Climate change--the industry thereof--is a scam.

I'm a proponent of Robert Frosts's poem fire and ice, which I was fortunate enough to hear Frost himself recite a month before he died. I don't know how this globe itself will end--a cold, dark death when the sun dies. A solar super flare. Who knows? It sure ain't me. I would like to see the nightly smirk on Al Gore's face every night when he counts the silver. An inconvenient truth, Mr. Gore and co-dependents, is that climate always changes over time. What are now mountains were once on the bottom of the sea. Geography changes. The only thing which doesn't change is change.

Look, I am about as scientific as my trash collector outside of my clinic. Many of you reading this are a helluva lot smarter than me--But I have a bigger mouth (and nasty teeth). So I write things here to get educated. How am I getting an education by writing an article aimed at you, not me? It's like this: the comments to essays are instructive, often better than original effort. When I'm online here reading other articles gives me so much information, that I become more confident in what I may subsequently write.

So, in a not politically correct manner, I am throw some shade from the current climate conception.

The issue of CAUSATION

Ice Ages alternating with world wide tropical to temperate climates before men and even alligator existed. The magnetic poles reverse after millennia. Why? Too much carbon dioxide?

The sun itself pulsates, with increments and decrements in this cycle occurring roughly at 4 year intervals, if I remember correctly. Why is that? Not enough carbon dioxide sometimes?

The sun spot cycles have maximum and minima on about a 12 yearly cycle (a cycle beyond which we ought not to allow politicians anymore "public service"). Weather changes. Even early electromagnetic signals are distorted during solar flares--flares that may travel halfway between the sun and Mercury. Think Mercury doesn't get a bit molten when that happens?

The issue of the OFFENDING AGENT

C02 is getting all the press. If I were a green house gas, instead of swimming amongst them, like, say methane (or as the Brits call it: ME-thane), I would be jealous. In fact I would be outraged. This is unfair to methane and other chemicals--you know like fluorinated aerosols, etc.

I believe the Green House Gas Institute (GHGI) should demand a congressional investigation as to why their constituents, the green house gases themselves, are not getting more government publicity. Sue in Federal Court! Yeah, that's the ticket GHGI versus Congress: gasbags versus gasbags.

At one time, scientists believed in something called "phlogiston". At some point, scientists believed in the Demonratic party.

This essay sure isn't very scientific, but I already told you that. I am more progressively biased almost daily against the elitocracy. This article from the daily caller expresses my attitude on the subject.

If climate change is our world war 2, who are the real villains?

If Bloomberg and the other billionaires ranting about global warming were really worried about climate change destroying our planet, it would seem reasonable that they would be willing to put up with at least some minor inconveniences to their high-flying lifestyles, even if only to drive home their seriousness.

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The current science of climate change, past and current, shows a rate of change that is unprecedented in the planet’s entire geological history.

The fact that big time money grabbers are exploiting the situation for profit in no way suggests that what climate change scientists are observing is not, in fact, actually happening.

Micro data sets (its very cold today) that do not comport with meta data sets (the planet is warming) in no way contradict the validity of the latter.

The fact that the climate changed in pre human times in no way contradicts the fact that human activity is contributing significantly to the trajectory of current climate trends.

Denying that there is a problem is a common human trait, particularly among those addicted to a particularly harmful substance or destructive lifestyle.

There you have it, my fact free rebuttal to your fact free essay. We apparently are looking at our current situation from different angles and picking different things to focus on. Reality is what it is, and is very likely seen and understood only in small pieces by each of us. Babel from beginning to end, as it’s always been.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Alligator Ed's picture

@ovals49 @ovals49 When one says that the world has never seen such rapid climate change is patently false. I will cite but two examples, out of presumably many, when climate changed rapidly over a very short time.

1. The eruption of the super volcano Karakatoa in the year 1883 cast a volcanic pall over the entire planet due to the huge amounts of fine volcanic debris injected into the stratosphere. This eruption caused darkening of the skies of the entire planet:

The combined effects of pyroclastic flows, volcanic ashes, and tsunamis had disastrous results in the region and worldwide. The death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was 36,417, although some sources put the estimate at more than 120,000. There are numerous documented reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa up to a year after the eruption. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.

2. The meteor which landed in the gulf of Mexico near the Yucutan, called the Chicxulb crater impact, affected world-wide climate changes and

Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named.[5] It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometres (6.8 to 50.3 miles) in diameter,[2] the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago,[3] and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Q.E.D., your statement that earth has never seen such rapid climate change is easily challenged by only two events, of which there are surely more which have occurred in recorded history. Unfortunately, my saurian predecessors did not know how to write, else we have multitudes of other examples.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Alligator Ed

including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Not quite.

The most successful survival story among all dinosaurs isn't the avians (of whom no pre-Chixhulub species has survived intact), but the crocodilians, all of which species survived intact to modern times from dinosaur days. Today's alligators and crocodiles are the same as the ones before the impact.

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Alligator Ed's picture

@thanatokephaloides Alligators are survivors. I don't much care for crocodiles, perhaps because of my innate tribalism.

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@Alligator Ed
but how can an object from space cause climate change when you've proven it's caused by volcanoes? That's like saying radon causes lung cancer when we all know it's caused by cigarettes.

The fact that there are other causes of global climate change has nothing to do with whether CO2 increasing during the industrial age has a major role in this one. What is relevant is it was predicted in advance and change is actually faster than predicted.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@FuturePassed

but how can an object from space cause climate change when you've proven it's caused by volcanoes? That's like saying radon causes lung cancer when we all know it's caused by cigarettes.

