(I’d indicated in Part I (here at the Café, and at Caucus 99%) that I’d say more about the 2 degrees C and 350ppm carbon tipping points in this part.)
First, from Truthout.org., reprinted with permission), excerpts from Dahr Jamail’s ‘Will Paris Climate Talks Be Too Little, Too Late?’
“But it is here at the head of the river, under the snow peaks and the waterfall that thunders down out of the magic lake, that I shall pass from one world to another.”—Peter Matthiessen
In the book The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen’s journey deep into the Nepali Himalaya to spot a snow leopard merely scratches the surface of his inner journey. Nature and our experiences in and with it are, I believe, the clearest mirror of ourselves we could ever hope for.
I told my father I’m rereading this book, and he wrote me back: “Love that book. It was a time in that part of the world when things were still pristine before tourism brought the kinds of people that should never have polluted that sacred environment.”
Agreeing with him, I shared what I’d always believed, or at least had always hoped to believe: that there are still those pristine places to be found – it is just that one must travel further, much further, into the “frontiers” to find them.
I’d love to believe this possible, but I know it no longer is. Not anymore, given what the industrial growth society has done, and is doing, to the planet. There is no place left on earth or in the atmosphere or deep within the oceans where the toxic fingerprint of industry has not left its indelible mark.
The faux goal of 2 degrees Celsius continues to be discussed. Meanwhile, the planet burns.
During the first week of December, delegations from nearly 200 countries will convene in Paris for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) climate conference. It has been billed, like the last several, as the most important climate meeting ever. The goal, like that of past COPs, is to have governments commit to taking steps to cut carbon dioxide emissions in order to limit planetary warming to within 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial temperature baseline.
Yet this is a politically agreed-upon limit. It is not based on science.
Renowned climate scientist James Hansen and multiple other scientists have already shown that a planetary temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius above preindustrial baseline temperatures is enough to cause runaway climate feedback loops, extreme weather events and a disastrous sea level rise.
Furthermore, the UK meteorological office has shown that this year’s global temperature average has already surpassed that 1 degree Celsius level.
Well in advance of the Paris talks, the UN announced that the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere has locked in another 2.7 degrees Celsius warming at a minimum, even if countries move forward with the pledges they make to cut emissions. Hence, even the 2 degree Celsius goal is already unattainable. However, similar to the way in which national elections in the United States continue to maintain the illusion that this country is a democracy, and “We the People” truly have legitimate representation in Washington, DC, illusions must be maintained at the COP21.
Thus, the faux goal of 2 degrees Celsius continues to be discussed. Meanwhile, the planet burns.
Japan’s meteorological office announced that this past September was, by far, the warmest September on record, and records now show that October has also become the hottest recorded October. As a whole, 2015 remains easily on course to become the hottest year ever recorded.
As if to place an exclamation point on all of this information, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit a new milestone in excess of 400 parts per million in early 2015 – a 45 percent increase over preindustrial levels.
Extreme weather events propelled by anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) abound in this month’s dispatch.
The ‘dispatch’ chronicles events and trends in categories of Extreme Weather events even in formerly unlikely places, Earth, massively strong hurricanes and ubiquitous drought-induced flooding, Water: oh, I’ll halt the synopsis for some of this section:
“Meanwhile, a recent report shows that marine food chains are at risk of collapse due to ACD impacts, overfishing and pollution. ACD is literally erasing species from coral reefs, the open ocean, Arctic and Antarctic waters, and the tropics.
Moreover, another recent report reveals that bleaching and disease are combining to destroy the largest coral reef in the continental United States, a 150-mile reef found off the coast of Florida. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is the third-largest barrier reef ecosystem on the planet.
On that note, a paper recently published in The Anthropocene Review reminds us of a sobering fact that other peer-reviewed studies have confirmed: We are indeed living in the sixth mass extinction event, which we ourselves have created.”
Massive droughts in New Guinea, rapidly declining boreal forests in Eurasia, Canada, Alaska, and Scandinavia…
“This is evidenced by permafrost that is thawing and burning up in wildfires, insect outbreaks assaulting the forests, and climate zones that are moving 10 times faster than the forests are able to migrate. These forests are also plagued by logging and oil and gas drilling.”
