We've been told that our federal tax dollars are going to make life better for all US.

I'm beginning to wonder.
- 50% to DOD and "foreign interests"
- 20% to financing the fat cats that sit on the hill
- ??% subsidies to trade interests
- remainder for education, infrastructure, entitlements (YEA!)

Wouldn't take too much for me to decide that most of my federal tax $s are going to places I don't want them to go. I don't want to contribute to Boner's or others of that ilk's payroll any more.

They think some invisible god will ride in to save them at the last moment...


We ALLOWED this to happen...


So don't weep for us. Not one single, solitary tear.

Unless you include progress in that, with us thinking that some technology will ride in to save us at the last moment.

We didn't just allow it to happen. Domestication, agriculture, we couldn't stop it from happening. Once we got the idea that we could actively attempt to control life, that was it. If anything, religion is the attempted moral justification for our attempted dominion of the planet.

Science and technology made this happen.

Greed and ignorance made this happen.

lack of empathy made this happen.

Absence of; respect, reverence, spiritual connection, wonder and appreciation for what we have made this happen.

Blind stupid fundamentalism - both "religious" and "scientific" - made this happen.

We found "cheap" energy (oil, coal, etc) - stored sunlight - and we we used it without being advanced enough / evolved enough / connected enough - whatever you want to call it to know that we were killing ourselves.

It's also a miracle we have not incinerated the planet with nukes.

biodiversity and fertilizer!

brought to you in part by -Monsanto-

It is the use to which we put it that makes the difference.

Example: Nuclear technology gave us the H-bomb, But it also gave us the MRI.

Our relatively brief lifespans and biological imperatives may make render us utterly unable to manage technology that requires the input of energy to utilize. Virtually the entirety of our species' existence has taken place with us organized into small groups, mostly nomadic hunters and gatherers. In just a few thousand years we have massed together into vast cities, and we haven't developed any sort of collective consciousness that would somehow enable us to make good decisions en masse.

The opinions and preferences of the vast majority have no impact on the actions of the oil dynasties. We are the passenger of the Titanic and most of us are in steerage. The people who believe the environment is 'unsinkable' are in charge and they order the band to play on...

--that image really hits home.

Our leaders have no conscience, no integrity, no vision.

The band plays on...

cried the one-percenters.

in the few places that haven't been totally ruined, and we STILL won't have the sense to wipe them out.

I manged to buy a very small piece of land that I have turned into an ecological haven in just 12 years. When we 1st arrived, the land was washing away with each rain, the numerous bare spots would not grow anything but strange looking lumpy black fungus. Now we can grow on just about every acre and ever piece of wood has masses of three different kinds of lichen growing on it. There are beds of moss and ferns that deer enjoy. Sheep keep the grass down to reasonable heights. Chickens keep the bugs down to manageable levels (we haven't had to spray our dogs for fleas or ticks in years. Since I don't think chickens eat fleas, I don't know why we are flea free.)

Last fall I watched a huge spiraling, dancing gold and brown butterfly mass come to rest on a nearby maple tree. It looked as if the bark was alive as their wings lightly flapped. When they left, they rose straight up in a whirling mass of color. I had never seen that before. Later that evening I heard the mass of butterflies was so huge it was picked up on radar. I thought they would spread out and go to our neighbors or the pasture next to us but they didn't. It's like they knew the safest place for them. It's like they understood.

Blaming those who profit from gathering and selling stuff we burn to operate our technolgies isn't going to get us anywhere. It's nice to have a scapegoat, but unless the electricity that powers your computer (or whatever device you use to post here), that powers the infrastructure of the Internet (servers, running of cable, powering the signals that travel all around the world), that powers the manufacturers of all of the servers, routers, cable, wireless towers, and that provides the means for people to lay the cable, operate the equipment, erect and maintain cell towers, well, unless all of that is based entirely on renewable energy, then you've got no one else to blame but yourself, and the responsibilty is yours to change things if you believe that they require change.

Pointing fingers is worthless - we know what is happening and we know why it is happening. We need to figure out how to stop burning hydrocarbons. Every step in that direction, taken by individuals who accept the responsibility for taking such steps, gets us closer to surviving the mess that we're bringing about. Don't expect companies organized solely for the pursuit of profit to make changes that we don't make as individuals.

The way to the future is to have a lifeboat (eg. get ready to survive in a changed climate because that is under way and inevitable) AND reduce atmospheric carbon.