1. Just because eruptions of volcanoes can alter climate globally does not exclude other causes from being effective also.

2. Radon does cause lung cancer, although it lags far behind tobacco.

Your comment is reductionist, seemingly reducing causation to the lowest common denominator, thus eliminating consideration of other real factors. This Democrat-think. I would have expected this sort of comment on TOP. a place to which I shall never journey again. When you show willingness to adjust your strict yes-or-no propositions, to admit of alternative explanations in place of or in addition to cited hazards, your commentary will carry more weight, at least with me.

Now, inspired by your comment, I am going to tune in Rachel Madcow for my daily sermon.

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@Alligator Ed
Let's not go making hasty decisions we're likely to regret.

 Now, inspired by your comment, I am going to tune in Rachel Madcow for my daily sermon.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@Alligator Ed
If cigarettes and radon can both cause lung cancer then volcanoes and objects from space and human produced CO2 can all cause global warming as can solar fluctuations and long-term cycles of the earth's orbit.

I served my time at TOP and don't enjoy being reminded of it.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@FuturePassed Linking two things which are unrelated, except by climate effect is obtuse. The debris from super volcanoes or even baby volcanoes includes sulfur, finely cleaved dirt particles (aka rocks) and, yes, some CO2. The volcanic explosion blankets the stratosphere, the duration of which atmospheric suspension is dependent upon the particle mass. Large particles settle fast. The major climatic effect of volcanic effect is reduced solar penetration to the surface. The major climatic effect of radon is nil. The radon comment relates only to lung cancer, a disparate problem from climate--unless one wishes to posit that cigarette smoke meaningfully contributes to atmospheric opacity.

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magiamma's picture

@FuturePassed
Conflating tomatoes and earrings or some such. Take your pick.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

mhagle's picture

This video is about a half hour.

Kevin and Hugh are back with us discussing the new 'climate glitterati' that come annually to the World Economic Forum in Davos to feign concern about the climate change, while they discuss techno-fixes that might allow them (in their minds at least) to continue their excessive lifestyle that is leading to runaway climate change and civilization's collapse.

[video:https://youtu.be/5voJj0DMHiI]

Kevin Anderson is one the best scientific voices out there.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

magiamma's picture

@mhagle
Kevin Anderson rocks

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Alligator Ed's picture

@mhagle Here is the underpinning of the neoliberal climate change industry, shown brilliantly by the two speakers. This reinforces my view that the climate change industry is farcical and self-serving. The global elites, who proportionately outgas way more carbon than the rest of us, push the burden of CO2 reduction on the poor--neoliberalist hypocrisy at its finest.

I have prepared a slide show abstracted from the conference to illustrate points. By way of introduction, let me clarify my definition of "climate change industry". This is an effort, so far successful, in passing the burden of CO2 reduction onto the poorer population. The elites are unwilling to reduce their own CO2 emissions--let's see if Jeff Bezos or Oleg Deripaska sell off their planes and yachts. Ain't gonna happen.

Getting the top 10% of income owners to do their part, would lower CO2 emissions 1/3 globally--source is the video. Will they do it? Piss on you, peasants. We NEED our yachts, seven homes and 4+ jets.

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich.

Here's a snapshot of an elitist, showing deep concern for fellow citizens, aka peasants:

https://i.imgur.com/MCf2w2W.png

Once the elites have gone on to stroke various parts of their own anatomy, many show interest in other topics.

Let's get real, here.

So, 1.5˚C is an allowable upper limit situation whereby the planet doesn't incinerate? In a comment above, the impact of the Yucutan asteroid lowered global temperature 1.2˚C practically over night, killing off 3/4ths of living things. So why is 1.5C now the goal, when a much lower rapid change (in a negative direction) was catastrophic. Have any studies been done to show the effects of rapidly increasing temperature, according to the long geophysical time scale which should be considered? Have there been even localized events of that magnitude recorded previously?

Climate models: there as many climate "models", all of which are guesses, as there are automobile models. Some prove to be lemons from the outset, whereas more breakdown with a little use, i.e., testing by historical record.

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@Alligator Ed
temperature -- for example, it put enough dust and soot (from worldwide fires) into the atmosphere that it pretty nearly shut down photosynthesis.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd Higher albedo = lower photosynthesis.

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@Alligator Ed

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

gulfgal98's picture

@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed globally in terms of income. This sounds shocking, but it is true according to Investopedia. The minimum income to qualify as being in the top 1% worldwide is $32,400 per year.

However, when it comes to net worth,most Americans would not be in the top 1% globally. It takes about $770,000 in net worth to qualify to be in the top 1% worldwide.

After watching the video, it is not just the ultra wealthy (top 1%) that would need to scale down their lifestyles, but those of us in the top 10-20% of world wide wealth. I suspect that definitely would include a lot of us here at C99.

The term “top 1 percent” of global income may sound like an exclusive club, but it’s one to which millions of Americans belong. It’s a reminder of just how prosperous developed countries are compared to the vast majority of other people who share our planet.

Edited for typos and to include additional information.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Dawn's Meta's picture

@gulfgal98 Have trouble with separating an annual income, worth, net worth etc. and what makes one a 1% er.

Someone who has a couple of million in worth (net/gross?) thought he was in the 1% until he found some article saying that to be in that category one would have to earn $1.5M annually.