Both polar icecaps are melting, and if they continue apace (how not) Jamail says that science knows that ocean levels will rise dramatically by 2050 (the target date for many COPT21 nation’s ‘solutions’.
by anthony freda
Dahr focuses on the likely effects and those already brewing in geographical areas around the globe; it’s a dismal picture at best.
Then in the Fire section, he offers this stunning interactive planetary fire map; the global south is lit up red right now.
His methane section is scary biscuits:
“On the methane front, news comes from the Woods Hole Research Center, which released a policy brief that concluded that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not account adequately for the warming feedback loop that is both caused by and is causing methane releases into the atmosphere. Methane is, depending on the time frame used to measure its impact, roughly 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Meanwhile, evidence of more methane release comes in the form of “accelerating” warming of permafrost across vast portions of Alaska. This warming was brought to light in another recent report, which describes how, when the permafrost melts, the methane frozen within it is released, which accelerates warming further. This causes the permafrost to melt faster, hence the positive feedback loop.”
Regarding ‘tipping points’ and linking to several major recent studies, he finishes with:
“Our results show that no safe limit exists and that many abrupt shifts already occur for global warming levels much lower than 2 degrees,” said lead author Professor Sybren Drijfhout from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton.
Despite the now common warning of “no safe limit” of the ever-increasing global temperature, the COP21 will be held with all of the attendant fanfare, media coverage and protests.
Global leaders will appear as though they are doing something to address the single greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced, despite the most respected, prestigious scientific bodies in the world producing one report after another that shows us we have run out of time to turn the ship, as the iceberg has long since punctured the hull.
Rather than pinning false hope to the COP21, perhaps now each of us might sit still, feel what is happening and listen deeply to the earth. If we do, then we might know from within, what is most important, and what we should do next.”
Jamail had noted James Hansen’s ‘One degree more’ study results, and sadly I must enter this from Counterpunch: ‘James Hansen’s Nuclear Fantasies’, by Jim Green
“Climate scientist James Hansen will be heading to Paris to promote nuclear power − and attack environmental groups − in the lead-up to the U.N. COP21 climate conference in Paris in December.”
The planet’s indigenous have long known that at the root of anthropogenic climate change is capitalism itself, given that its definition is the accumulation of more capital. Now Naomi Klein is touted as saying the same thing, but really, what she attacked was ‘unfettered capitalism’, from what I’ve read in reviews of ‘This Changes Everything’. From my vantage point, there’s an overwhelming preponderance of evidence (since 2008) that it will never be ‘fettered’ again. Authors (Wright and Nyberg) have written a new book in which they indict neoliberalism itself heavily, and corporate capitalism, and at at the end pay homage to the notion of capitalism as culprit in ‘Creative self-destruction: the climate crisis and the myth of ‘green’ capitalism‘:
“The sparkling image of corporate environmentalism and business sustainability promises no conflicts and no trade-offs. Here, it is possible to address climate change while continuing the current global expansion of consumption; there is no contradiction between material affluence and environmental well being.
In proposing that corporate initiatives are enough, such a vision also fits well within neoliberalism – the dominant economic and political system of our time. Alternatives, such as state regulation and mandatory restrictions on fossil fuel use, are viewed as counterproductive and even harmful. It seems there is no alternative to the market.
Echoing Fredric Jameson, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”.
Business as usual
So this is how the environmental destruction built into our economic system is concealed. Dealing with this epic contradiction of capitalism would require material trade-offs that challenge identities and interests.
This is why the alternative to “business as usual” is much harder to imagine and much easier to dismiss as the enemy of social well being – what critics so often characterise as going back to living in caves or a return to the “dark ages”.
Shorter: most of us are willing to let ‘the market’ and corporations handle the emergency of climate change, and go shopping for ‘green products’ and eco-efficiency.
Now on to the sticky wicket of ‘350 ppm carbon’ as a tipping point, and non-profit Big Green groups.
When I’d penned ‘Tweeting While the World Burns or: Elites Against the XL Pipeline’ back in Feb. 2013, I was nauseated by the organizers’ Democrat gate-keepers con game of ‘let’s surround the White House in protest of the XL Pipeline and get arrested!’ If you want to read my objections, do, but in a nutshell: The Elites showed up several days earlier than the scheduled Main Event for photo ops, and to get arrested in that catch-and-release way I so don’t admire. Many of their Tweets indicated it was a game to them. Even their corporately printed protest signs used Obama’s ‘brand’ graphics. The ‘Christmas card photos’ were even fooking copyrighted. Pfffft.