Oil dynasties exist "because people like you and I buy their product" -- it is far, far more complicated than that. You are talking about the insignificant impact of a 3-digit number on a 13-digit number. If you think the US military, power generation industry, and agriculture are going to stop using petroleum any time soon you are kidding yourself.

We have to see the dynamics of the situation clearly before we can hope to have impact.

Religion, in one form or another, has probably existed for at least 100,000 years. The Industrial Revolution, based on coal, began about 300 years ago, and all of our technological advances since, based on the energy we get from burning something, have brought us to this point.

Human inability to anticipate and manage the effects of burning on a colossal scale, combined with a population explosion resulting in billions of us entirely dependent upon all of that burning - that's what we allowed to happen.

Unfortunately, human beings only have about 30-40 years, on average, of active adulthood, during which most of us have the stamina and overall capacity to effectively participate in or guide change. We're also not omnipotent and the very technology that developed as a result of all that burning is the same technology we've used to recognize the potential catastrophe we are bringing about.

So - we are to blame, but a few tears may be warranted.

I watched Jerry Falwell for two minutes. He actually stated the earth was for us to use and abuse, because when Jesus and GOD returned, God would renew the earth and everything would be even BETTER than it was before. The plants would be greener and and the flowers would be more colorful and beautiful. Two minutes of this tripe jolted me back to sanity and I turned the channel.

So to make sure your survival is with the fittest, buy a place on the floating lifeboat. Sold by one of the principles of the Carlyle Group, former CIA big wig, former Secretary of Defense, former real life college roommate of one Donald Rumsfeld, the one, the only, Frank Carlucci.



The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

The stinking rich are planning billion-dollar luxury liners that keep the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.

AlterNet / By Mark Ames
June 1, 2010

What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?

The first such floating castle has been christened the " Utopia"--the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale- -which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot "estates." The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.

SNIP...

Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.

SNIP...

While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank&quot is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.

I'll get into Carlucci's partners in the Frontier Group in a moment, but first, let's reacquaint ourselves with Frank Carlucci. From an early age, Carlucci learned the importance of getting to know the right people in the right places. He studied at Princeton in the mid-1950s, where as luck should have it, Carlucci roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. Both Carlucci and Rumsfeld shared a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling at Princeton, and both went on to serve in the Navy after Princeton. Their paths would split and merge several times over the next few decades, even as they remained close personal friends throughout their lives. In the late 1950s, Carlucci briefly served as an executive at a lingerie manufacturer, Jantzen (the Victoria's Secret of its day), but quickly left to join the State Department.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles

Once the 99-percent are culled down to 10 percent or so, the BFEE will have enough hands to do the global rebuild Brave New World Order Thing and dock the boats or return from the Koch Brothers' lunar colony.

Best remedy I can think of!

(Wiki) Utopia is a planned luxury residential cruise ship project Utopia Residences with construction to be completed by 2016. Completion of the ship is expected in 2016 at a cost of US$1.1 billion, but awaiting final financing and signed contracts. The original binding letter of intent to build Utopia was announced in 2009 but amended in 2012.[2] The ship is being built by Samsung Heavy Industries, one of the world's largest shipbuilders in the world, located in South Korea.[3][4] The Finnish engineering company Elomatic Marine is credited for the design concept of the vessel, with architectural design by Tillberg Design U.S.[1]

Amenities

The 296 m (971 ft), 108,000 GT, ship will have a 199 residences ranging in size from 130 to 613 m2 (1,400 to 6,600 sq ft).[5] Residents of the ship will be able to take all their personal belongings with them to their private homes on board. The ship will also have 175-room luxury boutique hotel, casino, 16,000sq ft spa, night club, swimming pools, children's pool with water slide, rock climbing wall, outdoor movie theatre, deck with private cabanas, putting greens and two golf simulators, concierge lounge, sports lounge, paddle tennis courts, 500-seat main lounge, 235-seat observation lounge, hall of angels[clarification needed], deli café and grocery store, demonstration kitchen, marina, three signature restaurants and a private residents' club with two restaurants and a private pool. She will have luxury residences with prices starting at US$3.9 million and rising to US$30 million.

Elysium predicts.

Silly me.

... which it already is....

Let's just wait until we see how the Senate votes on this before we make up our mind.

has the answers. He's in charge of science now!

DOOMED.

The planet will be just fine. Her "life" is measured in billions of years, something few human minds can comprehend.

is it good?

The system will fix itself.

Of course there will be no Humans, but the system will eventually correct itself.

and the system will always "correct" itself, of course eventually the system won't last because of an asteroid strike or a sun too hot to sustain life. Of the two, the only one guaranteed to not be here in 500 million years or so is the system.

