Special Drawing Rights, with little success. Hopefully, Russia can catch the falling knife and prevent China's potential domestic capital flight.

China's foreign-exchange reserves have dwindled significantly: http://www.businessinsider.com/ihs-chinas-currency-reserve-depletion-pace-is-simply-unsustainable-2016-2 and may soon reach IMF limit. Stabilized renminbi can fend off domestic capital flight so it is a good thing.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

That may well all be true and thanx for your interesting link but THE significant wider/bigger point (imo) is the nature of ownership of The Chinese Central Bank! It is NOT ... a Club/Cartel of Private, Dynastic, Banking Interests - BUT is, Wholly Owned And Backed by The Chinese State!! Please think about the implications of that difference as I point out that the very same applies to Iran now & did apply to Libya, where the first action by the new regime (or at least one of new regimes)was to institute the creation of a new Private, Central Bank!!! Finally, more in keeping with the subject matter of this thread, consider..

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

Bernie Sanders: "Combating Climate Change to Save the Planet"

His plan outlined in detail:

https://berniesanders.com/issues/climate-change/

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

China may be ahead of the U.S. in CO2 emission because it has more manufacturing industries.

Since Obama and Wen Jiabao came out of Copenhagen in 2009 with the let-down 2C target, numerous events have happened that corroborated the case for anthropogenic climate change. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has already exceeded 400 parts per million. Considering the name of the 350.org which is supposed to aim at the target of 350 parts per million, it is shocking that we are already well beyond that. It's sure enough that we have already experienced many unusual but expected events.

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

It's a good plan. It may be better if we can relate it more to people's livelihoods. Many of the elephants have myopia so they cannot see the diminutive mosqu-itoes. Perhaps scratching the bites may awaken them.

I had my shocks when I found out that during Superstorm Sandy, the streets of lower Manhattan below 34th street were flooded. I might have been drowned on FDR Drive or in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Sheesh, we even ran out of gasoline for a while. It's not that we did not have gasoline but we could not pump it up from the underground tanks because the electricity to gas stations was knocked out. It turned out luckily that Hurricane Irene had warned us beforehand but nearly back-to-back "Storm of the Century" in just a few years were very unusual, to say the very least.

Like the cigarette-smoking-to-cancer connection, it makes much sense to build up civil defense so we don't lose electricity or have our streets flooded before near-absolute confirmation of ACC. It got very cold and dark for some people, both wealthy and poor alike. Yes, indeed, one can be stranded on a high floor of a high-rise luxury apartment building (without electricity, water, heat, or elevator service for a month), even in Manhattan.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 8 years ago

It's a good plan. True. And, it's a start for America, and for the world, because we mustn't forget that we use more energy than the rest of the world and we are therefore, to blame, more than the rest of the world. So, we must lead the way, and Bernie Sanders is a good person to do that.

Sandy was an eye opener and it will take the wealthy being affected before anything is done, unless of course, we can get someone like Bernie into office who is willing to stand up to big interests.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

Americans' livelihoods will be severely impacted according to the National Climate Assessment. Imagine having tidally driven (or Rev. Sun Myung Moon's mass-consummation) traffic jams like this one every day from the crumbling infrastructure. As I recall, the anthropogenic climate change gave rise to predictions that the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico would become more powerful and devastating. The Far West would have severe droughts allowing great fires. California in recent days has certainly fulfilled that prediction extremely well. Northern California being wealthier than southern California probably didn't expect that wealthy people could be overrun by a wildland fire so quickly and easily but... we got a bonfire of the vanities!

Here's the same Goebbel's book-burning bonfire speech with English subtitle.

"Idol worshipping must be destroyed." Gold, gold coins, and hard currencies are idols in Iran. Iran supports soft currency for its people. Does Islam allow the likeness of a man to be on a gold coin? Is that idol worshipping? Maybe Islam's ban on idols triggered Islamic mathematicians to invent one of the greatest conceptual breakthroughs in the Common Era – algebra – because they had to use symbols for avoiding the explicit graven images of the sought-after answers.

The survivors tended to have heeded the warning signs despite their prior luck. It helped Albert Einstein to have Leo Szilard as a sentry.

"Never push your luck - you only live twice, mit Presskohlen." "The Laconia incident had far-reaching consequences. Until that point, it was common for U-boats to assist torpedoed survivors with food, water, simple medical care for the wounded, and a compass bearing to the nearest landmass. It was extremely rare for survivors to be brought on board as space on a U-boat was barely enough for its own crew."

"Only one life raft left the ship with POWs on board; the rest jumped into the ocean. Survivors later recounted how Italians in the water were either shot or had their hands severed by axes if they tried to climb into a lifeboat. The blood soon attracted sharks."

"Sharks darted among us. Grabbing an arm, biting a leg. Other larger beasts swallowed entire bodies. – Corporal Dino Monte, POW"

The rescue ship Empire Haven described in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Empire_ships as:

Empire Haven was a 6,603 GRT cargo ship which was built by Taikoo Dockyard & 
Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd, Hong Kong. Launched on 28 April 1941 and 
completed in June 1941. Torpedoed on 13 August 1943 by enemy aircraft north of Oran, 
Algeria (36°15′N 02°23′W). Towed to Gibraltar by a Royal Navy ship. Towed to UK for 
repairs. Sold in 1947 to R Chapman & Sons, Newcastle upon Tyne and renamed 
Clearton. Sold in 1956 to Compagnia Maritime Amaconte, Liberia and renamed 
Amaconte. Operated under the management of J Ponte Naya, Spain. Scrapped in 
January 1970 at Avilés, Spain.

is not Puff, the magic dragon anymore. "Though not baby unicorns, the essence is forever."

"A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys."

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 8 years ago

http://occupywallst.org/forum/2016-and-the-need-for-a-political-revolution-it-is/#comment-1069016

I've just realized that I have unconsciously asked for sanders to scrub the walls of our backyard cesspool if geoduck would not squirt a blast of sand to do so.

[-] 1 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

there used to be toads and frogs in san diego but the domestic cats ate them

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

Frog, toad population declining across U.S.:

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/2055/20130523/frog-toad-population-declining-study.htm

It's more due to loss of habitat than Garfield.

[-] 1 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

pollution to a sensitive skin

lizards

endangered because of deforestation and predators

[-] 6 points by Ache4Change (3340) 12 years ago

Turning you onto - http://www.nationofchange.org/environment and Never Give Up! Occupy The Issues!

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"2012 : The Year We Did Our Best To Abandon The Natural World",

"Emissions are rising, ice is melting and yet the response of governments is simply to pretend that none of it is happening".

by George Monbiot.

It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century.

Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic's sea ice broke the previous record. Remnants of the global megafauna – such as rhinos and bluefin tuna – were shoved violently towards extinction. Novel tree diseases raged across continents. Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening.

Their indifference was distilled into a great collective shrug at the Earth Summit in June. The first summit, 20 years before, was supposed to have heralded a new age of environmental responsibility. During that time, thanks largely to the empowerment of corporations and the ultra-rich, the square root of nothing has been achieved. Far from mobilising to address this, in 2012 the leaders of some of the world's most powerful governments – the US, the UK, Germany and Russia – didn't even bother to turn up.

But they did send their representatives to sabotage it. The Obama administration even sought to reverse commitments made by George Bush Sr in 1992. The final declaration was a parody of inaction. While the 190 countries that signed it expressed "deep concern" about the world's escalating crises, they agreed no new targets, dates or commitments, with one exception. Sixteen times they committed themselves to "sustained growth", a term they used interchangeably with its polar opposite, "sustainability".

The climate meeting in Doha at the end of the year produced a similar combination of inanity and contradiction. Governments have now begun to concede, without evincing any great concern, that they will miss their target of no more than 2C of global warming this century. Instead we're on track for between four and six degrees. To prevent climate breakdown, coal burning should be in steep decline. Far from it: the International Energy Agency reports that global use of the most carbon-dense fossil fuel is climbing by about 200m tonnes a year. This helps to explain why global emissions are rising so fast.

Our leaders now treat climate change as a guilty secret. Even after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and the record droughts and wildfires that savaged the US, the two main presidential contenders refused to mention the subject, except for one throwaway sentence each. Has an issue this big ever received as little attention in a presidential race?

The same failures surround the other forces of destruction. In 2012 European governments flunked their proposed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is perfectly designed to maximise environmental damage. The farm subsidies it provides are conditional on farmers destroying the vegetation (which also means the other wildlife) on their land. We pay €55bn a year to trash the natural world.

This contributes to what I have come to see as a great global polishing: a rubbing away of ecosystems and natural structures by the intensification of farming, fishing, mining and other industries. Looking back on this year a few decades hence, this destruction will seem vastly more significant than any of the stories with which the media is obsessed. Like governments, media companies have abandoned the living world.

In the UK in 2012, the vandals were given the keys to the art gallery. Environmental policy is now in the hands of people – such as George Osborne, Owen Paterson, Richard Benyon and Eric Pickles – who have no more feeling for the natural world than the Puritans had for fine art. They are busy defacing the old masters and smashing the ancient sculptures.

They have lit a bonfire of environmental regulations, hobbled bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency and ensured that the countryside becomes even more of an exclusive playground for the ultra-rich, unhampered by effective restraints on the burning of grouse moors, the use of lead shot, the killing of birds of prey and the spraying of pesticides that are wiping out our bees and other invertebrates.

In the same spirit, the government has reduced the list of possible marine conservation zones from 127 to 31. Even these 31 will be protected in name only: the fishing industry will still be allowed to rampage through them. A fortnight ago, the UK lobbied successfully for quotas of several overexploited fish species to be raised, while pouring scorn on the scientific evidence that shows this is madness.

George Osborne has done the same thing to the UK's climate change policies. Though even the big power companies oppose him, he is seeking to scrap or delay our targets for cutting carbon emissions and to ensure that we remain hooked on natural gas as our primary source of power. The green investment bank which was supposed to have funded the transition to new technologies is the only state bank in Europe that is forbidden to borrow. It might as well not be there at all.

If there is hope, it lies with the people. Opinion polls show that voters do not support their governments' inaction. Even a majority of Conservatives believe that the UK should generate most of its electricity from renewables by 2030. In the US, 80% of people polled now say that climate change will be a serious problem for their country if nothing is done about it: a substantial rise since 2009. The problem is that most people are not prepared to act on these beliefs. Citizens, as well as governments and the media, have turned their faces away from humanity's greatest problem.

To avoid another terrible year like 2012, we must translate these passive concerns into a mass mobilisation. Groups such as 350.org show how it might be done. If this annus horribilis tells us anything, it is that action, in the absence of such mobilisation, is simply not going to happen. Governments care only as much as their citizens force them to care. Nothing changes unless we change.

~

fiat justitia ruat caelum ..

~

[Article copied verbatim under 'Fair Use' from : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/31/year-abandon-natural-world & please use this to access all the important, corroborating, embedded links]

.

Thanx for your link A4C & a happy 2013 to yours and yours.

respice, adspice, prospice ...

[-] 4 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

Yes! 'If there is hope, it lies with the people' & 'we must translate these passive concerns into a mass mobilisation'! Despite being from a British point of view to some extent, thanks for this really very interesting article.

I have read your other George Monbiot posts here and I appreciate this man's commitment as I do yours. With 350.org in mind, please see - http://www.nationofchange.org/will-350org-fossil-fuel-divestment-campaign-be-key-tactic-2013-battle-over-climate-change-1357146423 . Never Give Up On Climate Issues! Occupy The Future! Solidarity and good wishes for 2013 to you and all at OWS.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"If there is hope, it lies with the people." & thanx for your excellent link A4C and I recommend the short (17m) video to all interested readers. "2012 was a year of extreme weather, from the melting of the Arctic, to Superstorm Sandy, to the massive typhoon in the Philippines. It was also the warmest year on record in the United States, with massive droughts and frequent wildfires."

Young people are are biggest hope and I believe (& hope) that they are increasingly starting to join the dots and question their future as indentured debt slaves.

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 5 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

Chris Hedges on Hurricane Sandy, Climate Change & the future - http://www.nationofchange.org/katrina-all-over-again-1354611673 .

I enjoyed your link & this guy's photo blog is very good - http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.co.uk/ . Climate Change and its implications is particularly felt by the young and it could well be THE issue that rouses them from the apathy of their parents' generation ... or 'so long as I breathe, I hope' :)

Never Give Up! Occupy The Future! Solidarity.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"Hurricane Sandy, if you are poor, is the Katrina of the North. It has exposed the nation’s fragile, dilapidated and shoddy infrastructure, one that crumbles under minimal stress. It has highlighted the inability of utility companies, as well as state and federal agencies, to cope with the looming environmental disasters that because of the climate crisis will soon come in wave after wave. But, most important, it illustrates the depraved mentality of an oligarchic and corporate elite that, as conditions worsen, retreats into self-contained gated communities, guts basic services and abandons the wider population."

"This storm—amid freakish weather patterns such storms will become routine—resulted in at least $71.3 billion in property damage in New York and New Jersey. Many of the 305,000 houses in New York destroyed by Sandy will never be rebuilt. New York City says it will have to spend $800 million just to repair its roads. And that is only the start. The next hurricane season will most likely descend on the Eastern Seaboard with even greater destructive fury. A couple of more hurricanes like this one and whole sections of the coast will become uninhabitable."

"This is the new America. It is an America where economic and environmental catastrophes converge to trigger systems breakdown and collapse. It is an America divided between corporate predators and their prey. It is an America that, as things unravel, increasingly sacrifices its own."

The above three paragraphs are excerpted from your link to the excellent article by the ever insightful Chris Hedges. Thanx for that A4C & I recommend it to all readers and further to which, I also append :

The above is a strong piece which will reward a close read.

veritas vos liberabit ...

[-] 6 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'The world was supposed to be getting better. We were supposed to be becoming wealthier, more enlightened. Society was supposed to be advancing. Here I am in America, the most “advanced” nation on Earth, yet even as our financial wealth has doubled and doubled again in fifty years, we have lost wealth of a more basic form; for example, the social capital of feeling safe, feeling at home where we live. Is more security the best we can aspire to? What about a society where safety does not equal security? What about a world where no human being wields an assault rifle? What about a world where we mostly know the faces and stories of the people around us? What about a world where we know that our daily activities contribute to the healing of the biosphere and the well-being of other people? We need a Story of the People that includes all of those things – and that doesn’t feel like a fantasy.' - from your very sobering article & one from me in return - http://www.nationofchange.org/new-year-s-revolution-connecting-dots-coming-together-and-fighting-hell-1356706171 . Never Give Up Sharing News and Views - No Matter How Sobering! Occupy Reality - No Matter How Harsh! Yes, 'the truth will set you free'.

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

''Can we connect the dots between our primary passions and the burning issues? Can we bring together the full spectrum of the activist rainbow into a single, powerful, laser-focused movement before it's all too late? Can we reach critical mass in public consciousness and grassroots mobilization before the tipping point in greenhouse gas pollution and runaway global warming (565 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide, 450 ppm of CO2) knocks us down forever?'' from your excellent and ultra-sobering link and gosh, I hope so and thus further consider :

ne quid nimis ...

