Archive for the ‘Frackishima’ Category

The narrative and perception on climate change mirrors that of capitalist economies in so many ways.

Trying to manufacture consent to view the issue in a way that it can be achieved at the micro level, when in fact the only success at mass scale is at the macro level.

We love to embrace scientific change if it gives our favorite influencer or podcast host something to sell and/or talk about. We love science when it finds ways to improve products and services.

But putting science to use for the masses beyond medicine has been a no go for generations.

There is more than enough money, land, and resources to change the way life is lived on planet Earth so that the way we live is more sustainable and has less negative impact on the world we live in.

But we don’t do these factual, documented, measurable things because it would negatively disrupt the capitalist system and it’s beneficiaries.

No different then kings sending the serfs to war over personal disputes with other royal families. Just on a larger scale. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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by @anarchyroll

You gotta have faith, faith, faith.

Faith is essential, when going through hard times. During hard times one must have faith that things will get better. One needs to have faith in his or herself to do the work needed to dig out of the hole they are in. Faith in other people is essential to living in civilized societies. Our currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. More than 3/4 of the world’s population belongs to a religious faith.

The leader of the world’s largest religion believes in global warming and believes science is the way forward on the issue.

I wonder how many of his followers across the globe feel the same or in this case, believe as he does. I’m pretty sure they have to, or are at least supposed to. But aren’t we supposed to believe 97% of scientists, NASA, and the Pentagon when they all agree global warming is happening and is a threat to our security and very existence?

Is it faith that a higher power will protect us that stops people from accepting the reality of global warming? Is it greed from money earned from contributing to the acceleration of global warming over the past thirty years? Is it ignorance in thinking that because the weather in one’s hometown is fine that global warming is a hoax? Is it denial? Accepting global warming as the reality of our present and future forces both a painful look in the mirror and even more painful wide scale changes moving forward.

The Military Industrial Complex knows global warming is real. When did they become a bastion of liberal ideology? The effects of global warming are presently causing security risks and have potential for greater security threats in the future. Maybe fighting two wars for oil got them to change their tune on wind, hydro, and solar energy. Or maybe its the nature of military operations being centered around collecting, analyzing, and accepting results of measurable data that got them to come around to the reality of global warming.

On the other end of the spectrum is the current President of the United States who has said that global warming is a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese. Many of his supporters/voters are also climate change deniers. Trump is backing up his words on this issue by attempting to cut the Environmental Protection Agency budget. He also recently green-lit the Keystone XL Pipeline which has negative environmental concerns associated with it.

Climate change deniers may sound and come across as ignorant, but at least they don’t have the power to further damage the planet in an negative way. Trump, in his first 100 days in office has taken two measures to tangibly create negative consequences for the planet. I suppose I could have faith that Trump will do the right thing, change course, and become an environmentally friendly President. I could have faith and believe that all the climate skeptics will accept the scientific facts and reality.

They can have faith, I’ll trust…but verify.

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By @anarchyroll

What is it about important events that will actually effect all of humanity that allows it to fly under the radar? It doesn’t bleed so I guess it doesnt lead. It’s easy to blame the gatekeepers of information but in the era of internet news, is there such a thing as news/information gatekeepers?

Humans do not like thinking about their mortality. We hate acknowledging the fact that we will die. We spend billions of dollars trying to delay death and even more trying to look not as near death as we are. I suppose its natural that we also don’t want to think about the end of the world.

Just like how we are all guaranteed death, the Earth is guarenteed to meet its end one day. That day is incomprehensibly far in the future. However, the world ending and the world being uninhabitable for human beings are two very different things.

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Hearing or reading about things like rising sea levels, coral bleaching, and global warming doesn’t shout out apocalypse. The Earth has withstood much worse than all three of those forces combined. Which is true. Global warming on steroids wont be the end of the Earth. The massive disruption in the food chain caused by coral bleaching wont come anywhere near the end of the world.

But apocalyptic scare tactics have never been the point of bring environmental news to the forefront of people’s attention. The Earth will be just fine. But will it be inhabitable for humans? That is a whole other story and is the issue at hand when environmentalists and NASA ring the alarm about carbon dioxide in the air, acidity in the sea and draughts on land.

We all love Earth, but we love ourselves more. Distracting ourselves from our problems is a natural part of the human condition. Without memes and gifs my slow work days would be soul dissolving. But the distractions must not continue to overshadow the purpose when we are reaching external benchmarks for disaster such as the carbon dioxide tipping point.

 

 

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1 Degree Celcius = 34 Degrees Farenheit

by @anarchyroll

Discussing the weather is something that I prefer not to do in general. Namely because I live in an area surrounded demographics who complain about the weather regardless of the season, temperature, humidity percentage, or precipitation level.

But when you care about global warming and climate change, reading and writing about the weather becomes unavoidable.

Climate change is also becoming an unavoidable topic for a growing percentage of the general population. Consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly unavoidable for a growing percentage of the population living near a coastline or the Equator.

Take the second largest democracy in the world for instance, India.

Where temperatures averaging 119 degrees has 330 million people in danger heatstroke, dehydration, and other heat related health threats.

The record draught caused by the record heat has already caused hundreds of farmers to kill themselves due to drastically reduced or completely eliminated crop yields.

Hundreds of millions of people in danger and death due to drastically reduced resources. These two things will soon become the norm for the majority of the planet rather than a minority. Although saying 300 million people are a minority looks weird to read, feels weird to type, and sounds weird to say. But if global warming continues as is.

It is easy to dismiss this news and to not care. Those are parts of the human condition. To not care unless we are in direct danger. India is far away. To go there feels like you’re on a different planet let alone a different country. But as far away as it is, as different as the people and culture may be. If their plight seems unrealistic for say Americans enjoying the start of summer, why don’t we ask the people of California how unrealistic and far away dangers from rising temperatures and draught are

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by @anarchyroll

Did you know warm water contain less oxygen?

I didn’t. Like most people when I think of what produces oxygen, I think of trees. But 70% of the Earth’s oxygen comes from the ocean, more specifically from the marine plants in the ocean.

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One need not be an environmentalist or a cynic to be aware that the average person doesn’t give a shit about marine phytoplankton. Even people tuned into environmental news are likely to think phytoplankton is a superfood juice fad. Perhaps because Googling marine phytoplankton brings up almost exclusively websites trying to sell the plant in powdered form.

“Save the Trees” may be easier to say and fit on a button/bumper sticker, but it is the phytoplankton that produces almost 3/4 of the oxygen. Maybe we can turn “Save the Phytoplankton” into a meme or gif.

Did you know we need oxygen to live?

It’s true, although it feels like suffocation to not have access to dank memes and social media, not having oxygen is actually suffocation.

So although we as humans have demonstrated a remarkable tolerance for pollution of the air we breathe, that tolerance is likely to be just a wee bit smaller with no air to breathe at all.