Are we going to change our habits to save the planet?

The election distraction lingers on. Meanwhile everyone is gearing up to spend like crazy for the "holidays". The only real way to try to stop the onslaught we are making on the climate is to change our habits in a big way. What better way to start than by not spending except for what we really need to live?

I find it hard to believe the many words said about how we need to do something. The reason is that the economy that drives climate change is so well supported by most people.

There is no time left. We wasted so much over the last year or so. The election did great harm by being so total a distraction. Now that it is over can you imagine where we might be if all that wasted effort and all those wasted resources were used for bringing about needed changes?

I really can not come up with words to express my total disgust at this point. I tried to speak out but everything I said was twisted into the sick context of the meaningless election.

Yes it was meaningless. The forces that elected Trump have been there for a long time. The counter attacks to the meager steps we have been taking were being waged and increasing.

The oligarchy, the system, whatever you want to call it was rising up to squelch the sustainability attempts before they became too well accepted. Lots of other things seem to be the result of the election yet it was the inevitable mechanism for keeping us heading down the wrong path.

There is only one way to make this all stop. Blame others if you like but each of us has control of our own habits and little else. Are you serious about your concern for the future? Than stop contributing to our downfall.

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Yes Mr. Don. I could not agree more with your ideas. It may be the only path available to us at this point. We can not spend our way into sustainability. Making sound choices is the way. Cheers!

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I'm really puzzled at why those who are the most alarmed about global warming do not focus nearly all of their time on the urgent need to control one human habit in particular above all others: our habit of bringing new children into the world.

Instead, there is a constant emphasis on reducing consumption, on eliminating waste, on using less energy, on reducing one's carbon footprint. But from where I'm sitting, all of these little initiatives will achieve absolutely nothing if we continue to grow the size of the human population.

And then, there's the other side of it. If we could gain control of this one habit and actually start to reduce the human population of the planet (without killing any of those who are currently living) we wouldn't need to reduce our consumption of anything while we are at the same time saving ourselves from climate disaster.

So when the question is asked, "What can be done?" to avoid disaster? I argue that if a sufficiently loud advocacy for reducing our population were pursued, we'd be able to gain control over the global warming problem in only a generation or two, without anyone being asked to make a material sacrifice.

The one exception, of course, is the sacrifice that would be experienced by those who are obsessed with have many children. But in the current circumstances, if the sense of alarm many are feeling is justified, then shouldn't these people who have multiple children be hearing a lot of expressed disapproval from the entire community?

We can either do this or we can't. We can either persuade people to accept one child families for a generation or two, or we will not. If we do, it will solve the entire problem; if we can't, no amount of conservation, etc., will be able to save us.

To be able to pull it off, we may need to rely on a generation or two of planet-saving heroes who are willing to forego the experience of raising their own children Their consolation? Knowing that their sacrifice was essential to saving the planet (since others are not willing to accept a one-child alternative) and being able to experience parental fulfillment in helping others to raise their children.

I really don't understand why climate change activists are wasting their time on any other aspect of this issue. We are either facing a crisis or we are not. If we are, then why aren't we doing the kinds of things that make sense?

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James Kroeger

include a significant reduction in the human population on this planet. Theoretically, this could be accomplished by a large number of people voluntarily abstaining from procreating. Realistically that will not happen. We literally don't have enough time to experience a cultural realignment that values the need for a childless existence over having a biologically derived family.

If we remove the "voluntary" part of the equation, and look to an enforced limit on procreation, immediately any number of dystopian scenes of repressive government controls rear their ugly heads. You will find very few people willing to go down that path.

I think that the notion that we are free to choose new behaviors has been greatly oversold. The reality is that even relatively simple changes, such as modifying one's diet by choosing to eat different foods or smaller quantities, are quite challenging for most and impossible for many. And if our choices happen to run counter to accepted cultural norms, the difficulty increases exponentially. If you don't believe it, try eating a strict vegan diet or publicly embracing a non Christian belief system or a new gender identity. And these examples are simply individual changes, radical collective cultural change would be that much more difficult.

It is more likely that forces outside our personal sphere of influence will determine changes in the size of the human population, just like it always has. Wars, pestilence, famine, climate and natural disasters will cause decreases while peace, health, abundance and environmental harmony will encourage our hard wired urge to procreate and be embraced within a family or tribal unit.

