I wasn't planning to watch this TED talk, because I didn't expect to learn anything new. But, a pile of dirty dishes had accumulated in the sink, so this morning I turned up the volume to hear over the splashing, and listened. Aside from being just about the most powerful presentation about climate I've ever seen (especially so because of its brevity and Hansen's consistently self-effacing and modest sincerity), I did learn something new, which is referred to in the title of this post. I took the screenshot above of Bush's Energy and Climate Task Force advisors (chaired by Dick Cheney) whose sordid deliberations remain secret to this day - so that after you watch the video, you can print the picture, tape it to the wall and hurl spitballs at Christie Whitman, who chose to resign rather than expose the other criminals who were personally twice warned by Hansen that by letting the climate was spin out of control we're destroying a habitable earth for future generations. Have fun!
oh well. even hansen does not dare to say 1)STOP DRIVING CARS, 2)STOP TAKING PLANES, and 3)he could not stop his children from having children (all 3 things that i am doing since many years). there is definitely nothing sufficient that can or will be done at this point. so bye bye again earth as I knew it. gray dusty/dirty montreal is already a preview of hell with death everywhere. early spring in the city is: among other carbage, literally MILLIONS of cigarettes filters littering the sidewalks and streets (part of which will end up in turtles and dolphins and birds innocent bodies). My new mantra: oh well...
True, Hansen's solutions are not sufficient, but they are far, far more radical than anything suggested by other activists and scientists of his stature. And we can't know what his private feelings about having grandchildren might be.
What I found fascinating although not at all surprising is the ruthless and rank suppression of science by Bush & Cheney. Not that I never heard of it before, but reading about it in more detail is enlightening. Looking for more I read bits of Mann's book excerpted on google - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. The important point is there are people like Hansen, who have done so much personally to teach people about our impact on the planet...and then there are completely evil fucks like Bush and Cheney who WERE TOLD and chose to use their power to screw the rest of us anyway.
Do I sound angry? I'm ANGRY. Everything in New Jersey is stone dead too, or almost. I went for another long walk, in a county park, yesterday. I didn't see a single living animal the whole time. Empty.
Hardly any monarch butterflies anymore, even though they used to be frequently observed.
I didn't notice any lightening bugs last summer. They used to light up the whole yard for weeks.
Once the death culture gets established in an area, it doesn't stop until everything is dead.
People would rather be dead than not drive cars, fly jets, and have all their trinkets. Really, death is a more acceptable choice than a reduction in intensity. It's how drug addicts die, seeking the same level of intensity with higher doses as their tolerances go up.
"The American way of life is not negotiable." --George H.W. Bush, Earth Summit, 1992
Cultural death is soon, by the usual four horsemen. All of the tools have been developed and perfectly honed to keep the resources coming, and when they quit coming to America in sufficient quantity, America will go berzerk with NBC war on whomever they blame for withholding the goodies.
It's not all dead here in midwest, not yet. Some acreage is completely gone though. Walking through completely downed or standing bleached white woods with friends it is just astonishing they can't see it. It's "natural cycles". The trees are "dormant.
When functional members of a culture can not perceive the distinction between life and death that culture will be gone soon.
What is so pathetic is that if people saw someone with symptoms like festering open sores, grotesque tumors, hair falling out, skin falling off, bones so fragile they break at the slightest pressure...they would know that something was terribly wrong. And yet the trees are dying silently, almost nobody recognizes it even though it's so obvious all you have to do is LOOK!
Trouble is, most people are so disconected from nature that they don't even know what trees are supposed to look like.
True, they aren't looking closely, but they just assume that what they're seeing is the way it's supposed to look--and temporary.
Reading again about CC policy under GWB IS sickening--but a reminder for us about how our government decides what they want us to hear. Is this ongoing?
oh well. even hansen does not dare to say 1)STOP DRIVING CARS, 2)STOP TAKING PLANES, and 3)he could not stop his children from having children (all 3 things that i am doing since many years). there is definitely nothing sufficient that can or will be done at this point. so bye bye again earth as I knew it. gray dusty/dirty montreal is already a preview of hell with death everywhere.
ReplyDeleteearly spring in the city is: among other carbage, literally MILLIONS of cigarettes filters littering the sidewalks and streets (part of which will end up in turtles and dolphins and birds innocent bodies).
My new mantra: oh well...
True, Hansen's solutions are not sufficient, but they are far, far more radical than anything suggested by other activists and scientists of his stature. And we can't know what his private feelings about having grandchildren might be.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found fascinating although not at all surprising is the ruthless and rank suppression of science by Bush & Cheney. Not that I never heard of it before, but reading about it in more detail is enlightening. Looking for more I read bits of Mann's book excerpted on google - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. The important point is there are people like Hansen, who have done so much personally to teach people about our impact on the planet...and then there are completely evil fucks like Bush and Cheney who WERE TOLD and chose to use their power to screw the rest of us anyway.
Do I sound angry? I'm ANGRY. Everything in New Jersey is stone dead too, or almost. I went for another long walk, in a county park, yesterday. I didn't see a single living animal the whole time. Empty.
http://books.google.com/books?id=HK0CN6FVtfgC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=dick+cheney+climate+task+force+members+whitman&source=bl&ots=ehvZaS1CHC&sig=hJ62dtntgj5HQhf5GDXYdXK2C0I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vRpaT-CtD6Lv0gGxvZzIDw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dick%20cheney%20climate%20task%20force%20members%20whitman&f=false
It's dying here too.
ReplyDeleteHardly any monarch butterflies anymore, even though they used to be frequently observed.
I didn't notice any lightening bugs last summer. They used to light up the whole yard for weeks.
Once the death culture gets established in an area, it doesn't stop until everything is dead.
People would rather be dead than not drive cars, fly jets, and have all their trinkets. Really, death is a more acceptable choice than a reduction in intensity. It's how drug addicts die, seeking the same level of intensity with higher doses as their tolerances go up.
"The American way of life is not negotiable." --George H.W. Bush, Earth Summit, 1992
Cultural death is soon, by the usual four horsemen. All of the tools have been developed and perfectly honed to keep the resources coming, and when they quit coming to America in sufficient quantity, America will go berzerk with NBC war on whomever they blame for withholding the goodies.
Sorry, there is no happy ending to this.
It's not all dead here in midwest, not yet. Some acreage is completely gone though. Walking through completely downed or standing bleached white woods with friends it is just astonishing they can't see it. It's "natural cycles". The trees are "dormant.
ReplyDeleteWhen functional members of a culture can not perceive the distinction between life and death that culture will be gone soon.
What is so pathetic is that if people saw someone with symptoms like festering open sores, grotesque tumors, hair falling out, skin falling off, bones so fragile they break at the slightest pressure...they would know that something was terribly wrong. And yet the trees are dying silently, almost nobody recognizes it even though it's so obvious all you have to do is LOOK!
ReplyDeleteMr. Hansen is flogging yesterday's science.
ReplyDeleteHe never mentioned Geo-engineering, HAARP, chemtrails, EMF radiation, or the controlling forces of evil.
We are innocent victims of planet collapse.
This collapse is no accident.
Trouble is, most people are so disconected from nature that they don't even know what trees are supposed to look like.
ReplyDeleteTrue, they aren't looking closely, but they just assume that what they're seeing is the way it's supposed to look--and temporary.
Reading again about CC policy under GWB IS sickening--but a reminder for us about how our government decides what they want us to hear. Is this ongoing?
Interesting report I see this morning from the Union of Concerned Scientists, "How corporations corrupt science".
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/how-corporations-corrupt-science.html