Property, is an example of non liquid assets which are difficult to spend unless sold and turned into cash/investment.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@Alligator Ed

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich

The initiative to raise gas/diesel taxes hit independent truck drivers, low income renters and home owners; other members of the moyen classe.

What is particularly striking is that the wealthy persons and corporations at the same time were/are given more tax breaks and regulating the messes caused by getting or using fossil fuels is also borne by the lower income (salaries) wage type earners.

That is what started the protests in a nutshell. Well said.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Mine too will be fact free because I agree with both of you. I usually like change, create change, and think it is good. So why not a new dress and a makeover into a Green New Deal? What do we have to lose?

As I sit in Michigan in the middle of June with my furnace on to combat all the 60 degree weather and rain, there is no doubt our climate is changing. The lakes are at record level highs, and the ground is saturated with water. Winter came in like a bear last October, and it just won’t leave.

That’s all I got.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

GreyWolf's picture

has been haunting me recently.

(I recall reading books and seeing an author apparently almost directly responding to another author through the ages. this is kinda like that, read the two poems, one after the other ... it's like the two men are sitting together having a discussion ... Wink )

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

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WoodsDweller's picture

For most of Earth's history it would not have supported human life. For most of humanity's history (about 300,000 years) the climate would not have supported agriculture. Climate extremes have occurred in the past, the worst ones were associated with the five mass extinctions. This is mass extinction number six, associated with a climate shift.
We know what the absorption spectrum of CO2, CH4, NO2, H2O, etc., are. If you want to debate that, get your own mass spectrograph and run the experiments yourself. They transmit visible light but are opaque to infrared. Increase their concentration in the atmosphere and the equilibrium temperature of the Earth goes up. Simple physics, it gets complicated when you introduce albedo changes (due to ice and snow cover and changes in vegetation, as well as sea level changes). Trying to predict the transition is tough, but the end result is predictable. Other factors, like variation in the Sun's output, have been accounted for and they are measurable but insignificant.
The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is far less than the amount of carbon we've extracted and burned (the majority has been absorbed by the oceans). In earlier ages other factors accounted for warming, this time it's us.
You are correct in pointing out the roles of other GHGs. The IPCC fifth assessment barely mentioned anything beyond CO2, the interim assessment started to address them. By shear coincidence their OMG date moved from the end of the century to the middle. There is a concept of "CO2 equivalent" which includes other GHGs. CO2 levels are about 414 (ish) ppm, the CO2 equivalent is well over 600.
The rate of change is at least as important as the magnitude of the change, and this rate is unprecedented. It far exceeds the ability of higher species to adapt either by behaviour or evolution. Species that can't adapt fast enough go extinct.
There is a concept of "co-extinction". When the species you depend on die back or go extinct, your species goes extinct even when the conditions aren't enough to kill you directly. A paper published last fall (a simulation) showed that an abrupt 5.5 C temperature rise is enough to wipe out all life on Earth. They walked the results back, saying that it's hard to believe all life goes, but those were the results. Note that that level is lower than hot house Earth, probably the most common condition over the last 2 billion years, but that rate of change is devastating. There is reason to believe we'll see that much change by the end of the century.
Climate change isn't our "ww2". I wish it was merely global thermonuclear war. It's much worse. There's a non-zero chance that the Earth will be as sterile as the Moon within a century or two.
Industrial civilization is utterly devastating to the ecosystem. This is the solution to Fermi's Paradox, the reason we don't hear any signs of alien civilizations. Civilization destroys worlds.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

polkageist's picture

@WoodsDweller

Your reply is one of the best short, factual explanations I have read. Certainly not comforting, but clear and concise. We are doomed and we have no one to blame but ourselves. So much for homo sapiens.

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-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

thanatokephaloides's picture

@WoodsDweller

This is the solution to Fermi's Paradox, the reason we don't hear any signs of alien civilizations. Civilization destroys worlds.

Before interstellar transport technology can develop. I get it.

Of course, everything we can evidence directly still says we're all still stranded behind the iron wall of the Universal Speed Limit. "299,792,458 meters per second. It's not just a good idea; it's the law!"

And let's not insult the Space Siblings by imputing our stupidity level to them.....

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Alligator Ed's picture

@thanatokephaloides Fermi's Paradox

The Fermi paradox is named after physicist Enrico Fermi and refers to the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for and various high probability estimates[1] of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.[2].According to this line of reasoning, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens, or at least their probes.

If sentient aliens were able to approach the earth, they would quickly realize that the humanoid inhabitants were largely unrealistic believers in mysticism (religion) and unable to control their war like instincts. Thus intelligent otherworldly types would get the hell away from this writhing nest of nastiness And nuttiness.

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@Alligator Ed assumes evidence of alien visitation would be made known to the public, doesn't it? The last thing the authorities, and experts connected w/TPTB, would do is hold a press conference. Too socially destabilizing.

Moi, I suspect the authorities already have such evidence, though this is only my suspicion.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wokkamile Supposing such alien space traveling devices did appear in our skies, hovering over your home, would you choose to have them "beam you up"? I know I wouldn't. I hear alligator meat is regarded as a universal delicacy. For myself, I find that thought abhorrent. Now, they should try ingesting crocodiles, the not so friendly other tribe.

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@Alligator Ed real nice like, I would probably take it under advisement.

Far better if we had a friendly face-to-face chat first, so I could evaluate the cut of their jib, their purpose in being here and inviting humble me up, etc.