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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

Raggedy Ann's picture

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

People will eat it up. Just look at what they've done to America in the last 10 years! If Sean Hannity said to stop reproducing it would be done. If Matt Lauer said stop eating like pigs consider it done! BTW, the American diet is doing a great job of depopulating the earth already while lining the pockets of big pharma and the AMA so don't think it's not already in the planning. Life expectancy is dropping like a rock and will most likely be closing in on 35 Y/O in about a decade. If you can't half the population , at least make sure they live only half as long with half of those 50% dying before they procreate.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

that it will take mass worldwide death before humanity ceases its selfishness, and any lesion we are forced to learn will be quickly forgotten, The black plague killed two thirds of Europe - to the great benefit of Europe - but it tool less than thirty years for the population to return to an even higher level than before.

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On to Biden since 1973

It's what the people put into the air.
The way we provide the energy for our industry and society is the problem.
We must transition our world (and we must do this VERY quickly) to an all electric world.
We must stop producing the greenhouse gasses created powering our world, and use only renewable, sustainable, pollution free methods for our energy.
There is unlimited free energy all around us. We only have to collect what we need.
Saving our species by ending greenhouse gas production is only the most important of our ecological challenges.
Following close behind that danger, is the poisoning of our water and our lands.
We must end the processes causing harm. There may be pain involved BUT doing so will be made easier by the abundant energy we tapped into when we saved our species, by stopping greenhouse gas production with electric technologies.
There will of course be societal changes. Changes ranging from how we make and use things, to where we live and how we design our living spaces, our cities and communities. The most important change necessary will be that any cost/benefit analysis must always value the water and the land, over money. Resoundingly. We don't do that now.
Societal changes are coming regardless.

Population control to combat climate change won't work unless you killed all the members of industrialized society, ending industrialized society. The raw numbers are staggering. So few, doing soo much damage. We, the peoples of the industrialized Northern Hemisphere are killing our species habit. We used to be Homo neanderthalensis and we evolved into
Homo Stupid-us-ensis
Again, it's not the number of people, it's what the people put in the air. And we don't have generations to wait anyway.
I think, we'll find that our ability to feed the people and the actual physical space for the people, will be the drivers behind any serious world-wide population control efforts.

If we can end greenhouse gasses quickly enough we can have a VERY cool world.
Tell a friend !!

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

riverlover's picture

sitting less than 20' from my house. But my house is well-insulated, the propane supplied boiler water for a newer system of forced air and radiant heating and also potable hot water, tankless. I am re-thinking, but geothermal co$ts too much for now. I think I use less than 900 gal per year, will look that up for further thought.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Let’s look back at the latest Sankey chart from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Department of Energy, from 2014, where you can see that Electricity generation is pumping out 2040 million metric tons of CO2 while transportation is pumping out 1830. Buildings use about 75 percent of the electricity produced, or 1530 million metric tons of CO2 due to electricity use, plus what they consume in other sources, totaling 2013. But now, according to the Energy Information Administration, transportation is the single biggest source.

Est. US Carbon Emissions 2014

We have reached the point where transportation, 80% of which is in cars, is the single biggest source of carbon dioxide in the country. We can talk about making our buildings more efficient and buying LED bulbs, but it is our cars, and our car oriented planning, and our car culture that is killing us all. We cannot wait for Elon Musk to save us by putting everyone in a Tesla that drives to their solar powered house; we have to get people out of cars now.

because electricity is the number two contributor to CO2, down from number one. Rock and a hard place.

Peace

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the green revolution. We doubled crop yields and tripled the population.
My condo complex is building a parking garage that will add 140 parking spaces - and we will buy at least 185 more cars.
People are just plain greedy and stupid.

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On to Biden since 1973

More and more people are gonna starve to death. It ain't pretty. Reading Paul Chaferka it means we accelerate the decline, because the system is already in overshoot. By far.
The elephant in the room

When Will it End?
Given that oil is a primary determinant of carrying capacity, the obvious answer is that the situation will stabilize when the oil is gone. The oil will never be completely gone of course, so we can modify that to read, "When oil is unavailable to most of humanity." We know that point will come, because oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, but when will that be?

Based on the model in the figure above I chose an end date of 2082, 75 years from now.

Boom there ya go: Doomsday 2082! The end of his conclusion:

The model warns us that the involuntary decline of the human population in the aftermath of the Oil Age will not happen without overwhelming universal hardship. There are things we will be able to do as individuals to minimize the personal effects of such a decline, and we should all be deciding what those things need to be. It's never too early to prepare for a storm this big.

