Tag Archives: climate change

Windmills

Jordan Spieth at the 149th playing of the British Open

I watched the last two rounds of The British Open at Royal St. George last month. One one particular hole there was a large bank of wind turbines visible in the background. I thought of how some people complain that wind turbines are a blight; that looking at them is disturbing, in-artful, etc. However, knowing they are contributing to the long-term habitability of our planet, I’m fine with it. In fact, it’s beautiful. It’s reminiscent of how I, and many artists, envisioned the worlds of science fiction.

An Artist’s conception of a space habitat

While much of the artwork to be found in science fiction can be pretty dystopian, there are also a lot of concepts that are truly beautiful and evoke human capabilities far beyond those we’re able to employ nowadays. This is especially true of artwork depicting habitats built to exist in space. Like the art depicted above, these habitats are invariably curved, since a “station” that slowly rotates around a central axis will create a gravitational simulation that should suit the human body as much as “real” gravity on our home planet.

At least, that’s what I think would happen. Nobody’s done it yet, though I believe the science is pretty sound. It’s conceivable to me this future awaits us; surely not in my lifetime, but within the next hundred or so years. That being the case, I find it easy to put up with a bank of windmills off in the distance. The reality is, if we’re ever going to be a space-faring world—I mean really able to move off the planet—we first have to ensure Earth remains reasonably habitable … and we don’t seem to be doing a very good job of that right now. More about that later.


We’re Entitled To Defend Ourselves

I have, in the past, asked when it would be time to consider acting out against polluters, climate change deniers and, especially, so-called governmental leaders as acts of self-defense. After all, increasingly severe weather events are killing large groups of people who currently have no say in how we deal with the climate crisis, which I believe is very real and abundantly documented.

So I’ve wondered just how long we’re going to sit back and allow our leaders and businesses to ignore what is patently obvious, ensuring more and more of us will be sickened, impoverished, and killed because of their greed and intransigence.

You might want to take 10 minutes of your time and listen to what Chris has to say here. It seems to me we have only about three paths to implement the changes that are necessary. Massive participation in the electoral process to fundamentally change our leadership, massive civil disobedience to disrupt the status quo, or massive violence to overthrow the government and install new leadership. I would prefer one of the first two (and, like Chris, I’m fairly convinced the second of the two has the best chance of making real, fundamental, transformative change) but I’m not opposed to the latter on ethical grounds. I do, however, think violence will end up hurting those who are the most susceptible to oppression and suppression and, therefore, am not terribly sanguine about such a direction.

I’m thinking this is something that will deeply impact all of use far sooner than we’ve been led to believe, and action is imperative. What do you think?


Justice Matters – 9/26/20

Here’s today’s “Justice Matters,” from Glenn Kirschner. Glenn lays out the latest Appellate Court ruling involving the Manhattan D.A.’s subpoena for Trump’s tax returns. He points out the judges essentially told Trump’s lawyer, William Consovoy, that his arguments were “full of shit.” (my words)

Check out the video. It’s a little more than eight minutes. One point worth remembering; it’s virtually impossible at this point we will see these tax returns prior to the election. This is because the subpoena Vance is seeking to enforce is for a Grand Jury proceeding and, unless it results in a criminal indictment against Trump, in which the documents would finally appear as evidence, they will remain secret. So … essentially, this means Trump’s dilatory moves have succeeded … at least to the point that his taxes will not be revealed to the public prior to November 3.

I think it’s important for us to recognize how disrespectful this is to the American people. Time and again Trump makes it clear he has nothing but contempt for democracy or the people of the United States. He professes to love this country; he perversely hugs the Stars and Stripes as if it has something he wants to grab, but he has shown no respect at all for the human beings that make up the vast bulk of the nation’s people. As of this moment, we’re approaching 210,000 deaths from, and nearly 7.3 million people infected with, the Coronavirus, yet there’s still no national testing or contact tracing plan, and precious little else in the way of Federal leadership.