[-] 5 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

"Arctic Unraveling"

"Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low Winter Maximum, Points To Evidence Of Long-Term Climate Change"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/19/arctic-sea-ice-record-low_n_6903764.html

[-] 3 points by ImNotMe (1488) 9 years ago

''A great tract of the Earth is on fire. It looks as you might imagine hell to be. The air has turned ochre: visibility in some cities has been reduced to 30 metres. Children are being prepared for evacuation in warships; already some have choked to death. Species are going up in smoke at an untold rate. It is almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st Century – so far.

''And the media? It’s talking about the dress the Duchess of Cambridge wore to the James Bond premiere, Donald Trump’s idiocy du jour and who got eliminated from the Halloween episode of Dancing with the Stars. The great debate of the week, dominating the news across much of the world? Sausages: are they really so bad for your health?

''What I’m discussing is a barbeque on a different scale. Fire is raging across the 5000-kilometre length of Indonesia. It is surely, on any objective assessment, more important than anything else taking place today. And it shouldn’t require a columnist, writing in the middle of a newspaper, to say so. It should be on everyone’s front page.

''It is hard to convey the scale of this inferno, but here’s a comparison that might help: it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. In three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany.'' from ...

Thanx for your link. From the Arctic to Tropical Forests - we're in trouble but we have the technology and wits to overcome this! Now the question is - will we? Maybe the 0.01%/1% are happy to cull most of us!

spero meliora ...

[-] 5 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

"Earth's New Normal: Wild Weather 2014," Dr. Reese Halter, Conservation Biologist

"As humans ramp-up the destruction of nature in Australia, Canada, Indonesia and elsewhere to feed the insatiable coal and petroleum markets in China, India and the U.S. the amount of melting ice at both poles continues to erode at an astounding rate."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/earths-new-normal-wild-we_b_4543416.html?utm_hp_ref=green

There are some serious and disturbing graphics in this piece. Thanks for all your work on the environment, Shadz. The poor way you are treated by certain people (if you can call them that) on this forum is not unnoticed. Peace to you and yours and keep up the good work. Never give up.

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

''Washington and the Oil Industry Know the Truth about Climate Change'', by Dave Lindorff :

''Climate skeptics in Congress, and oil and coal industry lobbyists like the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Coal Council (ACC) may be preventing any significant action in the US on reducing this country’s emissions of carbon into the atmosphere, but at the Pentagon, and in the executive suites of the oil industry giants, there is no doubt about the reality of climate change.

''As Admiral Robert J. Papp of the US Coast Guard wrote in 2012 in the magazine of the US Naval Institute :

  • “The world may seem to be growing smaller, but its seas are growing bigger—particularly in the great North, where a widening water-highway beckons both with resources and challenges.”

Admiral Papp didn’t futz around. Without any caveats or bows to corrupted scientists on the payroll of the Koch Brothers, he wrote :

  • “The Arctic Ocean, in the northern region of the Arctic Circle, is changing from a solid expanse of inaccessible ice fields into a growing navigable sea, attracting increased human activity and unlocking access to vast economic potential and energy resources. In the 35 years since I first saw Kotzebue, Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea as a junior officer, the sea ice has receded from the coast so much that when I returned last year the coastal area was ice-free. The shipping, oil-and-gas, and tourism industries continue to expand with the promise of opportunity and fortune in previously inaccessible areas. Experts estimate that in another 25 years the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free during the summer months.”

Thanx for your strong 'huffpo' links above & below. I'm not 'giving up' anytime soon bw and so peace and solidarity to you and yours.

pax, amor et lux ...

[-] 7 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

"The reality, as Pentagon and the oil industry know, is that climate change is progressing with frightening rapidity. Already, sea levels along the Atlantic seaboard have risen 8-10” since the 1930s, forcing places like Miami Beach to engage in costly major projects to stave off their inevitable future as new Atlantises. According to one expert at the University of Florida, Prof. Harold Wanless, increasingly rapid ice melting on Greenland’s 2-mile-thick ice sheet, and evidence that the much larger West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt, could mean a devastating 15-foot global sea rise by as early as 2100, instead of the 3-6 foot predictions that are more commonly cited (bad as those would be)." From Lindorff.

Let us not forget how completely linked up the economy is with the environment. What happens in the economy happens to the environment. A healthy economic system working for the benefit of the masses of people would work for the environment as well, as the interests of the 99% are the interests of Mother Earth.

Thanks, Shadz, for all you've done here for over two years. Your dedication to the 99% does not go unnoticed. You are a true occupier in every sense of the word. Occupy Wall Street! Never give up!

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

Thanx & on a connected tangent, please consider :

All things are connected, this we know. Thanx for your excerpt, comment, solidarity and kind words and in compliment .. also read, ruminate and reflect upon :

ad iudicium ...

[-] 6 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

"Most ordinary people gravely underestimate our own potential to play a role in changing the world. We should follow Sawant’s shining example and commit ourselves to this cause for which there is no greater reward. Nothing in life is more meaningful than fighting alongside other working-class people to end inequality, oppression, and environmental devastation." Amen to that.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

''No one ever said the battle for the rights of the 99% was gonna be easy. We live in corporate tyranny. It's a new type of tyranny, 21st-century style. How do the American people sit by and snooze while this is going on? Are they really that brainwashed ?'' from :

per ardua ad astra ...

[-] 6 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

It is true that most Americans are waking up to the failures of the political system, but what is also true is that most Americans have a very poor understanding of economics. If they understood economics, even in a basic way, they'd understand that it is economics, and a failing economic system at that, that is underpinning our failed political system. The two work closely together. This is the message that really needs to get out to the people.

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

''How do we build the unified movement we need of all who suffer under our present system? What is the role of labor (some of which is on board, others not), of co-ops, of local sustainable economies, in the transition to a sustainable economy? And how do we unify all the many environmental struggles...?'' from this article which echoes your insightful comment :

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 10 years ago

"Just as “your” government and “your” prostitute media lie to you about Ukraine, Putin, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine, NSA, spying, torture, 9/11, Obamacare, and literally everything under the sun, “your” government lies to you about the economy and hides from you the perilous state of your economic existence. If you are not among the One Percent, you have no future in America."

I wish I didn't agree with Roberts' quote above, but hey, the truth is the truth.

Here's one young guy's story, "My New American Dream: To Afford Medical Costs After the Student Loan Bill Is Paid":

He says, "This is the new American Dream. To be able to buy food after the other bills have been paid is now what we aspire to."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-stobierski/new-american-mythos_b_4937236.html

Pathetic, in the wealthiest country on earth....

Yep, "Cash Abroad Rises $206 Billion as Apple to IBM Avoid Tax" and run away from using the profit earned on the backs of American people, for the American people, I might add. Thanks so much. Please stick your computers and phones up your asses, is my answer.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/cash-abroad-rises-206-billion-as-apple-to-ibm-avoid-tax.html

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

''My New American Dream : To Afford Medical Costs After the Student Loan Bill Is Paid'' - was how your hard hitting HuffPo link was entitled. Your second bloomberg.com was too infuriating for words but thanx bw for these very revealing links and in reply and in compliment, I excerpt and append for later consideration :

''The social contract and the institutions that give it meaning have been transformed into entitlements administered and colonized largely by the corporate interests and the financial elite. Policy is no longer being written by politicians accountable to the American public. Instead, policies concerning the defense budget, deregulation, health care, public transportation, job training programs, and a host of other crucial areas are now largely written by lobbyists who represent mega corporations. How else to explain the weak deregulation policies following the economic crisis of 2007 or the lack of a public option in Obama’s health care policies? Or, for that matter, the more serious retreat from any viable notion of the political imagination that “requires long-term organizing—e.g., single-payer health care, universally free public higher education and public transportation, federal guarantees of housing and income security? The liberal center has moved to the right on these issues while the left has become largely absent and ineffective.

"The left is too fractured around single political issues and needs to develop alliances in which broad based organizations can be developed with long term strategies and goals. This will not happen quickly but the foundations can be laid for new modes of organizing in which the totality of society is addressed and diverse struggles can be aligned in ways that expand their reach and political power outside of the specificity of differences that drive them. Democracy is on life support in the United States and working within the system to change it is a dead end, except for gaining short term reforms.'' .. from this wide ranging article :

When we're scraping the bottom of the barrel thinking nothing could get worse, remember ...

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

another doctor married to jobs

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago
[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

climate changed arrived just in time to put off social change

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

Watch the PBS doc. Matt & it's worse than just ''put off social change'' ... it could well tie into Military Industrial Complex 'thinking' too. Thus - & especially with your 'No War' thread also in mind, consider :

Waaaay past my bedtime here, so .. adios y buenas noches amigo.

paz y luz ...

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

the job market tells me my potential couldn't pass an interview

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

What possible bearing does that have here ?!!! Or is it yet another fractious contretemps that u were looking to provoke ?!! L0L ! More on topic, consider :

''The debate is over. Climate change is real, and it’s probably worse than we thought. It’s time for the mainstream media to tell it like it is and stop treating wacko theories like the truth. After all, the future of all life on Earth is at stake.''

ad iudicium ...

[-] 3 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

I'd still put life's ability to survive ahead of human survival on a long term bet

but I believe both are possible

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

It is only human conceit and hubris which thinks that we are so very important and indispensable to this blue green marble, third planet out from an average star on the arse end of one of the spiral arms of an average sized galaxy !!! I really do agree with you though ; life will always find a way - this side of our Sun becoming a Red Giant !! More to the point right now, wtf is going on with your karma points ?! I mean if yours are frozen and you don't get an automatic '+1' too ... then how is that fair ? Also fyi :

pax ...

[-] 3 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago
[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 10 years ago

Nice tune, thanx & I admire your equanimity in the face of injustice, Also fyi :

pax, amor et lux ...

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

Greenland’

ah ha, perhaps the land mass ice pack that is melting and cooling the east coast

[-] 5 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 12 years ago

I spend at least a half an hour everyday looking at this:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

It should have it's own TV show doing a daily report, but it might have trouble getting sponsors.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago
[-] 0 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

Thanx for this very interesting link [ http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm ]. With an eye opening karmic coincidence, I had just posted an article where this will be relevant and you could be right about "getting sponsors", lol.

fiat lux ...

[-] 4 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

If only those money figures were relevant

the way to stop CO2 emissions is to stop emitting them

the market can't change that equation

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

1600 years of ice melts in 25. If this doesn't scare people into caring about the environment I don't know what will. NY Times article:

"In Sign of Warming, 1,600 Years of Ice in Andes Melted in 25 Years"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/americas/1600-years-of-ice-in-perus-andes-melted-in-25-years-scientists-say.html

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

''Climate change 'will make hundreds of millions homeless''' :

''It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

''Massive movements of people are likely to occur over the rest of the century because global temperatures are likely to rise to by up to 5C because carbon dioxide levels have risen unabated for 50 years,said Stern.'' Thanx again for your important and salutary link, which is I recommend to all readers.

caveat ...

[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

It's sick that humans won't pay any attention until their own homes are gone. In the meantime and before that happens, 1/3, yes one-third, of animal species will be at risk. Remember the food chain? We may be at the top, but if we're at the top of nothing, where are we?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/13/animals-species-climate-change

[+] -4 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Soylent Green - it's peopleeeeeeeeee

[+] -5 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Going out to all the Greedy in the World their supporters and followers - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9Woo6UwoI - without ever knowing - the way.

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

Thanks. I've heard that song a lot, but never had any idea what it meant.

[+] -5 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

And Now?

[-] 4 points by TrevorMnemonic (5827) 11 years ago

James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, Excerpt CHAPTER 9 AN HONEST, EFFECTIVE PATH 205

We have finally arrived at the main story: what we need to do to solve the climate problem, and how we can save the future for our grandchildren.

The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism — the time for compromises and appeasement is over.

http://miscellaneousmaterial.blogspot.com/2010/06/james-hansen-storms-of-my-grandchildren.html

[-] 6 points by gnomunny (6819) from St Louis, MO 11 years ago

Excellent link Trevor. I'd never heard of 'fee-and-dividend.' But I like the sounds of it, especially if it's distributed to the citizens rather that a payroll tax reduction, since not everyone is employed, but everyone uses fossil fuels.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

That was an intense read, that I did in three chunks !!! However, my memory of chunks #1&2 has faded so I may have to come back to your brain achey link again later :-)For any others readers here, give it a go but get 'aclimatised' (pun intended!) with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8 & I end with James Hansen's own words: "we had better start thinking about the Venus syndrome." Ouch !!

caveat ...

[-] 4 points by Ache4Change (3340) 12 years ago

Excellent and Very Important Post! Thanks for posting and also for all your and our attention - http://www.nationofchange.org/why-climate-deniers-have-no-scientific-credibility-one-pie-chart-1354370613 & http://www.nationofchange.org/greenhouse-gas-concentrations-reach-new-record-1353509096 . Never Give Up On Our Ecosystem! Keep Occupying The Real Issues! Solidarity.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

Great Pie Chart ! Thanx A4C for those great links, which I recommend to everyone as well as the second link, which was somewhat rather alarming !! Keep Occupying The Environmental Issues!!!

pax, amor et lux ...

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science", by Steve Connor :

"A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate "counter movement" to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt.

The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.

However, an audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Charles Koch who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas.

Millions of dollars has been paid to Donors through a third-party organisation, called the Knowledge and Progress Fund, with is operated by the Koch family but does not advertise its Koch connections.

Some commentators believe that such convoluted arrangements are becoming increasingly common to shield the identity and backgrounds of the wealthy supporters of climate scepticism – some of whom have vested interests in the fossil-fuel industry.

The Knowledge and Progress Fund, whose directors include Charles Koch and his wife Liz, gave $1.25m to Donors in 2007, a further $1.25m in 2008 and $2m in 2010. It does not appear to have given money to any other group and there is no mention of the fund on the websites of Koch Industries or the Charles Koch Foundation.

The Donors Trust is a "donor advised fund", meaning that it has special status under the US tax system. People who give money receive generous tax relief and can retain greater anonymity than if they had used their own charitable foundations because, technically, they do not control how Donors spends the cash.

Anonymous private funding of global warming sceptics, who have criticised climate scientists for their lack of transparency, is becoming increasingly common. The Kochs, for instance, have overtaken the corporate funding of climate denialism by oil companies such as ExxonMobil. One such organisation, Americans for Prosperity, which was established by David Koch, claimed that the "Climategate" emails illegally hacked from the University of East Anglia in 2009 proved that global warming was the "biggest hoax the world has ever seen".

Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, has estimated that over the past decade about $500m has been given to organisations devoted to undermining the science of climate change, with much of the money donated anonymously through third parties.

The trust has given money to the Competitive Enterprise Institute which is currently being sued for defamation by Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania University, an eminent climatologist, whose affidavit claims that he was accused of scientific fraud and compared to a convicted child molester.

Dr Brulle said: "We really have anonymous giving and unaccountable power being exercised here in the creation of the climate countermovement. There is no attribution, no responsibility for the actions of these foundations to the public.

"By becoming anonymous, they remove a political target. They can plausibly claim that they are not giving to these organisations, and there is no way to prove otherwise."