Last New Year I posted his sage advice elsewhere:

  • Stay awake to what's happening around us.
  • Don't get hung up by other people’s "shoulds and shouldn'ts".
  • Occasionally re-examine our personal values. If they aren't in alignment with what we think the world needs, change them.
  • Stop blaming people. Others are as much victims of the times as we are - even the CEOs and politicians.
  • Blame, anger and outrage is pointless. It wastes precious energy that we will need for more useful work.
  • Laugh a lot, at everything - including ourselves.
  • Hold all the world's various beliefs and "isms" lightly, including our own.
  • Forgive others. Forgive ourselves. For everything.
  • Love everything just as deeply as you can.

Thanks
Peace and Love
http://www.treehugger.com/energy-policy/transportation-now-biggest-source-co2-usa.html

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Not that it won't exist underground, but that it's getting very close to taking as much energy to get oil as is in that oil. The author says that point is imminent. Then the globalized world stops. Would be nice if it doesn't hit as we go into winter, but then there's the Southern Hemisphere - it's always winter or approaching it somewhere.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/10/ilargi-why-the-energy-crisis-is-c...

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PriceRip's picture

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Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

I wonder what's more damaging: the basic ways of life we live as a modern nation, or the thousands of bombs dropped yearly in the middle east.

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What we spend in commerce helps to pay for the bombs?

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Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

So by simply trying to survive means that we contribute to the deaths of others. Pretty depressing, huh?

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PriceRip's picture

          the federal taxes we pay are not connected to federal spending in any meaningful way. This is an accounting trick by conservatives to convince people to hate those on public aid, and disparage those of us that want clean water and nutritional food.

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Outsourcing Is Treason's picture

We make war in the Middle East for oil.

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"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

We could engage in fair, equitable trade that promotes the growth of all nations involved.

Or... the draft could be reinstated and us peasants be sent over to seize it by force.

Yeah... thinking that the government would be going with the 2nd option there. Plus more bombs.

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We could engage in fair, equitable trade that promotes the growth of all nations involved.

You are definitely on to some good mojo there.

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of needing to live within our planetary means. The planet already groans with the weight of the human population and it's love affair with "production" and "growth". A growing population committed to growing consumption is directly in opposition to any efforts to achieve sustainability or environmental harmony.

We delude ourselves in promoting growth as a cure for what ails us. It is precisely the reason we now find the planet is in such terrible jeopardy.

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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

in a human factor, rather than financial. And production of ideas and solutions...

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had to be at the front line of their armies, like the old days, there'd be a lot less wars.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

We HAVE Officially entered a new geological Epoch (or w/e they call it). Methane is bubbling up from the ocean floors at damn near all northern and southern latitudes.
The information I've gleaned is that the Scientists that know are depressed and don't want to talk about it. Newer modeling suggest the methane problem my occur at a slightly slower time frame than the 60-100 years until it balances out predictions.
Basically it looks like, IF almost everyone dies, we may be able to save the species The driving force of all climate change problems is people.

The oligarchy, the system, whatever you want to call it was rising up to squelch the sustainability attempts before they became too well accepted. Lots of other things seem to be the result of the election yet it was the inevitable mechanism for keeping us heading down the wrong path.

Now you know why.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

PriceRip's picture

          look at it this way: Larger breeding populations are more genetically stable than smaller breeding populations. So, if the climate shifts in a way that our population crashes, we will become isolated from one another and the various breeding populations will drift independently of one another. That will enhance the probability that some future species will have us a ancestors. This would be similar to birds being able to say, "Of course dinosaurs survived the chicxulub impactor, isn't that obvious?"

          So cheer up and take the long view.

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the problem I have is that those isolated pockets will be populated by the people that caused the crash.
It's no comfort to know that we'll have a Homo Oligarchyian as our legacy.
What would John Galt do?!
Mien Camp was quite clear, so is Atlas Shrugged.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

PriceRip's picture

          During extinction events there is no reason to think wealth people will have any advantage. Ayn Rand was an intellectual lightweight.

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We are not the humans of the Mount Toba era when we had our last genetic bottle-neck.
We never saw Toba coming. Not that it would have mattered, then.
Survival depended on living in a good place or a bad place.
We see this coming disaster. We have since the 1960's at least it looks like.
If you have a luxury underground bio-sphere completely stocked, self sustainable, located in a good place. With weaponry, maybe robotic or human defense forces. Hell, not only could you survive a 10-20 year drought (or longer) until most everyone is dead, but you could conquer what's left of humanity easily when it's safe enough to come out.
The wealthy will have an advantage (the ones paying attention) because they will have a better chance of surviving the initial phases of the disaster. Got to survive before you can compete with the survivors.