And when I’d covered ‘Green Capitalism and the ‘Peoples Summit’ at Rio+20’ in June 2012, I hadn’t known that eco-investigative journalist Cory Morningstar had been in attendance, and later wrote about (the indigenous) ‘World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth that took place in April of 2010 in Cochabamba, Bolivia: ‘350: Agent Saboteur’ in Sept. 2014.
“Knowledgeable people and authentic activists that are going to the “People’s” Climate March must re-ignite the “People’s Agreement” (Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2010), reject 350’s corporate agenda, and step aside for the Indigenous nations to resume their proven leadership in protecting Mother Earth.
It was during this conference that American 350.org co-founder, Kelly Blynn, had a tantrum. The People’s Agreement was calling for a maximum of 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. When pressed (by the former Green Party Canada leader and activist, Joan Russow, and myself) to consider the necessity of changing the 350.org logo (by crossing it out with an x and placing the new number/logo “300” beside it), an irritated Blynn stated that she and her co-founders would never agree to do so as 350.org was “the most powerful brand in the world.” (For the moment, let’s ignore the fact that “the most powerful brand in the world” aside, 350 ppm is a death sentence for coral reefs, small island developing states, and billions of people living along low lying coastlines. A fact disclosed in an Alliance of Small Island States Briefing prior to COP15.)”
She followed up with many investigations of the hellish corporate funders of the Big Green non-profit industrial complex here (that one has two internal links to Bill McKibben’s Divestment tour), ‘Manufacturing discourse, Pt II’, including this funny bit:
“YES LOGO | The McKibben-Klein Doctrine
“Together, the team has marshalled every tool in the modern marketing arsenal to create and sustain the Obama brand: the perfectly calibrated logo (sunrise over stars and stripes).” — Naomi Klein, author of No Logo (10th Anniversary Edition). Klein now sits on the board of directors of Rockefellers’ 1Sky/350.org”. (at the time in 2010)
From what Morningstar says was in Pt. I, which I haven’t located:
“The following article is the second installment of an investigative report that demonstrates why billions of dollars are pumped by corporate interests into the non-profit industrial complex, effectively to manufacture discourse in order to protect the ruling classes from systemic change. The first installment outlined the key players: Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Warren Buffett, the Rockefeller family, Bill Gates and Bill Ackman. The key instruments employed by the state and the oligarchs were/are a cluster of foundation-financed NGOs. These included/include Greenpeace, Sierra Club, NRDC and others, with 350.org/1Sky at the helm leading the cunning and strategic discourse.”
An excerpt from Part II at the link:
“Behind the curtains of the political theatre we find the prestigious marketing agencies and public relation firms that “grassroots” groups are miraculously able to afford. These firms and agencies write and develop the scripts and design the sets. They bring the stories to life, strategically exploit and manipulate and our emotions, ultimately ensuring we come to accept and partake in their politically acceptable means of discourse – discourse sanctioned (and financed) by the empire. In the case of BOLD Nebraska, partner and marketing agency, Justin Kemerling Design Co, boasts a client list of 350.org, MoveOn.org, Avaaz, the Obama campaign and many more. Another example is the corporate communications and public affairs agency Hoggan & Associates (DeSmogBlog co-founder Jim Hoggan is president and founder), whose client list includes corporate creation TckTckTck, Canadian Pacific (Rail), Shell, AMEC and many more. A planetary crisis for our Earth, which is on the verge of unprecedented, global ecological collapse, has never felt so far away. And the hustle, polished and refined in an emerald green patina, has never made us feel so damn good. Destruction of the planet and the oppression/displacement/annihilation of non-white peoples has been internalized as a completely normal, day to day part of our everyday existence.” [snip]
“Although it is obvious that the No KXL campaign logo shares remarkable and purposeful semblance to the infamous Obama logo (sunrise over stars and stripes), allowing the pro-Obama, pro-Democrat veneer to illuminate at almost 100% transparency, a natural line of defence by 350.org would be that of course they utilize what 350.org board member, Naomi Klein, refers to as “the perfectly calibrated logo” to their advantage, as, they would argue, the Obama administration is the target of their campaign.