© independent.co.uk

Item copied verbatim under 'Fair Use' from link above & thanx for your links.

caveat ...

[-] 6 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.' - Enough said!

Also see - http://donorstrust.org/ ; http://www.livescience.com/26618-climate-change-denial-koch-donors-trust.html and also see - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/new-report-finds-shadowy-_b_2017779.html . This b-s is is of course the very predictable consequence of 'Citizens United' and Americans really need to wake up to the complete Corporate Capture of the US government.

Never Give Up Exposing The Usurpers! Occupy Wall Street! Solidarity.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Re. 'The Donor's Trust', please also see :

"Climate of Doubt" describes the 'Libertarian' individuals and groups behind a well organized effort to attack science by actually undermining scientists and to try to unseat politicians who say they believe there is current climate change caused by human activity. This film also investigates the funding which powers the sceptic movement in the name of free market, anti-regulation, small government causes and finds that funding has shifted away from fossil fuel companies to more ideological & less public sources.

So who are these 'free market think tanks' & 'institutes' behind this pseudo-libertarian crusade ?

Many thanx for the very interesting links. Never Give Up ! Go Occupy !!

e tenebris, lux ...

[-] 6 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'Climate Of Doubt' is a brilliant documentary exposé of Corporate Shilling and the network of corporate 'think-tanks and associations' who are out to undermine action and awareness on the matter of man made, global warming. I watched this last night with friends and thoroughly recommend it. Also see:

http://www.nationofchange.org/students-colleges-take-our-money-out-dirty-energy-1359644568

http://www.nationofchange.org/alec-loses-two-big-names-clean-power-over-opposition-renewable-energy-standards-1359644890

http://www.nationofchange.org/creepy-student-essay-contest-wall-street-s-war-young-minds-1359731557

The last link is particularly poignant and revealing of the level of Corporate Control that is insinuating itself into campuses everywhere, in an effort to influence, divert and subvert the future generations.

Never Give Up Resisting The Oligarchs! Occupy The Occupiers! Solidarity.

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

I would highly recommend PBS' "Climate Of Doubt" to all readers & thanx for these great links. The final article is extremely interesting & I thoroughly recommend it to all forum readers. Resistance Is Fertile !!!

per ardua ad astra ...

[-] 5 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'Resistance Is Fertile'! Yes indeed, to - 'Corprocrisy: The Systematic Betrayal of American Workers' - http://www.nationofchange.org/corpocrisy-systematic-betrayal-american-workers-1359988966 from which - 'Free market idealists argue that capitalism works for anyone with a little initiative and a willingness to work hard. That might be true if job opportunities were available to everyone. But the facts reveal a lack of opportunity, largely because the very system of capitalism that's supposed to work for everyone is betraying its most productive members. It's a step-by-step process of hypocrisy disguised as free enterprise'. Never Give Up Resisting! Occupying Is Fertile! Solidarity.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

The facts reveal a lack of opportunity, largely because the very system of capitalism that’s supposed to 'work for everyone' is actually betraying its most productive members. Thanx for another excellent article and excerpt, further to which (and still in keeping with this forum-post, I'd like to think), I also append :

fiat lux et fiat justitia ...

[-] 5 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'The severe crisis crippling Spain is also sparking some creative responses, such the Okonomía project, a teaching initiative that helps individuals and communities to understand the workings of the economy and make more informed decisions to manage their finances.' Thank you again for another very good & inspiring article and another one in a very similar vein - http://www.nationofchange.org/more-75-percent-americans-delayed-their-retirement-avoid-losing-health-benefits-1360162330 .Never Give Up! Go Occupy!

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"More than 3/4 of retired Americans ended up working longer than they initially planned because they didn’t want to lose access to their employer-based health benefits. And a majority of the Americans who are currently in the workforce are also planning to delay their retirement in order to keep the insurance plans they have through their employer". Taken from your linked article and this is a very important matter and particularly pertinent as I just read this article :

which in turn was a follow up to :

From the first link : "The bipartisans in Washington are currently focused on Social Security and Medicare - not to improve health care and retirement, but to cut them. There is constant, exaggerated "sky is falling" deficit commentary about purported out-of-control spending caused by these programs, while the real twin crises of poverty retirement and health insecurity are ignored. Popular solutions to these crises exist that would strengthen Social Security and Medicare and spur economic recovery." I believe that this is an article all engaged Americans of whatever age, should read - even if it is a li'l off topic to the subject matter of this particular forum-post ;-)

multum in parvo ...

[-] 5 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

'The arguments that we must cut all federal spending have come packaged in the myth that Americans have been spending more than they have to. The truth however is that American means have not been keeping up with the growth of the economy. Wages have only increased 30% where as the economy has almost doubled. This is why most of us need better healthcare, education and stronger safety nets. The only people whose means have soared are at the top.' - from - http://www.nationofchange.org/myth-americans-living-beyond-their-means-1360253410 . Thanks for those killer links and it was worth going off-topic from the subject of your post here. Never Give Up Exposing The Smoke & Mirrors! Go Occupy!

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"The Politics of Debt Default - The U.S. Congress : From One Crisis to Another", by Prof Rodrigue Tremblay :

Thanx for your excellent Robert Reich link & back on topic, also consider, Dr. James Hansen at 'TED' :

e tenebris, lux ...

[-] 6 points by Ache4Change (3340) 11 years ago

The TED Hansen link is awesome and Thanks for your links. If you like Robert Reich, then you'll like this - http://www.nationofchange.org/economic-challenge-ahead-more-jobs-and-growth-not-deficit-reduction-1360248031 from which -

'By extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the top 2 percent of Americans and repealing the alternative minimum tax, that deal increased budget deficits by about $3 trillion above what the budget office projected last August.

The real deficit problem comes after that — when rising healthcare costs combined with 76 million decaying boomers will cost us all a fortune.

The answer is to move from fee-for-service health care to pay-for-healthy-outcomes, including lots of preventive care. This will almost certainly require a single payer instead of our balkanized healthcare system drowning in paperwork as each part of it bills and tries to collect from every other part.

Right now the central challenge is to reignite the economy — getting jobs back, improving wages, and restoring growth.

Deficit reduction moves us in the opposite direction. That’s because most consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of economic activity) are still losing ground, and businesses won’t expand and hire without more consumers.'

Never Give Up Showing The Clear Truths! Occupy The Real Issues! Solidarity.

[-] -2 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

Yes this is more like it.

I will review.

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

"The summer of 2015 was the warmest on record in 135 years, federal scientists said on Thursday."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/summer-2015-hottest_55fae2bfe4b0fde8b0cd408e

Hey shadz66. Where you at? Where everybody gone on this anniversary of OWS? Everyone banned or what?

[-] 3 points by mayda (285) 9 years ago

''The upward march of the world’s average temperature since 1891 is a trademark of human-influenced global warming with 2014 being the latest stop on the climb. All 10 of the hottest years have come since 1998.'' (Sad Sigh) & as an aside ...

respice, adspice, prospice ...

(Shadz)

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

Caring for the environment is caring for the people. That is why capitalism has to be pushed aside, as it cares for neither.

[-] 3 points by mayda (285) 9 years ago

Re. 'The Commons' - Crapitalism has no idea about that whatsoever !!! Furthermore, try to consider

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-hsbc-swiss-bank

multum in parvo ...

S

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 9 years ago

It's a nice attack on the Clinton's but I'm sure the story doesn't stop there.

Here is a list of HSBC North America's political donations:

http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/hsbc-holdings/3c3f0a2212224ab38161e5c7abbb9fbe

Notice they seem unsure of whether to go with the Dems or the Reps. Sort of what jart was saying about corporations. They're not really political in terms of choosing a candidate from a certain party or with a certain viewpoint. They're more about what's best for me, me, me. Who cares about ideology? as long as all the politicians work for me, me,me, the corporation. Pretty sickening. It's time to kick them out of office...

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

"Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide surpassed a notable milestone this week.

They reached a daily average above 400 parts per million, reported NOAA, for the first time in human history."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/atmospheric-co2-concentrations_n_3253757.html

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"Passing 400ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is indeed a landmark and the rate of increase is faster than ever and shows no sign of abating due to a lack of political committment to address the urgent issue of climate change - the world is now most likely committed to an increase in surface temperature of 3C-5C compared to pre-industrial times." (Prof. Professor Bob Watson, former IPCC chair and UK government chief scientific adviser) from :

Thanx for your excellent link which I recommend to all interested readers.

fiat lux...

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

Environmental Emergency!!! Wake up people!!!

"Climate Change To Shrink Animal And Plant Habitats Dramatically, Study Forecasts"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/12/climate-change-habitat-animal-plant_n_3263046.html

"About 57 percent of plants and 34 percent of animal species were likely to lose more than half the area with a climate suited to them by the 2080s if nothing was done to limit emissions from power plants, factories and vehicles, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change."

"But the scientists said governments could reduce the projected habitat loss by 60 percent if global greenhouse gas emissions peaked by 2016 and then fell. A peak by 2030 would cut losses by 40 percent."

This is serious stuff. Thank god some young people have decided to forego profit making to study things like conservation biology. Maybe it is not too late to mitigate the damage.

[-] -3 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

And no coverage on MSM to inform the public about this event.

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

Americans would rather hear the sordid details of the Cleveland case, than how their weather will be changing big time and the earth will never be the same again.

[-] -3 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Sad that so many look for any kind of distraction possible to avoid facing reality. Well to bad for them as things are getting so that anywhere/everywhere they look it is looking back at them. It is becoming impossible to ignore that bad shit is happening - and - IT WILL AFFECT THEM!!!

There IS nowhere to run - nowhere to hide.

[-] 3 points by beautifulworld (23824) 11 years ago

Here is Monbiot on the matter:

"Climate milestone is a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy. The only way forward is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/may/10/carbon-dioxide-milestone-climate-change

[-] -3 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Thanks - made a nice tweet. But as I agree we need to reduce our CO level I think it would have been better stated - as - we need to move forward and shed pollution tech of the last century in all of it's forms.

Climate milestone is a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy | George Monbiot http://gu.com/p/3fmkt/tw via @guardian


Check this one out -

http://occupywallst.org/forum/alecs-most-wanted/#comment-968796

[Deleted]

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Fleas, bees, ants and wasps - together we are stronger & here's the nature of the 'elephant in the room':

nil desperandum ...

EDIT : CORRECTED LINK (wef 13/5/13) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5GVHqlnPAc .

[Deleted]

[Deleted]

[-] 4 points by Renneye (3874) 11 years ago

You Rock!!!

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Well 'flea', I'm an ant but I think that IF we can hook up with the bees and wasps and enough of us can get our sh*t together - together - at the same time, then we can bite 'the elephant' in strategic places and drive it off. Together We Are Stronger and thanx for your very interesting replies. I'd encourage any of your words re. mulching, composting etc. and I express my gratitude and solidarity to you, with :

pax et lux ...

[-] 5 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

Thanks for the bookmarks, looks like some interesting stuff, cant wait to look at all of them.

[-] 3 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

It just struck me that I might be an ant also. . . . After all I am doing several things to improve our environment and help others to do the same. . . I will post on composting in the very near future.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Hiya fellow ant and I really think that you will be particularly interested in the first section of the following link : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34244.htm and I again recommend the links above, especially http://permaculture.tv/ to you for future reference.

pax ...

[-] 4 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

Yea, I know the argument about junk costing less than good foods but what most folks don't know is that when the body gets good foods with actual nutrition in it not as much is required. If you were able to look up what your body required for vitamins, minerals, and protein and enzymes every day and cost that out in fresh foods I think you would be surprised just how inexpensive it would be. Just for instance if you offered the kid a kiwi and 2 oz of mixed nuts and water instead of a 12 oz can of pop, candy bar, which one do you think costs more? Now which one would stay with the kid longer and provide more nutrition?

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

You end with good rhetorical questions and your knowledge, expertise and information are very welcome here on these threads.Solidarity to you & I append the following article for your interest and information :

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and 'The Creators Syndicate'. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following [ http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ ].

e tenebris, lux ...

[-] 1 points by Kavatz (464) from Edmonton, AB 11 years ago

Hey, you could start a Subsidiary for this too!

[-] 1 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

You mean the composting?

[-] 1 points by Kavatz (464) from Edmonton, AB 11 years ago

Ya, the volunteer work, visiting schools, etc. Makes you kind of a subject matter expert.

[-] 4 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

Maybe I should give you a little background. My most important driver is health. From that I have pursued the study of food, exercise, and gardening. As an offshoot of gardening because of organic foods I looked into natural bug control and fertilizing and that led me to worms, and composting. That is the chain of subject matter that I have pursued in an effort to maintain my health after retirement. In the process of learning all this stuff I do a lot of researching to prove or disprove certain things I have read. Believe it or not many of the things we read are theories or just plan speculations or embellishments to sell a product. Imagine that!! I have always believed we should learn throughout life. Continuous learning has been my life process. I have a library and now a digital library on different subjects. My wife and I have been married since 1966. I take no medications and have no diseases or limitations. I still climb trees and deer hunt with a bow, skin the deer and prep the meat myself. Im old school and believe in taking personal responsibility for your life and asking for help from your family and friends if you need it. Ive read the bible a couple of times and pay heed to the wisdom of Jesus. WOWWW . . that's a bit much huh? Kind of got on a rant there. Any way that's what Ive been focused on since before my retirement. I watched my father die of a heart attach when he was 44 years old and that started my interest in health.

[-] 3 points by TrevorMnemonic (5827) 11 years ago

365 comments! DAYYUUMMM!!!

I really do like James Hansen. And dang it I still need to read that book of his I bought last month!

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"Can Civilization Survive Capitalism?", by Noam Chomsky :

Thanx for your solidarity TM ~*~

pax et lux ...

[Deleted]

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

The Celcius / Fahrenheit conversion formula is :

  • °C x 9/5 + 32 = °F &

  • (°F - 32) x 5/9 = °C !!

Either way my friend - we're cooking on gas & fiddling furiously like Nero too it feels.

ad iudicium ...

[-] 3 points by TrevorMnemonic (5827) 11 years ago

didn't you hear that there's a football player who had a fake twitter girlfriend?

And Beyonce lip syncing?

There's no time to talk about climate change with all this real news happening. Maybe after we discuss Jennifer Aniston's love life there might be time to argue about guns and birth control!

[-] 4 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Despite the fluff and froth of fatuous fame and fickle fortune ...

Ironic that Jennifer Aniston was made famous by 'Friends' yet seems to have none ! Such is the 'reality' of style over substance and appearance over actuality, me thinx !! All goes to show, that love and life is much more than haircut and hubris !!!

verum ex absurdo ...

[-] 3 points by SingleVoice (158) 12 years ago

I think the focus of climate change is on the wrong cause. The earth's climate will always change by natural cycles, however, it is the deforestation of the rain forests that have caused an imbalance. Vegetation thrives on carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen as it's by-product. Instead of drumming up a carbon tax hoax by hypocrits that will fall on consumers and will do nothing to stop any real causes of imbalance, we should be making noise to do more to stop the deforestation of the rain forests which are the most important element of our eco-system. Some places in Brazil have had success with using the rain forest for good use rather than burning it down for grazing and farmland as they had been doing for a very long time. There are rain forests all over the globe that have been in the process of destruction for many decades. It is only recently that people are being made aware of it and trying to reverse it. This is where focus needs to be. Carbon dioxide is not poison. It is one of the essential components to plant life. The plant life in turn provides us with oxygen to breathe.

