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That poem was a great find, Gail, thank you for sharing. It is a dark time, indeed, with the darkness growing and intensifying with every passing day.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I must ask, how did you like the way Scribbler totally sidestepped your query on his fossil-fuel-fear post? I don't read there much since he "banned" me for asking questions which he took as an "attack" since he obviously doesn't have any valid answers. (Really, all one need do is check the SEC filings to see that the ACA is nothing more than a "gift" of increasing profits for the insurance-medical-pharmaceutical-industrial-complex.) He and most of his devout followers are techno-utopian halfwits, fabricated from the same whole-cloth as that other bunch of halfwits at Climate Progress.Their "thinking" (which is really just "believing") is far too compartmentalized and utterly devoid of any relationship their niche topics have with any other nook and cranny they jibber-jabber about. None of them seem able to see the forest for the trees and the trees are viewed on a strictly individualized basis.
Lastly, don't you just love how all the petty squabbling in the comments at NBL doesn't seem to indicate to anyone there just how futile, dire and unsolvable the accelerating ELE is? I find it quite telling, too, that despite the infrequent references to the late, great Albert Bartlett, how many still appear unable to grasp the exponential function. Also of note, despite the foliage of plants and trees being quite lush and green here in northern OH this year, many of the trees have begun dropping more and more leaves over the past couple of weeks without a change in color... well, except more than a little green straight to dead-brown, but even many green ones are falling.
Thanks most especially, for this, Colin - "...techno-utopian halfwits..." LOL!! I am trying very hard to disengage with such people, arguing with them is no more productive that out-and-out climate change deniers, even though that is harder to accept. It seems like they OUGHT to be able to understand that "green" isn't really sustainable, but they will use any manner (including banning) to avoid that rather simple conclusion. I rarely go to NBL, it is so repetitive and yes, it seems obvious to me that human population has been exponential for at least 15,000 years, OF COURSE it looks flat for most of the time, that is the essence of how it works. But that concept escapes most people and in fact enrages them. Not least annoying is the widespread conviction that "capitalism" is the problem, when it seems to me that capitalism is just the system you get when growth reaches a certain point. As far as the leaves go, it's going to be an interesting autumn. Soon the tourist bureaus in New England will start their fall foliage propaganda, and I predict it will be an epic wipeout.
DeleteThe folks over at NBL are fucking clueless imo - and defeatist in the extreme. I disagree with McPherson's "message" because he is simply preaching futility, this is not human nature. Irrespective of the science, and irrespective of the evidence (which is actually NOT relevant) - nobody knows the whole of the future. Yet futility is what Baker and McPherson spew. These two talking fools are doing a incredibly amount of damage and are helping no one "cope" as they alleged. They have totally fractured the "awareness" movement and even many other scientists. They both owe the world a deep apology.
DeleteAlthough I agree with you that it isn't in human nature to be defeatists - we are innately predisposed towards optimism bias and hope, whether it is founded in reality or not - I have to disagree with the rest. First of all, Guy is not merely "preaching futility" - he also speaks at least as much about "living as though the day were here". I don't agree with him AT ALL that hastening the demise of IndCiv will spare more of the natural world, it seems to me the absence of any laws or restraints will hasten the destruction...but either way, I think although we can not know the "whole" of the future, the trends towards an uninhabitable climate are very clear, as are the trends towards a more general ecosystem collapse, further, they are accelerating, and perhaps most importantly, there is no trait in human nature that is going to intervene, chief among them, the tendency towards delusional hope which is at this point beyond dangerous, is it fiendish. I would also add that 1. While Guy and Carolyn are gaining an audience, they are starting from such a vanishingly trivial influence over anything whatsoever, including science and public policy, that to suggest they apologize to the world is absurd, the vast majority of the world doesn't even know they exist...and 2, that whether or not they are actually helping people to "cope" should be determined by the people who do or do not feel helped - and there seem to be quite a few who say they ARE, in fact, feeling helped in coping...and so I would imagine that anyone feeling "fractured" by their spewing is perhaps feeling a bit insecure about their own optimism, otherwise, it's easy enough to just stop reading their stuff, it's not like they are on prime time like Kim Kardashian and you can't get away from them!