And anyone who understands advertising, social engineering and the power of the brand, such as Klein, would understand that this line of defense is bullshit.”
If you can handle more, in 2014 at thewrongkindofgreen.og she also wrote:
“As the following information will demonstrate, The People’s Climate March and supporting discourse is about protecting capitalism, not protecting the world’s most vulnerable people from climate change.
The People’s Climate March in New York City is a mobilization campaign created by Avaaz and 350.org, with 350.org at the forefront.
The oligarchs do not bankroll such a mobilization (via millions of dollars funnelled through foundations) without reason.
There is an agenda. The information that follows makes the agenda very clear and the only thing green about it is the colour of money. The term “green”, in reference to environment is, officially dead.
PURPOSE?
Vision: “Purpose is a global initiative that draws on leading technologies, political organizing and behavioral economics to build powerful, tech-savvy movements that can transform culture and influence policy.”
Depressing as all giddy-up it is, but knowing is preferable to not knowing, even when painful. Edward Bernays chuckles from the grave…
Call me a cynic, but I laughed when I saw Naomi Klein retweet this:
Ah, well…, never mind: ‘EU-US trade deal will unleash oil sands and fatally undermine climate efforts; The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership aims to pave the way for the exploitation of toxic tar sand crude oil – with potentially devastating results’, by Mark Dearn at the Guardian
“But regardless of commitments made in Paris, any steps to halt runaway climate change will be wholly undermined by the secretly negotiated EU-US trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, TFTA).
While touted as a “free trade” deal, in reality TTIP is anything but. The reduction of “tariffs” is a tiny fraction of the deal. The trade deal’s central mission is to remove “non-tariff barriers” – the regulations that often protect our society, health and environment. Fundamentally, it is a struggle between corporate power and the interests of people and the planet, with wide-ranging ramifications for the global south.
Since its 2013 announcement, a key aim of TTIP has been to destroy regulations that prevent high-polluting tar sand crude oil from entering Europe. It is a target intimately tied to the EU’s anti-Russian geopolitical aims, and the wishes of the powerful oil lobby and its conduits in the American, British and Canadian governments. As the Guardian has revealed, the EU is colluding with the world’s biggest oil companies to ensure TTIP’s energy chapter is firmly in their interests.”
Make of this what you will: ‘Report Release: Extreme Biotech meets Extreme Energy’ (with a video explanation) at globaljusticeecology.org, but it got my spidey senses tingling with ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ shivers.
But wait! Help is on the way! ‘World Bank calls for $16bn to help Africa weather the effects of climate change; Africa climate business plan, emphasising clean energy, efficient farming and urban protection, will be launched by World Bank chief at Paris climate talks’ Oh, those generous philanthropists; how swell of them, yes? They loan, their reps in Africa target the money to areas of need. My.Stars.
And hell’s bells, moar philanthropy is on the way!: ‘Major powers pledge $20bn for green energy research’
“Tech and business leaders, including America’s Bill Gates, George Soros, Meg Whitman and Mark Zuckerberg, Germany’s Hasso Plattner, India’s Ratan Tata and China’s Jack Ma, will also pledge on Monday to take on additional investment risks to bring environmental technologies coming out of scientific research to the marketplace.’
Thank the goddess for oligarchs; they’ll take care of us, and sacrifice some of their filthy lucre to do so. Amen.
Wrongkindofgreen on Twitter; Cory Morningstar on Twitter. Bless them.
COP21 on Twitter: hilarious theatrical performances.
Where do the Planet’s Rulers and Oligarchs imagine they’ll live once the food and water wars commence? What will they eat once Monsanto, et.al. bio-wreck the planets agriculture? Where will they find clean water, or will they just sip martinis and bathe in wine? Perhaps they’ll ‘Mistake a Frog‘s Mouth for a Home’? Brrrrrrr-ibbbbit.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
thanks for this wendy. planet earth needs a vacation.
it is amazing how certain people pat themselves on the back for “recycling” or putting solar panels on their mansion or buying an electric car (you know those rare earth metals are called rare for a reason and might be put to better use than your goddam car battery, i said to a friend once. His reply: i know, but my nissan leaf is cool.) i’ve done some time in property management. LEED certification, “greening” buildings, etc. what a crock.