This all assumes they would be of the human-looking variety of alien (which I suspect is the norm in the known universe), and not the reptitilan ones Hollywood conjures up to make us fearful. A nice-looking female humanoid alien would be my preference for a first encounter of the third kind ...

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wokkamile I would take umbrage at your comment, if only I knew what umbrage meant--and don't try to educate me, smartypants. I am recalcitrant to education and good manners. I slurp when I eat.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Alligator Ed

blue globe then I think it's a good chance that we killed them before knowing if they were a threat to us or not.

This goes with your deduction that we are a warmongering race. I've long thought that if there were aliens out there that they would be laughing their gray buttocks off at our stupidity. Destroying the only place we have to live and killing our neighbors has got to be the stupidest action in the galaxy.

I think that there is a war on useless eaters. How else do you explain the drug companies jacking up the price of insulin and other life saving drugs to where poor people can't afford it? Gutting the social programs will do the same thing as poor and disabled people won't be able to afford to live. Being homeless gives us the chance to contract some horrible diseases like hepatitis and other things when people don't have money to get treatment for them.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Alligator Ed's picture

@snoopydawg Use money to destroy people. What a concept! Oh, I forgot, it's been in use for centuries.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

If there are aliens and they have discovered our blue globe then I think it's a good chance that we killed them before knowing if they were a threat to us or not.

Naah, any race of aliens sophisticated enough to master interstellar space travel would know better than to attempt dealing with us. I could easily see an alien probe returning a message to its masters: "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EARTH. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE....." (h/t 2010: The Year We Make Contact)

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

snoopydawg's picture

@thanatokephaloides

The book not the silly show that was made from it. Alien kids put the dome over a city kinda like we used to do with bugs. Just a silly experiment for the kids. Cruel though..

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Alligator Ed's picture

@WoodsDweller I had not read this when posting my slideshow above. I do not disagree with your thoughts. However much of the conclusions are speculative based on limited human knowledge of what happened in prehistoric time. This not to say all the models predicting the "OMG" moment of which you write are incorrect. But surely many theories cannot be proven. We have no empirical laboratory except planet Earth. Humans will likely be killed by a global pandemic, such as Ebola, long before we incinerate. Talk about adaptation. The human brain has not yet adapted to the pitfalls of technology.

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WoodsDweller's picture

@Alligator Ed Since they are looking for the date in the future, whereas the actual date was sometime in the recent past.
The 2C number was never a scientific number, it was from a paper by an economist who pulled a couple of curves out of somewhere dark and stinky and decided that's where they crossed. The UN's original number was 1C above the 1750s baseline. That morphed into 2C above the 1890s baseline. Then they backed off to a "stretch" goal of 1.5C above the 1890s baseline.
And none of it reflects the aerosol masking effect.
Part of the IPCC fifth assessment was a measure of "climate sensitivity", how much warming you get from an increase in CO2 (without accounting for other GHGs). From that they determined the carbon budget going forward to stay under 2C as some hundreds of gigatonnes of carbon. But they didn't account for aerosol masking, which according to a 2011 paper by James Hansen et al. was blocking about 1.25C. Hansen called them out, saying that the carbon budget (in 2013) going forward was zero. It turns out he was an optimist.
More recent papers have the amount of masking at about 3C. They're ignoring three quarters of the warming when computing climate sensitivity.
That puts us uncomfortably close to 5C above the 1750 baseline, yet natural feedbacks are only now starting to kick in. Lag, lag, lag, and aerosols.
OMG was somewhere around the 80s most likely.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

Dawn's Meta's picture

@WoodsDweller shut down of worldwide aviation, the long running experiment/monitoring of evaporation rates in open pans sped up as the skies were more clear blue and unmasked.

Evaporation Pans

Over the last 50 or so years, pan evaporation has been carefully monitored. For decades, pan evaporation measurements were not analyzed critically for long term trends. But in the 1990s scientists reported that the rate of evaporation was falling.[8] According to data, the downward trend had been observed all over the world except in a few places where it has increased.[9][10][11][12]

It is currently theorized that, all other things being equal, as the global climate warms evaporation would increase proportionately and as a result, the hydrological cycle in its most general sense is bound to accelerate.[13] The downward trend of pan evaporation has since also been linked to a phenomenon called global dimming.[14][15] In 2005 Wild et al. and Pinker et al. found that the "dimming" trend had reversed since about 1990 [16]

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

wendy davis's picture

@WoodsDweller

the most knowledgeable person here as far as climate change science, and you've taught me a lot over the past year or two, especially about that a huge part the hot oceans are at play in the mix.

and it may have been you who'd posited that the melting north sea cap and methane releases coupled with the hot sea temps cause even more methane to be released on the ocean floor, and how that feedback loop seems unstoppable at this point. but that explanation may have come from robert hunziker, i've forgotten.

but as you've noted, the OMG moment was easily twenty years ago, i will agree with the gator on point: it's hideous to me that over the past year a dozen or more new capitalist corporations have sprung up to financialize the most recent freak outs, or how to create a Climate Emergency! (so yes, given that it's all pretty baked in already, we can ask: Why Now?

both the AOC/Markey and the UK 'green new deals' only have capitalist solutions to offer, and never actually mention 'the end of fossil fuel use'. as big al notes here: the US military carbon footprint is the single largest on the planet, but aoc's thing never mentions it, which is why i'd called it 'Green Capitalism Aglow', but does use the terms the DoD uses as 'climate change as a threat multiplier'. i'd add that the exploitation of young greta thunberg is also cavalier and unconscionable, but then capital has no conscience.

potable water is becoming ever more scarce in the US and likely canada, and that's where my heart is, as well as the fact that it's past time to address the rising oceans and do what can be done to mitigate that, shoring up levies, sea walls, dikes, moving folks to higher ground, and so on.

sorry to rant, but i do thank you for your knowledge, woods dweller.