DeleteBlogger is refusing to allow my reply? Or?
DeleteSorry - Blogger is notoriously annoying about comments. I don't know how to fix it, and I am not myself moderating posts (except really old ones because they get spammed). Maybe try leaving your comment as a new comment rather than a reply?
Delete@ Anonymous September 13, 2014 at 1:50 PM
DeleteFirst, I concur with Gail's reply at 4:35pm, same day. Nonetheless, I have to ask...
1. How and why is any of the "evidence" (assuming you mean what GM cites on his "...summary and update" page) "actually NOT relevant?"
2. When you say "The folks over at NBL are fucking clueless imo..." are you referring to all the people who have authored articles and all the people who have posted comments?
3. What makes you believe your opinion holds more merit or carries greater weight than the aforementioned "evidence?"
I am genuinely looking forward to your answers.
Hey Gail, I enjoyed that, thanks! Since I can't comment on your Doom 200 site (unless you install an anonymous category to the list of acceptable commenters), i'll say it here - it's so great and fun to explore all the little nooks and crannies provided by all the links you provide there - today I did bridges to nowhere. That must have taken you quite a while! Fantastic work! Like Colinc above, i'm experiencing sticks and branches, all sizes, with and without leaves in various states of life/death falling every day - in fact, all "summer" (though it's been more like spring or fall - cool and somewhat wet).
ReplyDeleteColinc: i'm barely tolerated over on Scribbler's site, but he does some good ground work, I gotta give him that. I know he refuses to see that we're at the end of our run and that we're taking everything else that we call life with us into the abyss. He's not unlike xraymike at COIC who refuses to consider that maybe his government was behind 9-11, despite all the evidence (which he won't listen to and counters with party-line propaganda). At this point I don't care about any of these formerly pressing issues - i'm just enjoying the days I have left. Good to see you're still around.
Tom
Thanks Tom, I didn't realize that was an option - I think I fixed it now.
DeleteThanks, Tom, and back at ya' as I enjoy reading most of your views and the links you include in your comments @ RS and NBL, even if I had seen the latter earlier. ;) I, too, am just trying to enjoy what time we have left, cuddling/squeezing/smooching my wonderful wife (who seems to possess infinite fortitude to put up with me!), trying to keep cooking tasty-full meals on a fixed income (that may be "seized" any time as it is a state pension) and get out for an all too infrequent round of golf (the most enjoyable application of physics ever devised by man) at a couple of local, inexpensive (and slightly "scruffy") family-owned courses. (BTW, I ALWAYS walk AND carry my clubs, even at 61.)
DeleteMoreover, thank you, too, Gail, for your kind comment (above). You are absolutely correct regarding "arguing" with techno-utopians being as, if not more, difficult than outright nitwit deniers. In case neither of you have seen it, Dave Cohen has a very interesting post up on Decline of the Empire that addresses some the reasons for that. Between that and what I am sure for many is a subconscious "terror" regarding the accelerating catastrophe(s), I am sure many just plain don't WANT to acknowledge what they actually may perceive. Imagine you're a skydiver and while plummeting toward the ground discover that neither of your parachutes are functional. How many people would simply shut their eyes and WANT TO BELIEVE it is just a "bad dream." Well, they can "get away" with that until they go splat, then it doesn't matter. How did Mr. T put it... I pity the fool!
Speaking of the "time we have left," I find it quite "amusing" (in a cerebral way) how little attention/verbiage is given to the global droughts versus all the other climate-related weather phenomena that are (and have been) occurring. I think it is those circumstances that will have the most significant impact on global food and power supplies. All too soon the USA, China, Russia, Argentina, etc. will not be exporting anything and Oxfam (among a plethora of NGOs) will hit a brick wall and only be able to watch 500 million to 1 billion people around the globe starve to death. It is not going to be "fun" for anyone else either. So YES, let each of us just take one day at a time and try to enjoy them as much as is possible. I, too, have quit "arguing" with the halfwits, dimwits and nitwits that I encounter, however I always try to at least ask a few for their "perspective" on AGW (never "climate-change") just for the "fun" of it. (Sometimes I even chuckle.) I never offer my view unless they ask for it and 99% never do! To the other 1%, I usually just say "it is much, much worse than you've been led to believe."