We can also work to plant trees wherever possible elsewhere on the globe. In North America we've lost so many trees for decades to suburban sprawl and industrial and commercial complexes. We've gotten better at replacing trees taken down in recent years but there is never enough plant regrowth to compensate for what damage was already done.

Why is no one thinking logically instead of listening to politicians come up with yet another scam to hold power over us, tax us and take more of our liberty. A carbon tax?...give me a break. Meanwhile these bureaucrats screaming for this like Al Gore are flying around in their private jets and living in their huge power sucking mansions doing more so-called damage while asking the rest of us to pay for their hypocrisy. They figure they'll just charge people money and never fix what the real problem is. Maybe get a Nobel prize in the process. Get smart and work with people that are really doing something. And if nothing else, plant a tree.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

There is alas, a rather overwhelming international scientific agreement in the actuality of rising temperatures. Even if the US Govt. wishes not to accept or acknowledge the science of major US scientific institutions, such as The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute ( http://www.whoi.edu/ ) or The Scripps Institute of Oceanography ( http://sio.ucsd.edu/ ) etc., internationally the scientists have known for well over a decade that 'something' is afoot.

'Mother Nature' has locked away VAST amounts of Ancient Carbon in the form of peat, coal, oil and gas. We know that there is a Carbon Cycle just as there is a Water Cycle, but that the time scale of the Carbon Cycle (which includes Geological processes) is much, much longer than in the case of water (simplified here to : evaporation, condensation, precipitation & run off).

Therefore, how can we as a sentient species, consider that we can bypass the Carbon Cycle and extract huge amounts of carbon based fuels, burn them and almost instantly (in geological time) return this carbon to the atmosphere Without There Being Any Repercussions ?! What is our individual and collective intuition on this matter ?!! That Carbon Dioxide even tho' it is essential to life via photo-synthesis, is also a 'Greenhouse Gas' is undeniable. The Greenhouse Effect is well understood and without it life on this planet would not exist. We owe our previously relatively stable climate to this and the level of CO2 has been pretty stable at ~ 300ppm (0.03%) for a very, very long time (verifiable from ice and lake sediment cores). However, that proportion has risen in the last 40 years to ~390ppm (0.039%) which is a 30% increase in CO2 levels.

Further, both water vapour and methane are also greenhouse gases and the level of both will also rise with rising global temperatures. This is termed 'positive feedback'. A Human Influenced and possible 'run away' Greenhouse Effect is empirically, scientifically and mathematically possible, so the question is do we accept or 'believe' that it is happening ?

The atmosphere is but a film above us like cling-film on a water melon. It's easy to assume that we can have no effect on the vastness of the atmosphere but this is not true. As the atmosphere warms, the dynamic and apparently chaotic but actually relatively ordered 'Climate System', has 'more energy' and will operate at a higher energetic level and with a higher 'water carrying' capacity. Thus, 'The Climate' will be seemingly more chaotic to our perception. We are already witnessing weather records being taken to new levels throughout the world and this matter is not really up for debate - unless there is an evil, truly vast international conspiracy of scientists at many levels !

Globally, as a species we can feel and detect that 'something is changing', that something is different now to how things were but we may choose to behave like the proverbial 'frog slowly boiling in a pan of water on a stove' &/or as a 'rabbit caught in a bright light' !!

Sadly, I don't really think that we will stop either our behaviour or its results in the short or even medium terms. It's now a question of adaptation, however consider this : That "The International 'Darksider-Sith' Ruling Elites" [translation : 'Parasites' !] actually do NOT mind countless hundreds of millions of the rest of us perishing if it means more for them and Less Of Us !!!

The above is compounded by 'Militant Pro-Industrialism' as well as by Religious Nutters - who IF they do have belief in 'Biblical End Times' (ie some Jews, Christians and Muslims !!!) do not think human action can possibly affect The Earth's Climate as only 'God' could do that AND when compounded by the ignorant, those in denial and those who know but just don't give a shit ... well, we have quite a recipe for forthcoming perturbations, to say the least !!

.

Thanx for your comment 'SingleVoice' and here's hoping that together, with a shift up in consciousness - we can be, a 'SV' ~*~

dum spiro, speo ...

[-] 3 points by SingleVoice (158) 12 years ago

The "something that is changing" is the balance between animal and plant life on this planet. The repercussion of carbon returned to the air is to be used by the vegetation on the planet. The destruction of the rain forests over the past many decades is why we have an overabundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The rain forests have always been the key element of earth's balance in every regard. The destruction is what has caused all of the imbalance we have been seeing.

The behavior that needs to change is to stop removing the earth's natural carbon dioxide combatant...trees. Methane and carbon dioxide are natural by-products of living organisms. The removal and destruction of the natural filter for those things is vegetation which need carbon dioxide to survive. Vegetation needs carbon dioxide and vegetation's by-product is the oxygen we need to survive. It's so simple yet gov'ts around the world try to make it appear as though carbon dioxide is a poison not a source of life for plants. The rain forests were the balance to it all but now that they have been and are still being destroyed is why we're seeing increased imbalance in the atmosphere. What could be more simple than promoting more planting of trees wherever possible and to put more effort into helping countries trying to stop deforestation of the rain forests where they exist. This is the main cause of climate change.

Even people that believe that human action can't affect the earth's climate can maybe agree with this because it's logical and makes sense and you can argue with them that God put the trees here for this purpose and that man is removing them at an alarming rate for man's purpose and is therefore causing the imbalance.

Focus should be on saving the rain forests and planting many more trees than are removed everywhere, everyday on the planet not on using gov't power to scam people out of money for "carbon credits". What does that do? Absolutely nothing but line the pockets of regulators and gov'ts and give them more control over our lives. These same people calling for carbon taxes are hypocrites and keep perpetuating lies to gain power and control over people while they themselves don't live what they preach.

Most important, by replacing what's been removed in the way of trees, we can overcome the effects. It's not hopeless and can be attained in a relatively short period of time as long as more people on the earth realize that this IS the solution. We need to make this the fight not the bullshit we're being fed by global gov'ts including our own.

[-] 4 points by bullfrogma (448) 12 years ago

I've heard that bamboo produces a lot of oxygen and grows very fast. It's also pretty useful for many things. I always thought if things got so bad that bamboo could be a sort of fast acting relief.

[-] 3 points by SingleVoice (158) 12 years ago

Thanks for the good info. No need to wait. Keep planting now.

I have bamboo growing all over my backyard. The one thing about bamboo, it keeps reproducing very fast throughout the whole growing season. It spreads like a weed but produces a beautiful tall screen. Every plant will grow and produce oxygen which will use carbon dioxide and help to re-balance the atmosphere. The more we plant, the more we help. Also, any one that can help the groups working against the deforestation of the rain forests whether financially or with their time will also make a difference.

[-] 3 points by geo (2638) from Concord, NC 12 years ago

'The destruction of the rain forests over the past many decades is why we have an overabundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The rain forests have always been the key element of earth's balance in every regard. The destruction is what has caused all of the imbalance we have been seeing.'

Industrialization, change of land usage, filling in of wet lands, paving, agribus farming, massive population increase.... are why we have an imbalance. While the rain forests are an important sink for CO2 and should be preserved, the oceans are a far greater sink for fixing CO2.

While I admire your passion, lets not be myopic.

[-] 2 points by imagine40 (383) 11 years ago

Germany CO2 emissions up only 1.6%. Ifthey can do itwe can do it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/25/germany-carbon-idUSL6N0BP87J20130225?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=43

We need "manhattan project" like effort to manufacture millions of wind turbines and upgrades to electric infrastructure.

[-] 3 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 12 years ago

All the taxes they are getting ready to levy for this problem are going to fall right on the middle class, just like they always do. Either directly or just passed down.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

We'll have to see past, through & around mere 'money' - if we are to see and embrace our future. The 'Market' is The Problem and the constant pursuit of merely short term profit, is now an impediment to human progress and environmental sustainability. It does not have to be so. Money is Not any law of nature like say gravity and the tides ; it is a creation of our culture.

ad iudicium ...

[-] 2 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

What happened to Shadz66?

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/2014/09/05/ufpj-sponsors-peoples-climate-march/

Peace & justice, we are united?

[Removed]

[Removed]

[-] 2 points by TikiJ (-38) 11 years ago

He's already approved the fracking and the Keystone.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16513-obama-administration-approves-alec-model-bill-for-fracking-chemical-fluid-disclosure-on-public-lands

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/06/25/obama-declares-keystone-xl-will-be-approved/

Someone who was against the aforementioned would declare it so. Wouldnt sign these things.

People need to stop being fooled and start developing their own people to lead.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"The democratization of the energy sector is not only seen as a goal in itself, but also as a means to achieve an ecologically viable relation to the environment. The proposed law therefore also bans any new investments in nuclear and coal-fired plants. Instead, investments will be put into decentralized renewable energy production as well as public energy saving programs. To secure socially just provision of energy, the company is not allowed to cut anyone off from the grid under any circumstances."

"Such referendum initiatives are a great way for Berlin’s social movements to work together and make progress on a single issue. Crucially, local legislation for referenda is relatively favorable. Berlin state law forces a general vote if any organization hands in 200.000 valid signatures in a city of 3.5 million inhabitants. Gathering such numbers of signatures is a lot of work, but the effort for the referendum on water privatization has proved those targets can be met by a committed coalition of activists and organizations working together."

The above is taken from your strong link, further to which - in keeping with this thread, I also append :

omnia causa fiunt ...

[-] 2 points by inclusionman (7064) 11 years ago

Depressing reality in that article. but I'm not surprised. Didn't see the revised estimate of all arctic Ice being gone by 2020, but there it is.

Probably be sooner.

Thx

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Depressing ? Yes, maybe but here's a wee insight into what is possible :

per aspera ...

[-] 2 points by inclusionman (7064) 11 years ago

Wow. Not that is a bit encouraging. I KNOW the many protests/marches I've been to in NY have delayed the fracking decision, The documentaries have informed/outraged many. The many petitions DO make a difference.

And this article shows the industry is reacting.

We gotta ratchet up the effort.

[Removed]

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

The fact that The Corporations are fearful of "Highly Effective Campaigns" is very cool and a real source of some hope for the rest of us. Thanx dude for your kind concern. Real life and time constraints have taken precedence lately but I'm still reading and linking when I can. In solidarity, here's one for you :

"The planet Earth is not created or built by the Nation States claiming membership at the UN. The comprehensive system of splendid and encompassed Universe and its resources on the planet Earth are God-given gift to mankind, and its violation and exploitation will be checked by God as it happened to many in the past only to be found as artifacts in museums and history books. History offers a learning role but nations and people denying the role of history ultimately cannot escape the wrath of history. Winning the wars was not part of the American aims and strategies but killing and destabilizing the poor nation was, and it has achieved that aim. All actions have reactions. The consequences are yet to come."

pax et lux ; nunc et semper ...

[-] 2 points by Kavatz (464) from Edmonton, AB 11 years ago

This may not seem related right off the bat, but it is. Maybe a silly question, but have you seen this (the video)? http://occupywallst.org/forum/you-cant-miss-this-not-conglomerate-related/

[Deleted]

[-] 2 points by Builder (4202) 11 years ago

Australia has a tax on CO2. Despite a lot of scare-mongering on the part of the opposition politicians, not a lot has changed, though I do see the price of generating electricity rising, which will be passed on to the consumer.

[Deleted]

[-] 1 points by Builder (4202) 11 years ago

It should be obvious, by now.

They don't work for "us". They are on the payroll of the corporate lobbyists. They are also allowed to play insider trader on the stock exchange.

Criminality has been legalised in the US of A.

[-] 1 points by DSamms (-294) 11 years ago

Well said...

[-] 1 points by analystwanabe99 (153) 11 years ago

Now you go to far. If I have to get an attorney involved Im done. I just wanted to make a suggestion that I was hoping someone would run with and I would get a reduced electric bill out of. Come on . . where are the activists? Someone run with this ball!!! I need my electric bill reduced or at least a new more efficient air conditioner. . . .

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Climate activist, Meghan Marohn is missing. She is also a supporter of Occupy Wall Street, a strong leftist and a beautiful soul.

She visited Zuccotti Park during the Occupy movement and met Chris Hedges there.

Here is a video clip of her introducing Hedges to The Sanctuary for Independent Media. You can hear her brilliance as she speaks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twDPvS-EcbA

And, here is an excellent article that she wrote:

https://scheerpost.com/2021/12/24/goodbye-to-all-that-and-a-whole-lot-more/

Meghan is a beloved high school teacher who went hiking in Lee, MA but has gone missing. The police are not giving out much information.

If you see Meghan or know anything about her whereabouts please go to the website set up by her family at:

https://findmeghanmarohn.com/

There is a reward of $50,000 for her safe return. If you have any information call (413) 327-6255.

The police departments involved are: Bethlehem, NY (where she is from), Lee, MA (where she went missing) and the Massachusetts State Police.

Solidarity, Meghan. You will be found.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Goodbye to All That and a Whole Lot More"! by Meghan Marohn:

Maybe "The context has shifted for all of us, not because the context has truly shifted but because this particular administration means that we have no choice but to look at The Monster behind The Curtain."

Where is the author of the^article, Meghan Marohn? Calling All NE USA Occupiers: Spread The Word!

et fiat lux!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Donate to Find Meghan Marohn. Activist has gone missing for almost a month. Her family needs money to hire a private investigator. Any amount helps.

https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgofund.me%2F5196a5e3%3AtCrC933YwSyKrVtNf07w2_-ePJo&cuid=7341593

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago
[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Meghan Marohn is still missing! Care for one of your own, an activist with a big heart and donate to help find her.

Even small donations add up. Her family needs financial help to hire a private investigator as the police are giving very little information and time is of the essence.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/findmeghanmarohn-findmeghanmarohncom?member=18837169&sharetype=teams&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Meghan Marohn's intro to Chris Hedges at The Sanctuary for Independent Media"

Over One Month Missing Now! Find Her!!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

Electric cars are now the majority of cars sold in Norway. Extraordinary accomplishment and proof that if other countries have the will, they can do the same thing to bring an end to fossil fuel dependence. This would not only help the environment but would end senseless wars.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/05/electric-cars-record-market-share-norway

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 3 years ago

Trump delivers final blow to environment as his administration changes "how it considers evidence of harm from pollutants in a way that opponents say could cripple future public-health regulation."

This is a maddening little article to read:

“This really seems to be an attempt by Wheeler to permanently let major polluters trample on public health,” said Benjamin Levitan, a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund advocacy group. “It ties the hands of future administrations in how they can protect the public health.”

The change could limit not only future public health protections, but “force the agency to revoke decades of clean air protections”, Chris Zarba, former head of the EPA’s science advisory board, said in a statement.