i got my start in rad/left politics thru troskyite marxism, which is fortunate in one regard in that it convinced me that political revolution, the overthrow of capitalism, must precede environmental change, if there is to be conscious change (a big if, i know.) the rest is just consumerism with an eco-friendly label & packaging. it may be too late. we surely will never know if we don’t try.
christ in a canoe, you said it right in a nutshell, jason. fook me, and i spent all those million words and quotesand images to ballast my argument.
sigh; i’m still believing that we’re on the cusp of a radical revolution of consciousness, as the many indigenous have foretold, but barring any success of that, i reckon my fallback position is that we should just cede this glorious blue-green ball to the dolphins and cockroaches…and viruses. virii?
cripes; speaking of trotskyites, i’d plum forgotten to check in with wsws on all this shite. well, so far, just this.
yeah, wsws. mostly i think, provided we don’t nuke each other, humanity will survive, in some way. provided the future humans have learned the lessons we (will have) failed to learn. otherwise, it’s just Dr Strangelove’s “Mr. President, we cannot allow a mine shaft gap!” and then what’s the point? but the stuff you posted about methane release…who knows? so many people foolishly expect some whiz bang techno solution like plastic-eating nano-bacteria that poop a carbon free biomass fuel that my Jetta can run on. much more comforting than recognizing the people who own this planet, having the same info everyone else does, don’t give a shit.
and if the planet is unavoidably headed for the methane-filled radioactive trash heap, what? keep shopping? keep slaving at a detested job? gotta pay off those credit cards? everybody should just quit & go bowling or whatever. hug your loved ones & play with the dog.
your jest fuel sound suspiciously like the guck in the video i’d linked…was it pt I or pt II? i forget. but srsly, i’d read about a woman who’d created batteries with sea plankton, but when i tried to find it again…nopers. dunno if the article had mentioned what size batteries.
i’m goofin’ around with a part III, as in: who hopes to be in paris and why, etc., but i took a short break to put up a police thread.
in some ways our using the oceans like a garbage dump bothers me the most, and the photos of the two great pacific garbage patches make smoke come outta my ears.
the internet is supposed to democratize everything. just look at the Arab Spring! (yeah, look at it. wave goodbye to it, off in the distance.) but now, b/c terror, ruh roh, time to control social media.
now it’s bitcoin & blockchain. and hurray for all these technologies. certainly lots of potential. which means there will be lots of resistance & attempts to control/coopt. blockchain has the potential to proletarianize a massive number of administrators & bureaucrats, people whose lives have consisted of the basically worthless activity of keeping tabs on other people’s money (no, sigh, it won’t kill all lawyers, but lots of them.)
that would not necessarily be a bad thing at all, say, if we had a guaranteed income & universal health care. hell yeah. get out of your cubes & go plant trees. shut down all these idiotically wasteful commercial buildings, no one spending days of their lives destroying the planet commuting to work, etc., etc. (i’m almost close enough to Wash. D.C. to pee all over our national monuments. talk about bureaucrats & long commutes.)
i can’t say i know ‘blockchain’, or any much about bitcoin for that matter, but yeah, the fascist security state knows exactly how glorious social media is: they love it!
switzerland came close to enacting a basic income a few years ago, and i saw a headline another nation is proposing it. the math sorta eluded me, but then…i’m mega-numeraphobic by now.
belly of the beast, eh? pee on a couple for me, please. do you like you work? i’d meant to ask earlier, or is just a job?
Thanks for pointing me toward Dahr Jamail’s article. Well, it is 2015 and James Burke’s “After the Warning” can now be prophecy-checked.
Part 1 of 2.
Part 2 of 2
In Burke’s 1989 prognostication, the year 2015 was when the world started to get real about climate change. He was thought pessimistic at the time (during Poppy Bush’s era). Now he seems over-optimistic about fossil fuel industry intransigence, political corruption, and the seduction of denialism.
