Climate change – Page 9

Comment of the Day: Oops! Apocalypse Edition

Published on February 2, 2007

Today’s is from That American Chap following Digby’s excellent post about the US media’s suggestion that a war with Iran would somehow occur accidentally, and that the moment to act is NOW.

The Chap’s comment echoes what I’ve been saying for some time, but does so a damned sight more concisely and urgently.

It’s been clear to me for at least two years that we would be going to war (and a nuke one at that) with Iran and that nothing, not the failure in Iraq, not the clear evidence of how they lied the Iraq war into existence, would stop it.

When you say that “we’d better get ready to see our lives change in fundamental ways”, you’re spot on… but I doubt that you really grasp how dark the future is (you’d be screaming at the top of your lungs if you really knew), just how devastating our nuking of Iran will be for the US! The rest of the planet will regard us (for the next couple of hundred years) as the guys who one-upped the Nazis in the contest to see who could be the most despised villains in history.

The neo-cons (why aren’t these clowns serving life terms in prisons for the criminally insane?) still think that the best route for us is to grab up as many of the world’s oil fields as we can (yes, all of that sniping at Venezuela is a tip-off that we’ll be going there in the “cause of freedom”, aka- stealing their oil) and that all of this bullying will make us the world’s hyper-power for a thousand year reich.

The problem with this theory is that, like all neo-con thoughts, it is only “thunk” from the perspective of people who have an exceedingly incomplete picture of reality. Remember how the whole middle east was going to bow down to us and surrender when the awesome majesty of our military might was shown to them? What steaming-hot bullshit THAT turned out to be! We’ve shown them *way* too much and now they see us as a paper tiger (and outside of nuking the rest of the planet, we simply aren’t good at these long distance, long-termed wars, are we?) who can be ground down with snipers and IED’s.

They (the neo-cons) picture the rest of the world as helpless victims of our power when, in fact, *we’re* the fragile ones. Once we nuke Iran, the rest of the world will understand, without any doubt, that we’re out to grab the oil…and this will outrage them. They will band together against us and simply boycott every American product and turn in the dollars they’re holding for the currencies of China and the European Union. This will vaporize the buying power of the dollar and shatter our economy beyond repair. Martial law and civil war will occupy the American homeland and the troops that the neocons envisioned blitzing through the middle-east will be called home to patrol their own country.

Trust me on this, we’re in for a shitstorm the likes of which you only ever pictured reading about in some absurdly dark novel. If you have any brains (and I assume that your presence here is an indicator that you do), you’d better wave off the fog of “it can’t happen here” because it, in fact, IS happening here. Take whatever disposable cash you have and turn those faltering dollars into something real, canned food, shotguns, batteries, medical supplies, motor oil, anything practical that you’ll be able to use or to barter with in the future. If this sounds like hysteria to you, think again, the most powerful weapon that the rest of the world has to use against us is our own dollar, and when we make ourselves into complete monsters by nuking Iran, they will use that weapon to paralyze us, to defang us, to cause us internal agonies that will stop our aggression.

Don’t just stand there slack-jawed, watching this go down in a state of horrified fascination, get your ass in gear and do what you can to position your family and friends to be able to survive the coming nightmare as best they can!
That American Chap | 02.01.07 – 4:28 pm | #

Quite.

Oy, the number of posts I’ve written in the past, bewailing the smug complacency of the mushy middle of American left politics and warning grimly. but knowing the innefectuality of it, that although Bushco might be incompetent they are also utterly ruthless and without conscience; that America was going to be in a very bad place indeed before the populace woke up and that when they did it’d be too late; and so it’s proved.

No Global Warming, You Say?

Published on December 7, 2006

The aftermath of the tornado that hit a north-west London street.

BBC:

Six people were injured and about 100 houses were damaged when a tornado swept through a London street leaving a trail of destruction.

Rooftops were ripped off and cars were badly damaged as the freak weather hit Kensal Rise in north-west London.

One man suffered a serious head injury and five people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and shock.

Eleven fire crews were called to Chamberlayne Road, which has been cordoned off because of the debris.

Witnesses said there was heavy rain and sleet, then debris flying through the air.

Colin Brewer, who lives in nearby Trevelyan Gardens, said: “It was really, really incredible. All of a sudden I saw a swirl starting to form and then, it was amazing, but it then touched land.

“I then saw clumps of all sorts of things flying into air.

“It went from exciting to terrifying.”

The same storm has been heading our way all day and it’s looking a very grim yellowy steel grey in the distance. The birds have fallen quiet and it’s ominously still. Let’s hope the worst of this blown itself out. Damn, I knew I should’ve forced Martin at the point of a pitchfork to shin up that tree and trim those branches next to the people upstairs’ windows.

Woah, there goes the lightning – I do hope we’re insured for third-party damage…

Read more: UK, London, Global warming, Weather, Tornadoes

The Planet’s Fucked, But We’re Allright, Jack

Published on October 27, 2006

We all know now that the planet is on an inexorable slide to climate chaos, but some special people are planning on running away. The World Wildlife Fund , via the BBC:

The planet’s natural resources are being consumed faster than they can be replaced, according to the WWF. If current trends continue two planets would be needed by 2050 to meet humanity’s demands.

