Posts Tagged ‘earth’

Faith & Facts on Opposite Melting Poles

Posted: April 11, 2017 in Frackishima
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global-warming

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.

Cut #CarbonDioxide Distraction

Posted: October 17, 2016 in Frackishima
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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.

 

 

#Pollution isn’t Oxygen’s only Threat from #GlobalWarming

Posted: May 12, 2016 in Frackishima
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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.

#Fukushima Makes No Dollars or Sense

Posted: June 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
6/29/2014

Which is of more importance; billions of dollars or nuclear contaminated water?

Do we have a right to electricity and water? Or do utility companies own the resources they sell?

The common link between fracking and Fukushima is that both involve high levels of poisoned/contaminated water. That is why I feel both subjects deserve vastly more attention that either or both get from the media or the common person.

The economic impact of Fukushima on the country of Japan gets more play than the environmental damage. Environmental damage that is of the biggest ever in the history of Earth variety. Why is that? What do we value?

The story to tell of Fukushima is so horrible, it is only natural to not want to think about it at all. To ignore, pretend it didn’t happen or doesn’t continue to exist. Focus on other things besides the fact that we are continuously poisoning the essence of life on increasingly larger scales.

The environmental impacts of Fukushima will not be ignored. All that contaminated water in the ocean will have an effect at some point. All that poisoned freshwater from fracking will not be ignored. There is only so much fresh water on this planet.

Facing these terrors and moving towards solution is the answer, not distracting ourselves and trying to escape from them.

C’est la vie

#Fukushima ; The Living Nightmare

Posted: June 13, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
6/13/2014

There have been a number of articles published on this website about fracking. The other half of the Frackishima label is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Very few news events that I have no control over have kept me up at night, given me nightmares, and made me fearful for my existence on planet Earth the way Fukushima has. Let’s take a look at some of the facts as to what worried me so much:

The vast majority of people simply don’t want to think about Fukushima. Who can blame them? But not wanting to think about something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that the problems won’t be affecting us as a human race for…ever.

Do we really think that all that nuclear waste and radioactive material that is still in the ocean isn’t going to have negative ramifications?

How much radiation in the water and land are we as a species willing to tolerate before enough is enough?

I sometimes wonder if all this radiation, oil, and chemicals that have leaked and/or spilled into so much of our water supply has something to do with the global rise in cancer rates. How about  you?

Earth is a very big planet. What happens on one side of the planet doesn’t necessarily effect what is happening on the other side of the planet. I find it hard to believe that the repeated nuclear bomb tests, bomb drops, and reactor meltdowns aren’t having/won’t have a negative effect on the planet and the people who inhabit it.

I may not be a scientist but I can do addition. I am smart enough to know that all of these toxic materials poisoning our air, water, and land have to be adding up to something. It’s not 1950, it’s 2014 there have been a lot of oil spills, chemical spills, and nuclear materials around the globe. Just because they were mistakes (mostly) doesn’t make what happens after the incidents any different from if they were on purpose.

Are we poisoning the planet?

That is not a sarcastic question. That is not a rhetorical question. That is however what has kept me up, made me worry, and given me nightmares.

Because when I wake up, splash some cold water on my face, and turn the lights on; Chernobyl still happend, Exxon Valdez still happened, Deepwater Horizon still happened, Fukushima still happened, and thousands of nuclear bombs have been tested and continue to be tested (North Korea). What effects that we know about are happening to the planet and all species who inhabit it? What effects that we don’t yet know about?

These are things that are way outside of my sphere of influence, knowledge base, and pay grade. But I think about them nonetheless and I hope other people do too, because not thinking about it doesn’t mean these events haven’t happened, aren’t happening, and won’t have consequences we as humans must deal with for generations to come.

Are we poisoning the planet?

#ClimateChange is the New #Zombie Apocalypse

Posted: May 1, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
4/29/2014

Recently I was in a public place where the emergency broadcast system went off on a couple of flat screen televisions that were mounted to the walls. What made this odd was that no less than three people turned their attention to the various screens, with their fingers crossed, and with a wishful tone in their voice said, “zombie apocalypse?!”