Meanwhile from the Torygraph: Evans-Pritchard
COP-21 climate deal in Paris spells end of the fossil era: Much of the fossil industry will go into slow run-off while the new plutocrats will be masters of post-carbon technology (h/t) Yves Smith
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12021394/COP-21-climate-deal-in-Paris-spells-end-of-the-fossil-era.html
glad you provided the cliff ‘note’ (as in his prediction), amigo: 2 and half hours!!! ay yi yi. it remains to be seen how serious the agreements that come out of cop21 will be, given the lobbyists and national self interest, plus the use of the old metric of 2 degrees C.
he’s right about the coming new wave of plutocrats, of course, but the time scenario:
“The agreed UN goal is to cap the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels by 2100, deemed the safe limit if we are to pass on a world that is more or less recognisable.”….is just nutz. this was billed to be the ‘last best chance’ as well as ‘the first actual step’, but of course ‘2100’ means the collective ‘they’ don’t get the dire emergency that’s upon the planet, nor the science that shows how self-perpetuating + the atmospheric co2 levels are baked in already, causing any reversal to be oh, so much more difficult.
what i hadn’t known is that the framework is already pretty much in place, but that framework seems to run to 58 pages in a pdf. ish. but this morning i read at an indigenous alliance website that it’s still full of REDD, carbon trading, and all the capitalist cons that got us right where we are now.
ooof, i did kinda read another piece at NC; a dude whose first part in a series examined the kyoto protocols for what worked, didn’t, and a few other civil society considerations. somehow, letting the market decide seems like the worst possible choice…again.yet.still.always.
eco-socialism as a climate justice road to peace, but it’s time for gummits to create worthy marshall plans.
on the other hand, the militaristic vibes comin’ off the conference sincerely have me worried.
I think the indigent alliance folks see clearly what is happening in Paris, a Big Green power tour with the Technocrats taking the lead from the slow machinery of government.
The Big Fossil Fuelers are there too to play the role of the defeated old tech and are snickering into their Scotch knowing that their products are what will be used to build the illusion of the new Shiny Green World while everyone is encouraged to consume and consume without end or consequence.
ah, yes, but the theme is that some of the fossil fuel magnates have been diversifying into ‘renewables’ (not ‘sustainables’, mind you) via programs like REDD, to boot, which hells are foisted upon the indigenous in rain forests and wooded areas around the globe, which further adds to the carbon load, of course. brazil’s rainforest depletion, oh my.
and it’s not that all indigenous were the best stewards of their corners of mother earth, but their agricultural methods were indeed the best, and their sense/knowledge of the critical importance of food and seed sovereignty may be all that saves the green food supply in the end, unless it is superceded by big ag, monoculture, and gmo’s.
i’ve lost a lot of my links for part III trying to transfer links across three word docs, so i dunno what i’ll be able to re-create.
but yeah: heavy investments in high tech solutions and products will save the day! and ‘investments’ (and control) for those simple third-worlders who wouldn’t have a clue how to use ‘charitable’ loans and grants. it’s fucking like the ‘clinton global initiative’ and the glorious ‘gates foundation’ marching along apace.
sorry to be a grouch; i’ve read too much cory morningstar and jay taber to believe many will ever vacate their love for celebrity darlings movements and memes. over yonder at c99 i may have to give up.
caesar and anthony ever do more in their officer than in their person-some wise minor character says in anthony & cleopatra. no less true of the bill gateses’ and clintons’ of the world. they are rich, famous, powerful b/c they are thieves, nothing more. smart, manipulative, ruthless, thieves stealing other people’s labor. behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
lol. i assume it’s at least a bit about steve jobs having claimed gates stole windows from him? ah, but yes: the noblesse oblige of the tech libertarians is legendary, i tell you, legendary! more from zuckerman yesterday: billions to charity! (no, i didn’t click in.)
i’m close to finishing part III, and almost feel the need to write a bit more on how PR controls civil society consciousness, and almost all media is wall street driven, including again, the ‘green’ ngo’s who are funded and ‘brand’ advertised by the same folks as the dastardly clinton initiative. gates? i forget, but he and melinda can just kiss my grits with their attempts to own everything in the world, and most especially agriculture and schools.
to the obama’s, bill gateses, camerons, maybe the putins and that chinese fellow too of the world, is environmental collapse anything more than a PR problem? not really. let’s fly everyone around the world for a photo op & make speeches about syria! barf. zuckerberg aptly means Mount Sucker.
it’s almost more like a PR opportunity, in a way, isn’t it? plus a huuuuuuge bidness opportunity for new Green tech solutions. not that they will be affordable for The Rabble.