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@wendy davis
a young (to me, anyway) woman i had met earlier that afternoon. we were discussing politics, and something that came up was a matter of great interest to me, but for which i have not solid answers, which is: How exactly is it that certain memes somehow take off in the culture, while others do not? The press and the chatterati destroyed Howard Dean simply by running a clip of him uttering an enthused yowl (a clip from which the aural context was removed, so that viewers did not realize that the noise in the room rendered him almost inaudible to the crowd). Suddenly, he was clearly not sufficiently ... serious? ... to hold the office.

Twelve years later, the press (and the chatterati) jumped at every opportunity to demonstrate that Trump was not (as he indeed is not) sufficiently serious to hold the office. "Grab their pussies"? Come on.

So how come in one case, their attempted crucifixion succeeded without a hitch, while in another they were ineffective? I'm sure people have their hypotheses, about this or that -- disaffected working class whites who don't listen to the media, or something, I don't know -- but the truth is that such things happen all the time in our culture, without clear rationale.

I think that in the last two years, this is what has happened with ACC. I think Greta T had a lot to do with it, maybe even everything to do with it, maybe it was just as simple as an odd young Swedish schoolgirl standing up and saying, "GROW THE FUCK UP AND FIX THIS", but something pushed it over the hump -- and as soon as something like that happens, as soon as the capitalist class understands that there is going to be a full-on governmental press to address some new problem domain -- well, yeah, they're going to start lining up to figure out how to profit from that press. So ... yeah. I think that's what's happening. It's just what they do.

As far as AOC et al, versus the military, here's what I know: Elizabeth Warren did publicly challenge the military to get serious about dialing back their carbon footprint, and she was mocked mercilessly, here, as badly as anywhere else. Despite the fact that she quite explicitly used the term "non-combat", she was ridiculed for asking the military to start using nice, green drones when slaughtering wedding parties. And so on.

So maybe that's your answer there -- one politician actually broached the subject, and the response, from all corners of the political spectrum, was contempt-laden ridicule. AOC (& everyone else, for that matter) would have to be pretty dimwitted to raise it as an issue at the moment.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

wendy davis's picture

@UntimelyRippd

but i'd forgotten it was played over and over and over...without sound. but the ubiquitous re-playing became synonymous with his campaign: bye, bye, howard. same thing with presidential candidate colorado pat schroeder in 1988: a tear leaked out of her while she was giving a speech: that tear meant she was too emotional to serve™! she was fantastic, and ha earlier noted that bill clinton was a sex addict. but repetition matters to memes.

in the case of 'declaring climate change emergencies NOW' (what does that really mean? does anyone know?), the whys are several, i think. the new Scary Reports like: '17,000,000 species at risk!' well, of course they are, and have been, but why now? psychologist margaret klein salamon wrote the bible in several parts. people like to be terrified, so there's that as well.

but i do think the WHY Now has a lot to do with capitalist profiteering from it all, but i think little greta is being exploited without her being aware of it. i read a short piece by a woman in norway that had some pretty appalling (to me) facts on the businesses behind with leader of the sixth extinction movement. if i can find it again, i may post it sometime; it's on one of my last ten word documents.

but i will correct you a bit: warren wanted to the military to fuel their planes with biofuels as the pentagon had tried a few years ago. hence the jests: 'warren wants people bombed with green fuel'. or at least that's how i remember it.

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the bottom line is that the inflammatory title of your essay is not helpful.

A. We are changing the climate at a rate possibly never seen in all of earth's history, or at least, in all of earth's history since it established a biosphere dominated by plants that regulated the balance of the O2 and CO2 in the atmosphere.

B. We are not behaving as if everything we've built in the last 10,000 years is at risk.

C. Telling the ultrarich to scale back on their self-indulgence is also not helpful, because their self-indulgences are not the main problem. The main problem is that the ultrarich are actually in control of the situation, and the solutions to the main problem mostly involve restricting their ability to become richer and richer and richer without ever having to stop and ask, "Is this a viable long-term approach for all of us?" The solutions to the main problem are all about limiting consumerism, and regulating the processes by which goods and services are provided to the masses. The solutions to the main problem are all about eliminating growth -- while the economic system to which the ultrarich are devoted demands never-ending geometric growth. Their luxurious consumption doesn't grow geometrically, and it isn't really relevant.

The fetish of growth is the problem, and that is why our elites have done not one useful goddamned thing about ACC since it first started creeping into the public consciousness 35 years ago.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd growth, and also the unchecked human population growth. The former is a serious problem, but the latter goes to the root of the problem of climate change/global warming.

Unfortunately, as I've noted before, the issue of a worldwide population-stop is a third rail in politics and so goes unmentioned in favor of superficial, temporary solutions which don't get at the problem. Unfortunately too, not enough environmental experts have been speaking out on this human overpopulation cause, and so the matter is left for a few brave souls to dare utter and face a torrent of undeserved accusations, mostly having to do with race.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd It got you, and others, to comment. Talk all you will about consumerism, albedo, carbonification of the oceans, unfreezing of the tundra, etc., and it does no good getting us to a solution.

