If we all wait for the great, glorious revolution there won't be anything left.
(Derrick Jensen, author and environmental activist)
It is the artists, not the scientists, who have dealt unremittingly with the problems of limits.
(Wendell Berry, writer and farmer)
Don't cap our future.
(American Farm Bureau)
We do not need you.
(John Galt, character in Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand)
Thomas: “Don't let's spoil everything, we've only just met.”
Jane: “No, we haven't met. You've never seen me.”
(the movie “Blow Up,” 1966)
As climate scientists continue to gather data, which is increasingly more detailed and refined, we are beginning to hear from a number of climatologists that the assessments from the 2007 IPCC forecasts may have been far too conservative.
The forecasts that were categorized in the “upper ranges” in 2007 could come closer to the possible reality, a not especially comforting thought. Since 2007 scientists have, for example, learned considerably more about ocean acidification and ice-melting, which has provided additional information on the seriousness of climate change and the speed at which it is occurring.
The scientific data “unfortunately” has not demonstrated proof of runaway hyperbole. The only exaggeration and falsification have come from the never ending schemes of the professional climate deniers and their loyal followers. See UN update: climate change hitting sooner and stronger.
Yet, climate change remains a will-o'-the-wisp in the every day world most of us humans reside in. A couple of Saturdays ago, on October 24th, the worldwide 350 climate rally, organized most notably by Bill McKibben, took place.
More than 5,000 rallies and demonstrations appeared across the planet, some extremely successful some less so. How many policymakers will be moved to act boldly as a result of the 350 movement? How many more inhabitants of the planet will perceive that climate change is something to be taken seriously? Wait and see as they say.
On my way to watch a local film “shoot,” I stopped by the Kansas City 350 rally, held in a park in the center of the city, next to the Plaza shopping mecca, which still has sputtering signs of consumer life. The rally was small but its 100 to 150 participants enthusiastic. Frisbee players, dog walkers, and joggers intermingled with the climate participants.
But for one brief moment, standing off to the side, I almost thought I was in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 movie Blow Up: The main character is in a park and sees a group of mimes playing tennis without rackets and balls.
The character realizes eventually that a real game is taking place when he throws back an imaginary tennis ball to the players. We ultimately see what we want to see, Antonioni tried to tell us some forty years ago....
Ayn Rand
Since you mentioned the divine Ms Rand, I was reminded of a couple of reviews I read of two recent biographies. I didn't know she was a serial killer groupie...well, not in the literal sense.
"Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished." LOL
'The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."'
"A Rand"
Ah, yes, Ms. Rand. I sometimes wonder how much she truly believed of some of the foolishness she wrote. Her novels really were vehicles to pontificate about "Objectivism" rational selfisness-ethical egotism-pure laissez-faire. Yup,just what America needs today. Of course, I remember Rand being considered "required" reading when I was in college. We were naturally all going to be masters-of-the universe. Interesting as capitalism crumbles around the edges today, Rand is witnessing a resurgence of sorts. Hope does spring eternal; let's all cling to the leaking life boat.
What is real (2): The earth
What is real (2): The earth is cooling and has been for over a decade.
I strongly suggest you set up your lemonade stand in another venue because the "real" people aren't buying it.
Missouri's Senators should support action on climate change
I'm not sure what Mr. Winch's final point was in this piece, but I agree wholeheartedly that too many people are twiddling their thumbs when what we need is action on climate change. Missouri's Senator Kit Bond made the wrong choice in threatening to boycott Senate markup of the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill. This bill would cut our dependence on foreign oil, reduce air pollution, protect Missouri's crop yields, and create millions of jobs across the country, including almost 36,000 in this state alone--all at a cost of about three to four dollars a month for the average American. And as Mr. Winch points out, the costs of climate change would be far more expensive.
Missouri can't afford anymore stalling on the part of its Senators. Kit Bond should change his ways before he hurts the very constituents he's trying to protect, and Claire McCaskill must remain strong and vote in favor of the clean energy bill that ultimately comes to the Senate floor.