I am concerned about the apathetic stance my peers appear to take on most issues. I have a friend who is being informed and telling that a super secret power elite are planning a population cull around 2012. I assume he doesn't actually believe this, but still is just interested in reading it. But you never know, I'm not him. Anyhow, while we were discussing this at work today, I responded by saying " Don't worry, we'll stop them." attempting to get my optimism back online after the sudden seizure of the Commons by the facists (more on that later.) Another friend of mine then went on to rant that we were pawns. I again reiterated that we would overcome the facists, noting that we didn't spend our youths playing games about great heroes who defy the man. He crabbed that those were just stories and reality wasn't like that.
Obviously I have a problem with this view. It's self defeatist, it stops the mind from even considering the possibility of trying. Psychologists, physicians and mystics alike are now all spouting the same message; "If you don't believe you can do it, you won't." If you don't believe you can fix the stove, then you never will. If you believe you can, then you can. If you're determined, you'll figure out a way. Not necesarilly the best way, but a way. Similarly, the Wright brothers believed they could fly, and guess what? They could.
Arguing that we can't possibly overcome the empire is a waste of energy, and that brings me to point two of the day; the Cons are in power! Now, here in Canada, we can be united in fighting the man; let us walk together my brothers, vive la resistance!
Remember; we've all overcome the evil Bowser, king of the vile Koopas. How much harder can Bush, Harper and the rest of the aristocracy be?
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Why you should care about the enviroment
Alright, let's see if I can convey my concerns in an orderly fashion.
1. Humans are a part of nature.
2. Humans are animals.
3. Humans therefore are subject to the laws of nature and function in the same manner as animals.
Typically in nature, when an animal population thrives, it grows at an exponential rate. This occurs for a period known as the "Net Growth" phase. This occurs until one or both of the following conditions are met: 1) There is little or no food left, or 2) There is so much waste that an outbreak of disease wipes out the majority of the population. Once this happens, we enter a period known as the "Net Death" phase, where the population collapses almost as fast as it grew.
The human population has tripled in the last century. There are now over 6 billion homo sapiens, most of them want to breed. Most of them want to eat. You see the problem here now, correct? If we divide that 6 billion into 4 assumptive factors: males, females, children, elderly, we have at least 3 billion potential babies. Within a generation or two, we'll have nine billion humans. Then 12. Then 18. Then 24...
There has to be a point when we reach one of those conditions. Some argue we already have. I prefer not to be as fatalistic.
The reality of the matter is that our industrial society is based on disposability and convenience, both have terrible consequences for both health and the enviroment. We are now generating more waste than the enviroment can handle. This is chiefly because we are demolishing the biosphere's ability to "digest" our wastes effectively at an alarming rate.
For the first time since anyone, including the resident amazonians apparantly, can remember, there is a drought in the rainforest. In an ecology that depends on rain to fall daily for months on end, this is catastrophe. For us, this the beginning of the sacrifice of 10-20% of the world's oxygen for the richness of a few and the ever needed "job" for everyone else.
This is why you should care; the economists and the cons and energy industries seem to think they can go on expanding and building products for your consumption forever. They seem to have no concept that all that paper is coming from wood, all that beef is coming from farmland from demolished rainforest, all that mercury is pilling up in oceans, etc. They don't see that resources can only be consumed at a rate they can be recovered at.
So what can you do? Recycle, recycle, recycle. 90% of people's garbage is recycleble (is that a word?) If it's paper, you can recycle it. If it's plastic, recycle. Food, you can garbage or compost. Something simple as recycling and using recycled paper can prevent trees from being cut down, providing us with more Carbon Dioxide (Greenhouse Gas emissions) breathing and oxygen exhaling trees to slow the tide of global warming.
The alternative concept is fairly easy to imaging. If we continue on our present course, eventually the weathern patterns will be altered enough to promote large scale drought conditions. Without food, people will stop being concerned about silly things like cds and movies. The economy will collapse. Governments will lose control. People will flock around those who can provide them food and protect them from preditors. These protectors will quickly become warlords. One of these bozos would eventually aquire the leftover nuclear warheads from our glorious civilization, and that's where the real problems would begin.
Nations less affected will of course also try to seize any nuclear assets left in the wake of a superpower crushed by famine. War would quickly follow a serious famine.
This is not doomsayer paranoia. This has happened to civilizations before. Mayan cities, the old kingdom of egypt, the Anazazi, the Nordic Greenland colonies; all these cultures appear to have fucked with their local ecologies (whether consiously or not) and made their lifestyles unlivable.
So there you have it. Remember, we are nature, we are natural beings, but we also are rational beings. Societies have changed before to suit new circumstances, and we can too. Just worry about what you gotta do, and the rest will work out fine.
1. Humans are a part of nature.
2. Humans are animals.
3. Humans therefore are subject to the laws of nature and function in the same manner as animals.
Typically in nature, when an animal population thrives, it grows at an exponential rate. This occurs for a period known as the "Net Growth" phase. This occurs until one or both of the following conditions are met: 1) There is little or no food left, or 2) There is so much waste that an outbreak of disease wipes out the majority of the population. Once this happens, we enter a period known as the "Net Death" phase, where the population collapses almost as fast as it grew.
The human population has tripled in the last century. There are now over 6 billion homo sapiens, most of them want to breed. Most of them want to eat. You see the problem here now, correct? If we divide that 6 billion into 4 assumptive factors: males, females, children, elderly, we have at least 3 billion potential babies. Within a generation or two, we'll have nine billion humans. Then 12. Then 18. Then 24...
There has to be a point when we reach one of those conditions. Some argue we already have. I prefer not to be as fatalistic.