[…]

Countries are shown in proportion to the amount of natural resources they consume.

Humanity’s demand for resources is now outstripping supply by about 25%, as the growth of our ecological footprint shows. Meanwhile the health of the planet’s ecosystems, measured by the living planet index, is falling, at “a rate unprecedented in human history,” according to the WWF.

No wonder the neocons, the Nietzschians, the Randians and the warhawks like Instapundit are so keen on the idea of transhumanism. In the transhumanist ideal the enhanced elect, the ubermenschen, will inherit the earth, and then when that’s bled dry, the other planets. That’s the general idea put in very simplistic terms; unfortunately the plans only seem to have room for Americans – the rest of us untermenschen can go hang, or rather drown or starve. I suppose someone has to be the Morlocks in this narrative and it’s us non-rich-white-males.

This all sounds rather bizarre but actual US government policy bears it out. The US is currently attempting to militarise all of near-earth space and to claim the other solar planets as their own, using their own warped version of ‘manifest destiny’ for justification. You can bet your ass the transhumanists’ll be on that like white on rice. Humanity ( but only of a certain type) uber alles and fuck the universe. They’re entitled.

US stakes claim on space

New policy just slightly territorial

By Lucy Sherriff Published Thursday 19th October 2006 13:06 GMT

The US has claimed “dibs” on the Universe with its new space policy. The document, signed by President Bush, was released on a Friday, just before a long weekend in the States. This, in itself has caused a bit of a stir, but not more so than the tone and content of the document.

In it, the US government allocates itself rights to access and use space without anyone else getting in its way. It also sets security at the heart of the space agenda, frequently citing its right to use space as part of its national defence.

Significantly, however, it does not commit to restrict, or even to join talks about restricting the development of space-based weapons. This is despite a UN vote last year in which 160 nations voted in favour of such talks.

The rapacious gluttons* have fucked over one ecological system irreparably, now it’s on to the next and screw the rest of us left to face the dangerous death throes of a dying planet. That’s why the Right don’t care what damage they do. They think they have an escape hatch when it all goes to shit.

* I”m one too. I live in Northern Europe, so I can hardly exempt myself from the description.

UPDATE: here’s something we can do at least. Make your own solar panel for less than 150 euro.

Could They By Chance Be Related?

Published on July 20, 20061 Comment

Many worldwide are racking their brains for a good reason as to why Israel is acting with such abandoned barbarity towards Lebanon. The usual real politik-al explanations don’t seem to suffice to explain their harshness. Now it’s not just bombardments any more.

2006: Israel hints at a full-scale invasion

What has Israel got to gain in material terms from a full-scale invasion and occupation of the country, other than to cascade terrorism down the generations? It could be something very simple: water. From American University in Beirut’s Notes on the Geology of Lebanon:

The chief natural resource is water. The high mountains gave a high rainfall (widely over a meter a year in Mount Lebanon), and the porous fractured limestone made excellent aquifers which were refilled over summer by slow snow melt. The resulting abundant springs and rivers, unique to the region, gave the country its abundant forests and legendary fertility. However due to the steep slopes and the stony, shallow soils this fertility has proved hard to harness for agriculture and the removal of the forests tended to produce only short lived farming land.

2002: The Wazzani Water Dispute

[…]

The project–carried out by the Council of the South, a government body affiliated with the Shi’i movement Amal–will divert by pipeline as much as 9,000 cubic meters of water daily to dozens of villages. This portion of the project is expected to be complete by the end of the year, after which the Lebanese plan to construct a pumping station and a reservoir from which the water will be channeled. The amount of water that such a project could divert from Israel would be enough to lower the level of the Sea of Galilee by almost an inch. Under normal circumstances, such a unilateral step would likely have passed without incident. Considering the existing tension along the border, however, this seemingly small water dispute could deteriorate into a military confrontation. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that Israel will not accept Lebanon’s project, telling Army Radio that he sees the plan as ” a pretext for war.” Indeed, water is a sensitive topic that has contributed to several Arab-Israeli conflicts, including the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in part from a Syrian-Lebanese plan to divert the Jordan River’s tributaries.

[…] Israel’s Water Anxiety

For years, Israel’s fresh water supply has been declining in both quality and quantity. The combination of low precipitation, growing population, and over-pumping has created a national water crisis. In recent years, Israel’s water balance has been so negative that the country failed to meet its allocation transfer quotas to Jordan from the shared Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers?transfers mandated by the 1994 peace treaty between the two nations. In order to meet its needs, Israel has been forced to import water from Turkey. Last month, the two countries signed a water accord in which Turkey undertook to export 50 million cubic meters of water to Israel over a 20-year period.

Israel’s water anxiety stems from the fact that all of its three main water sources–the Coastal Aquifer, the Mountain Aquifer, and the Sea of Galilee–are currently under stress. First, the Coastal Aquifer is rapidly deteriorating due to contamination, low rainfall, and the growing population in the coastal plain. Second, the Mountain Aquifer may be threatened by the future establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Third, the Sea of Galilee depends on an inflow of water, and 50 percent of this inflow originates in Syria and Lebanon, both of which are still in a state of war with Israel. With no diplomatic relations between these neighbors, water division is regulated by a number of unwritten accords and understandings in place since the 1920s, all designed to preserve a certain status quo in the region and minimize disputes. But these understandings are not binding; they are predicated only on the goodwill of Syria and Lebanon.