The kindest thing I can say about Ayn is that I despise her, in soo many ways.
However, her scribblings are near gospel for the extreme Right-Wing, plutocrat, maker and taker crowd as Mien Camp was to them then.
There's precious little difference between the works I'd say. In one the 'Superior Man', disgusted with the lesser man, conquers the world. Destroying the lesser man.
In the other the 'Superior Man', disgusted with the lesser man, sets in motion events where the lesser man destroys himself. While the 'Super Man' laughs, safe in his hideaway, sipping scotch.

I always enjoy your thoughts and input here. Can't hurt to pay attention to an old scentists and educator ya know. Smile

One last thought to consider. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
I'm pretty sure that's true.
Smile

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

sojourns's picture

If you have ever looked at went she went through as a child, then her fictions make perfects sense in terms of an adult response to a childhood trauma. She was a bit nutty to begin with, yes, but when fame amplified her belief system --her fictions were celebrated too much and still are today by, as you noted, the right wing. Fame makes people stupid.

I do despise the Paul Ryans of the world that believe her fictions are somehow philosophical gospel truths.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

lotlizard's picture

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2000/12/hitchens-200012

Rand’s philosophy influenced Greenspan’s decisions — which in turn, over his tenure of 18 years, would mean riches for a few and hardship for the multitudes.

How and why did the world’s economy end up depending on the judgment of a devotee of this woman and her fringe ideology?

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Azazello's picture

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

sojourns's picture

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

sojourns's picture

Greenspan must have been star struck or something...

The congress should have been listening to the head of the commodities department (I forget her name) instead of Greenspan and that other douche, Ben Bernanke.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

lotlizard's picture

But unlike Frances Oldham Kelsey, her warnings went unheeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooksley_Born

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey

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sojourns's picture

I recently watched a documentary about the Thalidomide disaster. Frances was mentioned.

Greed related deafness -- the congress needs a cure for that.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

those who are able to survive the initial onslaught, hunkered in their bunkers, are the same people without skills to survive the world of their creation in the long run. When their stockpiles run out, so do their chance. An AR15 without bullets is a mighty clumsy club.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

PriceRip's picture

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PriceRip's picture

          a tour of all things Star Trek counterposed with the core of actual hard science fiction.

          This is so very not true:

          Hell, not only could you survive a 10-20 year drought (or longer) until most everyone is dead, but you could conquer what's left of humanity easily when it's safe enough to come out.

          As for, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.", I assure you of the veracity of that very maxim.

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riverlover's picture

So I am not sure that that is excessive. And the feeder lasted about 4 hours before being attacked by squirrels (a squirrel-proof feeder FAIL) and I have yet to find the top in the leaves I have yet to move. Sigh. Tomorrow. I have bought two tree sticks that are in the ground as well. Paw paws. Now into re-planting more southern tree species in my woodland. Fast-adapt likely trees of value as nuts, fruit or lumber.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

I always begin conversations with birds with 'Hello little dinosaur'.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

"No. Not as long as the competition can still realize a dollar more if I stop promoting the very profitable destruction of the biosphere."

There is no chance of realizing changes in The Way Things Are Done until greed is seen and treated like the mental illness it is.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

elenacarlena's picture

so I'd say the answer is probably no. Doing our part won't get us as far as protesting Trumpenstein and his Repug minions until they are all replaced. Only policy will get renewables at a large enough scale to make a measurable difference.

But I can't afford to give Xmas presents nor own a car any more. So maybe there's a tiny silver lining to the sliding down of the middle class into poverty.

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Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

It's shaping up to be the same shit, different day in the Congress. I think progressives will have a big 2018 election. Trump is not impressing on his cabinet choices. Thank God men like Elon Musk will go forward regardless of who is Pres. or in Congress.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

riverlover's picture

will become more robotic. Putting people out of jobs. Back to hunter-gatherers or early farming with modern methods. We cannot all become potters. New FB group, Brainstorming for the Future.

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elenacarlena's picture

Congress. I believe the whole "Trump is different" meme is untrue. Trump is the face of the Repug party, not somehow separate from it. Look who he's surrounding himself with: Christie, Giuliani, Palin, Priebus for heaven's sake. He and his minions will completely agree - climate change is not a thing, if it is it's not human caused, if it is there's nothing we can do about it, if we could we can't afford it, if we can it won't help anyway because China, so let's watch helplessly as we live through (or maybe not) more hottest years on record.

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elenacarlena's picture

more expensive than regular roofs, so how many people will be able to afford them? And large-scale conversion to renewable power would make them obsolete. So he may not support that because it would cut into his profit margin.

They are beautiful, though, no doubt.

Tesla Solar Roof.jpg
Yes, this roof is solar!