The engine of capitalism is population growth--more people to sell things to, including homes and autos. I am a throwback who believes Thomas Malthus was correct. This planet has and always will have limited resources. The problem now with population reduction is the conflation with eugenics. This is a real threat. The elites want to cull the herd, ridding us of useless eaters, and breeding instead faithful servants who will do their bidding unquestioningly.

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@Alligator Ed
are wedded to a philosophy of "more people = more exploitable economic units". they don't see us as useless eaters, they see us as consumers. their outlook is not rational. don't make the mistake of thinking that they are smart. they are not -- and even more to the point, they are not wise. they are blinded by their ideology and its nonsensical axioms (e.g., competition maximizes efficiency!). They believe their own bullshit, which is what makes them so very, very dangerous.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd The ultrarich do consider useless eaters to be those people unable to participate in consumerism, being too broke to do so.

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@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed
at subsistence wages. they don't want such folk exterminated, they want them enslaved.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd What is the optimum number of serfs to get the work done while keeping costs down. To me, it seems like starving serfs nearly to death is in the long term self-defeating, because the bosses have to keep re-training the new victims, since the experienced workers have, shall we say, evolved into Soylent Green.

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@Alligator Ed
be created, the objective of which being the aggrandizement of the aristocrat who owns the serfs. Build a wall around my estate! Build a BIGGER wall around my estate! Build a wall with hand-carved images of my ancestors performing marvelous deeds of courage and derring-do. March in an endless, continuous parade along the top of the wall, singing my praises! Etc.

Vanity can never be satisfied -- it is always gratified by more, more, more.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd He said a good economy must provide a chicken in every pot. But once one gets used to having one chicken per pot, it won't be long before that person desires a second chicken in the pot. Or instead of buying a Ford, one then wishes to buy a Lexus.

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smiley7's picture

@Alligator Ed
John Kenneth Galbraith just turned in his grave of decades of leading the US of A down a path my father and i witnessed and appreciate; Keynesian, he was.

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smiley7's picture

@smiley7
ire you imagine may be directed at Edward Bernays and company.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Alligator Ed

They had an episode where they visited a planet where another race had given people the means to live longer and was helping them with certain things. The vaccine that they gave them actually wiped out 99% of the population and the survivors were growing crops.... anyway the main characters found old cities buried under the ground and a newspaper that showed how people finally woke up to their danger but it was too late.

The PTB only needs enough of us to work in their factories and buy some of their products. People like myself that don't have value to them aren't worth keeping around... I wonder how far off I am?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Alligator Ed's picture

@snoopydawg Although other commentators here dispute the wisdom, or at least economic utility of population reduction, it seems logical that there is a certain optimum number of serfs to feed the masters. Untimelyripped thinks that this won't happen because the demands of the Greedy, never satiated rich, will always escalate, promoting need for at least as many serfs as at present. Needless to observe is the devastating effect of automation upon need for workers casts doubt in my that such an assertion is correct. But, wadda I know?

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@Alligator Ed
those few thousands with serious power and wealth might lose interest in the fates of the billions without. I just don't think we're anywhere near that happening yet, because most of them have a worldview characterized by these "truths":
A. Resources are limitless
B. Wealth is created from these limitless resources -- what they have is never taken at the expense of anyone else.
C. Your importance is signified by the number of people you control.

They really believe this stuff, which means that "B" works in both directions -- they don't see themselves as competing with the 99% for economic output, as long as they aren't paying taxes to provide healthcare and housing for the 99%. Their economic priests blather about "substitution", and they buy it -- if the 99% can no longer afford coffee or chocolate, because we have stripped the earth's capacity to grow either, then the 99% will find something else that gives them just as much satisfaction. Blah Blah. Though many of them test well for indications of intelligence and knowledge, they are for the most part childishly naive.

In the end, I guess, I see item "C" as the final line to cross. The one thing that a machine simply cannot ever "produce" for the gratification of the psychopathic elite is obeisance. Only other humans can ever satisfy the demand for humans to be ruled over. It comes back to Orwell: The object of power is power. The object of torture is torture. Yes, the bossing of dogs and the torturing of veal calves, these have their charms, but nothing like the charm of controlling people.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd Your 4 point analysis is so appropriate it should be the preface of every essay I write. UR, you have so eloquently written what I have been feeling, it is uncanny. Talk about class warfare. This puts things in a new perspective. The elites don't fight us mano a mano--they crush us like one might insouciantly step on an ant while walking.

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@Alligator Ed
You seem to be in an odd mood this weekend, oh bescaled one. Is there something unusual afoot in the swamp?

up
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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

earthling1's picture

informs us there are limits to growth of human population on a finite planet.
At some point, homo sapien becomes an infestation.
Obviously, unlimited growth is THE problem.
My fact free two cents.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Alligator Ed's picture

@earthling1 To paraphrase Bill Hicks, the human race is a walking plague.

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@earthling1
Garrett Hardin about 30 years ago, at a large, reasonably prestigious state university:

there is no limit to the growth of the human population -- not even the often-stated "mass of the Earth".

Our enemies are lunatics. They do not know what a human being is.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@UntimelyRippd Good choice. That the number of humans could exceed the mass of the earth could only be possible if we exfiltrate the overage to other worlds. There, humans will once again work their magic and befoul whatever celestial bodies upon which they land.