‘mount sucker’; you are a clever one, jason. is it okay if i email you? i have your address thru the site emails system.
“. . . almost feel the need to write a bit more on how PR controls civil society consciousness,”
You said it, Sister!
Hope you do. If you ask me, so-called ‘progressives’ are the most brainwashed and propagandized of all.
And Dem Party activists ‘wonder’ how the Party has swung so far right!
;-)
Have a good one, All.
Blue
well, i did, blue. but in a contest, i dunno which ‘brand’ of socio-political thought would win. i reckon that the reasons ‘progressives’ might figure strong in the running…is that there essentially IS no meaningful political left, at least in the US any longer, depending what one means by ‘leftist’. certainly very few anti-capitalists (bernie really isn’t), too few champions for working people (whoa, not the big unions), and so on. but that’s a far longer story.
so…progressives have their ‘heroes and icons’, and to my perception, let their eyes fog over with adoration and fail to make any further analysis of who their icons actually are.
Bingo!
It is next to impossible to address the most pressing ‘issues’ facing us going into 2016, partly because so many progressives–especially Dem Party activists–seem to have fallen hostage to the ‘hero/icon’ complex, an apropos description–in regards to their respective favorite candidate(s).
I’ll be curious to see how it all shakes out, if Sanders loses to Clinton, and then actually stumps for her on the campaign trail.
Blue
Morning wendyedavis and friends,
Doing what I see right in front of me, I will be testifying against a proposed change in our county zoning that will allow clear cutting of plantation woodlands that are in agricultural zoning districts now. Woodlands were planted as the marginal soils were good for little else, or were in proximity to sensitive wetlands, along with long term tax breaks were reasons for tree planting. Clear cutting is proposed to be allowed if another agricultural use immediately follows.
Though an annual commodity crop, corn or soy, is still marginal to recoup any farming costs, with the extreme influx of CAFO operators (industrial agriculture dairies), the recently enhanced value in these marginal soils comes from their needing more space to pump hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated and untreated liquid manure. Manure that is not just manure but a toxic soup of barn cleaners, anti-biotics, diseased dead animals and several types of bacteria once weaponized for military warfare.
Prepping a final draft letter to read and submit for the record. I’m following the NSA directive with this, “if I see something, I’ll say something.” ;^)
Peace and Resolve
good luck today.
mornin’, nonquixote, and look who the north wind blew in!
are you saying that the change will be specifically to allow corn and soy (and more CAFO raw liquid manure spraying) on those crops for cattle fodder? also, i even think i looked it up recently, but aren’t GMO crops banned in WI?
i admire your tenacity, and hope the PTB there can be persuaded to realize how important trees and wetlands are to the biosphere. and you might even echo echo tom goldtooth: ‘please recognize the spirit of life itself’ (or close) in their decision.
There are rules as to how many thousand gallons of waste per acre can be safely applied for “disposal.” DNR oversight is nil and over applications are common, and runoff pollutes surface water, and in thin soils or sandy soils or shallow soils on top of fractured bedrock allows the liquid manure straight passage into aquifers supplying residential well water and thus making it unfit for any human use. More acreage made available for dumping just means a greater chance for nearby wells or surface water to be contaminated.
GMO’s are not banned, neither are the Roundup and variants of herbicides. The county committee voted to recommend the changes I was opposed to. A few of us could still stop this change by contacting the various supervisors on the county board before the January meeting where today’s committee recommendation is ultimately either quashed or passed. LTE in the works.
Hope RL is fine for ya for the moment. Nothing close to even a hint of winter around here this coming week.
rules with no one to enforce them seem to be common by now, and yes, i remember reading what the raw manure does, and contains, especially given the geology of the area on the right sidebar at AJE at the link you gave us the other day…week?
well, some other very unlikely state had banned GMO crops, oddly enough. but those crops will save the planetary food supply, as we know so well./s.
best of luck to you and your comrades, nonquixote. even slowing down the machine locally seems hard by now.
ah, less said about RL here the better, although it did warm up and it’s only a balmy 30 degrees right now. great shows among the resident deer herds, though. the rut is fully on, and the large bucks are gloriously bulked up for their biological tasks at hand. the raw physical power is something to behold.
my best love to you and your extra mouth. ;-)