The only thing sadder than that is how many more people in that place were probably thinking it but didn’t say. What is more pathetic than that is the large number of people who secretly wish for, or more shamefully are preparing for, a zombie apocalypse. If only these people tried to get in shape like the vampires and werewolves from Twilight, then the time they would have to dedicate to a real life spouse as opposed to an imaginary or virtual one would take up the mental space to prepare for such nonsense.

A real life zombie apocalypse is coming, it’s called climate change.

Hurricane Katrina submerged 80% of New Orleans in water and caused over $100 billion in damage. Superstorm Sandy caused $80 billion and turned Manhattan into Venice. Did you know Venice now floods 1/3 of every year? The current drought in California is affecting 100% of the state. How about that deadly tsunami in Asia that killed 150,000 people? There’s no need to wait for an apocalypse people, the third world has been living in one for decades and the first world is headed in the same direction but just doesn’t want to think about it.

The Pentagon doesn’t give a shit about zombies, wizards, or leprechauns but regards climate change as a direct threat to national security.

We all need an escape from reality from time to time. I have certainly been guilty of being addicted to escapism, not wanting to face the real in favor of daydreams, binge TV watching, and video games. Unfortunately, a growing percentage of very smart adults are becoming so lost in the paradigm of personal entertainment entitlement, they are spending real-time, money, and resources on a concept that would get a child grounded at home, picked on in school, and forced to see a psychiatrist, take meds, or both.

Cosplayers take off the costume and go back to the real world. Zombie Apocalypse believers think that they actually know something others don’t. But lying to oneself in order to add value, purpose, and a sense of importance is not new. I empathize with those who are so bored with their own existence they have to hope and prepare for a fantasy event seen in too many mainstream movies over the past decade to become reality. Life has no instruction manual. Sometimes we lose sight of who we are and what we really want to do with our lives. Sometimes events outside of our circle of influence force us to change course to a life that doesn’t allow us to see or think beyond the survival plane for an extended period of time. Sometimes people don’t develop the internal muscles of maturity, responsibility, and desire to achieve. I empathize with people like this, I really do. I once found myself very lost, very bored with life, very much preferring the world of my imagination to that of the real.

But all these people addicted to fantasy are enablers of a real, physical world that is turning into something that will make the human race endangered or extinct. It is happening now, in real-time, before our very eyes.

There is nothing wrong with turning one’s brain off and doing something that is mindlessly fun after a long hard day or week of work. TV, movies, video games, comics, scrap-booking, web surfing, reading, concerts, drinking, whatever. Adults who pay their way through this world on top of keeping their mental, emotional, and physical shit together earn the right to have some “me time” to do something that makes them feel like a happy child again.

The problem, which seems to be evolving into an epidemic is people refusing to take up any cause other than their own entertainment. A widespread victim mentality along with disposable income and leisure time have turned multiple generations of human beings essentially into zombies. Unwilling, under the guise of being unable to think when they aren’t having their inner child killed while “on the clock”. But a professional or personal life that leaves one feeling dead inside is no reason to hope for the manifestation of George A. Romero’s wet dream. What we need is for people to move in packs like aggressive zombies with the rage virus to create policies and enact change on a global level to:

  • cut greenhouse gas emissions
  • mandate clean energy
  • reduce the size and need for landfills
  • build levies
  • punish polluters
  • take responsibility for keeping our water clean, our air breathable, and our food as organic as possible.

A zombie apocalypse implies that the Earth will still be inhabitable for the select few humans who are as over-prepared to be “Left 4 Dead” and “The Last of Us” as they are undersexed. But the real apocalypse for the human race seems more and more that it will not come from a rising of the dead but a rising of the sea levels. Maybe if AMC could make a slow burn narrative drama about that subject we can make some headway. I can promise learning about the causes of and solutions to global warming will in no way be any more boring than the second season of The Walking Dead.