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@Alligator Ed
resemble us genetically, they will not be humans. They will be something else.

up
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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

magiamma's picture

So far we have produced 30 million metric tons of stuff. Each year we use the resources of one-and-a-half Earths. About 28m acres of Canadian boreal forest have been cut down since 1996, an area the size of Pennsylvania to make toilet paper, the fluffy kind.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

zett's picture

@magiamma That statistic about toilet paper...Oh my god!

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Alligator Ed's picture

@magiamma Smile

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Big Al's picture

US military as a villain, just like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the progressive democrats. Here's a new report on the US military's carbon footprint. Those talking about the Green capitalist deal, climate change, etc., without talking about ending global imperialism and militarism, not to mention the insane superpower race to the top, are just pissing in the wind.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/groundbreaking-report-gives-us-a-glimpse-of-...

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Big Al The point of my link was not to excuse some kinds of planetary humanoid excess but to illustrate the incomplete state of knowledge. The little slideshow I posted before reading your comment indicates my thoughts. Tucker Carlson is an intelligent Conservative. Although I agree with his conclusions about billionaire hubris in demanding that we peasants reduce out emissions while not altering their own. I can imagine a neoliberal flatus tax being imposed, exempting of course high income earners.

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at a left blog to see a strictly conservative news site cited matter-of-factly and positively in the climate change/global warming area.

However, unless I missed something, I didn't see a lot of climate-change denial in that piece, rather an implied acknowledgment that it exists and is man-caused. If I read the piece correctly, it seems like a reluctant, cranky conservative's face-saving way of making a backdoor acknowledgment without having to come right out explicitly.

The hypocrisy by some ultrarich enviros is worth calling out, but not if it detracts from the larger issue of solving the climate crisis, which these kinds of snarky, out-for-a-laugh pieces tend to do.

As for climate change causes, human or natural caused, I do wonder if ultimately it will become better known that it's not either/or -- that we may be by far the largest contributors to CC while at the same time there is a natural background, cyclical process in motion that also is a contributor. Just not the main factor. A real possibility.

All that said, I stopped following the CC/GW stories a few yrs back when it became clear the crisis was considerable, that we had reached and passed the point of stopping it, and that getting major industrialized countries to drastically cut back on CO2 emissions in a very short period is not going to happen. We will pay a heavy price, but there will still be life on Earth, even human, if greatly reduced in numbers. Only about the time the Great Die Off becomes apparent will the various gov'ts of the world get together to make needed change, and not before then.

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mhagle's picture

@wokkamile

Thank you.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Alligator Ed's picture

@wokkamile I like reading conservative sites because it gives other viewpoints beside the P.S> demanded explanations. Definitely, human activity is responsible for some climate change but how much.

Here's one possible ameliorative approach. Reforest the planet starting now. In 12 years, when the OMG catastrophe is expected to visit us in full force, these new arboreal rescuers might suck up enough CO2 to compensate for this green house gas. But, as I wrote in my essay, what about other greenhouse gases not receiving their fair share of publicity? Eliminating identified other contributing factors to the climate change debate is disingenuous. Furthermore, what about possible GHG interactions which possible cancel the effects of others--or magnify them? Where's the research on that? The emphasis on CO2 and only CO2 in my opinion is solely a neoliberal plot to focus our attention to one single factor, CO2, and way from other interacting agents.

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earthling1's picture

@Alligator Ed
I have right now 75 Doug Fir seedlings in my back yard waiting to be planted on recently aquired acreage. My plan is to re-forest half the property and plant more trees along the salmon spawning creek for shading the water. I also have half a dozen fruit trees and will add nut trees to the mix.
Tilless organic farming will be the other half.
Clearly, I'm to old to reap the benefits of what I build there.
But my heirs will have a fighting chance to survive a calamity.
A truism I've learned in life; heirs and their cash are soon parted.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

smiley7's picture

@earthling1

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Dawn's Meta's picture

@earthling1 @earthling1 Underground networks of fungi, insects, elements, water and other good stuff.

I don't know how much land you have, but would like to recommend Pamela Tree's book "Wilding" about the return of a 3,500 acre Sussex farm to nature. Smaller parcels can be just as successful. It doesn't take as long as we think to transition. Her book is fact filled but a great read for the story it tells. Lots of the newest information about the Wood Wide Web: large underground networks of all kinds of things which support each other and lead to good health.

It made me feel badly for my lonely MetaSequoia without its normal companion plants. I am trying to solve at least some of the problems now so the ground and surrounding scrub becomes happy homes for what little dirt we have.

What a gift you are building. And what a lovely piece of planet you must be on. Thank you.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

hecate's picture

75,000 years ago a volcanic eruption killed almost all the plants and animals in Southeast Asia, and reduced the human population, worldwide, to less than 600 people. I am fully confident that lobotomies like Tucker Carlson and The Daily Caller can beat that feat.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@hecate George Soros and his co-conspiratorial New World Order Neoliberals are far more efficient in engineering our demise. I wish we had Emanuel Macron in charge here, so he could tax us peasants out of our abilities to earn a living so that the world-saving carbon taxes will reverse the OMG moment (Fire or Ice, you know). How many of them will cut their own CO2 emissions?

Take a guess. The answer is not hard.

The elites will cut their emissions zero, all the while stifling ours.

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Dawn's Meta's picture

@Alligator Ed From a comment earlier:

The top 20% of wealth holders cause emissions totaling 68% of global CO2 annually. Note, the poorest 50% produce only 10% of world CO2 emissions--yet they are the ones being squeezed by "carbon taxes", which are nothing more than neoliberal extortion to force the poor to subsidize the profligate excesses of the rich

from the OP and my response: Macron's

initiative to raise gas/diesel taxes hit independent truck drivers, low income renters and home owners; other members of the moyen classe.