And NOW I'm going to have to "find" Ms. Zawacki's other site which has hitherto escaped my attention. My bad.
Thanks for reminding me to check DOTE - it's a great essay. He writes so infrequently now I had forgotten to look recently. Added an excerpt to the Apocalypsi Library! Also...truth is, I would take croquet or pool over golf...although my kids would vote for beer pong!
DeleteYou're welcome. I found "Adventures in Flatland," as well as the dozen or so embedded links I read, an excellent discourse on the "hows" and "whys" of humanity's present predicament. It correlates rather nicely with the "theory" I've been espousing for more than decade that most people go through life on "autopilot," conflate "believing" for "knowing/thinking" and that we all, since birth, have been "programmed, pigeon-holed and played." I only wish I'd "found" DOTE much earlier as I understand he is "closing down." Can't say I fault him for that, really, as "we" all are aware that 1) anything further will still have little-to-no impact or relevance for the mindless masses and 2) it really is too late to reverse course from an ELE, anyway. That's why I quit trying to "argue with" or "educate/enlighten" anyone... those efforts have already cost me every friend I ever had, not that any of them truly merited that descriptor.
DeleteRegarding "pastimes," croquet and pool are enjoyable but require too little physical effort and billiards requires either a sufficiently large room in one's abode or trips to some seedy dive with associated "other costs" involved. Moreover, neither really pose challenges for the mind, either. Beer pong, or any "form" of table tennis, is limited by my first point about billiards AND requires a 2nd (or more) person(s). I used to really enjoy tennis (hard-court or clay) but after I spent a decade in college and working in IT (and being a smoker), I "lost" my aerobic capacity for that level of exertion... and trying to find people to play with was a royal-PITA for various assorted and sundry reasons. I can play golf all by my lonesome or with 1-to-3 other people at a time, makes no difference to me. Well, actually, most of the time I do prefer to play alone. I find it to be physically challenging, especially on "hilly" courses and those are plentiful here, and the "mental" aspect is as ultimately "distracting" as SCUBA/snorkeling on a tropical reef (without the huge expense). Yes, far too may courses go way too far in "maintenance" and "resource destruction" but it really doesn't need to be that way. All of that stems from the anthropocentric "dominion over nature" perspective and the never ending quest for "profit." I've often contemplated creating a course where the predominant "mowing machines" were sheep and walking was mandatory. Alas, I've never had the financial means and I'm certain, knowing the behavior of the majority of "golfers," that the venture would have been bankrupt quicker than spit hits the ground.
Did you know I met Dave? After the mountain-top removal protest in WVa, I drove to Pittsburgh which was sorta on my way home to NJ. He has long since banned me from commenting at DOTE, but the talk we had remains one of the most important in my journey to acceptance without guilt.
DeleteSorry, no, I was not aware of that meeting. Moreover, why on Earth would he ban you from commenting? I think you are one of the more perspicacious people on the 'net, much like he seems to be (at least from what little I've read from him so far). You need not reply, at your discretion, but I can only imagine that you "questioned" his "hopefulness" too intensely which seems to be the primary, subconscious(?) reason Scribbler banned me. Yet, these are both evidentiary examples of the theories described in Dave's latest essay. Oh the things that make me go "Hmmmm"! Regardless, if you ever find that you will be in the Cleveland area, please let me know as I am certain I would enjoy meeting you. :) Personally, I am loath to travel much beyond a few dozen miles and have been so for more than a decade.
DeleteWhy thank you! Let me know if you would like to join The Panic Room on facebook. It has great members and comments, very little hopium/optimism, and a lotta gallows humor. A rare refuge.