When Israel controlled southern Lebanon, Beirut had no access to Israel’s water sources. Since Israel’s withdrawal, however, Lebanon has twice attempted to unilaterally change the status quo of water usage in the Hatzbani basin (in March and August 2001). Both times, Lebanon’s actions elicited Israel’s condemnation, but no military action. Israel is concerned that its tolerance of past incidents created a dangerous precedent that prompted the Lebanese government to initiate larger water projects. Failure to act now could lead to more water withdrawals from other sources originating in Lebanon and Syria.

See also this British Israel Communications and Research Centre report and the EU’s end of programme report from its Israel/Wazzani Springs Rapid Response Team for much more detail.

Memewatch

Published on February 9, 2006

‘Creation Care’ is the buzzphrase that is causing schism amongst evangelicals – which has to be a good thing, in my opinion.

It seems a number of evangelical Christians who haven’t swallowed all the koolaid and have yet to lose their ability to percieve what’s actually happening around them, have decided to ignore the Bush party line and acknowledge global warming. Even more surprisingly, they plan to try to combat it:

“Creation is being depleted by billions of small, unthinking actions,” said Larry Schweiger, former Vice-President of National Wildlife Federation (NWF is a secular environmental organization, Schweiger is a Christian). “With faith underpinning our conduct, we Christians must first confront our own worldly attitudes, destructive behaviors and over-consumption habits. Such life changes must be rooted in deep spiritual convictions. They spring not just from intellectual understandings of creation, but from a deeper love for our neighbors-present and future.”

Schweiger is not the only one to express these feelings. Across the nation, Christian creation care ministries, retreats, and camps are arising, growing and expanding, from Earth Ministry in Washington state to Evangelical Environmental Network in Pennsylvania. Many Christian college biology and environmental science departments actively engage their students in creation care projects as an integral part of their education. Together, these ministries inspire people to take an active role in protecting and respecting creation. And because students often carry such a deep passion for life and their convictions, they form the heart and soul of many of the projects and organizations.

The more politically connected fundies have set their faces against ‘creation care’ and refuse to even acknowledge there is an issue.

Salon:

Last month, the NAE came under pressure not to take a position on global warming from its most conservative members, including James Dobson and Oral Roberts University president Richard Roberts. The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance sent a letter signed by Dobson, Roberts and 20 others leaders declaring that “We are evangelicals, and we care about God’s creation. However, we believe there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue.”

Calvin Beisner, an associate professor of historical theology and social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary, who was one of the signers and authors of that letter, says that many evangelicals continue to have serious doubts about global warming. “Such a policy of mandatory CO2 emissions reductions as a means of combating global warming rests on three major assumptions, all of which we think are debatable, if not downright false,” he said.

The assumptions that Beisner sees as debatable are that global warming will have catastrophic effects, human emissions of CO2 are a large enough part of the problem that reducing them could significantly reduce global warming, and mandatory emission reductions would have more beneficial than harmful effects on the global environment and human economy.

Unfortunately the latter group has much more money and power, and the will to push it, and to silence their critics.

Calvin B. Dewitt, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is also evangelical, compared the silencing of Rev. Richard Cizik on climate change to the recent muzzling of Dr. James Hansen at NASA. “Here is a person who has not changed [his position], he is just being silenced. People are asking what kind of truth-seeking this is, when a person who is a principal leader in bringing an awareness of climate change to the whole evangelical world — what is going on that’s compelling the NAE executive committee to say you cannot speak for us?” Dewitt predicted that the tactic would backfire on the NAE, since evangelicals have an ideological distaste for church hierarchy, dating back to the Reformation: “It’s raising the issue even higher than it was before.”

I really don’t think schism is going too far here. The root of the disagreement, leaving aside the political pressure, seems to be a clash in theological approach. The creation care fundies appear to be advocates of free will as a gift from God, and the naysayers appear to think that since God supposedly created all things and has a Plan, then anything that’s happening, however negative, must be part of that plan, and you don’t question God’s will, oh no ( or at least ‘God’s will’ as interpreted by James Dobson) – and besides, the rapture’ll happen soon so what does it matter anyhow?

Dobson et al may have the ear of the Administration, but their stock is falling fast, what with Ralph Reed’s shenanigans with Abramoff, but the Evangelical Climate Initiative is deadly serious and increasing its support, even if it is a day late and a dollar short to the climate debate.

Could we be seeing the final fragmentation of the fundies? A little early to tell, but we can hope, and in the meantime it’s good too see they’re not as vile and mendacious as the likes of Dobson and Reed. This sounds more like the Christianity I was taught.

Lets not be too optimistic. Welcome as this development is, they are still working from a creationist, anti-scientific standpoint. But if they can moderate that anti-science stance even a little, I guess it’s a start.

Tags Climate Change Creation Care Evangelism