Wheeler, in his Wall Street Journal piece, said the new limits would not compel the release of any personal data or “categorically” exclude any scientific work. The EPA has been one of the most active agencies in carrying out Donald Trump’s mandate to roll back regulations that conservative groups have identified as being unnecessary and burdensome to industry."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/05/trump-epa-pollution-rule-scientific-studies

Contrast that to what Norway is doing. Nothing for Americans to be proud of, but full on shame!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 3 years ago

We need to enact a law to have the tax returns of all of our high-level elected officials be published for transparency ( it will reduce cracking to unearth conflicts of interests.)

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 3 years ago

Norway has much renewable water-power resource to generate the electricity needed to power its electric vehicle fleet. Every Norwegian is on the average a millionaire in Norway's currency so the still higher prices of electric vehicles are more affordable to the Norwegians. It doesn't work for many other countries in the world which are not rich countries. The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world figured on a net worth basis but it is in fact the most indebted country. I do understand that having a humongous credit-card balance isn't anything to be proud of except for the creditworthiness it does show. I was a bit shaken when the U.S. dollar depreciated rather quickly on FOREX market shortly after the trillions of dollars worth of the first coronavirus stimulus bill had been passed but it turned out to be just a rotation of the holders of dollars. Some people wanted desperately to get out of owning U.S. dollars but other people rushed in after a delay. Overall it was just a flashed warning so the U.S. creditworthiness was definitely intact. I watch the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar because great currency depreciation has always been the path to hell on Earth in modern currency-mediated economies ( akin to bloodflow-mediated human bodies subject to great shrinkage of the life value conveyed by the bloodflow.)

With an added-on premium, using electric vehicles shifts the sources of environmental damage and pollution away from the vehicles to other sources which may still be fossil fuel dependent in extremely deleterious ways. A prime example is Redfuckgina using the dirtiest and environmentally damaging modern fossil fuel ( there were worse really terribly polluting fossil fuels used there before such as 煤球 literally "coal balls," i.e. coal-dust briquettes ) to generate the electricity to move its fast-growing electric vehicle fleet. Electrification in Redfuckgina is good for cleaning up the air in electric-vehicle-usage areas ( often in wealthy cities ) and move the environmental damage and pollution plus an added-on premium ( on the order of 10% ) to electric power plants ( often in poorer countryside.)

Norway is a wealthy-from-selling-fossil-fuel small country relative to the U.S. so stringing electricity transmission lines and wasting electricity on them cost less due to shorter spanning distances. If the U.S. can generate clean electricity en route for the electric vehicles, it will make a better sense to go electric.

We must figure life-cycle costs and benefits before deciding on our major energy developments. Electrification shifts pollution. It always increases total pollution ( except for the reduction of pollution gained from the higher thermal efficiency of centralized large-scale and pollution-scrubbing-equipped electricity generation.)

Batteries of the power level catering to the power luxury muscle car market adapted to less powerful cars contain lithium which is a toxic metal but it's used as a drug in small doses for treating mania and depression. It's generally a bad idea to eat or drink large unintended quantities of anything used as a powerful drug. There isn't much lithium available to be mined but that should improve the recycling rate of used lithium batteries so the toxic leakage into the environment may be small. A much more suitable metal for less powerful cars is magnesium because it's widely available and chemically more benign than lithium. There is enough magnesium but not lithium around to provide for an electric car for everyone.

I think that in this lithium/magnesium dichotomy, we are at a crossroad similar to the uranium/thorium one with regard to civilian electricity generation. Uranium dominates because we were fighting the Cold War so we went wholehoggedly for uranium/plutonium for making nuclear weapons. It's the source of our nuclear weapons proliferation by providing civilian cover for clandestine nuclear weapon development programs, and highly radioactive wastes' long-term safe-storage problem ( cf. Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear catastrophes -- Japan will likely have to dump much radioactive groundwater into the ocean soon; dilution will probably disappear the financial liability from poisoning the Earth -- polluters' maxim is "the [money-savvy] solution to pollution is dilution.")

Ur-ani-um is for "going up your as ancient as the massive stars' cataclysmic deaths or a Mesopotamian city's, anus.. um." Thor-ium is for generating electricity as Thor is the Norse god of the thunderbolts. Pluto-nium is for the rich folks who can afford to have the highly radioactive and toxic metal placed in their pockets to burn holes there to leak their money out for a long long time. Magn-esium is for powering the electric cars which run on wheels rotated by magnetism. Lith-ium is for stoning manic/depressives mentally to become less extreme emotionally. Usages are shown right there in the names ( Also sprach Zarathustra.)

[-] 1 points by gsw (3420) from Woodbridge Township, NJ 5 years ago

If you don’t like climate change, good luck going against 1 billion keep us hot....

Dark Money: Jane Mayer on How the Koch Bros. & Billionaire Allies Funded the Rise of the Far Right

is that it’s not just an election force. It’s—this club has become a force of obstruction against governing, so that when Obama proposes the healthcare plan, this group funnels money to many, many different front groups that then, unseen to the American public, pop up and oppose the healthcare plan and disrupt meetings. I don’t know if people remember those town hall meetings during, I think it was, the summer of 2010, when there was just kind of pandemonium breaking out. And a lot of that were—there were actually sort of plans laid among this group to pour money in, get people all riled up and make them think that this was going to have death squads, things like that, that were—that got people very upset.

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/20/dark_money_jane_mayer_on_how?fbclid=IwAR14hOcLgxdbqlK-ZFozVYZ5c030qtsXy6FCofi1gYy1UCgLHTf42eMy-3s

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Nazi oil, the Koch brothers & a rightwing revolution! 'Dark Money;' A Review'', by Charles Kaiser:

''New Yorker writer Jane Mayer examines the origins, rise and dominance of a billionaire class to whom money is no object when it comes to buying power.'' Also fyi ...

momento mori ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''In Bolsonaro’s burning Brazilian Amazon, all our futures are being consumed'', by Eliane Brum:

NB: ''The rainforest might seem a remote place, but it is the heart of the planet ... and it is under attack as never before''!

caveat ...

[-] 1 points by gsw (3420) from Woodbridge Township, NJ 5 years ago

Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition' Redirecting small portion of subsidies would unleash clean energy revolution, says report

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/fossil-fuel-subsidy-cash-pay-green-energy-transition

[-] 1 points by gsw (3420) from Woodbridge Township, NJ 5 years ago
[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Climate Change: We have 12 years to deal with it.

Think, we won't need to worry about the Supreme Court if we're NOT HERE. The environment is our number 1 problem.

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

"Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

We've been talking about Global Warming here on this forum for many years, hence the size of this thread!

Trump's EPA is doing the reverse of what is needed at this time. Shameful. 12 years is nothing. We're almost out of time.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

Please see ''Climate Of Doubt'' doc. film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyPeceraS7o from ...

http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-personal-and-the-political-a-short-manifesto-f/#comment-1076616

Thanx again for strong excerpts & link. AGW is THE issue of our times but tRUMP is a denier! Sad.

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Scientists alarmed at Arctic warming, February 2018.

"Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises"

"Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/arctic-warming-scientists-alarmed-by-crazy-temperature-rises

"An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north."

“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”

"Although most of the media headlines in recent days have focused on Europe’s unusually cold weather in a jolly tone, the concern is that this is not so much a reassuring return to winters as normal, but rather a displacement of what ought to be happening farther north."

Displacement - warming in one place, cooling in another. Scary.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''The Arctic Is Melting Down as the Antarctic Food Chain Is Breaking'', by Dahr Jamail:

I recommend your link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/arctic-warming-scientists-alarmed-by-crazy-temperature-rises to any and all readers here too.A quickening to a reckoning is afoot!

respice, adspice, prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Parts of Antarctica Friday hit 70 degrees warmer than normal.

"Hot Poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 Degrees Above Normal"

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-18/hot-poles-antarctica-arctic-70-and-50-degrees-above-normal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/18/antarctica-heat-wave-climate-change/

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/22/1082118865/soot-is-accelerating-snow-melt-in-popular-parts-of-antarctica-study-finds

"Scientists are flabbergasted." says the paywall article in WAPO.

And, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/warming-temperatures-are-turning-antarctica-green-180979599/

"Scientists previously thought that Antarctica was immune to global warming. However, studies have shown that the continent has warmed up three times faster than the rest of the world within the last three decades. The continent has also seen a record amount of ice loss. Between 2008 and 2015, ice loss increased by 36 billion gallons per year, according to Gizmodo."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"NASA scientist says complete collapse of ice shelf as big as Rome during unusually high temperatures, is ‘sign of what might be coming’" - from:

The situation is patently much worse than was imagined! So what are we doing about it now?!! Doubling down on Oil and Gas!!! Suicide is normal apparently, and is there ... a quickening to a reckoning folks?!!!

caveat actor ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

"Death toll from Brutal heat wave in Spain and Portugal."

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-forecasts/death-toll-from-brutal-heat-wave-tops-1000-in-spain-and-portugal/1218084

"UK breaks record for highest temperature as Europe sizzles." 104.5 F in the UK!

"The U.K. Met Office weather agency registered a provisional reading of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) at Coningsby in eastern England — breaking the record set just hours earlier. Before Tuesday, the highest temperature recorded in Britain was 38.7 C (101.7 F), set in 2019. By later afternoon, 29 places in the UK had broken the record."

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-france-fires-london-england-b9bc07c1685b76ddf377b65f19fb811b

"Alarm as fastest growing US cities risk becoming unlivable from climate crisis"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/20/us-fastest-growing-cities-risk-becoming-unlivable-climate-crisis

This is no joke. Time is running out.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"This is no joke. Time is running out."

multum in parvo et verb. sat. sap.!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Consider: "Carbon Capture Won’t Work, But It Will Funnel Billions to Corporations"! by Wenonah Hauter:

"We Can’t Avoid Climate Breakdown Without Reducing Growth, Leading Economist Says"by C.J. Polychroniou:

fiat lux - ad iudicium!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 2 years ago

Uneconomic growth, an interesting concept.

"You have introduced the concept of uneconomic growth to indicate that “growth is uneconomic when it increases environmental and social costs by more than it increases production benefits.” Indeed, you have rejected the idea that economic growth is a good measure of human well-being, and, in contrast, you call for a transition to a steady-state economy.

Growth was economic when the world was empty of us and our stuff. Now it is full, and further growth of our economy into the finite biosphere causes increasing marginal costs of preempted life support services in order to satisfy decreasing marginal benefits of trivial consumption that has to be aggressively advertised to be sold. Growth in rich countries now costs more than it is worth, it is uneconomic, even while growth in poor countries remains economic until they have reached a similar level of sufficiency. The poor cannot attain sufficiency unless the rich make ecological room for them."

From https://truthout.org/articles/we-cant-avoid-climate-breakdown-without-reducing-growth-leading-economist-says/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

Re. "The poor cannot attain sufficiency unless the rich make ecological room for them", also consider:

fiat lux et fiat justitia!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

Don't breed the poor's helplessness. The Left's blame game keeps the poor poor(er) and the rich rich(er).

Undoubtedly, Joe Biden's Irish ancestors were considered as being poor people. America wasn't "rich" as the Left seemingly claims all the time. The Anglo-States of America was built to be a great nation, by its people of all ethnicities.

Americans invented the elevator/lift, thus enabling skyscraper living of the modern world. Americans built the U.S. Southwest's arid semi-desert into a habitable and even fashionable living area by the major hydroelectric project of the Hoover Dam in the midst of the Great Depression. So was the still iconic Empire State Building built in the Great Depression. America had Hope, even during the greatest economic despair.

Don't take Hope away from striving people. "Trillions of dollars" just shows the author's having been corrupted to the core by the Right's idea of progress. Anglo North America largely developed westward via plowshare/ploughshare but Russia and its empire largely developed eastward via the sword.

"Their swords shall be beaten into plowshares" was written in the Holy Bible. It's also concretely given as a present from the U. S. S. R. to the U. N. Hmm, "God works in mysterious ways."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 2 years ago

"Capitalism vs Socialism: A Soho Forum Debate" Richard Wolff and Gene Epstein with "Reason"

You're an idiot trapped in RW propaganda and race based bias, who doesn't care about love, light or logic but you can't pretend that society, history and reason, don't matter! Soften your heart and open your mind, and so I dare you to watch, listen & consider those^three videos, before you try to reply!!!

et per ardua ad iudicium!

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

"A confluence of federal housing policies, discriminatory lending practices, and newly created homeowners associations allowed white families to almost exclusively reap the full benefits of this growth. White people fled the cities and claimed their own private white fenced fiefs. Lawns became a symbol of the American Dream – a dream deferred, for some. The American lawn represents the worst of the United States, wasteful, vain and full of shit."

As India has its White Elephants, America has its [federally subsidized largely through mortgage-interest deductions from income taxes nowadays] White turd.

Leona Helmsley said it too straightforwardly so the Establishment had to go after her. Having her politically naive Achilles' heel, she didn't get the tax "savings" legally by passing the "American Opportunity Act" (any licensed-to-steal trumpery legislation would do.)

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 2 years ago

An immediately actionable remedy is to reverse global warming.

My Big Brother bought me salted and cooked water beetles to eat at the cinema in the 1960s. Their abdomens taste like meat with the umami flavor. Their other parts are prickly, though, due to their hard exoskeletons. Overall, they are edible and tasty -- a bit analogous to salted pistachio nuts with some rather hard shells one has to spit out. It's respectable world-dominating ancestral protein-and-fat-rich food of mammals after the asteroid had killed off the dinosaurs. Birds such as the now chickens and mammals such as the now rats and mice ( all small warm-blooded; also smaller semi-aquatic reptilian, so warding off coldness with feathers or fur and needing little food { anyone who has tried finding a street parking space for different-sized cars in New York understands that it's easier to find one for a smaller car; this minimum parking-space size needed is analogous to minimum food needed to survive } were important survival advantages after the aftermath of the asteroid strike ) were the Chosen Ones. "The insectivores shall inherit the earth." Similarly as humans' close relatives, the chimpanzees, do, Homo sapiens' ancestors probably ate the abundantly available termites, too, in East Africa, to sustain the requiring-high-energy-and-bulging-more-massive human brains which run on glucose. Refined sugar convertible by the human body into glucose can be stored for many months without spoilage as long as it doesn't get wet but honey can easily beat refined sugar in this regard. Honey does suffer from crystallization in the very long run ( i.e. years ) but that doesn't detract from its edibility -- rather than pouring it out, I used a bamboo chopstick and strong stainless steel fork to break it up and sweep it out.

Bamboo is a marvelously strong material per unit weight. It also "grows like weed" in abundance because it is a weed. My parental family living in the shantytown ate bamboo shoots, [my Big Brother and I] slept upon a wooden board supported by bamboo yokes resting upon chairs, [my Big Brother, never I] fetched municipal drinking water using bamboo yokes, and our shantytown was aptly named "Bamboo Garden United Village 竹園聯合村." The Chinese Revolution which had started in Canton/Guangzhou to overthrow the Ching/Qing Dynasty was partly supplied and supported with sharpened bamboo sticks. It's understandable why military people had founded or decided to start living in our shantytown next to Phoenix Creek 鳳凰溪 ( we did have a very close call with yet another potential conflagration { phoenix is a firebird 清拆影響 and her wing's auspicious fengshui 鳳翼 protected our village from harm } but my adopted Grandma knew how to stop a cigarette-to-curtain fire quickly with my Mom assisting her without using any water but an embroidered silk blanket; without Grandma, we would have become homeless twice { once due to the death of the landlord who had rented to us our home unit, his widow who inherited from him our home building needed to force-sell it to pay for her living expenses } or worse.) It's also strategically located close to major arterial roads and Kai-Tak Airport which our shantytown was a boundary part of in the days when water planes flew in ashore to land. It probably started out as the hangar area or parking lot for the planes.