DeleteThank you for the invitation, it sounds like it might be interesting. However, while I did create a FB account many(?) years ago, I found the constraints of their formats, especially regarding messaging, far too annoying and problematic and I quit logging in within a month. It seems to be an isolated internet within the internet and I couldn't see the point... until recently. NOW we all(?!) know "the point" was to enrich some slimeball jackass and facilitate mass manipulation by corporate interests and monitoring by multiple clandestine, nefarious organizations. Mark Zuckerberg and all his minions should be near the top of anyone's list of assassination targets. In other words, I'll have to think about it, probably for "quite some time." I'm really trying hard to not appear "rude," but am somewhat surprised that you are there. Things that make me go "Hmmm!," indeed!!
DeleteI initially joined because my kids had accounts and I love seeing the pictures they post, but I didn't really pay much attention to it otherwise. Then I got really tired of the morons making repeat comments on certain websites so I joined an extinction "support" group on FB. In many ways it is like a giant sandbox with a lot of people acting like egomaniacal toddlers having temper tantrums - however, it is a way to connect with other doomers since we tend to be so far flung and few between. And by connect I mean not just online but in real life too. On the way home from Florida I met up with two members of TPR in North Carolina (who hadn't met each other before either) - one of them later came to NYC for her art show so we got together then, and the other, who grew up in the High Peaks area of the Adirondacks, I joined last month for a couple of days of hiking in the mountains. So even though there is a certain amount of stupid bickering on FB, it's far less than on blogs I have frequented. I have actually made wonderful friends in person that I originally "met" on blogs - (Climate Progress, NBL, DOTE) but FB is far more interactive in terms of group conversations, you can post pictures and links and videos, you can go off on tangents and separately message if you want. Mainly, if I wasn't able to communicate with like-minded people on a regular basis I would go nuts. So I couldn't give a flying fuck if the NSA sees what I write, or if Mark Zuckerman makes a fortune. Until the grid goes down, it's great as far as I'm concerned - but of course, it's not for everyone. No offense at all if you choose not to!
DeleteThanks, Gail, for the elucidation, I guessed your children may have had something to do with your initial participation in FB. Moreover, I concur with not giving a flying fuck about the NSA, I am fairly certain they have the technology to "eavesdrop" on all 'net communications regardless of any user or group attempts at "privacy."
DeleteI can also relate to communicating "with like-minded people" or risk going "nuts." Alas, I have found no more than a glimmer of "like-mindedness" anywhere across the vast expanse of the web. Sure, there are more than a few I have found "like-minded" on at least one topic, sometimes several topics. However, at some point it becomes clear that their "thinking" (and/or action) is incongruent with their professed rationale. Thus, I went "nuts" long ago and have become comfortable with (perhaps more apt, accustomed to) my "aloneness." Hence, as I have posed on a few blogs over the years...
If you could choose to be the only sane person on a world where everyone else was insane or the only insane individual where everyone else was sane, which would you choose and how would you be able to tell the difference?
I have no "good" answer(s) to that myself and no one else has ever responded. I long ago gave up "belief" and find more honesty and contentment in "I don't know." In the fall of '09 when I first found NBL and posted my first comment there, I was shocked when Guy wrote me an email that was very "like-minded" and, perhaps, sympathetic. However, as time and emails passed, I saw too much "inconsistency of thought" between various topics and actions. The same holds true for most sites and most people I encounter and this dismays and puzzles me mightily! If you (or anyone) would like further elaboration regarding anything, I can be reached here, golfwalker via hotmail. Nonetheless, I will continue to read here (and elsewhere) sporadically and as other requirements allow and comment as I deem appropriate. Perhaps, in due time, I may decide to participate in TPR's discourse, if the invitation is still open at that time. :)
Oh my, and here I thought I WAS the only sane person in an insane world! And part of the problem is, you don't get to choose. Once you see that the world is truly insane, you cannot unsee it. I'll email you. But for the record and the thousands of people who will read this (heh), everyone is welcome to TPR, and you don't have to participate, you can lurk. It's a private group so you have to email me to be admitted, but that is just because many of the members were concerned that there are people they are FB friends with - family, coworkers etc - that they don't want asking them what the hell TPR is all about! [closet doomers]
DeletePersonally, I can not, with any degree of certainty, determine if I am "sane" or "insane," nor how either of those descriptors are relevant to the current conundrums facing life on this planet. Regardless, I am fairly certain that I am more consistent through thoughts, words and actions than most (99+%) of the people I've ever known or encountered. Yet, I am still subject to being "duped," infrequently, by the unscrupulous or the cluelessly insane who, like the legion of monkeys with typewriters, happen to contrive a seemingly meaningful string of words/deeds. Moreover, from experience I am pretty sure I have a more varied, perhaps eclectic, "background" than most and, as a result, see the world in way that appears alien to many. I look forward to your email at your convenience.
