Friday, June 1, 2012

Social Dementia Causes Heated Misunderestimations - 2

The environment of the Earth has evidently gotten under the skin of politicians in a certain state.

The environment of the Earth may become criminal in nature if certain laws are passed in the State of North Carolina.

That state may also need to update its motto to "The Official State of Denial."

Evidently these politicians in North Carolina are in the process of passing a law that will outlaw sea level rise above and beyond what their state legislators declare:
There is virtually universal agreement among scientists that the sea will probably rise a good meter or more before the end of the century, wreaking havoc in low-lying coastal counties. So the members of the developers’ lobbying group NC-20 say the sea will rise only 8 inches, because … because … well, SHUT UP, that’s because why.

That is, the meter or so of sea level rise predicted for the NC Coastal Resources Commission by a state-appointed board of scientists is extremely inconvenient for counties along the coast. So the NC-20 types have decided that we can escape sea level rise – in North Carolina, anyhow – by making it against the law. Or making MEASURING it against the law, anyhow.
(Scientific American, emphasis added; Guardian). Never mind that the actual, measured sea level rise is legal in the neighboring state of Virginia, and is already more than twice the amount North Carolina is going to allow to be legal:
“We’ve got the highest rate of sea level rise on the East Coast,” said Skip Stiles, executive director, Wetlands Watch, who will be making a presentation on the historic, current and future sea level changes and potential impact on the Eastern Shore.

Stiles said some of the evidence of sea level rise visible to people who spend time around the water include seeing wetlands disappear, ditches going tidal, backyard vegetation changes, and “ghost forests” — full grown trees that are dead along the shore because the water is “moving in underneath them.”
...
Stiles said all of the Virginia tide gage measurements are showing about the same rise of a foot and a half over the last 100 years.
(VA SHORE ..., [they tried to hide this, but see here, here, and here]). How North Carolina legislators plan to keep "their ocean level" lower than "Virgina's ocean level" is going to be fun to watch.

The governmental institutionalization of dementia and deceit has been the subject of Dredd Blog posts from time to time (e.g. Agnotology: The Surge, Exceptional American Denial, Etiology of Social Dementia, and The Peak of Sanity).

Note, in contrast, that some other nations have made the environment something to obey, which means "don't abuse it" (e.g. Someone Figured It Out).

The USGS indicates that past estimates of sea level rise have been underestimates by a factor of 4, while another study indicates that the east coast areas north and south of New York rise four times more than the global average (16=4x4).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.


Thursday, May 31, 2012

Resource Based Economy

Tenet 3(a) of The Tenets of Ecocosmology relates to how the fittest civilization is the one that conforms to the norms of the ecosystem it dwells within.

Environmental awareness is an essential quality for civilizations fit enough to survive.

A TED talk discusses how economies and cities could work if that were to be accomplished with global implementation:



Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Mother Of All Enemies - 3

Name Changed To Hide The 1%
On this date in 2009 the first episode in this series was posted.

That Dredd Blog post discussed some of the destruction heaped upon the nation of Iraq, even though Iraq had not participated in 9/11.

Instead, we heaped destruction on Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving Saudi Arabia to get away, after the Saudi Kingdom did most of the 9/11 bankrolling.

The text of that 2009 post follows:

The greatest enemy to the U.S. has been identified previously and some of its effects discussed.

It is especially disconcerting to remember that the Iraq war was started under false pretenses and by the dogma of religious jihad fervor of fundamentalist republicans.

The same ones still extolling the great holy value of their wondrous torture that saved the world.

Now, this mother of all corruption is spawning children that have the same DNA and footprints:
Iraq plans to arrest 1,000 officials for corruption after a scandal which has forced the resignation of the Trade Minister and is threatening the food supply of millions of Iraqis.

Corruption at the Trade Ministry is an important issue in Iraq because the ministry is in charge of the food rationing system on which 60 per cent of Iraqis depend. Officials at the ministry, which spends billions of dollars buying rice, sugar, flour and other items, are notorious among Iraqis for importing food that is unfit for human consumption, for which they charge the state the full international price.
(Independent, UK, emphasis added). This latest unconscionable debacle comes along after a million or more Iraqi men, women, and children have been killed in "the war to bring them freedom".

This comes after 4 or 5 million Iraqi men, women, and children have been made refugees by "the war on terror" and who now live in squalor in Jordan, Syria, and other countries.

The great U.S. republican occupation of Iraq is now responsible for putting people in power who are now endangering millions more.

Not only that, the Bush II policies are the mother of the most catastrophic destruction to the U.S. reputation in history.

Oh, and isn't our own economy doing fabulously as a result of war; or instead should our stupid wars file bankruptcy and be done with it?

Too many in congress and in the administration had a bit part to play in this horror movie too.

We simply no longer seem to have a reputable, intelligent government when it comes to understanding what our enemy really is.

A similar fate is being experienced in Pakistan and Afghanistan as the "war on terror" continues.

A war that has killed, maimed, destroyed, displaced, and made homeless, orders of magnitude more men women and children than the "war on terror" has.

War is a destruction of society, worshiped by the sadists and masochists as a sacrament in their delusions and cruelties.




Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The City Limits of Their-Topia - 2

President Obama Tells It Like It Is
In the first post of this series Dredd Blog pointed out that "Utopia" means "no where" man, and that "Their-topia" means "their place."

Well, finally Their-Place has given in a bit, and has included Bob Dylan in today's medal of freedom awards at the White House.

The following folks were awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom at that ceremony:
Madeleine Albright, John Doar, Bob Dylan, William Foege, John Glenn, Gordon Hirabayashi, Dolores Huerta, Jan Karski, Juliette Gordon Low, Toni Morrison, Shimon Peres, John Paul Stevens, Pat Summitt.
(CSPAN Video Page). I watched the proceedings on CSPAN and it was tearful in a good way, and in the sense that it was very mixed company.

That is America, very mixed company, probably summed up well with my little saying "U.S.eh?", but that is how it has always been.

We have always had a long way to go.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post is here.

Monday, May 28, 2012

On The Memorial Daze - 3

They Call This The Womb of Freedom
In the first post in this series, On The Memorial Daze, Dredd Blog listed many categories of life in our world that the leaders of our civilization have willingly made extinct.

Add 200 more each day since then, for 365 days, and the leaders of our civilization have led us, yes urged us, to murder another 73,000 species since they last memorialized death and destruction on a memorial day of the Unmemorialized.

Now we can also add to the bulk of the extinct life forms those we call amphibians, which have all but disappeared, to the Unmemorialized.

Thus, there are many names for the current time we live in.

Scientists call it The Anthropocene Epoch, a time in which the Sixth Mass Extinction is taking place.

Other scientists tell us we are the most evolved species, the species who can end evolution by ending life on this the Memorable Earth.

Those of you who read widely would probably agree that the leaders of humanity (once they used advances in science and technology to construct Weapons of Mass Destruction which have the capacity to destroy all human life), took us into:
per·di·tion [per-dish-uhn] noun

1. a state of final spiritual ruin; loss of the soul; damnation.
2. the future state of the wicked.
3. hell ( def. 1 ) .
4. utter destruction or ruin.
(Perdition, Online Dictionary). The worship of war contrary to the sages of our history, is what the establishment memorial day is all about.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.