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and doesn't start any new ones, he'll be doing more to stop our current acceleration of global warming than Obama has done, and very much more than HRC had intended to do. I mean, what good does it do us that the damnocrats "believe in" global warming more than the repugnicans?

Of course, I also believe we must push Trump as much as possible to make good decisions despite his horrible coterie of advisors, not to mention the repugnican-controlled congress.

About Christmas: I always give gifts that I've found at rummage sales, which means that some years I find the perfect gift for someone & other years I don't. For myself, I love that rush of childhood Christmas-morning feeling when I first walk into the rummage sale, knowing I can probably afford almost anything there.

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Hope he was carnival barking in September: Trump’s ‘Take the Oil’ Madness
DailyBeast (WaPo, NBC, LA Times, etc.):

Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump has said repeatedly the United States should take Iraq’s oil as the spoils of war. With him, it’s an old refrain that goes back at least five years.

But Trump never says what “taking the oil” of Iraq really means: an endless occupation army in the Persian Gulf surrounded by enemies, without allies, and isolated hopelessly from the Islamic world. It would have to be an open-ended occupation, which would polarize America more than ever. It would reinvigorate the global jihad, and it would disgrace our fundamental values as a nation.

There have been several foreign policy debacles over the last 15 years, but with this the Republican Party would own the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history. [...]

Indeed! I guess the Democrats will then let it happen on purpose. Profit all around for those in the top tiers.

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elenacarlena's picture

that is, the families of terrorists. It doesn't seem to bother him that that would be an international war crime. He could very well escalate and add to the seven. The AUMF is still in effect, he can pretty much do whatever he wants without approval from Congress.

McConnell wanted to update and expand the AUMF this year. It hasn't gone anywhere. Maybe now it won't. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/29 :

This joint resolution authorizes the President to use all necessary and appropriate force to defend U.S. national security against the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), its associated forces, organizations, and persons, and any successor organizations.

Congress declares that this joint resolution is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

Associated persons and successors. All he has to do is imagine some vague tenuous connection.

Of course, Trump just says stuff off the top of his head and changes every other day. He may change his mind. I won't be surprised by anything he does, good or bad. But don't expect good. If he ends up halfway decent, the world will breathe a YUGE sigh of relief.

How are you planning to push Trump to do the right thing? How are you planning to even get past those horrible advisors to reach him with your pleas?

Rummage sales are a good idea! We also tend to give each other experiences (those in the family who still can afford to participate), such as restaurant gift certificates and tickets to musicals. Also food - lots and lots of cookies and chocolates!

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riverlover's picture

time to kill AUMF. And give Congress the power back to declare war. I wonder if they could UNdeclare war? Probably too much MIC money shoveled their way.

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elenacarlena's picture

than Congress gave him, and Congress on every other issue couldn't stand the guy.

See Obama's letter here https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/11/letter-president-..., particularly:

Although my proposed AUMF does not address the 2001 AUMF, I remain committed to working with the Congress and the American people to refine, and ultimately repeal, the 2001 AUMF.

Clicking on his draft shows an expiration date of three years and no mention of ISIL successors.

Of course, Congress in their hearts of heart should think Trump is much more of a loose cannon, even if they won't say so out loud, and should repeal the AUMF. But yes, they are sucking up MIC money, so I doubt they will place country above person and party on this, any more than they have on any other issue.

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mhagle's picture

... back to where it needs to be.

The climate crisis is happening and I believe all of our small collective efforts and advocacies are important.

I am working in my greenhouse today and will send another tweet to @realDonaldTrump about climate. Probably the same one I sent the other day.

@realDonaldTrump Congratulations! Please ask @climate_ice @DrJamesHansen @KevinClimate DrNataliaShakhova For #ClimateTour to #SeeForYourself

What if lots of folks tweeted him every day on climate?

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

hester's picture

than cars. If we could stop that, along w emissions we might get somewhere.

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Don't believe everything you think.

Please cite some other sources for me, here is the EPA propaganda: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

EPA tracks total U.S. emissions by publishing the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks. This annual report estimates the total national greenhouse gas emissions and removals associated with human activities across the United States.

The primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are:

  • Electricity production (30 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Electricity production generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately 67 percent of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas.2
  • Transportation (26 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Over 90 percent of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes gasoline and diesel.3
  • Industry (21 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from industry primarily come from burning fossil fuels for energy, as well as greenhouse gas emissions from certain chemical reactions necessary to produce goods from raw materials.
  • Commercial and Residential (12 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from businesses and homes arise primarily from fossil fuels burned for heat, the use of certain products that contain greenhouse gases, and the handling of waste.
  • Agriculture (9 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture come from livestock such as cows, agricultural soils, and rice production.
  • Land Use and Forestry (offset of 11 percent of 2014 greenhouse gas emissions) – Land areas can act as a sink (absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere) or a source of greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, since 1990, managed forests and other lands have absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit.