What is particularly striking is that the wealthy persons and corporations at the same time were/are given (by Macron) more tax breaks and regulating the messes caused by getting or using fossil fuels is also borne by the lower income (salaries) wage type earners.

I could say more, but he is the worst privateer of them all. Quickly trying to hand all the CommonWealth he can (see Paris' Charles De Gaulle, Orly, and other airports; the great train system TGV) to private interests and corporations. We are already seeing declining respect for public employees and declines in service, quality, and maintenance.

Arrggghhh.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

smiley7's picture

@hecate
when jack was put on table and just before the first shock treatment, he began softly humming Hang down your head Tom Dooley: thought it was brilliant when i fist saw movie, still do.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@smiley7 Words and music

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhXuO4Gz3Wo]

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smiley7's picture

@Alligator Ed
was a long time coming as few dared invest in Ken Kesey, much like Jerzy Kosiński's Being There.

So extraordinary were these movies culturally when the final call was announced, an all hands on deck for best artists rang trough the country-side of creative geniuses and the moment i describe reminds me of that and most history of ideas and how they matriculate, peculate down into cafes of ordinary coffee.

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@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed
found himself moved by the tunes of the folk. He will ramble on now, deep in his dotage, to anyone who will listen, of a summer spent at a lake once known for falcons, where every nickel that came his way was offered upon the altar of wurlitzer (or maybe rockola?), in desperate supplication for the sweet harmonies of also-Canadians Ian and Sylvia Tyson.

The same fellow found himself moved by the tunes of the rock that rolls (like so many, chesterfielding of a night with his mother and a couple of friends, he waxed epiphanic watching four lads with odd haircuts beatling away at the invitation of the American known as Sullivan). At some point, having embarked on la vie en roque, he thought it would be clever to have his band play Tom Dooley as if it were a rock song. To my knowledge, no recording exists.

A few years later, though, laid low by the flu, lying in bed with a guitar -- maybe the big, fat (and fat-toned) Gretsch, though I'm not sure he's ever said -- sweating out a 103F fever, he created a thing called Down by the River, in which he transformed the tale of Dooley into a thing of modern mood and modern sensibility, and in the moment perfected the musical form that was already known then as Rock of the Folk.

Several decades later, a young woman whose father, having attracted the attention of those same 4 oddly groomed fellows, had brought the sound of Indian classical/folk instrumentation into the fold of the music of the rock that rolls came to a party held by the now fairly geriatric Canuck (long expatriated). She was invited because, though she eschewed the classical/folk tradition of her father, she had a voice that evoked ethereal rapture in any musical form. And for whatever reason, she thought it would be amusing if she and a couple of her gal-pals, who style themselves, ensemble, Puss in Boots, were to play, there at the Canadian's party, that now-dinosaurial perfect manifestation of the Rock of the Folk.

He seemed to like the idea:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG5rGHeOBMA]

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@UntimelyRippd

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

from the current climate conception."

Well maybe our neighborhood could use some of your shade when the last tree dies from too much water. Where I live is becoming a tropic zone with mold growing on the house and hardwoods dropping branches from the rapid change in climate.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-04-22-8904060935-story.html

https://extension.tennessee.edu/mtnpi/Documents/handouts/Field%20Product...

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

dystopian's picture

any kind of sign.

They will keep a lookout...

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

@dystopian

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

EdMass's picture

1. What do your reptilian brethren/sistren in China, India and other high CO2 polluting countries have to say? According to reports their human neighbors are more responsible at this time for global emissions than US and EU combined.

2. When can we legislate global climate management as to what everyone has to do? (Not just sign an unenforceable "Accord". "Hi I'm a small town Mayor from Indiana and I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't do something about your polluting!" You go Green Deal 16 Presidential candidates.) "I'm sure all those countries will comply. But who's in charge? Never mind that now, they have so far complied and met targets on their own... oh wait... no they haven't.

Your thoughtful and sincere response is appreciated in advance.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

@EdMass
serious mechanisms for planning, coordinating and executing transnational solutions to anything more complicated than time zones.

So, yeah, we're fucked until and unless the leadership of all of the major player nations comes to understand that doing nothing is not an option -- and then goes all in on creating serious mechanisms for planning, coordinating and executing a transnational solution.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Alligator Ed's picture

@EdMass Ed, sorry for the late reply, but I was swimming a marathon and paused to eat some fish and snakes. My reptilian brethren and sister in Asia are choking a lot. Correspondence from some to me reveals that they are staying submerged for long periods of time to avoid choking on cement dust.

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to the climate change problem is considerable. The U.S. military is insanely large and uses some of the most inefficient fossil-fuel-driven machines known--jet fighters, tanks, huge ships, etc. The only reason we need this huge apparatus is to rule the world by force and violence.

If we forgo this particular goal--that of forcing the rest of the world to obey us at the point of a gun--and instead survive in the world via diplomacy and cooperation, we can make do with a much smaller military establishment. A military half the size of the one we now have would be more than sufficient for national defense. We just have to stop constantly inciting wars and threatening other nations. It can be done. The result would be a major reduction in carbon emissions (not to mention many other dangerous pollutants) from this particular source. We already have a political candidate who is pushing for the necessary policy change. Tulsi Gabbard proposes to stop all regime-change wars. That would go a long way towards eliminating the need for much of our military establishment.

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