Antarctica, various glaciers, and the Arctic Ocean ice are just huge-scale geographical color/colour-distinguishable plots of the 32°F/0C near-equilibrium phase-transition contours of the chemical compound dihydrogen monoxide. As temperatures shift, these contours are expected to change rapidly to reflect the release or absorption of latent heat ( 79.7 calories/gram of dihydrogen monoxide ) for effecting the phase transition. There is little net effect on the ambient temperatures near these contours until the phase transition is completed. It's the same as drawing down the balance of our bank account, nothing much happens [in its vicinity] until we have depleted it to zero. [Then all hell breaks loose.] It's like veering off the expressway at high speed and it's no big deal until we hit a lightpole, a guard rail, a tree, or something else immobile. Speed never kills but acceleration-gravity in excess does. Communism, Fascism, Populism, and Extremism all suffer from this curse of high acceleration. It doesn't matter which direction one accelerates or decelerates, left, right, up, down, to the front, or back. They all kill, usually due to political hallucinations.

When mountains' glaciers are gone, we'll likely see biblical suffering downhill. We'll see at least tens of millions or perhaps even billions of migrants from the Sino-Indo-Pacific watersheds. If the Eternal River called Ganga dries up together with Yangtze, Mekong, etc., it'll be both catastrophic and highly chaotic. Red China and India are leading us there with their recent decades of massive growth of coal-burning.

Able was I ere I saw Elbe.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Arctic Sea Ice Second Lowest on Record, March 23, 2018

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/winter-arctic-sea-ice-second-lowest-record-spd/

We should keep track of this on this thread.

"The key, of course, is that all these ice declines are having immeasurable impact on the globe—increasing heat and moisture in the atmosphere, changing mixing and circulation of the Arctic ocean, affecting what and where things live, even altering the global climate system. And these shifts will only get worse until and unless humans dramatically scale back carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and gas.

"The changes are just going to get more severe," Petty says."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''Thanks to Climate Disruption, Earth Is Already Losing Critical Biosphere Components'', by Dahr Jamal:

tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

"Greenland’s ice is melting much faster than we thought. Here’s why that’s scary."

"Greenland’s ice could raise seas by 20 feet."

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/11/17219020/greenland-ice-melt-climate-change

Holy sh-t. 20 feet is a lot!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''As Glacier-Fed Rivers Disappear, One-Sixth of Global Population Is at Risk'', by Dahr Jamail:

From Your Link:

''Beyond rising seas, the increase in freshwater running into the ocean can slow down the Atlantic Conveyor, a massive pattern of currents in the Atlantic Ocean. “That can have global implications for climate,” Osterberg said.

''The findings align with other, aforementioned observations about the Arctic: that the sea ice is melting at its fastest rate in 1,500 years and the alarmingly warm winter in the Arctic, replete with a heat wave in February.

''And almost everywhere scientists look in the cryosphere, they find it rapidly dribbling away. In another recent paper, Osterberg reported that the glaciers in Alaska’s Denali National Park are melting at their fastest rate in 400 years. Summer temperatures are now melting 60 times more snow on Mt. Hunter than they did 150 years ago.

''All this goes to show that the world is changing, often faster than we realized, and we still don’t fully know what’s still to come.''

caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show

"Rate of melt has accelerated threefold in last five years and could contribute 25cm to sea-level rises without urgent action"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/13/antarctic-ice-melting-faster-than-ever-studies-show

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

Let us bow our heads to send our thoughts and prayers to Antarctic ice.

The earth hears His voice and it teaches us ( how feedback can make nonlinearity emerge from the linearity at the fundamental level--the sailors in the video are getting the Earth moving with full-steam ahead because Einstein's special theory of relativity of 1905 says that motion is relative so they were steaming the onshore furnace away from their ship maximizing its cargo space for profits as San Francisco's cable cars do for the city terrain's necessity although Galileo had supposedly muttered, "And yet it moves.") We need that poison-ivy geo duck degree. Amen.

Mendelian evolution triumphed over Lamarckian environmental-imprinting evolution and yet we later discovered that the environment imprinted on the genes themselves through horizontal gene transfers and the epigenome. The accrued righteousness and, unless atoned for, the sins of the fathers shall visit upon the children and the children's children--for "I AM who I AM, the jealous God."

In human endeavors such as science or Trumpian tweety devolution: ex falso quodlibet

Toad's wart is, "a total fuckup."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Re. Greta Thurnberg: ''Right To Their Faces, 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Elite Climate Crisis Their Fault ... "Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to make unimaginable amounts of money, and I think many of you here today belong to that group of people."

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Tho' now "They see us as a threat because we’re having an impact'' ...

''Eventually, We Will All Be Climate Refugees'' ...

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Florida's cities are building to fight rising seas. Small towns may struggle to defend themselves.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/01/us/sea-level-rise-costs-climate-change-florida/index.html

This crisis hasn't even begun to really show itself yet.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Yes, ''This crisis hasn't even begun to really show itself yet'' & ''It’s not just the Trump administration that’s fueling denial. It was also revealed how the DNC Chair, Tom Perez introduced a resolution ( https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/tom-perez-introduced-a-resolution-that-could-kill-a-climate-debate/ ) in an attempt to kill climate debate among the Democratic presidential candidates.

''Nevertheless, reality has a way of not going away, despite human efforts at denial.

''A recent report { https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/31/climate-crisis-already-causing-deaths-and-childhood-stunting-report-reveals } .. showed that the climate crisis is already well along in causing childhood deaths and the stunting of growth in Australia and across the Pacific. Other impacts on kids include lowered cognitive capacity and higher susceptibility to the spread of diseases.'' - from...

et caveat!

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than expected! Holy sh-t! That is scary!

“Thawing permafrost is one of the tipping points for climate breakdown and it’s happening before our very eyes,” said Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International. “This premature thawing is another clear signal that we must decarbonize our economies, and immediately.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-permafrost/scientists-amazed-as-canadian-permafrost-thaws-70-years-early-idUSKCN1TJ1XN?fbclid=IwAR04_ChIyHV43JEoHDunj9yvoOm68S-yVJtPt5Hij-8DZSOgHk_hrKArn3I

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''May 2018 Broke Thousands of Temperature Records Across the US'', by Dhar Jamail:

From your link: “To avoid the worst impacts, we will need strong international cooperation and effective regulation backed by rigorous science. This will rely on governments recognising that Antarctica is intimately coupled to the rest of the Earth system, and damage there will cause problems everywhere.”

caveat ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

50 Environmental Defenders Killed in 2018 so far.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/feb/27/the-defenders-recording-the-deaths-of-environmental-defenders-around-the-world

Wow. That is so sad. Thanks to the Guardian for keeping track of such important information. Shame on humanity.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''The Limits of Green Energy Under Capitalism'', by David Klein:

caveat!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Ireland divests from fossil fuels.

Yes, Ireland becomes world's first country to divest from fossil fuels. If they can do it, all countries can do it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/12/ireland-becomes-worlds-first-country-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels

https://www.newsweek.com/ireland-set-divest-fossil-fuels-global-first-1022398

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending'', by Tim Dickinson:

''The world would be richer and healthier if the full costs of fossil fuels were paid, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.'' Crapitalism's "Externalities" are catching up on us fast!

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Spending on Fossil Fuels = 649 BILLION

"The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion."

It was unimaginable to me that the U.S. could possibly spend more than we spend on defense on ANYTHING, but the fact that it is something equally deleterious (fossil fuels) makes some sense and I can wrap my head around that but my god, are we ever going to learn!?!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Pope Francis declares 'climate emergency' and urges action!'' by Lisa Song:

oremus!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Kids fighting for the future of the planet, worldwide, and following in the footsteps of Greta Thunberg.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-youthactivists/in-greta-thunbergs-footsteps-the-climate-kids-fighting-for-their-future-idUSKCN1TL138

"With hundreds of thousands of pupils and students now regularly joining much bigger Fridays for Future strikes in more than 120 countries, Reuters visited three young campaigners from very different backgrounds, united by acute concern over climate change, plastic pollution and the rapid extinction of species."

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 5 years ago

I wonder whether the figure of $649 billions in 2015 overlaps with the Pentagon spending in that same year of $599 billions.

A chunk of the Pentagon spending is for indirect subsidies to other countries, friends and foes alike, to assure them secured access to oil and (liquefied) natural gas. The figure for the direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels by the U.S. was probably even higher than the $649 billions because the U.S. Navy was protecting shipping lanes near the Persian Gulf.

There's a very good reason for Periplaneta americana to be almost everywhere where shipping lanes are. When I was a preschooler, Mom told me that if I saw them scurrying out of the cupboard in which we kept our leftover food, it was a sign that we were well off! We didn't have a refrigerator to put our leftover food into because we didn't have electricity. Mom wasn't lying...

It was tough to transmit that viewpoint to a future spouse though who screamed aloud when scores of Periplaneta germanica scurried out of an apartment's kitchen drawer upon her opening it (we were "well off" as Mom had presaged.) She pulled out the entire drawer and dropped it with all the things in it (including 》die Fallschirmjäger !《) onto the kitchen floor. I wonder whether she had any Jewish heritage or not that might have caused her phobia of the suspected "Nazis." In a college dormitory room, I stomped them with aplomb. If she had grown up with my upbringing, she would have appreciated the barehand squashability and barefoot stompability difference between Periplaneta americana and Periplaneta germanica (which wasn't the species that had scared me to drop the Johnny-Walker-Black-Label bottle holding the cooled boiled drinking water and destroy our porcelain kitchen sink a few weeks before we gave or threw away almost everything to take the intercontinental flights to Japan, Alaska {I thought to myself, "Where are the Americans?" I saw only a ¿Russian Tupolev-160 bomber-sandwich-delivery? man snoozing on a bench in the entire airport but thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes perching on the plate-glass windows of the airport trying to warm up and walking ¿vodka-?drunkenly to stay in the weak subarctic sunlight for the blood-sucking Operation Arctic Vampires} and finally New York. I get it now why Pompeo would be pooping in his pants -- he was emptying out his innards in his own lactose-intolerant Operation Rolling Thunder to prepare for devouring the sumptuous beef-stroganoff bomber sandwitch express-delivered from Russia with Love.)

Periplaneta americana kept the world economy afloat. At the ends of the shipping lanes are areas of prosperity. For example, on a per-capita GDP basis, which is the most prosperous province of Red China? Zhejiang. Where is its biggest-in-the-world container shipping port? In the eastern-most part of Zhejiang? Why eastern-most? It's the closest deepwater port to the U.S.A. by sea. Major shipping lanes start there. Looking at the other end, Seattle-Tacoma region of Washington state is where they connect to. Some of the biggest U.S. businesses, Walmart, Amazon, etc. all have major business concentration there.

Seaports are where prosperity tends to be located. Periplaneta americana assure that they stay connected in peacetime and cut off in wartime to the enemies of America (they already signalled.) There is only one global superpower: the U.S.A. Our current international power situation is akin to that between the British Empire and Germany shortly before the Great War. The U.S. is analogous to the British Empire, with global reach, while Red China is a newly developed power seeking its own colonies overseas (and overland "One Belt One Road") analogous to Germany doing the same.

Robert Mueller made his first public statement regarding the Trump-Russia investigation (11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight-saving Time of Washington D.C.) He essentially said that it's not in his capacity to indict a sitting president because the investigation is under the policy restraint of the Department of Justice. Indicting a sitting president is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Keep on sitting then. It's easy to avoid being charged -- don't stand up. Trumpanzees won't understand what Robert Mueller has said with his contrapositive form of the statement regarding our President's commission of crimes. Logic is neither taught to nor learnt by everyone. Trump isn't a war hero yet but our troops salute him because she the trans-parent heroine, not he, came from Dixon. Bone spurs are great for kicking at the belly of the pregnant war mare.

To Augustus Caesar: DOJ, SCOTUS, and US Senate have all laid down the royal red carpet to welcome your reign! Never forget that somebody commands the battle tanks to storm Congress with. As for Whitehouse occupation -- the Moscow time for that is still indefinite. Softer measures can work instead of cannonballs as what had been done in Moscow. "Apple" "arm" and "apples" "arrows" were taught to me from my two kindergarten English alphabet-vocabulary books. Twisting an arm of the Rigger-in-Chief can move a lever in Congress (the "most powerful" branch of the U.S. Government can be checkmated.)

Red China's companies which want to sell its products here must partner with U.S. companies with U.S. persons holding the controlling shares comprising at least 51% of the outstanding votable shares. It's required for Red China to disclose and publish the chemical processes for extracting at volume the so-called "rare"-earth elements. Capture Red Chinese students studying at U.S. Schools of Mines for interrogations and leverage. That will surely reduce the number of foreign students in U.S. colleges and universities taking home U.S.-government-funded research results. Note that the U.S. can create an "artificial-atom" project to circumvent Red China's potential "rare"-earth-element embargo. By properly controlling the voltage distribution with nanotechnology, Schrödinger's Equation can be used for computing the resulting electronic wavefunctions, and thereby the chemical properties of the "artificial atom" formed from the voltage distribution. The intensities of the electric fields will probably be less than those of the real atoms but chemically they will be similar. All atoms are made of the same particles and most material properties derive from the electronic configurations surrounding the atomic nuclei which can nearly be treated as point particles.

The U.S. is as credible as it has ever been to everyone, especially Red China, which had built artificial islands (immobile missiles and aircraft carriers) in the Western American Lake to rescue many drowning American sailors who had drunk too much auto-warm beer. Thanks!

Most if not all other countries' aircraft carriers have a ramp for the aircraft engines to provide a part of the kinetic energy needed for a launch. Only the U.S. uses the steam-powered catapult launch system on our supercarriers essentially substituting the carrier's nuclear power for aircraft fuel. Our aircraft thus get a higher energy endowment at the takeoff than other countries' similar aircraft. They can therefore stay flying in the air longer. Note that the steam expended on a launch contains energy lost and makes the aircraft carrier more easily detectable. It can become a vulnerability to a highly capable enemy. An aircraft carrier without its many escorts (especially the AEGIS-protected ones and the submarine hunters; Red China intends to attack a U.S. carrier strike group from below and with perhaps stationed/moved-to-far-inland medium-range "carrier-hunter" missiles from the air; they are why the Red Chinese P.L.A. is so cocky near the Spratly Islands) in its battlegroup is vulnerable but it can serve Red China's purpose of intimidating its lesser capable rivals. This is why other countries tend to own and operate only one aircraft carrier (they aren't trying to dominate the world's oceans as much as the U.S. is, with about a dozen battlegroups prowling the high seas at any one time; of course, some of them has the U.S. as their ally so our aircraft carrier battlegroups can join them if need be.) An aircraft carrier battlegroup takes a lot of money to operate and maintain. Only the U.S. actually intends to fight real wars with its aircraft carrier battlegroups all by themselves (of course, in many-months-long sustained military engagements, another carrier battlegroup, maybe even with one drawn from the carrier reserve, can take over the fighting or resupplying.) An electromagnetically powered launch system avoid these negative factors by being more efficient and less detectable and is therefore highly desirable for our next generation of aircraft carriers. Of course, the long-term cost savings from less wear-and-tear on the aircraft landing gears and lost aircraft due to mislaunches are probably the most important considerations. Besides, the mass of the aircraft can be higher to accommodate those aircraft with more onboard equipment, such as integrated battlefield management or electronic counter-measure equipment. When we are "up there, we've got to push it (the envelope.)" Being on top means matching or beating any and all nemeses, on their past performance records at least. Never surrender without having a fight first.