Peace and Love

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I believe Hester was alluding to methane and run off not considered in your figures as they relate mainly to CO2 emissions from coal/oil consumption.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

Outsourcing Is Treason's picture

fossil fuel industry propaganda. Livestock agriculture contributes far less methane to the atmosphere than rice paddies. Swamp decay is the biggest source of it by far. Atmospheric methane itself has a half life of only seven years as natural processes convert it into CO2, which, from biomass sources, is totally harmless because it is part of the natural carbon cycle. Only fossil fuel carbon, sequestered in the earth for millions of years, adds greenhouse gases.

The fossil fuel industry points to livestock agriculture as a diversion, the way Hillary Clinton pointed to mythological "Russian hackers" to divert attention away from WikiLeaks.

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"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush

Crider's picture

No, it isn't a fossil-fuel industry conspiracy.

You're not even considering deforestation, which is for producing animal feed and grazing. Here's a large rundown taking on the environmental movement which refuses to consider animal agriculture as a cause of climate change.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlTBC91L-x0]
Link to the citations for the facts in this vid.

Here's a talk by one of the scientists, Robert Goodland, that produced the figures for a 51% greenhouse gas production from animal ag.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4FrFqcOMCw]

It sucks for people to have to consider that they should change their dietary habits. It's deeply personal and cultural thing, but animal agriculture is wrecking the planet due to our overpopulation.

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but still eating meat is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black. I am not a vegan but I stopped eating meat almost 3yrs. ago, I feel great and don't miss it. Knowing that I am not contributing to the slaughter of a living creature also helps.

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MarilynW's picture

There may be no other single human activity that has a bigger impact on the planet than the raising of livestock. Time Magazine's Science column.

It contributes 18% of GHG but that is only one impact - there's more
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/

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To thine own self be true.

Trump wants to be rid of it so here we go. http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/297755-top-climate-skeptic-to-lead-trumps-epa-transition

As the world burns: Climate change fuels insurgency in Afghanistan

KABUL: After two winters without snow, Kabul residents are anxiously scouring the hills for the first flakes, wary that the depletion of this major source of water further fuels instability in Afghanistan.
Historically speaking, a snowless year is highly unusual for this ancient capital, built 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) above sea-level in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. “Kabul can be without gold but not without snow,” according to a local proverb.
But as the world gets warmer, that is changing.

[...]

But only ten percent of the country’s land is still farmable because of the impact of recent climate-related disasters, Salim says.
That increasingly leaves rural folk in a desperate situation, says Kazim Hamayun, the deputy director of Afghanistan’s National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA).
If they lose their jobs due to drought, they will join the militancy” of the Taliban, he said.

In the 80s these two guys inspired me to stop consuming meat, they are still at it. Howard Lymon appeared in Cowspiracy: http://www.madcowboy.com/01_AboutPS.000.html, John Robbins
http://johnrobbins.info/
Stuck on a fixed income in California, where the Porter Ranch methane leak blew away the entire years' GHG "savings" thanks BP, I will eat whatever I can afford. I'm not proud when I'm so hungry my stomach aches.

Small farmers are the canaries of climate change I think. Just read this insightful comment elsewhere (my bold), keeping in mind Darth Pence is VP now, yeesh:

Thank you, foresterbob. I know this comment will get lost at the bottom of a neverending piefight and scorn for your subject, but I’ll leave it anyway.

I’m the rural demographic, I’m an old white woman, farmer, hillbilly, I don’t have to study these people, I am these people. I have an unemployed adult son and his family living in my basement. He left the farm hoping for greener pastures and now he’s back in the basement, all the pastures are barren.

The economics of the Reagan years started this ball rolling. Actually, Jimmy Carter unwittingly started it by telling us farmers we had to go BIG! and practically forcing folks at gunpoint to expand, buy land and expensive equipment they couldn’t afford, take out loans instead of paying with the cash they had in their pockets because we were going to feed the world. We had to throw off our traditional farming practices, the ones everyone wants back now. But it was Reagan that crushed us. In a convo with FarWestGirl, I made this reply. Notice my last line was “no wonder all my neighbors turned into bitter evangelical republicans.”

I was raised in the Pentecostal church, although I turned my back on it in my teens. When I was growing up in the 60’s, the evangelical movement was in its infancy. We were pretty much scorned in those early days, but it held on and was filled with the poor. The poor turned to the church in desperation.