The world ecology will automatically balance itself in the centuries following the massive human die-off.

We don't have to do anything.
The system will fix itself.

Reminds me of some episodes I watched - of this speculative series called "Life After People." It attempts to offer an answer to what would happen if human beings suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/life-after-people/

This is the stuff of nightmares.

Planetary dashboard shows “Great Acceleration” in human activity since 1950

--The biggest insult to the planet coincides exactly with human activity since 1950.

What has happened in a mere 60 years is utterly without precedent.

We are just beginning to wake up...

and if that doesn't do it - Use a LOG (LOG ()) scale.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the seven billion...

We are our own worst enemy

And the odd thing is the ability to adapt and change is what has got us here. We already have the answers how to reverse the downward spiral we are in but will probably find it too late once we realize them options needed to be taken.

Always knew i was born into a crazy world just but just never dreamed i would be able to witness it first hand

and choose a different path but that requires, also, exercising the will to change our habits. We have been conditioned, especially since WWII, to exploit everything full scream ahead. And now that we are running out of things to exploit and having decided to worship wealth and the freedom to scoff at laws and ethics without immediate consequence, we are coming to the end of our time, decided upon by our willingness to forfeit our well being for immediate gratification.

Glad I'm getting old so I won't have to watch too much more of this, but I am still participating in the change I wish to see.

Power is not given, power has to be taken. The idea we would need some kind of thing that is tangible to be satisfied and happy is idea that has been ingrained into our brains. Gratification is now more important than knowing one is traveling in the correct direction. We were trained that way by the masters we have adopted

Does anybody remember "The Gulf of Mexico Disaster"?



http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2015/01/federal_judge_rules_319_millio.html

That was back in 2010, when BP won the "Biggest Environmental Rapist" contest.

Today's New Champion is the Harper Government's Tar-Sand-Project.



Harper's words: "It will be GOOD to the Canadian Economy". Yaaah, right!

Does that ever sound right.

Doesn't have to be this way. But with the pervasive lack of education globally, greed (which is often from a lack of education, but not always) and overpopulation, we're going to do ourselves in.

The population has only been in excess of 2.5 Billion during this same time interval. Western Civ was even more destructive in the 19th century but our numbers somewhat limited our global capacity for destruction.

C'mon people, MONEY!
What are you, some kind of business-hating commies?
You sure sound like it!

But seriously, there's really only one solution to this.
That is to remove half or more of the human population from the planet, and quickly.

Your move...

in my lifetime, but overall I've become convinced that the human species is a scourge upon the earth. We are a lethal danger to ourselves and every other living thing on the planet. It's not just that we don't benefit anything, it's that we are an imminent threat to everything.

That might sound like hyperbole and gross exaggeration, but I really think it's just the fact of the matter. I'd love to hear of some example to counter what I just said. I can't come up with one.

it's one thing to lament short-sightedness. It's one thing to show the real negative impact climate change will have.

Calling us a lethal danger to every other living thing on the planet is just plain unintelligent, incorrect, and silly.
The planet and the biosphere will survive us at our worst. We might not, and we might take species down with us, and that's not a good thing, but the biosphere would survive.

We are in a transition period as we move from a time when our technology was too limited to have much of an impact at all to a time when it can have a great impact, and that period is about 150 years during the millennia of human civilization.

That's not a defense of folks not coming to grips with the obvious, but it is cause to consider that we aren't some evil species killing all in front of us but simply immature, likely to cause some serious short-term damage perhaps even, but eventually, necessity and technology will lead us through to the other side.

The amount of misanthropy in this thread is ridiculous and pointless and even useless if the goal is to slow down or stop climate change. Kinda hard to be persuasive in stopping it if the attitude is "good, hope it kills all humans."

Actually, war is one of the few ways we regularly reduce our numbers.

It would be better if we all, everyone in the world, were more responsible with our reproduction.

...and that skin has diseases; one of these diseases is Mankind." -- Nietzsche

Because it's too hard to wrap your head around that humans could have an impact on our planet. In fact, I've heard that if you took every single person and lined them up in one spot, it would only fill Rhode Island. How could the people in such a small area have any impact on such a big planet?

Stupid liberal scientists!

Tic-toc

the human race is nothing more than a virus on the planet.
We multiply, eat, destroy and then do it again and again.

Mars was probably a nice place eons ago, but whoever lived there destroyed it.

Same thing will happen here. My hope is that the innocent animals survive and flourish.

for sure