Posts Tagged ‘global warming’

Faith & Facts on Opposite Melting Poles

Posted: April 11, 2017 in Frackishima
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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.

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.

 

 

#GlobalWarming Turns Deadly in India

Posted: May 30, 2016 in Frackishima
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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…

#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.

#Water Inequality is the Next Income #Inequality

Posted: February 20, 2016 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll

Global Disaster

There is something about those two words paired with each other that grabs one’s attention and holds it like a vice. When the two words are placed next to each other by a scientist studying ten years worth of data from NASA, the vice is more like the jaws of life.

When that decade long study involves an additional 35 years of weather data? Eek. BUT, this is not another global warming warning. This is about the next wave of haves and have nots. Economic inequality? That is so 20th century.

A world with such water scarcity that wars are fought for it? Seems like science fiction dystopian bullshit. Except if you live in California during the last half decade, or the country of Ethiopia or the continent of Australia.

The study of Famiglietti et al, directly talks about the rich-get-richer-mechanism and emerging classes of haves and have nots in regards to water access. That is the language of the scientist.

That prospect wouldn’t be worrisome if economic poverty wasn’t a thing or wasn’t increasing or wasn’t pervasive or wasn’t silently condoned by the actions of the first world.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer paradigm applied to water access will be the literal manifestation of trickle down economics. People will literally be dependent on the miniscule droplets of the source of life to survive while the haves bathe their terminally ill pets in triple filtered, reverse osmosis purified agua.

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Global Disaster

Groundwater depletion coupled with rising sea levels and no meaningful action being done about either while hoping human beings will share resources voluntarily after those resources have been consolidated involuntarily.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster…..Sounds like another day, in Frackishima.

Did You Hear the One Where #California has Record #Drought & #Wildfires Simultaneously?

Posted: September 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
9/29/2014

I wonder how many of the 300-400,000 people who attended the recent People’s Climate March in NYC were from California. I wonder this because in the continental United States, nowhere else is being nearly as hard hit by the real-time, negative effects of climate change as the state of California.

California is simultaneously experiencing record drought and record wildfires.

The LA Times has two separate archived databases on their website listing all stories written about the historic drought and wildfires that have been ravaging the state. Both sections are definitely worth checking out to see just how far-reaching the effects of both of these catastrophic events each have.

Some of the numbers found in the archive of stories are simply astounding;

  • 100% of the state effected by the now 3 year drought
  • 5,000 fires reported/responded to since January 1st, 2014
  • 14 residential communities on the verge of being completely waterless
  • $200 million and counting spent on to contain wildfires 9 months into 2014

The droughts and wildfires in California have been getting steadily worse over the past half decade. Each year for the past decade has been hotter than the previous. Are we to believe these things aren’t connected? It is easy to be a climate denier when the state you live in isn’t burning around you while at the same time your community has lost access to freshwater.

Perhaps the water utility of Detroit can send some of the water they are saving from shutting access to it off from residents and send it to one of the two disasters occurring in California due to a lack of water.

Evens Stevens Paradigm Won’t Cut it in the #ClimateChange Fight for the Future

Posted: September 22, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
9/21/2014

The #PeoplesClimate marches/rallies that occurred across the globe are a great representation of the good news/bad news holding pattern that pro environment supporters have been stuck in for decades. The good news is the #PeoplesClimate was so big, involving so many people, in so many of the world’s biggest cities that it literally could not be ignored by the press or anyone on the internet on 9/21/2014. The bad news is that tangible, global, legislative action is unlikely to occur for at least another full year.

This good news/bad news paradigm has most recently been demonstrated in regards to the two most talked about environment issues of the last quarter century; the ozone layer and the deforestation of the Amazon.

The good news is that scientists have discovered that the ozone layer is starting to heal. How awesome! Certainly no negative spin to put on this story. Since the 1970s attention has been brought to this issue in hopes of reversing the now notorious hole in the ozone layer that has been a direct contributor to global warming and rising skin cancer rates.

Ready for the bad news?

The Amazon rainforest is getting slashed and burned at a 30% increase. Deforestation is right there with industrial pollution as the greatest causes of global warming and climate change. We need rainforests to sustain the planet, but captains of industry seem to think we need grazing land for cattle and industrial logging more.

Good news, bad news unfortunately isn’t going to cut it, why? Because we are playing from behind. Pro environmentalists can’t keep scoring field goals while polluters and deforestrers are scoring touchdowns. It’s great that more people are aware of the negative effects of climate change, the fact that it’s man-made, and we must do something to reverse it. The problem is that this has happened because the negative effects of climate change are being felt more and more every single day. We have let so much wrong get done that the Earth is irreversibly changing all around us quicker, in real-time. It’s great to have good news to report but wildfires, droughts, and other natural disaster devastation is only going up. Is it too late? The good news is that in this fight, there is literally no reason to quit, because there is nothing else as worthy of fighting for as the future of the planet we inhabit.

#ClimateChange: An Epic, Disaster Movie Come to Life

Posted: May 8, 2014 in Frackishima
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frackishimalogo1ajclogo2by @anarchyroll
5/7/2014

I guess I’ll be old enough to say that I remember when the effects of climate change and global warming were futuristic threats.

But that was so 1990s and early 2000s. Climate change is here. Climate change is now. Climate change is an immediate and direct threat to the human race.

Global warming has become the paradigm with which we view the majority of the large-scale problems of the world. Why is that? Because the effects of global warming can no longer be ignored. It is touching every corner of the world in one way or another. Droughts here, hurricanes there, typhoons on this side of the planet, wildfires on the other. These natural disasters have existed for a long time, but because of climate change, all of the above are stronger and more devastating.

We are entering no turning back territory and things like fracking and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan certainly aren’t helping anything. Nuclear power and fracking are putting climate change on fast forward.

Although that seems to be what the climate change deniers want. They seem to think the planet is going to hell anyway so why bother trying to save it? I have also noticed a very strong correlation between climate change deniers and those who are religious. After all, if there is an all being, all-knowing creator living above the clouds, it will save the planet before we run out of drinkable water right? Before the seas rise up and wipe away all life, we’ll all be saved right? Maybe just the ones who build an arc. Human beings are tribal people. The human mind is quite the labyrinth. But it is time to realize that we are all in this together whether we want to be or not. That whether one believes in science or in religion, that we are tasked with saving ourselves, not waiting for a hand to swat away rising CO2 emissions.

What we need is more than just compost heaps, organic farming, and hybrid vehicles. We need those in power, those with money, those in charge to set forth very large-scale changes. We need the leaders to lead. We can bicker at each other all we want about using reusable shopping bags and air conditioning, but when those who we have elected set a green agenda for the masses to follow, then and only then will we as a race be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t from a 10,000 mile wide wildfire.

 

 

#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.