When the rural death march started in the Reagan years, the evangelicals grew apace. Obama was absolutely right when he said people with little hope cling to God and guns. As small farms were foreclosed on, the pews filled to exploding. And during this time we also got PTL and the 700 Club. They brought us the Prosperity Gospel, opening the fold for those who weren’t yet destitute but could see it coming with the closing of every shop and grocery in their little town and the opening of Walmart. They also encouraged people to scorn the “moochers”, encouraged resentment of anyone who wasn’t one of them. They promote hatred of gays outright and racism in sly ways. The ones who actually got prosperous from the Prosperity Gospel look down and despise those that didn’t. They are bitter, even with their riches. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News were the next natural extension.

Let me tell you a story. When I was a ‘tween, I was standing in the field with my mother with lunch for my dad, waiting for him to make his round on the tractor to notice we were there. Here comes the sheriff’s car, lights flashing, cutting right through the field and made a bee-line for the tractor, swung up in front of it, and the sheriff jumped out of the car and started yelling something at my dad. My dad leaped off that tractor like his ass was on fire, jumped in the cop car and off they sped. My mom and I jumped in our car and followed.

We ended up at the small farm of family friends. Both sides of the blacktop road were lined with cop cars from two counties, livestock trucks and flatbeds and one shiny black cadillac. Neighbors were lined up weeping on the side of the road. Standing on the farmhouse porch was the farmer holding a shotgun and shouting defiantly. His wife was on her knees in the yard begging him to please, please put it down. Cops in those long ago days weren’t the militarized aggressors they are today, not in the country. Some of them weren’t even wearing guns and no one had one drawn. They were mostly looking at their feet.

I watched my dad walk down the driveway and to the porch. He walked up and put his arm around the man, and said things I couldn’t hear and that my dad would never repeat. As he talked the farmer began to cry, and my dad reached over, took he gun and laid it on the porch. Then they turned and knelt on the steps and they both began to pray.

As soon as the gun was laid on the porch, the man in the cadillac got out and started waving at the livestock trucks and flatbeds to go in and start taking the livestock and equipment. The sheriff stepped up into the man’s face, said a few things that I won’t repeat here, he was animated and angry. The cadillac man got back in his car and sat. The trucks didn’t move in to take the spoils until the farmer was taken off for arrest and his wife and children were safely away with people to care for them, where they wouldn’t be able to watch. When the trucks moved in the drivers were weeping.

They were allowed to take the contents of the house, that was it. They had nowhere to go and no money to get there, no job on the horizon. It was the church that took them into their homes, found them a place to live, helped them start over. Their farm was sold on the courthouse steps less than a month later, the livestock went to the salebarn. The banker in the cadillac, the one who couldn’t wait less than a month for the hogs to be ready for sale for a loan payment, couldn’t be bothered to work with this trapped man, got even richer.

This happened over and over, sometimes with much more tragic results. Farmers committed suicide, sometimes killed their whole families. Or they’d go out and shoot all the livestock so the banker couldn’t enrich himself off their misery. It was a bloodbath.

Us liberal types screamed and waved our hands for help. I’m still doing it. We’ve tried to warn everyone what was happening and no one cares. Who cares about those ignorant hillbillies? And since you’re one of them you must be ignorant and backward, too.

I’m here to tell you all that you should care. You should have cared but you didn’t. I’m begging you to find a way to care before the evangelical fire consumes us all
. It’s too late for me, I live in the fiery pit of Missouri and there’s no escape. Pay attention to what I and what few others there are like me have to say, and save yourselves before it’s too late.

Are we going to change our habits voluntarily? Nope, but with water and food almost completely controlled by the oligarchs, well good luck! Good luck all.

Peace

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mimi's picture

we made in our lifestyles, because the 99 percent do not have choices to live differently.

I drove around the outer skirts of Washington DC a lot during the last couple of days. Areas I hadn't drove through in the last ten to fifteen years. They are not recognizable anymore. Overgrown by shopping mall, highway spaghetti messes, one apartment complex cooky-cutter style after the next, commercial office building en mass, yes the land is totally overgrown by the mess corporate construction companies are allowed to build. The oligarchy and its corporate constructing companies have taken over ALL the landscape with their building style, stupid, ugly, confusing, and owned by investors that definitely have only their own profits in mind and not the interests of their tenants and real estate buyers on the small individual level.

If you can't regulate your corporations from overtaking EVERYTHING and leaving the 99 percent dependent little serfs, who have no choice to accept all the conditions they are put into, nothing will change. The environment is NOT destroyed by the individual's lifestyles. People can't survive in any different ways other than to "buy into" what is given to them.