The reality of the matter is that our industrial society is based on disposability and convenience, both have terrible consequences for both health and the enviroment. We are now generating more waste than the enviroment can handle. This is chiefly because we are demolishing the biosphere's ability to "digest" our wastes effectively at an alarming rate.
For the first time since anyone, including the resident amazonians apparantly, can remember, there is a drought in the rainforest. In an ecology that depends on rain to fall daily for months on end, this is catastrophe. For us, this the beginning of the sacrifice of 10-20% of the world's oxygen for the richness of a few and the ever needed "job" for everyone else.
This is why you should care; the economists and the cons and energy industries seem to think they can go on expanding and building products for your consumption forever. They seem to have no concept that all that paper is coming from wood, all that beef is coming from farmland from demolished rainforest, all that mercury is pilling up in oceans, etc. They don't see that resources can only be consumed at a rate they can be recovered at.
So what can you do? Recycle, recycle, recycle. 90% of people's garbage is recycleble (is that a word?) If it's paper, you can recycle it. If it's plastic, recycle. Food, you can garbage or compost. Something simple as recycling and using recycled paper can prevent trees from being cut down, providing us with more Carbon Dioxide (Greenhouse Gas emissions) breathing and oxygen exhaling trees to slow the tide of global warming.
The alternative concept is fairly easy to imaging. If we continue on our present course, eventually the weathern patterns will be altered enough to promote large scale drought conditions. Without food, people will stop being concerned about silly things like cds and movies. The economy will collapse. Governments will lose control. People will flock around those who can provide them food and protect them from preditors. These protectors will quickly become warlords. One of these bozos would eventually aquire the leftover nuclear warheads from our glorious civilization, and that's where the real problems would begin.
Nations less affected will of course also try to seize any nuclear assets left in the wake of a superpower crushed by famine. War would quickly follow a serious famine.
This is not doomsayer paranoia. This has happened to civilizations before. Mayan cities, the old kingdom of egypt, the Anazazi, the Nordic Greenland colonies; all these cultures appear to have fucked with their local ecologies (whether consiously or not) and made their lifestyles unlivable.
So there you have it. Remember, we are nature, we are natural beings, but we also are rational beings. Societies have changed before to suit new circumstances, and we can too. Just worry about what you gotta do, and the rest will work out fine.
We've been Conned!
Well, we went and did it. We split the vote on the left, confident the liberals were no more. But nooo, they still got 30% of the vote. So while apparantly only some of the liberals were miffed, they weren't as fucked as everyone believed. Fancy that.
Anyway, what a surprise, we now have a Con government. That's right, the party that one year ago was pushed down our throats by the corporate media; the party that was soundly rejected by the more sane voting population because of appearances by candidates at anti-abortion rallies and comments by their dipshit, creepy leader about how the presence of the Canadian military could have somehow turned the tide in the war in Iraq and forced Saddam to surrender, as well as Harper's utterly bigotted stance on homosexuality. But, one year later, utterly lamblasted with sponsorship scandal bullshit, canadians voted conservative in enough numbers to put Harper in the driver's seat, although luckily in a minority.
The conservatives have no plans for dealing with enviromental damage currently being delivered by our consumer demands. If anything, they are likely to sabotage the efforts of enviromentalists in all sectors. The fact of the matter is that we cannot count on this government to work towards any functional goals for a society that doesn't stand poised to use everything up. One of the local cons, Peter Goldring, believes that any solar panel project would have to occur at the expense of natural landscapes. For the uninformed, such as Peter Goldring, solar panels work best on or as close to the area in which they are powering, like the roof of a building.
This government will undoubtedly attempt to crack down on internet piracy, despite the impossibility of prosecuting the near whole of modern civilization. It will also likely at least contemplate an increase in sentences for marijuana.
On the grander pissoff scale, however, is that, despite capturing 7% of the vote, the Green party failed to capture a seat. I cannot help but feel partly responsible. But now, with Anne out of our riding, there's room for a new Lefty to combat the facist evil that pervades all democracy, like a cruel mother octopus, to enter the ring and fight for all that is good and green, like a loving mother bird.
So decide what concerns you, research the issue and decide where you stand, and do it fast. This government will (hopefully) be dissolved before the year is out.
Anyway, what a surprise, we now have a Con government. That's right, the party that one year ago was pushed down our throats by the corporate media; the party that was soundly rejected by the more sane voting population because of appearances by candidates at anti-abortion rallies and comments by their dipshit, creepy leader about how the presence of the Canadian military could have somehow turned the tide in the war in Iraq and forced Saddam to surrender, as well as Harper's utterly bigotted stance on homosexuality. But, one year later, utterly lamblasted with sponsorship scandal bullshit, canadians voted conservative in enough numbers to put Harper in the driver's seat, although luckily in a minority.
The conservatives have no plans for dealing with enviromental damage currently being delivered by our consumer demands. If anything, they are likely to sabotage the efforts of enviromentalists in all sectors. The fact of the matter is that we cannot count on this government to work towards any functional goals for a society that doesn't stand poised to use everything up. One of the local cons, Peter Goldring, believes that any solar panel project would have to occur at the expense of natural landscapes. For the uninformed, such as Peter Goldring, solar panels work best on or as close to the area in which they are powering, like the roof of a building.
This government will undoubtedly attempt to crack down on internet piracy, despite the impossibility of prosecuting the near whole of modern civilization. It will also likely at least contemplate an increase in sentences for marijuana.
On the grander pissoff scale, however, is that, despite capturing 7% of the vote, the Green party failed to capture a seat. I cannot help but feel partly responsible. But now, with Anne out of our riding, there's room for a new Lefty to combat the facist evil that pervades all democracy, like a cruel mother octopus, to enter the ring and fight for all that is good and green, like a loving mother bird.
So decide what concerns you, research the issue and decide where you stand, and do it fast. This government will (hopefully) be dissolved before the year is out.
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