During the iridescent-slipper incident in which I fought him hard, my Big Brother "won" alright (as I returned the slipper to the girl next-door.) He got a spanking, and a ceasefire agreement forced upon him by Mom, Hahaha!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

"Capitalism requires perpetual economic growth in order to avoid economic crises such as the Great Depression. More specifically, in order to stave off mass unemployment and economic misery, capitalism requires increasing commodity production, escalating resource extraction, increasing trash and toxic dumping, and ever increasing energy production. Capitalism, by its very nature, must expand unendingly and it has already surpassed the limits of sustainable growth in the sense that global consumption now exceeds the planet’s bio-capacity to regenerate the resources consumed. According to the World Wildlife Fund, 1.6 Earths would be required to meet the demands humanity makes on nature each year. Capitalism is not only incapable of responding adequately to the environmental crisis, it is the very cause of the crisis and can only make matters worse."

Interesting article. So long as we have a capitalist world economic system we will will have pollution and environmental degradation.

"It is not enough just to oppose capitalism. We also need to create something better: An alternative system of human relations along the lines of eco-socialism is not only desirable, it is imperative. Included in such a vision are free health care, free education, free mass transportation, and since most jobs under capitalism are pointless or destructive, we need a drastically reduced workweek."

From "The Limits of Green Energy Under Capitalism by David Klein

https://truthout.org/articles/the-limits-of-green-energy-under-capitalism/

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 6 years ago

''We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN'' .. by Jonathan Watts:

''Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC.''

Many thanks bw, for your excellent excerpts from the David Klein article above, and also FYI:

respice; adspice; prospice!

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

The kids take on Climate Change. School marches bring out millions all over the world. Now it's up to the adults of the world to pay attention and take action. It is our beloved children who will suffer the most, after all.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/14/703461293/skipping-school-to-protest-climate-change

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

G*d bless Greta Thurnberg and her cohort of active young people &

fiat justitia ruat caelum ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Greta Thunberg tells Davos, speaks truth to power right to their faces, of the coming climate crisis.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/25/right-their-faces-16-year-old-greta-thunberg-tells-davos-elite-climate-crisis-their

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 5 years ago

Only rebellion will prevent ecological apocalypse says George Monbiot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/15/rebellion-prevent-ecological-apocalypse-civil-disobedience

"No one is coming to save us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response"

"Those who govern the nation and shape public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth. There is no benign authority preserving us from harm. No one is coming to save us. None of us can justifiably avoid the call to come together to save ourselves."

"Our system – characterised by perpetual economic growth on a planet that is not growing – will inevitably implode. The only question is whether the transformation is planned or unplanned. Our task is to ensure it is planned, and fast. We need to conceive and build a new system based on the principle that every generation, everywhere has an equal right to enjoy natural wealth."

Truth.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

Extinction Rebellion show the way for future actions & protests across The Good Earth - our beautiful but fragile Only Hommmmmmme! Without actions and protests like these ... The 99%'s voices are mute.

fiat lux; fiat justitia; fiat pax ...

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

I worry a lot more about what's happening around Antarctica, due to the sheer difference in scale between Antarctica's and Greenland's ice/water influence. The Global Climate Machine over there is unwinding for THE "Change You Can Believe In." As the greatest waterfall on planet Earth that churns nutrients to feed phytoplanktons grinds to a halt, there'll be far more than sushi that will disappear!

Carbon dioxide being buried in the deep ocean by the waterfall will stop going there kicking off a warming and ocean-surface-acidifying positive feedback loop. The warm water staying near the surface blocking the colder but less salty water from sinking will collapse Antarctica's iceshelves and undercut the glaciers feeding the iceshelves. The melting of the iceshelves will unblock the glaciers and accelerate the glacial flows towards the ocean. West Antarctic Icesheet must collapse as in "all systems go!" These are all positive feedback loops but very negative for human stability.

Atmospheric oxygen comes from the phytoplantons' photosynthesis. Zooplanktons and fishes feed on the phytoplanktons. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by their photosynthesis, stopping its greenhouse-warming effect. Snow and ice reflect sunlight reducing warming. Melted glaciers and icesheet increase the efficiency of absorbing sunlight causing warming. It seems that the Earth may be changing into a tightly closed fermentation vat. The arctic tundra can chime in with the methane bomb triggered by accelerated warming, too.

[-] 0 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago

I remember when Nader and the Greens were running around saying there was no difference between Al Gore and W Bush, if only they hadn't done that things could be so different.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

In a true democracy people get to vote for what they believe in. They are not just given a binary choice of two, which is more like a gun to the head if you don't like either of those two choices.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago

people always have choices you can choose to stand on the sidelines or vote for a lost cause and let people like trump win or you can try to stop him. People who refuse to step up and make a choice to stop people like Trump are as bad or even worse in many ways than those that actively support him.

[-] 2 points by agkaiser (2554) from Fredericksburg, TX 6 years ago

people always have choices

WTFU! We live in an oligarchy! It's owned by Wall St. Billionaires. We pretend we have choices in meaningful free democratic elections. And let's not forget that "Citizens United" opened the door to foreign money buying in to Amerikan "Democracy." So the conservative Supreme Court is complicit and in collusion with Russia's, China's et al's conquest of our nation.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago

you chose to sit on your ass and let the GOP win....

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 6 years ago

Scary Shit = The PBS News Hour on 4/19/2018 - said that the trade deficit is good for the USA and that includes foreign countries like CHINA owning our debt! http://www.pbs.org/video/the-argument-for-a-u-s-trade-deficit-with-china-1524181803/

Now call me stupid - but that point of view is just insane! Is it Not?

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2554) from Fredericksburg, TX 6 years ago

that point of view is just insane! Is it Not?

It's trade, not the deficit that fucks us first. With a deficit they have our increasingly worthless money but we have the real goods. We can abrogate the debt at any time. However our brain dead politicians and population will honor debt, though we [who are about to die] starve to death. Given that reality I agree that trade, which exports goods raising domestic prices, and the deficit are insane.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 6 years ago

It's trade, not the deficit that fucks us first.

That is part of what I was referring to as the insanity of PBS's little segment. USA manufactured goods sitting on shelves creates a manufacturing glut = Employee lay-offs and no new hiring and business's moving off-shore (out of country).

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

Trade deficit hits us earlier than our national budget deficit because of the potential job losses in the trade deficit case and the U.S. supreme military power in the budget deficit case.

In economic boom years, running trade deficits often happen due to the greater demand than can be satisfied domestically, sucking in foreign products in addition to the domestic products. It can be good or bad. It's good to satisfy the need. It's bad if the demand was produced by a fiscal stimulus intended to revive the domestic economy. Understand everything in context. Allow nothing in excess and everything in moderation. Wisdom is to discern where the boundary is.

The U.S. military supremacy supports the Carter Doctrine protecting the oilfields of the Middle East. Our military alliance with Saudi Arabia requiring the U.S. dollar for purchasing its oil gives instantaneous value to any newly printed U.S. dollar. Last I checked, the U.S. still leads every other country in military spending by extremely wide margins (the U.S. spends 30-40% and the remaining around 200 countries of the World 70-60% of the total world military expenditure) and presumably it contributes to the military supremacy. Yeah, the U.S. dollar is rather secure as the world reserve currency unless Saudi Arabia defects or is conquered. There are so many U.S. dollars in the World already that even our national budget deficit pales in comparison, its being just a drop in the bucket. To a first approximation, our budget deficit doesn't matter. However, Saudi Arabia must eventually run out of oil. Its hostile neighbors may overrun it. Both can end the petrodollar. The U.S. does have vital interests at stake in the tumultuous and murderous Middle East. It's foolhardy to attack the oilfields associated with the U.S. Did the Russians read the Carter Doctrine? Apparently not.

Rescinding debts requires a military force strong enough to back it up. Rescinding unpayable debts was what had led to the major wars in the last century. There's NO supreme world government enforcing global bankruptcy laws. Donald Trump can declare bankruptcies many times in business and got away with them because he lives in the U.S.A. under the protection of the U.S. Military. Adolf Hitler rescinding war debts helped triggered World War II. In principle, the U.S. should have no problem at all paying its U.S.-dollar-denominated debts because it can just print however much is owed to pay them. In practice, there's a problem with the U.S. Congress balking at raising the debt ceiling because the U.S. had been hoodwinked to use a privately owned currency due to the revenue compromise made for passing the Prohibition. The Prohibition ended but the national-bank-owned currency drawing interest lives on. These banks collect a percentage of the U.S. currency borrowed by the U.S.

Hence, the U.S. military supremacy underpins the servicing of both the trade deficit and the budget deficit. This is why I support the U.S. Military. The smooth functioning of the U.S. economy (and much of the global economy, too) depends on it.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2554) from Fredericksburg, TX 6 years ago

ex nihilo nihil fit

I don't subscribe to the conventional economic wisdom. Since humanity devolved from the egalitarian community based economy of hunting and gathering, our economy has become increasingly diseased by an elite class of parasites. They are today, more than ever, threatening the life of the host economy and the human race with their stupidity and greed.

The ever more harmful concentration of [real] wealth created by the workers in the community in the hands of the ruling elite parasites is the result of the perpetual motion of money that is as impossible to sustain as a thermodynamic machine that creates energy from nothingness. As long as the few, who benefit from the work of the many, take without giving anything but words [usually threats and extortionist demands] in return and property rights are more important than human rights, we will continue to deteriorate towards ultimate extinction.

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Bernie would have beaten Trump, all the polls said so.

Except you status quo loving "liberals" just wouldn't have it. Gosh no. No healthcare for all, no free education, no living wage because people like you only care about yourselves.

You don't care at all about those rotting away in the prison industrial complex for minor crimes and misdemeanors or those living on food stamps who work full time, those without healthcare, students mired in debt. You look only at your own situation and care only for that. You cheer for the military industrial complex and ongoing inequality because it benefits YOU.

Get some guts and stand up for something beyond yourself or just go away already.

[-] 1 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago

I supported Bernie and you would know that if you weren't stupid, what I care about is what happens, it matters when the GOP wins, people like you that elect the GOP are responsible for what they do, in 2000 we had a chance to elect someone that would have addressed climate change but idiots like you chose to let W Bush win instead will you never learn? how much pain must there be before you do?

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

I have never voted for a GOP candidate ever in my life, so not sure what you're on about.

Do you believe in democracy? In voting for the candidate you think is best? No, you don't, you want to bully people into voting for candidates they don't like by promoting a binary choice.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, I get more choice choosing my little piggies.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

It's scary alright but most people's criterion for concern is whether it affects them. Most will probably say, "so what if the Arctic ice melts away -- I don't live there!"

The nature of how the latent heat needed to melt snow and ice works is that as long as there is water in equilibrium with them, the snow/ice/water mixture stays at 0 C. Not much temperature effect comes out from that but once the snow and ice is all gone there's NO stopping the water temperature from rising as the sun heats it up. Water can absorb much more heat energy than either snow or ice before its temperature rises for the same amount so the great refrigerators in the Arctic/Greenland and Antarctic will melt rapidly to moderate the rise of the global temperature average until they are snow- and ice-free.

Then we'll start to be fried inland but with villages, cities, and ports, flooded on the coasts ( like Miami, FL and Norfolk, VA ). The increased floodings in Norfolk should have woken up our Orangutan to the fact that the seawater level has risen to cause problems for our navy there but I guess it is an animal which has just recently swung out of the jungles of Nieuw Amsterdam to lead the Great White Flee. The entourage monkeys duly amended agency mission statements and reports to wipe out "nation of immigrants" and "climate change." Hip, Hip, Hurray! Hip, Hip, Hurray! Hip, Hip, Hurray! Since 2002, the songbirds have already been singing of climate change's increased temperature: How Great Thou Art!

Oh yeah, Mao ( who had probably learnt from Stalin regarding the Holodomor ) promulgated the term, "three years of Natural disasters" after mobilizing the Chinese farmers en masse to refine steel ( which turned out, not surprisingly, useless ) and subsequently starving to death tens of millions of Chinese. It's surely "Nature" taking its toll alright, no different from what happened in Nieuw Rhodesia.

The major humanitarian concern is actually the freshwater supply for the billions of people ( Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Vietnamese, etc. ) depending on the snow/ice glacial melts. Non-artic glaciers worldwide will disappear much sooner than all of the snow and ice in the Arctic/Greenland and the Antarctic refrigerators. It's never wise to exceed the adaptability of the peoples' livelihoods but poor peoples probably don't care anyway.

India planned of using coal to lift its people out of poverty -- what will India do if Ganga, its 'eternal' river, becomes temporary and dries up in the hot season after the monsoon rain's freshwater has gushed into the ocean instead of being stored up in the Himalayan glaciers and trickled down later to water the crops?

How will China fetch freshwater for its billion+ people?

Freshwater supply is what makes great civilizations possible in river valleys -- by withdrawing the freshwater supply, we get the deserts of Iraq { remember operation Desert Storm? NOT operation Cropland Storm! } instead of the croplands of Sumer, nearly in the same place but different climate. Other examples abound in archeology: the civilizations of the Mayas, ancestral Pueblo peoples, etc. succumbing to climate change's rain pattern shifts. Despite millennia, our forefathers had NEVER figured out how to live without freshwater supply. The flipside of this fact means that once we have improved water recycling efficiency and anhydrous processes sufficiently, great civilizations can be sprouted in many more places if freed from the restrictions imposed by rain or water patterns. The abandoned high-and-dry glass-clad office towers of Detroit can become vertical farms, perhaps initially bootstrapping them with the desert beans from the Native Americans, to revitalize the city with food-sale revenues, police security, and new or returning people -- yeah, Dream Big, Dream On, we are the Essential American Dreamers ! Turn cities edible. Like New York Pizza. Like Gingerbread House. Like Chock Full O'Nuts covfefe. Like a crunchy sweet egg-fragrant Ice-Cream Cone -- but Small Brother says, "don't swallow the chewing gum with no flavors left or your intestines would be stuck shut and you could die of constipation, packed full of feces, like our government," so I spit it out and ask politely, "May I have another cone with a scoop of gubermint.. please?"

