Wednesday, September 2, 2009

It's the Environment Stupid

How much intelligence does it take to recognize and accept that mankind is destroying the planet? What will it take to seriously get our attention? Will it be too late? If you are a global warming non-believer, try this... Stand on any asphalt parking lot on a hot day. After a couple of minutes, walk onto a nearby grassy area. Quite a difference huh? Now walk from the grassy area to a tree-shaded area. Viola! Even more difference. Apart from carbon dioxide emissions and chlorofluorocarbons and the like, mankind is warming up the planet simply by paving it over and clear-cutting it. Multiply that parking lot by hundreds of millions of parking lots, rooftops, roads and cleared fields world-wide and you get the picture, at least part of it. The earth shivered and caused a tsunami on the other side of the world that killed 200,000 people. Two-thirds of the soldiers the U.S. lost in WWII. It merited about a weeks worth of headlines. But that's OK. It's way the hell over there and who cares about the pygmies in New Guinea anyway. An earthquake in China kills 50,000 people and it's good for two days headlines and a sidebar. So what? We kill that many in traffic accidents every year. Here's the deal, you ain't seen nothing yet. Far and away, the greatest threat to us... you, me, our children, our grandchildren... is environmental degradation. A recent computer model predicting the effects of global warming on the U.S. show the most severe effect will be in the heart of the nation, the Great Plains... Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri. The bread basket of the world. Scientist predict the ensuing droughts will make the dust bowl of the 30's look like a tropical paradise. That ought to drive the price of bread up a little. But wait, there's more. Nostracharleston Predicts: Contrary to popular belief, the world is not round, at least not perfectly round. It's sort of squat. It bulges in the middle along the Equator, the effects of centrifugal force and billions of tons of ice collected at the north and south poles. The ice is melting. Those billions of tons are being redistributed across the face of the planet. As the weight is removed from the poles, the earth will flex and shed a little of its midriff bulge. That means all of the tectonic plates will have to readjust. Kind of like going to the chiropractor and getting everything moved around a bit. While that's going on, there will be earthquakes and volcanoes the likes of which mankind has never seen. Rising oceans, abetted by tsunamis, will wreak devastation and death on a biblical scale. Apart for blowing the tops off of mountains and reining hellfire on the surrounding inhabitants, volcanic eruptions will spew trillions of tons of sulfuric ash into the atmosphere virtually blocking the sun, causing massive crop failures and turning rain into a sulfuric acid bath. The earth as we know it will be no more. Sounds like fun? Could be it's past time to pay attention.

11 comments:

  1. Have you seen that movie, The 11th Hour? Good stuff. I've having my students read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It is our arrogance and narcissism that keeps us from accepting that we are destroying our planet and even if we accept that, it's our planet to destroy. That is the thinking behind the global warming naysayers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unfortunately, Weisman is right. Of course, the Bible gives them divine right of dominion over all things. We're dead.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is what happens when everything is done for profit. Not only bottom line profit of numbers in a book. Every credit in one column takes a debit from another.

    It is and has been for a century well past time to start spending from the credit column to ease the debit side of the ledger.

    Too late? Quite possibly. Should the effort still be made and it is it possible? yes to both but it won't happen until we make it bottom line profitable for people to get in the planet saving business.

    In this I am ambivalent because no one will do much of anything unless there is profit for the bottom line in it. And that is exactly what caused us to rape the planet in the first place.

    If the planet was reforested and we rethought our circumstances of living then I may say "let's go to work boys" but I will no longer condone anything that is motivated for business profit. That system can die with the rest of us.

    If we do not change the entire model of our human cultures all at once then there really is very little point because the old models will be too long in dying off and by the time they are dead the planet will have already tipped over the apex.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're right WM. People won't support anything if there is no profit in it. However, the economic paradigm has changed many times over the centuries and who knows what the future model will look like. But, like you, I'm afraid the whole thing will implode before we get there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am in agreement with walking man. However, I have no hope. We are doomed.

    Here is why I believe this. My youngest daughter is in kindergarten. I pick her up everyday after school. I have to get there 30-40 minutes early to get a parking place close in because of my walking problems. There is a mother who drives a Ford Expedition who usually gets there right behind me. We have been having unusually cool weather this summer, low 70's, not hot by any stretch. This woman never turns off her engine. It idles for 40 minutes, every day...AND THE WEATHER IS BEAUTIFUL...not hot. But wait, there's more about this cretin. I pass by her house on occasion, and guess what, this family owns THREE of these tanks. THREE! And many, many of the people who live in her neighborhood drive the same class of vehicle. Why? To keep up with the neighbors. And keeping up with the neighbors is about greed. I know that I don't have to explain what is wrong with this to you, but she hasn't a clue, and never will. Multiply this attitude by millions, and the conclusion has to be, we are fucked.

    As it turns out, money is indeed the root of all evil. Can't believe I said that, but it is the conclusion I've come to in my olden years.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If I had a dollar for everytime I have thought or said "we're fucked" I could retire comfortably.

    I fear for my grandchildren. Every time I am with them I worry about what lies in store for them.

    I suppose, like everything else, we can either choose the dark side or the light side. I think I am going to choose going blissfully into that dark night. What the hell. Got nothing to loose.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well now, that's a whole different subject. I have no problem with where I MIGHT be going.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm a changed man. A child of the light. My new year's resolution... er, half year, or maybe half wit resolution is to go out smiling.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mr. C, you're no fun when you come back from vacation.

    But you're right.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Intell, that infers that he IS fun before he goes on vacation (C, before you get your, you-know-whats, in a wad, I must remind you of the statement just below the "Leave your comment" above).

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't advocate drinking the kool aid just yet but what I do propose is to withhold as much of the thing the corporacracy loves as I can: money. I spend less than $12 a day that includes utilities, taxes and insurance. And what i do spend i spend as much locally as possible and I never, never buy from wal-mart or others heavily invested in the import from overseas goods that could easily be produced in this country.

    I will go down, but I will not drag my dick in the dirt as I go. Fuck them.

    ReplyDelete

Sorry about the comment thingy folks. Too much spam.