DeleteGreat stuff Colinc - I'm a coupla years older'n you but we're definitely on the same page (and read a lot of the same sites). I like your perspective and only disagree with you on golf - which is GREAT if you have that ability, but for me it's more the quote [H. S. Scrivener, attributed the saying to a couple of fellow players named the Allens [LTH]]:
ReplyDelete… my good friends the Allens … one of the best of their many excellent dicta is that “to play golf is to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk.”
I can't cook to save my life (okay, I can do eggs, but any kind of sauces or seasoning is way beyond me) so you have an advantage on me there (too). See you around the blogosphere.
Tom
Thanks, Tom, but take heart on the cooking, it's never too late. If it helps, know that I practically never "measure" or "time" anything and I think a "minimalist" approach is "best," too. It's all by "eye" (does it look done, enough "spice," etc,) and having "no fear" that something, even something never tried before, might be "less than excellent." However, one does need to be "mindful" and attentive. If you know your tastes, it really is difficult to "go wrong" and it is much less expensive, in every way, than "eating out." Moreover, I really only "cook" 3 or 4 days, max, of any week and otherwise we have reheated leftovers. There's a new book I've been reading (from the local library) called "Egg" by Michael Ruhlman. I've found his egg facts, history and recipes fascinating. He also has a website you might find interesting. Eggs are some of my favorite standalone or ingredient foods, too.
Deleteall over the, for lack of a better word, "doomers", recommend to enjoy the day. But there is no day to enjoy here in the city where a growing number of people are suffering from the pollution to a degree they cannot go out anymore and have to control the slightest chemical entering their homes, where the sky is always covered in a haze or grey veil (of co2, methane and whatnot) and we never saw a real blue sky since almost 10 years, where we cannot see the stars at night for as long as I can remember, where the air is foul (actually unbreathable), the water that comes from the faucet is foul, the food is burning one's mouth (unless you go all organic which is totally impossible for 7 billions of US). Where the LOUD noise of engines burning fuel is extremely annoying all day long(ans many times nights), where bla bla bla (more shit ad infinitum). Life is NOW unbearable in this city and the vegetation is about to crash completely. One big storm and certainly half the trees go down (I went to a park on an island in the middle of the st-lawrence river 2 months ago and I am still haunted day and nignt with the state of the trees I saw there. It was a total nightmare to walk among the dead trees in the middle of the oblivious population).
ReplyDeleteso, my question is, why always this advice to "enjoy"? enjoy what? where? why?
and do not dare tell me that I should move, and that there are some places where it is better, and that I have a RIGHT to move there.
just shut up on that subject
enjoy!
Michele - I hear you. It is torment for me to look at trees. It is a surreal experience, one I cannot forget or ignore for even a second. I am surrounded by death, but not dead yet. It is a bizarre place to be. The only really great thing this summer is that the bridge down the road was collapsing, so for months now it has been closed, there has been almost no traffic because there are only about 6 houses on a stretch of over a mile that now goes nowhere. The silence would be delightful except it's TOO quiet, only the occasional frog, a few crickets and sometimes a shriek in the night. The woods are dying and so is everything else.
