Discuss: Snap into Action for the Climate

...and Paco, in Zurich I know you really obeyed the lights because the cops mean business. Not because there was a riot. In Switzerland? Please! We’re Swiss! Even for my photographs.

Bob,

I’d love to see the photo. Send it to me at <mitchell@cybermesa.com>.

I agree, it is dangerous to go to Zürich and then RETURN to Italy. What I found was that obeying traffic signals in Italy was actually more dangerous than making mad-cap dashes across the street.

Let me know when you get “round tuit”—i.e., that clean-up thing with your website.

Paco

Crimes against humanity? Don’t think so. We could charge so many people and organizations for all sorts of issues. Hansen was probably just trying to show his passion for his position. Using oil to propel the industrial age has been going on for over a century, there would be a host of people that could be charged. And if not oil, we would have been using even more coal, worse still.

Spirited discussion? Hmm, you should see discussion about global warming in other places on the web. I saw a post about linking the Midwest flooding to global heating at Alternet and the comments coming from the deniers was ugly. I suppose spirited and ugly are different shades, but here we debate shades of actions to be taken in response to believing in global heating, elsewhere the debate gets boiled down to, I don’t believe, I do.

In an earlier post I mentioned the influence of the fundamentalist right Christians in America. We don’t see them post here, but if they did discussion would get ugly. We would be spending a ton of time citing information and data in response to incorrect data deniers always post.

That ideology isn’t ever going to accept that we are in any way responsible because of our direct actions, such as building and using coal-fired electric plants. No, the reasons for global heating results (drought, flooding, etc.) is because God is punishing us collectively for “sins” such as homosexuality, divorce, abortion, you know the list.

Worse than this, you have the “criminals” in Hansen’s mind that align with the fundamentalists not out of belief but for reasons of self interest, mainly profits and refusal to change the status quo. This is probably where Hansen is deriving his anger, that the industries present false data and arguments. The religious right jumps on these “alternative” positions to continue to push their own agenda.

What’s so strange about this strange bedfellows situation, is that the oil, gas, coal industries are using resources that they know is far older than the 6,000 year old Earth of fundamentalist belief. But that doesn’t matter I suppose because the Bible tells them so. Tells them to use the resources, tells them to be fruitful and multiply, on and on.

I can’t even begin to explain how influential this religious block is in America. It’s the largest reason why Tidwell’s dream of a coming together won’t happen in the U.S. How can you even dent the brains of a block of people who go to church on Sunday, then entertain themselves with a NASCAR race (a glorification of useless resource depletion).

A good portion of this block are smack dab in the middle of that bell curve of auto selection. Trucks and SUVs are a cultural development of this crowd. The only reason they will ever give them up is because the price of gas will economically push them out of their choice.

This religious block is all over the U.S. but predominates in the South, an area that has been developed on the predication of cheap energy in recent times. It should be interesting to see how the ideology morphs to continue to deny global heating in the face of higher oil prices, more expensive electric bills for air conditioning and as in the city of Atlanta, dealing with lack of water. But morph it will as their interpretation of the Bible won’t let them believe they helped cause their own inconvenience.

Many in fact welcome this turn of events as they are believers in “end times.” They in fact welcome war in the Middle East, and any other event that coincides with their interpretation of Revelations, such as floods and drought and pestilence, etc. They fully expect that they will be the ones that suddenly disappear from Earth to land in heaven, while the rest of us are “left behind.”

Europeans and most of the world are puzzled even aghast at such thinking, but it is here and thriving. And as far as I’m concerned, it is dangerous.

Corporate personhood. Yeah, bad decision from an 1886 court case. In fact, it wasn’t even part of the case, it was from the closing statements from a judge. But it has withstood most challenges.

There are good things about it and bad. It gives corporations ability to lobby Congress, yet it also allows us to sue corporations.

The concept is so odd. An entity containing many people is a person. But in reality, the many people are really those in control of the corporation (the CEO, top execs and the board of directors). The workers in the rest of the company have little to no influence in the personhood aspect.

Further oddity, the legality was derived out of the 14th Amendment, which was actually about giving African-Americans the right to vote.

Probably by far the worst aspect of it, is the influence over politics corporations have been able to establish. I think we all know this problem.

How do rich and famous people, who live large and have huge ecological footprints, as well as corporate ‘citizens’ that cast giant shadows over the Earth today, so easily get away with socially irresponsible behavior?

As everyone knows but few openly discuss, wealth and power buy freedom.  What is all too obvious but often cloaked in silence is this:  A small minority of individuals in the human family with great fortunes and virtually all large corporations exercise their great wealth and power in ways that allow all of these self-proclaimed masters of the universe to live lavishly and large as well as to willfully refuse assumption of the responsibilities which necessarily come with freedom.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php

I am a composer of music.  I have written at least two major works with religious language which glorify the work of environmentalists.  Which glorify the work of God in creating the beautiful earth, to use the language of creation, wih which I am only comfortable to a point.  The scientific reality needs to enlighten religious sentiment.

The TE DEUM, comissioned by the University of Wisconsin Catholic Center for their 1985 centennial, BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE SONG OF A ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK.  The first and last words are spoken by the birds. 

In addition, there is a duet between loons and a muted trumpet, and a duet between the tympani and the roar of the ocean surf.

This “Earth Te Deum” needs to have wide currency and be heard in churches everywhere.  It is a beautiful and very accessible piece of music, and it is a tour de force of power.

The second piece is a setting of THE CANTICLE OF BROTHER SUN, a poem by St. Francis of Assisi for flute, violin, classical guitar, and mezzo-soprano.  It has been played throughout the twin cities metro area, under a grant from the peacemaking Task Force of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities.  This poem sings the praises of all the elements of nature, air, water, and so on.

Please contact me at

Look forward to hearing from you.

Tom Allen
I would welcome inquiries and would love to get the score and parts to churches, schools, or performing organizations

Mike, this is terrifying. Everyone should be required to read it and then get together to do something productive! Thanks very much for your eloquent article.

I think the article was very poorly written - for me it just didn’t scare me enough - I need scaring more please.
After AIDS, Bird Flu, Y2K, SARS and ‘the next ice age is imminent’ from the ‘70’s this article didn’t live upto the highest ideals of the global warming alarmists.

I’d be grateful if you’d re-submit it and scare us even more. 

Oh! and while you’re at it please explain why the world hasn’t warmed since the turn of the century, has cooled recently and Antartica’s land mass is growing.