Regardless of what these tax returns end up showing us, and past experience makes it likely—IMO—they will show us how dishonest Trump actually is, we know who the man is. He’s shown us repeatedly how little he cares for anyone save himself and those who praise and support him. We need to throw him out of office, along with as many of the weak-kneed, treacherous sycophants and bootlickers we can muster the votes to remove from their positions.

These are desperate times, and our nation is on the verge of becoming an autocracy, with a deeply flawed person at its helm. We can’t let this happen. We need to show up this election season in numbers like never before.

Older people like me need to recognize that Trump and those who support him would prefer we were dead. Many, like me, are now collecting social security and are on Medicare. We worked and paid for these things. They aren’t entitlements—at least not in the sense the right uses the word—they are earnings that our representatives have not managed well over the years. We’re perceived as a financial drag on the economy.

Younger people, more than ever before, need to show up this election season as well. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. Trump and the entire Republican party are science deniers and, as such, they cannot (and will not) accept the science of climate change, nor will they accept the science of epidemiology. The future of our planet and our species is being threatened by these idiots.

!!VOTE THEM ALL OUT!!


President Trump Says There Could Be No Wildfires If We Did Forest Management, ‘Cleaning’

I’m sorry, but this poor excuse for a human has got to be the dumbest lump of protoplasm to ever sit behind the Resolute desk. It’s difficult to be sanguine about the mess he’s getting us into. This particular episode of dumbfuckery, however, while typical of the kind of unabashed bullshit this dork is capable of spewing, is totally wrong, off-the-wall, and completely uninformed.

In fact, according to the Forest History Society‘s website, whose mission is “. . . to preserve and help people use the documents of forest history. The Forest History Society identifies, collects, interprets, and disseminates historical information on the relationship of humans and forests, contributing to informed natural resource decision-making,” Forest Management has been a primary focus of the U.S. Forest Service since its inception.

Also, the U.S. Forest Service‘s own website says “Federal forest management dates back to 1876 when Congress created the office of Special Agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to asses the quality and conditions of forests in the Unites States.”

Less informed than Dubya – and ten times as arrogant

Below is a small excerpt from Esquire’s article about the monumental idiocy of this man and his narcissistic gaslighting. You should read the full article—then share it far and wide. Four more years of this crap and we may never recover. We need leaders who are capable of processing actual facts. This jerk is incapable of that . . . and he ensures, with his pettiness, no one else gets to do it either. This would be funny, if it wasn’t so devastating to our ability to deal with the real causes of our problems.


Exhibit Z came to us yesterday in an appearance at the White House, when the world’s most powerful man got going about wildfires. “You don’t have to have any forest fires,” you see, but nobody knew about forest management before he came along and told them, you know, and forest management means “cleaning” the forests, which are dirty, unlike in other countries—”forest nations”—where they do the forest management and they don’t have the wildfires. Not like California, anyway, whose governor he talked to and told about the forest management, which the governor had never heard of about a year ago, and then he mocked the idea, but now he agrees with President Smokey. Also, many tremendous things are happening and a lot of people are looking at it.

Source: President Trump Says There Could Be No Wildfires If We Did Forest Management, ‘Cleaning’


When Do We Fight Back?

At what point do we switch from nonviolent protest to righteous self-defense? Climate denial is empowering polluters who don’t give a shit how sick we get or how many of us suffer untimely deaths because of their fucking intransigence. When do we rise up in indignation and demand, or force, the changes necessary to halt climate change . . . assuming it isn’t already too late?

On ‘Hottest Day in History of France,’ World Told ‘Do Not Look Away’ as Police Tear-Gas Climate Campaigners in Paris


Reservoir Goodness!

I’ve only been following this chart for a couple of years, but this is the first time all of the reservoirs shown in it have been above their historical average. A lot of them are also fairly close to their maximum capacity. It would be nice if this trend continues for a few years. I’m tired of drought conditions. We still conserve water; I hope everyone in California does. Actually, I hope everyone, everywhere is thoughtful about water usage.


%d bloggers like this: