The following video was produced back in 2016 by c99 member, Ranting Rooster.

Its focus is climate change as evidenced by its title, Humanity is at Stake.

Much has happened since that production was made in 2016. The climate change crisis as presented in the video has multiplied into a global policrisis (PDF), which affects all of humanity in the macro sense and each of us individually in the micro. One would be hard struck to not notice that things are greatly amiss in our world in which we all live. It hangs over us all much like static electricity before a lightning strike.

We are now met with multiple crises, global food shortages, global pandemic, economic collapse (potentially global), international and global migrations, and war (potentially global as well). Cheap energy actualized by fossil fuels, is now being replaced with expensive energy due to peak oil. With perhaps the exception of economic collapse which is most likely a combination of expensive energy and human greed. Global pandemic which could possibly be attributed to climate change as viruses may be released that are long past locked up in frozen tundra, or possibly spread from animal to human, or long locked up in the minds of psychopaths who may act to release a deadly virus.

An argument can be made that all of these crises are man-made. And it appears that so far the political solution to these problems are authoritarian and totalitarian in composition, in the West anyways. Censorship, divide and conquer tactics, racism, greed, and especially war are the solutions being offered up by so called leaders. This all makes a mockery of the idea that humans are civilized as we prove that we are not that far removed from animal behavior, although technically we are indeed just that, animals. I sometimes wonder if these malignancies are not encoded into our genes.

It appears more and more, everyday, that war (the ultimate divide and conquer tactic) is the intended solution. Which amounts to the same old solution proffered by "civilization" from time immemorial.

Sides are being drawn, die are being cast, lines are being scratched in the sand, you're either with us or against us. Peace is but a flickering light in a whirlwind of hate. Hate that is generated and promoted from within us all and without us all, through various vessels but mostly from our so called leaders.

I personally, drew my side decades ago, back during the cauldron of the Vietnam War. I stand with the innocent victims of war, on all sides. Those, who through no fault of their own found themselves in the way of man's inhumanity towards man. Right and wrong is always blurred in the middle of the madness of war, a bloody dichotomy that drips from the minds of psychopaths.

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
~Howard Zinn

It's not looking too good right now, but I always hold out hope.

Will Mankind Destroy Itself?

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku sees two major trends today. One eventually leads to a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society that will expand beyond Earth in the name of human progress. The other trend leads to fundamentalism, monoculturalism, and — eventually — civilizational ruin. Whichever of these two trends wins out will determine the fate of mankind. No pressure, everyone.

Oh, come on, man. Everyone knows there's only giant subterranean lizards down there.

Chunks of an alien world could be hidden deep within our planet, say scientists

• Scientists think a planet may have crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago, creating the moon.
• This alien planet, Theia, was thought to have completely disappeared in the collision.
• A new study suggests parts of Theia still exist in our planet, around Earth's core.

Continent-sized chunks of an alien world may be hiding deep within our planet — and it could explain the weird structures that appear to be surrounding Earth's core.

Scientists have long hypothesized that a Mars-sized planet called Theia crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago, leading to the creation of the moon.

But this theory has been difficult to prove, in part because Theia was long thought to have disappeared during the collision.

Now a supercomputer simulation provides evidence that chunks of Theia may still survive in the boundary between our planet's mantle and the core.

As well as shedding new light on the inner workings of our planet, scientists hope they will one day have access to these slabs of alien rock to reveal, once and for all, how our moon formed.

An artist's impression of the core-mantle boundary, which a previous study suggested could be made up of ancient ocean floors. Edward Garnero and Mingming Li at Arizona State University

I'm happy to pass along that Ranting Rooster is alive and well and living in west central Texas as a professional video producer.

Here's another of RR's video productions:

From the video's description:

"In addressing the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961, John F. Kennedy spoke of “a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” that seeks to rule the world and whose “dissenters are silenced.” "
This is a little excerpt clip from a much longer video by StormCloudsGathering, Rule from the Shadows - The Psychology of Power.

Have a good one folks, and oh yeah, this is an open thread.