We've come too far down a bad road. To accept the status quo, either with reluctance or gusto, is to support: war for profit, systemic corruption, racial, ethnic, religious and economic discrimination and inequality, the ongoing degradation of the environment and the patently unsustainable nature of so much of modern human activity.

It would be a terrible mistake, catastrophic even, to overlook just how serious things have gotten.

World's carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return

Future in which global concentration of CO2 is permanently above 400 parts per million looms
The world is hurtling towards an era when global concentrations of carbon dioxide never again dip below the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone, as two important measuring stations sit on the point of no return.

The news comes as one important atmospheric measuring station at Cape Grim in Australia is poised on the verge of 400ppm for the first time. Sitting in a region with stable CO2 concentrations, once that happens, it will never get a reading below 400ppm.

Meanwhile another station in the northern hemisphere may have gone above the 400ppm line for the last time, never to dip below it again.

“We’re going into very new territory,” James Butler, director of the global monitoring division at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Guardian.

When enough CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, the seasonal cycles that drive the concentrations up and down throughout the year will eventually stop dipping the concentration below the 400ppm mark. The 400ppm figure is just symbolic, but it’s psychologically powerful, says Butler.

Of course we are also acidifying the oceans, killing off fisheries, laying waste the rainforests, extincting species and fracking the fuck out of the frackable fkn world, all so a bunch of supremely uncaring assholes can profit. At the expense of the rest of humanity. And at the cost of a livable world for future generations.

Compartmentalization has become a useful coping device for Americans. It's much easier not to fall apart or explode if you can put certain facts away in a box where you don't have to look at them or think about them. Increasingly this has become our lot. Lose your mind or fuggedaboutit. Distraction, denial, compartmentalization. How else to cope psychologically with torture, racism, foreverwar, slave labor, raging unrepentant ecocide?

The only meaningful way to seek self-knowledge, individually or as a people, is to pursue a Gestalt, comprehensive, wholistic or Big Picture view of the world composed of as much truth as you can bear. And of course, the unexamined life is not worth living.

The earnest pursuit of truth includes decompartmentalizing and seeking out what might more naturally be assiduously avoided: unvarnished truth in all spheres however shocking or unpleasant. From a philosophical point of view, this is the only place to be. It's now become a practical matter as well. And yes, the truth is tricky, but it's not like it doesn't exist or can't be known.

It's time to get serious about the ongoing ecocide.

I am unwilling to accept a suicidal status quo. We have to get serious about our perilous reality with regard to our climate/environment/extinction while it still might help. Bernie is the one candidate who sees that clearly and is committed to acting boldly and responsibly without fealty or attachment to the fossil fuel industry or any other. He's the people's climate champion in this race. That's indisputable.

Speaking for myself, I am fundamentally a humanitarian. I value compassion, kindness and empathy. I like to emphasize all that is best in us. I would like to believe that our better angels do redeem us. I would like to see us survive as a learning and ever-wiser species. I believe we are all better than what's been imposed on us by people who care not one shit about us. We need to recognize the sickness of only caring about money, and not humanity.

We need to try to have something like a soul again. Not that we were ever all that good at that. Except in individual cases, I guess.

I seek deep humanitarian change and won't settle for anything less. As long as we imprison rather than educate, discriminate rather than liberate, prey upon rather than help, accept a system that defies and defeats democracy with lobbyists, Big Money, superdelegates, etc, etc, as long as we remain a ratrace society with everybody trying to prey upon and profit off of everybody else, a plastic consumer-mad clusterfuck of privilege and injustice and inequality, etc, I will seek to change that system inside out.

That's what's called for. That's why the people are rising up to stand together with Bernie Sanders.

To hell with perpetuating the system that is laying waste to the earth. Let's go and go hard for the kind of benevolent, peaceful, just, dignified and democratic society and world that all of us deserve to live in – in peace.

Let's try democracy. Let's try really valuing human life instead of just paying lip service to it as we go merrily along on our bombing and polluting way. Let's seize this rare opportunity to take a giant step forward. A giant leap for humanity. And most importantly, make this last ditch effort to protect and mitigate the damage if not rehabilitate this complex and delicate atmosphere which we have so long enjoyed...and abused. Let's hope not to the point of no return. It's way past time to get dead serious about this.

It's certainly no time for the same old shit.

It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society. Krishnamurti said that.

We all know that it's time for big change and new priorities. Let's do it. For the love of us all.

This is serious, folks. The plight of humanity and the ecosphere that sustains us is at stake.

Bill McKibben: ”...the planet is happy that Bernie Sanders is running for president...”

Bill McKibben hard at work to save the ecosphere

And I think I might speak for at least a few other environmentalists who feel the same way. Here's why.

[Speaking of Bernie Sanders] First, he's a stand-up guy. When we told him about the Keystone Pipeline in the summer of 2011, he immediately set to work helping us block it. He strategized, he used his bully pulpit in the Senate to spread the word, and he devoted staff time to pressuring the State Department. Contrast that with, say, Barack Obama who was mostly silent about climate change his whole first term, and managed to make it all the way through the 2012 campaign without discussing it. Or Hillary Clinton, who after initially saying she was "inclined" to approve Keystone has gone entirely mum on the most iconic environmental issue of our time. Who showed up in New York for the People's Climate March? Bernie Sanders. Who said, straightforwardly in today's official announcement, "the peril of global climate change, with catastrophic consequences, is the central challenge of our times and our planet." That would be Bernie Sanders.

If you missed this, please take a look: How you can help Don Siegelman

Here we come, California!

Western states, here we come. Let's turn up the heat on the GOTV, everybody check your status. Here's some important information on voting for Bernie, state-by-state:

voteforbernie.org

Everybody out West, check your voting status ASAP to ensure that you get to vote.

Warning, California voters!

Some people have been tricked into registering with the AIP (rightwingers), thinking they were registering as independents. Check to be sure you are registered either as a Democrat or No Party Preference or you won’t be able to vote for Bernie in the primary.

Let’s show Bernie and the BNR some love.

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