I’m glad to see this question becoming more public. Though it seems to still be considered radical. It is one of many factors that went into my (and my wife’s) decision not to have children decades ago.
P.S. I should really correct my statement above. Neither I nor my wife ever really wanted children. But, while we were still of breeding age and before my vasectomy, when we’d hear a wailing infant, we’d make comments like “Reason number 837 not to have kids.” But, we’d also make comments on hearing about overpopulation or some environmental crisis, especially climate change and ocean acidification, like “won’t be our kids dealing with this.” Actually, we still make such comments.
I’ve been talking about the Great Human Die-off for years and have felt like somewhat of a crackpot for doing so. I’ve usually qualified it as just my opinion based on hearing and reading a lot of environmental science.
Now, it seems that the idea of human extinction within the time frame of those alive today is no longer such a crackpot idea.
President Obama is seeking an international climate accord that would not require cooperation from either the Senate or the House of Representatives. I don’t love the idea of completely going around our political system on this. But, with the survival of humanity and most of the multicellular life in the biosphere and in fact, the health of the biosphere as a whole on the line, it may be necessary.
We all know that if he tries to get this through even the senate, he’ll never get the required 67% for a treaty. After all, the repugnicans have proven that they would rather kill off humanity and cause another Permian/Triassic level extinction (where 95% of all multicellular species go extinct) than actually allow Obama to accomplish so much as brushing his teeth.
So, for now, with the means being not too bad and the ends being necessary for survival, I’m going to go with the ends justify the means on this limited case, even though I strongly disagree with the philosophy for most issues.
Dodge trucks made what just might be the worst Stupor Bowl ad ever. If not, I don’t want to see what’s worse. But, Funny Or Die made a good parody of it. Unfortunately, to get the parody, you must first waste two minutes of your life watching the original ad. If you’ve already seen the Dodge Trucks Stupor Bowl ad, by all means, spare yourself. You do not need to watch that crap again.
Check out this link to see some of the more interesting changes since our last cooler than average month. Back to the Future was in theaters for a ticket price of $2.75. Now we’re just a couple of years away from getting our hoverboards. Yay!!
250 million years ago, this planet suffered the greatest mass extinction of multicellular life in the long history of the planet. The ocean conveyor current stopped. The ocean became anoxic, meaning it had little or no oxygen. Fish died; sulfur producing bacteria thrived. As the anoxic layer of the ocean reached the surface, hydrogen sulfide gas was released into the atmosphere in toxic quantities. The sky turned green. The mass extinction was brought onto land.
95% of all species on the planet died. This was due to global warming.*
I’ve titled this post Misanthropia because I believe that I have every bit as much chance of making these improvements as I do of creating a true Utopia, i.e. none.
Still, I’m going to label each suggestion either plausible or implausible. The plausible changes will be the ones I expect never to have implemented because the Koch brothers and other multi-gazillionaires own all of our politicians and control the whole system by which they are put in place. However, I expect that I would be able to convince most of the so-called 99% that these changes would be good. The implausible are the ones I feel strongly enough about to post despite the extreme likelihood that they are so radical that I couldn’t even convince a significant percentage of the so-called 99%.
Each of the following suggestions or cluster of suggestions are meant to be taken individually. I believe each on its own could help make the U.S. a better country. That said, even were all of these suggestions implemented tomorrow, I do not expect that it would fix all of our problems. I’m not that smart.
The narration is the text of an op ed piece in the Wasthington Post by Bill McKibben. No need to read the text since it’s all in the video with powerful imagery added. Kudos to Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia.com for a great job making this into a powerful video.
Once again, the IPCC estimates are proving to be underestimates of the problem of climate change. That’s what you get with consensus. Yes, we’re confident that the results will be at least as bad as the IPCC forecasts, else some country with financial interests in continuing to burn fossil fuel will reject the statement. But, what we don’t get is the full range of estimates. We get the most watered down statement, not a statement of the greatest odds.
Rather than detailing this particular catastrophe that is so forefront in the news these days, I would like to point out something even more important. This is a catastrophe. This was an accident. No one meant for it to happen.
However, oil spills are not only foreseeable, they are an inevitable consequence of our horrifyingly devastating substance abuse and addiction.
The following is an open letter to President Obama, which I also sent to his office via the interface on whitehouse.gov. Thanks to my friend Jan for the help editing the text.
Before reading the letter below, please understand that I am still very glad that we have Obama in office rather than McCain with Palin a heartless non-beat away from the presidency. I still think we’re better off without “bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” McCain or worse, much much worse, his running mate Caribou Barbie. That said, I am still also very disappointed in results we’ve been getting from President Obama. I, for one, am feeling very short-changed.
So, without further preamble, here is the letter I sent to Mr. Obama.
Dear President Obama,
How sweet those words sounded just a bit over a year ago. During your campaign you promised change. We were thrilled that you won the election and eagerly anticipated a new era. A year later and with a Nobel Peace Prize behind you, alas there has been precious little change.
… otherwise, the few hundred peer reviewed articles summarized and referenced in this pre-Copenhagen summary showing, once again, that climate change is worse than the uber-conservative IPCC has been estimating might really scare me. I mean, what if it were really true that these few hundred recent peer-reviewed articles show that: Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an excellent write-up that describes the ways in which we are stealing from future generations to feed ourselves and the parallels between doing so and any other Ponzi scheme.
I’ve read Plan B 2.0, an excellent book, and notice that there is a link to a new version Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown.
Don’t forget, the article doesn’t even mention the fact that not only is the oil at the pump a subsidized and limited resource, so is the oil we pour on our corn as fertilizer.
That’s right, industrial fertilizers are petroleum products. We’re eating oil!! That can’t be good for either our health or our long term prospects in terms of a very large population dependent on a fossil, non-renewable, resource.
This may appear to undermine a number of my earlier posts. However, in this case, I think the point is extremely important. We must begin to recognize and tell the truth of the true nature of our problems. That said, we must also use every weapon in our arsenal to fight for the preservation of the environment to the best of our ability. Most likely the only tool that will actually be worth a damn will be birth control. Yet, we must still do all we can to reduce our ecological (including carbon) footprints while at the same time taking action to reduce the number of feet. The regulars on this blog will remember that I have already argued that the planet cannot support even 300 million of us, let alone 6.7, 8, or 9 billion. So, in that sense, this article is still somewhat consistent with my prior posts. However, I cannot recall previously gotting to the point of wording the issue such that climate change is a mere symptom of a much larger problem, one that involves not only too many people, but people with a completely failed view of the finite planet on which we depend for our very lives every single day.
Here are some interesting points about laptop vs. desktop and about how to use the least power with a laptop. There are some points I’d never considered before. Though I knew that it’s best for the battery was to run it ’til dead when using battery power before charging again, I had never considered the possibility of really saving the battery itself by removing the damn thing when plugged into the wall. Interesting.
Please read this article about Carter’s 1977 speech and tell me now that Carter was bad for the country and Reagan was good. Go ahead. Tell me now which of those two presidents had the right long term plan for this country. Tell me how much worse off we would have been had we continued with Carter’s energy plan. Tell me that this speech of Carter’s didn’t detail a large chunk of the events that have now come to pass as a result of not following his plan. Read the rest of this entry »
Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.
Posted by Misanthropic Scott 
The Misanthropic Principle 