DeleteYou have my sympathy, Michele, even though I know that that is probably of little consequence or merit to you. Nonetheless, I do understand your perspective having lived, temporarily, in a few cities, big and small, myself over the years and "visited" more than a few others. I found every one of them abhorrent, soul-sucking places, especially Las Vegas, NV. However, I find it perplexing that you seem to find no joy in life or your surroundings, else why would you even bother to get out of bed and/or read/post on the internet. I wish I could be of more help but, I think you'll have to admit, there is more to "enjoy" about your environment than you'd find in a Syrian or Sudanese refugee camp waiting in extreme heat and dust/sand for your life-sustaining parcel from Oxfam or some other NGO.
DeleteMichele: i'm sorry to have used the word when it clearly is impossible to "enjoy" watching as the catastrophe spreads far and wide. I too witness the trees dying here - despite the fact that we had a mild and wet summer, dead trees abound and others in various states of decay and rot still stand with thinning leaves, bare crowns and lichen covered branches.
ReplyDeleteI've completely given up pointing this out to oblivious people pushing baby carriages and talking about their future. We'll all be in the same boat by about 2019 (if we even make it to then). There are fewer lightening bugs and the summer sounds are nowhere near as loud and persistent as they once were. I miss the planet I grew up in already, and it isn't gone yet. I, like you, hate watching this play out, but what choice do I have? Nothing I do will help and everything I do is "wrong" since it's still part of industrial civilization.
Tom
Gail,
ReplyDeletePerhaps you would like to comment on this "move the trees northward as the climate warms" story.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/time-for-trees-to-pack-their-trunks-17995
25 years ago I thought it might be prudent to plant 'everything everywhere' knowing that what was coming (just about now) would be unpredictable and chaotic. Bio-diversity, nature's way, might pull us through.
DeleteThanks Catman! I wrote to the authors this morning - and posted much the same on the story about this report at ClimateProgress if you want to join in the comments there! Dear Mr. Funk, Mr. Markham, Mr. Saunders and Mr. Easley,
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt that climate change will kill trees, as they cannot migrate fast enough. However, that is not what is killing the trees around the world right now. And there actually IS an obvious reason they are dying prematurely - it is from ordinary but invisible air pollution derived primarily from nitrous oxides and also methane, the precursors to ozone. The background level of ozone is inexorably rising, and it is even more highly toxic to vegetation than humans.
In addition to shrinking roots, making plants more vulnerable to drought and wind, ozone causes a loss of natural immunity to biotic pathogens such as insects, disease and fungus, which have become epidemics globally, not only in the American west. In fact bark beetles are killing trees in the southeast US, which has become cooler and wetter from climate change. Every species of tree is now in decline from an onslaught of attacks because they are weakened from pollution.
Although this has been well-researched, it is rarely discussed because the only way to stop it is to stop burning fuel. The scientists who study bark beetle in the west and attribute tree decline to drought are confusing correlation with causation. They should look around in other places not in drought, where the foliage is showing visible symptoms of exposure to pollution. On the east coast, leaves are shriveling and turning brown instead of the glorious colors of fall. Autumn has been increasingly disappointing for several years - 2014 will be an epic wipeout.
The loss of forests globally due to pollution should be of urgent concern to climate change scientists and activists, because without them absorbing CO2, global warming is going to accelerate far faster than current models predict.
Thanks, Gail!
ReplyDelete"Air pollution" is such a general term, like "chemicals". It's obvious that many of the commenters at Climate Progress (and most certainly the general public) don't know very much about the different kinds of air pollution and the specific and general harm that each kind can produce. Wikipedia or other sources could easily fill in that information gap but so many people are watching and reading what our pitiful main stream media is dishing out.
Propaganda (and advertising!) is mostly lying by omission. The liars will probably win the whole dead planet for themselves. Good for them...
catman306
Thank for the link to Hartman's site, I will check it out. Like the comment you quote, it seems very noticeable that there has been a staggering reduction in populations of animals, birds and insects - and I wonder whether even most people who discuss the "sixth mass extinction" aren't basing it on long-term trends and models and mostly exotic tropical species losing habitat - if they too are oblivious to how quickly it is happening. Life is being snuffed out before our eyes.
ReplyDelete