The weather is creepy...we had frost for several days, and now it is almost 70 degrees (F).
It doesn't matter anymore though, if it ever did, that ozone is killing trees, because cataclysmic climate change assures mass extinction anyway, and it is ratcheting forward at a dizzying rate. All the ferocious, pugilistic words that are spilled arguing about whether and how and why we have done this to ourselves and our lovely planet are merely keeping vigil over a dying body.
It would seem that the secret is out. I can't embed this video from The Newsroom, so click on this link and watch it! It's absolutely stunning, especially the reactions of the young people as they listen, incredulous, to their death knell.
Good grief : ) ... what was the air date for this show? I would have expected to have felt the seismic Republican media reaction to this even here in the UK.
ReplyDeleteIt was just last night Paul - so there's still time although as Michele observes, it will most likely be ignored.
DeleteWell given that a number of right-wingers got incensed by the perversely optimistic movie Interstellar, with its rather obscure climate messaging, I would have thought that something like this would have caused blood to boil and some heads to explode.
DeleteI think the idea that humans have ruined the climate, never mind engineered their own extinction, is SO very alien to most people that rather than being seen as a prescient truth this will be seen as a parody of "alarmists".
DeleteYes, I take the point about rendering this safe by reading it as 'parody'. Oddly I stumbled across this while looking at something else entirely.
Deletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-newsroom-has-fun-promising-the-apocalypse/383038/
What happened at/to that publication? I've never read much on that site but I had always presumed that it was of a "higher caliber." Since I don't watch "The Newsroom," either, the article would appear as drivel. However, the comments there are, um, amusingly irrelevant.
Deleteho-ho-ho-ho:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1124/Ugly-Christmas-tree-ruining-holiday-spirit-to-be-removed-in-Pa
barely hanging on
The National Christmas Tree in Washington kept dying and having to be replaced - now there are so many lights, I doubt there is a tree under there at all: http://thenationaltree.org/
DeleteI was the 232rd person to watch the video from Newsroom. Bad news about climate change are not exactly viral...
ReplyDeleteWell, thank goodness "The Newsroom" is just a fictional TV show! :)
ReplyDeleteOK, all seriousness aside, thanks for posting that. Perhaps there is at least some hopeful symbolism in the bits of "honest journalism" that seem to only occur in "fictional" stories, news parodies like those hosted by Stewart, Colbert and Oliver, as well as blogs such as this one and too few others. (I think Maher may be becoming senile!) Moments ago, I did a search for the "show: episode" and the first several pages of results appeared to be "fluff" pieces and the few I scanned contained little, if any, reference to that segment. In case anyone is interested, that episode will be re-aired (all times Eastern)...
Mon 11/24 6:00PM-7:00PM HBO Sig
Mon 11/24 9:00PM-10:00PM HBO 2
Wed 11/26 12:30AM-1:30AM HBO
Wed 11/26 10:00PM-11:00PM HBO
Thu 11/27 2:45AM-3:45AM HBO 2
Thu 11/27 10:00PM-11:00PM HBO
Fri 11/28 12:00AM-1:00AM HBO Sig
Fri 11/28 11:00PM-12:00AM HBO Sig
Sat 11/29 12:00AM-1:00AM HBO
Sat 11/29 3:30PM-4:30PM HBO 2
Sat 11/29 8:00PM-9:00PM HBO Sig
Sun 11/30 2:15AM-3:15AM HBO
Sun 11/30 3:00PM-4:00PM HBO Sig
Sun 12/7 7:00PM-8:00PM HBO 2
I hope the above "grid" is legible enough. If not, thank the kerning "rules" of HTML.
As if "on cue," I just found the following in my aggregator...
ReplyDeleteWorld Bank Issues Climate Change Warning
Excerpt...
Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal is an analysis of likely impacts of present day (0.8°C), 2°C and 4°C warming above pre-industrial levels on agricultural production, water resources, ecosystem services, and coastal vulnerability across Latin-America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and parts of Europe and Central Asia. It builds on a 2012 Bank report, which concluded the world would warm by 4 degrees Celsius[1] above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century if we did not take concerted action immediately.
The report, prepared for the World Bank Group by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, reveals how rising global temperatures are increasingly threatening the health and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations, crucially magnifying problems each region is struggling with today.
There is much more to the above linked article including relevant links to other press, commentary and access to the 320 pg PDF.
YUP! It's endlessly amusing how often that we can proclaim "it's too late" and then a year later say "if only we do this it won't be too late!".
DeleteI think the writers are very clever and know exactly what they are doing. If their only intention was to parody an alarmist they did not need to use high achieving multi-degree holding climate scientist for the doomer. A prominent, un-credentialed environmentalist would have been more accurate. When the show first came out they made a big statement about how far America had fallen and it really did wake some people up and started some fun. This won't change anything but it should be fun and I believe that it will make some people start to think. As most doomers who have searched for answers (why why why) have figured out, science doesn't move people, stories do. I'm getting major dopamine squirts in my brain thinking about all the deniers throwing hissy fits after watching this one. Here is the notorious scene from the first season. Thanks Gail
DeleteApneaman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw
How do I know it is over?
ReplyDeleteMy to do list is empty.
Geez, that "ugly tree" article is so indicative of the delusional, myopic, unsustainable attitudes of most 'Murikins' - I had to comment. First off, why does everything have to revolve around when the 'town council' (read 'local PTB') decides things MUST be done? The ground was too muddy to cut down the tree they wanted (bad enough), so they just rip any one they can find to 'stand in' (now it's twice as bad - two trees cut down for our ridiculous 'whims'). They couldn't wait for the ground to dry or harden with the incoming colder weather - nope, impatience is a hallmark of any power monger (and most Murikins') - "I want it yesterday!" Holiday spirit makes me want to spew bile. This fictional nonsense of the celebration of some "god's birth" (I think it was Mithras, about 2000 years before Christ - but the idea itself is just ludicrous) complete with all the consumerist craziness we can throw money at, while driving ourselves to distraction (of the impending calamity we've unleashed by doing all this stupid human activity in the first place) with an over-abundance of food and drink, shopping, and all the throw-away crap we keep contributing to landfills from coast to coast (and now in the oceans too) every year (we just won't learn about reality until we're deprived of it all) has gone beyond belief! There's no doubt about it - we're completely off our collective rockers at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe entirety of civilization has gone off the rails via pollution, overpopulation, the charade of 'world government' (it's akin to the Wizard of Oz here), resource depletion, fake economics, vapid education, control by banks (what could possibly go wrong?), ruled by corporations, and enforced by the global goon-squads of NSA and their ilk to the ever-changing 'laws' they deem necessary.
Well people, the gift we gave the world - humanity - has created a Frankenstein that we can't shut off, defeat, adapt to, or work around. We've stumbled along for centuries, led by psychopathic idiots, coddled by pedophilic priests of mythic religions, been indoctrinated for a future that promises to be anything but cooperative or normal by an educational system that's as corrupt and moronic as all the rest of the vaunted systems we've created. Civilization, like the Titanic, was supposed to go on FOREVER, but we won't make it past 2050 because we never got the message as a species. Oh sure, some did - but they were summarily ignored while we were led down the primrose path to perdition in our must-have latest model cars, chasing the toys sold to us by the advertising industry on behalf of the junk-makers of the world, while going to school to be prepared for 'the future,' and 'having fun' all along the way.
When there's no food to be had, the reality of the situation will become clear. It's all been an empty promise - a fascinating lie - but time is rapidly dwindling in our poisoned fishbowl, once called 'spaceship Earth.'
What a waste. What was the point?
Tom