Hmm, maybe China built the Three Gorges Dam to store water so in case of war with China to kill it, destroy the dam or at least the conduits feeding its water and electricity to the thirsty Northern China where the political class lives in order to elicit a political surrender.

Wars are fought using steel, aluminum, and oil. The U.S. rescued General Motors because it was the ONLY U.S. company which still knew how to make battle tanks ( I did rejoice at the jobs saved ). Before reaching the fighting stage of a world war, we must build up our domestic supply of and production capabilities for the raw materials needed. I wouldn't count on the production capacities { better used there now to build more battle tanks, warships, cannons, aircraft, etc. for we'll need them for war } located near the likely quickly overrun frontlines in Eurasia where both China and Russia, our likeliest foes, exist primarily as great continental powers. The greatest oceans on Earth are great moats for the U.S. Besides, the U.S. still has the greatest navy in the world which can defend these moats. We are still the last defensible "Arsenal of Democracy." The meager defense resolve ( and/or capabilities ) of our overseas allies mean that they would likely be overrun very quickly ( Ahh know, ahh know, we have nuclear bombs but we already know how bad it got in Japan, okay? What are we going to do afterwards if we were unlucky enough to survive the nuclear war? Hmm? Even for myself whom my neighbors deemed to possess a strong stomach for yucky things, picking radioactive mushrooms or other fungi growing on charred cadavers, rotting carcasses, or downed tree trunks to eat would still be very revolting day after day because they would neither be "cute" nor "novel" after the first time ). By the time they get their act together ( still remember NATO's delayed response to stop Kosovo's humanitarian { ethnic cleansing } crisis in which the Muslims were "ethnically cleansed?" ), the continental phase of the world war may well be over. The U.S. may have to take a last stand in our western hemisphere, likely alone, with remnant overseas island-nation allies with strong navies, if lucky.

"Nuclear bombs don't kill people -- people kill people." General MacArthur probably knew of the Japanese depravities and war crimes committed by Unit 731. A nuclear war speeds up the human mutation rate towards creating the superior race of Übermenschen. In many ways, Ultraman protects Japan from monsters.

Hello, hello, Houston. We don't have a problem. We have the Mission!

I think Houston has been drowned and Cali has caught great fire. Oh well, God really tried to help but pissed at the wrong place, I suppose. Those who had prayed needed to face Heaven as they prayed to avoid disorienting God. I imagined God as a Briton coming out of a pub at its closing time but "don't worry, the Bobbies are 'understanding' people," as my Dad had assured me before. Forgiving people ( over the dogs congregating at the fire hydrants { i.e., the WooFoo watering-hole hotspots } sniffing, scratching, and pissing at K9-Facebook of Caninia-On-Waterline ) is a Great Bobbie Custom!

I understand why a Canadian had desired "British governance," "American know-how," and "French culture" but lamented getting "French politics," "British know-how," and "American { polipurchasing, ripeachotheroff, racialsupremacistandwhiteprivilege, rigjusticeandelection, gunsgermsundstehlen, mercenarysquireatlawgreymail, wealthaboveálles, allothersbedamned, fickmothernature, killsickoldweakandtired, robyetunbornchildrenoftheirfuturethroughdebtshealtheducationallivelihoodimpedimentssocialalienationviamediatotalinfowar } culture" instead. MAGA

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Arctic isn't melting in "my backyard!" Very American and very true.

Well, it will be one day!

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

We in the U.S. are retaining our toilet paper man in the EPA to mop up the effluent from the organic fertilizer that the Rus Chinese put up with. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss figured out centuries ago how to overcome uncertainties in the real world to forge ahead beyond multiple conflicting measurements but our centuries-old-behind-the-times lead-heads are obviously still dunking and skinny-dipping in our National Cesspool. Don't eat THAT kind of baying "crabs!" 鲜花插在牛粪上。Russia has a lot of diamonds, very very hard nuts so the Cesspool extends far beyond the bay.

Although we cannot say for sure whether your house will be rained upon twenty days from now, we have certainty that two, three, four, or five months from now, it will be much hotter than it is right now in the U.S. Why is the longer-term weather forecast possible but not the shorter term one? It's due to Apollo's driving his fiery chariot higher up across the sky to avoid the hungry bear!

Yes, after the bear has gotten hungry and crawled out of its cave, Apollo gets scared of being bitten but being the dutiful, benevolent, and lusty god that he is, he still drives his chariot like clockworks across the sky to take care of the people on the ground by growing their crops with his fiery chariot but he gives wide berth to the marauding hungry bear. Once the bear has eaten its full, Apollo relaxes and drives his chariot lower down across the sky. Not to be outdone by the procreative ( a.k.a. farking ) "business" ( affairé in French, after the 1066 C.E. Norman Conquest of England ) of his almighty father Zeus ( e.g., his changing into a white bull which carried off Europa on his back to rape her as depicted by Titian; rape and rapture have the same root in English -- implicitly inculcating that being raped is rapturous in Anglo cultures so we certainly have a London and a Las Vegas which attract much money, booz and sex traffic, especially from booz-and/or-sexually repressive lands such as Islamic or Orthodox countries; even shortly before their suicidal attacks on 9/11 to avenge for shamed Saudi Arabia, the Middle-Easterner kamikaze pilots and hijillers spent their last time in glitzy, booby, and boozy Las Vegas, presumably for earthly pleasures ), Apollo grabs a beautiful nude maiden Daphne by her pussy. It's "a like-father-like-son" culture of rape being rapturous as in Anglo-booms. The lustig god became lustful due to his disparaging Eros.

My ancestors survived because they had figured out this bear-driven Apollo-fear rhythm many millennia ago. They think therefore I am. Rhythm method works. However, our fat asses are living so high up the hog that they couldn't see the effluent and just share rice with us like this: 天粪 -- pollution stings up into space.

The current ( Rust-ian ) autolaunch of nuclear-tipped ICBMs can trigger a global thermonuclear war via 007's shot-down "accident." Welcome aboard to Trans World Airlines flight 800. Captain Kevorkian's Not an autopilot.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23824) 6 years ago

Unprecedented Melting of Arctic Mountain Glaciers in Last 400 Years.

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-arctic-mountain-glaciers-unprecedented-years.html

[-] 0 points by factsrfun (8342) from Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago

I live in Phoenix plenty of ice melting in my backyard, the day is coming when Phoenix will not be habitable.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 6 years ago

Ice melting in March in Phoenix is called "Spring," duh... Rejoice! I agree that Phoenix will definitely become "inhabitable" [ in Trumpanzia, of course. ;))) ] You should definitely check into how Phoenix got its name because it had become "inflammable" before and it was discovered that it's very [Americanly] "flammable as the USS Arizona."

To all who listen to the Earth, the dust ( such as that from the Star of Bethlehem? no, a supernova probably dimmed too quickly to have guided the slow travel of the { Persian/Iranian } Magi ) speaks the truth ( e.g., [ black-K2S-tainted ] smoke rising up from the Boston Marathon bombings indicated non-military [ military grade explosives are mostly smokeless so as Not to reveal one's position to the enemy -- if one were to create so much smoke as shown in the video, one would likely be hurt or killed as the next target ] likely domestic gunpowder, the nearest-to-Boston legal source of which was in New Hampshire as fireworks -- guess what racial skin color dominates there? it's Not that skin color is at all relevant but the Culture of domination/intimidation IS relevant; yes, Connecticut's Nancy Lanza whose son Adam Lanza was of Sandy Hook Massacre [in-]fame also had New Hampshire gun-culture connection ) : deaths of massive stars make life possible ( by creating the chemical elements heavier than helium -- O, C, N, S, P, Na, K, Cl, Ca, Mg, Mn, Mo, Fe, Zn, Si, Cu, Se, ...) Did you luck in or did you luck out? "...for dust you are and to dust you will return" - Gen. 3:19.

This map at 0:24 shows the greatest vulnerability to water shortage of the World's human population. The third pole, the Himalayan glaciers, sustains billions of people inside of that circle. When the third pole disappears, we can have Syria's problems multiplied by 100 or 1000 times. Dogs need to keep on sniffing at the rear-ends of other dogs for social media checks because their butts are where their buttboob ( i.e., K9-faceboob ) pages are located at according to the butt-attraction-displaced-to-boob-attraction hypothesis for human face-to-face mating having switched the focus from the back to the front. Dogs sitting on sandpaper will get it right when they start barking, "rough, rough!"

[-] 1 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

Harry?

Are you interested in anything besides the imaginary "twinkle team"? You know there is a protest action happening now.

Care to comment?

http://new.livestream.com/jamesfromtheinternet/events/3416732

Take a look, be inspired to contribute substance instead of encouraging our forum concern trolls distractions.

Peace

[-] 1 points by 99nproud (2697) 10 years ago

Agreed

[Removed]

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Interesting link from a very interesting site ! Thanx !! Go Occupy !!!

Also please see :

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

I think I saw you postthat somewhere else.

Excellent info.

Thanks

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Not at all sure what the NRA or guns has to do with this forum-post topic but it does give me an opportunity to voice a thought re. a possible deep psychic reason for US gun fixation !!!

However, to get my drift, you'd have to engage with : http://occupywallst.org/forum/kill-anything-that-moves/ & then cogitate over my point, which is that - Vets Know What Went Down Abroad & The Atrocities That They Were Party To ... so, it has entered the deep psyche & the 'collective subconscious' of the nation that such horrors are possible !!

To get my line of thinking here, you'll have to read LeoYo's forum-posted article but I should warn you - it really is rather a brain jolting read !

ad iudicium ...

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

I just had this link on my clipboard and threw on the most inappropriate reply I could find, cuz I thought you needed a laugh. No harm, no foul.

I'm a very quick study and turn on a dime, so I don't need prep.

I have written extensively on the topic of guns and I surprised myself with one really good sentence, and now I'm ruined for anybody else on the topic, including myself. Wish I could find it. That's my only complaint about this forum, no personal account that stores your posts and replies. I put stuff on here and never see it again. And the "search" feature is a fucking joke! But apparently the piece on guns was so great it blew DK's mind (probable stretch), he read it and then he disappeared.

A few people get killed in Libya and the ridiculous Right goes (and stays) bananas, 20 kids get slaughtered at school and they pooh pooh it. To me, that's reason enough to ban all guns unconditionally.

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Ok. I get you re. guns etc. & so thanx + re. my previous comment above and also fyi :

Re. the "search" box, enter any forum poster's moniker and their last 50 forum-posts will come up and enter any subject and again, relevant forum-pots will come up but it's too much to expect that this 'open-source' system can pull up and aggregate any individual's comments. Bookmark anything you need to.

verb. sat. sap ...

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

Doesn't work for me! I'm used to unwarranted or spiteful prejudice.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Chill and don't take it personally, lol. Try putting : user:WSmith - into the search box and see what you get ! Use "user:" & then posters' moniker and you'll get the last 50 forum-post list. Put any word or phrase in the search box and relevant forum-posts will come up. Good luck.

pax ...

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

Thank you!

Irish, and very thick skinned.

Oh, "user"! Missed that memo.

Also false and wild accusations, they must bump out the memos.

How's the horse-meat controversy treating you?

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Though I'd say 'nay' (neigh), some folk have no 'beef' with horse-meat so long as it's labelled correctly !!! 'Greed' knows no limits sadly and excessive, intensive cattle farming has some huge repercussions for our environment and atmosphere too.

ne quid nimis ...

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

The vegans say theirs is the only way to go, my doctor says they are all anemic and can't function properly!!

[-] 2 points by peacehurricane (293) 11 years ago

Your doctor is like all the rest and has no idea what he is talking about! The topic of flesh eating was on my mind and here it is. I am telling you true IT IS SURE DEATH! You are what you eat and not any doctor can change that fact. While the colony within people eating flesh has them convinced they need eat it, this because that colony of parasites needs to be fed. It is not the person in need of meat. If Jesus ever made a pleading statement it was about not eating death in sacrifice for his Father, stop doing it. From my perspective all conversing with people choosing death is a waste of time because it is simple to see that they will not understand where I am coming from and that is so okay knowing that I choose to live and they will not understand under spell of what lives off them.

[-] 4 points by Builder (4202) 11 years ago

Large mushrooms have replaced meat in many of my meals. B12 is abundant in fresh fungii. Just don't cook it to mush, and eat it raw in salads.

[-] 2 points by peacehurricane (293) 11 years ago

Sprouts of all sorts can deliver all the necessary nutrients in one foot square counter space. The sprouts have as much or more of vitamins/minerals as the grown foods. I am all for more fun-gi in all ways we need this and if you are a guy a little fun and it's on Good going! Lovin' you In solidarity for Worldwide FREEDOM...

[-] 4 points by Builder (4202) 11 years ago

My fave sprouts are chickpea, which are so sweet once sprouted they could be classed as a lolly. When a seed germinates, the starch converts to sugars, and the vitamin C content rises about six hundred percent.

A much better way to consume grains of any kind. Hell, even beer is made from sprouts (malt). That shuts up my mates who say sprouting is for hippies.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Re. US Forests : "The federal government has spent about $1 billion a year in recent years combating wildfires. Last year was the warmest on record in the lower 48 states and saw 9.2 million acres burned, the third-highest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. Insect infestations widely blamed on warming temperatures have killed tens of millions of acres of trees."- from your interesting link and many thanx for that and am appending this article in return :

fiat lux ...

[-] 2 points by 99nproud (2697) 11 years ago

Repubs blinded by the fossil fuel $$$ they wallow in.

Great article.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"Considering the threats of climate change, war, and disease, only an idiot – or a fossil-fuel billionaire like Charles or David Koch – would want us to bring in more oil with a pipeline or take any other steps to continue America's dependence on dirty and costly last-century fuels.", from :

fiat lux ...

[-] 2 points by 99nproud (2697) 11 years ago

I like the manhattan project bit. If we created some incentive to big business to build us a few million wind turbines we could stop burning fossil fuel.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Consider, "big business" is actually inherently opposed to sustainable power because in reality that would, should & could tend towards 'free power for all' & so how'd they 'sell' it to their share-holders ?!

'Free and sustainable and renewable and abundant' are actually antithetical to Corporate Crapitalism which thrives on faux scarcity in the midst of actual abundance in its blind pursuit of purely private profit.

Also consider : "Beyond the Brink -- A Climate Change Investigation" :

ad iudicium ...

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

"While a move towards renewable energy by Australia’s economy certainly won’t fix global warming on its own, it’s a step in the right direction, away from the rash of heat waves and wildfires—worsened by the climate change driven by fossil fuels’ carbon emissions—that have recently slammed the nation." - extracted from your excellent link, however more soberingly, I append in reply the following :

sic transit gloria mundi ...

[-] 6 points by inclusionman (7064) 11 years ago

We gotta ratchet up the protests. no let for him. What he needs to do is tell the epa to cap pollution from energy plants.

[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Yep !!! Ergo ; # F17 : http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=forwardonclimate and metaphorically but in spirit : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8QvxiQWp2g & check the lyrics :-)

per aspera ad astra ...

[-] 5 points by inclusionman (7064) 11 years ago

Don't get nothing w/o askin (or demanding)

Good tune

Don't know "easterhouse" was it?

[-] 3