Don't blame the civilian, blame your coward, unhelpful, legislative structures, who allow the predators run wild, exploit any environment and little people. Blame for heaven's sake your political legislators, who have sold out.

My life-style is NOT to blame for the climate changes we are witnessing and the destruction of land, neighborhoods, wildlife and agricultural areas.

It's a cop-out to say it's all our own fault. It's not. It's the system that doesn't allow the little people to influence and choose their legislators, who are selling out the planet and their inhabitants.

And for those who want to blame all those mothers who give birth to babies like there is no tomorrow, they are usually so poor and definitely, really are not to blame for environment distruction. It's another inhumane cop-out to blame it on over-population. If the environment were not controlled by oligarchs and corporate profit interests, the so-called over-population would regulate itsself. Too many kids born, too many kids die, too many people fight over too little resources, wars over water, food and land will decimate the population growth.

The planet will not die because there are too many of us, it will die, because too many in power are dumb enough to allow corporate interests in all areas to exploit everybody else.

I don't mean to offend, I am just angry and let off some steam. I am so tired of hearing the same excuses and blaming patterns all over again.

Of course, I am overly dramatizing. Of course. You got it. Sorry, Sir, to address this to you, I respected your comments and essays in the past and still do. But now I lost my patience.

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mhagle's picture

... I just happen to be on 60 acres in rural Texas so at this moment I can choose to garden and raise chickens. Although that could go to shit pretty quickly as we have 2 gas pipelines running through and a crude oil pipeline running parallel. Plus they are frantically building an additional water pipeline to drain our lakes for fracking (everyone's water supply).

The greedy rush to extract resources is nauseous. And Dallas is like DC. I drove 35 north through DFW last spring for the first time in several years and the volume of massive construction cried "opulence!" (viewing that word as negative)

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

don mikulecky's picture

but you are. There are choices for everyone. Deny that and you have essentially joined Trump.

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An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

As much as I abhor WalMart, shopping there is preferable to starvation. People living in food deserts will live on Red Baron pizza as opposed to walking 5 miles for fresh fruits or veggies.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

mimi's picture

poor people have some limited choices too, but certainly not enough to have an influence to change the behaviour of the main culprits of environmental distruction.

I have seen the choices poor people have, so at least my silliness has some underlying experiences and realities.

No problem with being impolite to me. I can take it. Your conclusion that by denying that everyone has choices I have joined Trump, is, if I may say so politely, a misinterpretation.

Let's just say we can agree to disagree over the issue of having choices.

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don mikulecky's picture

but you are. There are choices for everyone. Deny that and you have essentially joined Trump.

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An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

MarilynW's picture

which covers all the environmental issues around the world.

If we stop using fossil fuels NOW, the climate of the earth will continue to warm for a while, then it will cool down and we will survive. Otherwise, all life on earth is endangered.

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To thine own self be true.

Cassiodorus's picture

The only real way to try to stop the onslaught we are making on the climate is to change our habits in a big way.

If a few of us decided to live like monks it would change nothing. The solution is to end capitalism. Please take a look at Foster, Clark, and York's The Ecological Rift, which shows that productive consumption is far more consumptive than consumer consumption. It is simply not the consumer's fault that a global matrix of production and distribution has been set up to make the supermarket possible, and so the consumer is not going to remedy the global matrix by consuming less at the supermarket.

Systemic change, not "consumer activism," is the only way through.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

We're too fractal as a people to change in any meaningful way.
Yes, individuals will adapt if possible, but not society as a whole. 330 million people in this country, 200 million of them eligible to vote and we get dRumph and her? No Dapl protest support and coverage is for shit, denizens of Flint STILL drinking shit water and cops STILL shooting anyone and everyone they feel like with NO accountability. Climate Chaos.
I rest my case here.

peace

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Zenza's picture

They're inexpensive, available in some form virtually everywhere and you can earn to love them in every course from appetizers to desert. I advocate growing your own organically if you have any space, or next best soaking and cooking those bought in bulk, but ordinary cheapo canned beans rinsed of their sodium are versatile,nutritious and health promoting. if you start slowly you will build up tolerance or there is always Beano or the like. We eat a minimum of three servings per day of various beans in various forms.

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PriceRip's picture

          I tripped over this very pretty graphic a few minutes ago. Within my daughter's lifetime this has occurred. This is not the future I had hoped for her.

ArcticDeathSpiral.png

Are we going to change our habits to save the planet?

          Notice the November and December are not yet in, so maybe we can still turn this around, right ‽

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