I’ve not bothered to write anything for a while now. I really don’t see the point. Having been outraged by Nixon in my youth I left my blue collar family’s ‘aspirational’ Republican roots behind (only poor people vote Democratic). I voted Democratic — and on occasion Independent — but George W. Bush left me utterly outraged. I wanted things to change — and for a time had hope they would. All I learned is that our political system doesn’t work — at least not for the majority of people. The major issues are ignored. It’s a kabuki play to let the everyone believe they still have a choice. The masses get enough to keep them from rioting while a few get richer and richer. We’ve been killing the planet in the mean time. The last few decades may have nailed the coffin shut.
I feel as if I a witness to the coming the end of humanity. I despair for my sons and those who have yet to really live their lives. I suspect that whatever path we take at this point, it will lead off a cliff. Even the Pentagon has released a paper raising issues of food availability by 2020. Climate change is an issue of national security even if politicians continue to deny that is happening.
I used to think we could change and adapt. But events are accelerating and I’m not sure there’s enough time left. I suspect many of the ‘disaster’ books of the late 20th century were correct — if just a bit early. ‘Silent Spring’ seems eerily dead on now. This time bee populations are plummeting and not recovering. They are not even sure why. GMO’s? Pesticides? aluminum?
Overpopulation and food production are all too real problems even if Ehrlich got the time frame wrong in ‘The Population Bomb’.
But the biggest issue is climate change which is occurring in a dramatic fashion even as some continue to deny it.
The planet is changing due to man’s actions. (Our whole solar system is showing signs of change but these only add to the far larger issues caused directly by man.)
There are countless videos available online that address climate change - often academic lectures given as part of a college class or presentations to various academic forums.
video.search.yahoo.com/…
Some very good presentations have pitifully low view counts.
Climate change is real, accelerating and affecting weather, arable land availability, and even the habitability of entire regions on the planet. Heat waves are literally killing people and are expected to worsen
insideclimatenews.org/...
I have more time to read lately and I’m beginning to think we’ve screwed the pooch. The climate change deniers have always annoyed me but WTF? Looking at CO2 levels is frightening enough but the methane levels are even worse — methane is almost 100x worse as a greenhouse gas in the first few years declining to 25x worse at 100 years. Look into methane bubbles in the Arctic. There are over 500 million tons of methane locked up in hydrates on the Siberian continental shelf. There’s more locked up in the permafrost and in northern lakes. The hydrates that formed under the ice thousands of years ago are starting to blow out as gas. There are huge deposits off the eastern continental shelf as well. The ocean is warming — measurably — and becoming more acidic. Coral reefs, shellfish and zooplankton are all being affected. A self reinforcing feedback loop is beginning. Warmer temps from CO2 and methane release more methane which continues the warming even if you stopped ALL CO2 emissions today.
www.truth-out.org/…
phys.org/...
Climate patterns are clearly changing. Though many deny that any global warming is occurring it seems that many are convinced it is — hence the more frequent mentions of ‘aerosal injection’ of compounds into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. ‘Yeah, sounds like a good idea — we should test it….’ seems to be the message coming from recent journal articles and mainstream media. I used to think that the whole geo-engineering/’chemtrail’ thing was a crock but not anymore. You see the never ending trails all the time around NY — and they spread out into a perpetual grey haze by late afternoon. There are enough reputable people who’ve run tests on rainwater and snowfall to show elevated levels and aluminum, strontium, barium and even coal fly ash. There are patents and reports of spraying going back decades.
www.geoengineeringwatch.org/...
www.globalskywatch.com/...
The effects of such efforts are astoundingly toxic to people, trees and plant life in general. Once again it seems that — without discussion or formal approval — a select few have made decisions for many. Hell, we tested atomic bombs in the open air for a decade — even with troops in trenches close by. We’ve sprayed bacteria in NYC subways as ‘tests’. We’ve been treated like guinea pigs time and time again. Such efforts have gone underway secretly for years.
Government has been playing with weather control since WWII — often with awful unexpected results (Britain in 1952 flooded out a village killing 35 people in an early cloud seeding test).
www.theguardian.com/...
Vietnam was a test bed for weaponized weather rain production used to disrupt supply lines.
en.wikipedia.org/...
Oh…. those forest fires out west are made bad by dead trees and not enough water but dump some aluminum on them and they burn REALLY hot. Aluminum is one component of thermite and is mixed with another compound to make the explosive component in fireworks.
Something else is also going on with huge increases in UV levels. UV-B levels have increased 50 fold and even Uzv-C rays are making it to Earth now. It’s not your imagination. You are getting a faster sunburn now. Vegetation is also feeling the effects of this increased radiation. Amphibians are being affected.
www.geoengineeringwatch.org/…
www.amphibiaweb.org/…
ciesin.columbia.edu/…
Rain patterns are changing — we’re seeing heavier intense rain storms more frequently now even when overall rainfall levels have declined. The Jetstream patterns are changing as are ocean currents.
You’re also seeing more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The former are at times related to manmade causes — fracking for example
www.msnbc.com/…
stateimpact.npr.org/...
As far as volcanic activity….??? Whatever the cause, volcanic activity adds to the factors affecting climate. An underwater eruption off the Pacific Northwest has added to ocean warming and current changes in that area. The warmer ocean is affecting local climate patterns.
weather.com/...
Flying over the US it was common to see the huge green dots formed by pivot irrigation systems. They were draining water from aquifers — driving water levels lower and lower. One important thing about irrigation — in certain conditions, irrigation will eventually poison the soil. Irrigation adds water which dissolves salts deeper in the ground and brings them closer to the surface. Those salts are responsible for the white rings you see around lakes in the west. The water draws salts out of the rock and soil and leaves it on the surface when it evaporates.
The planet does go through climate cycles but things are definitely getting warmer. The ‘desert’ once seen by Fremont two hundred years ago in places like Nebraska is returning. Lands fertile for as long as anyone can remember are drying up. The rest of the world is seeing far worse effects.
When I was growing up I remember when the Earth’s population hit 3 billion. It’s well over 7 billion now. THAT is scary. The population of the US has ‘only’ doubled in my lifetime. It’s now over 325 million though that still represents an extremely low population density when compared to parts of the world.
We’re running out of easy to get energy and have already mined the best deposits of common minerals. Go look at Butte Montana on Google Earth.
www.google.com/...
The old pit mine there — the big ‘lake’ intruding into the town — is full of a toxic acidic brew now. If it gets high enough it hits a slanted layer of permeable rock that lets the contamination enter water tables…….they’re treating it and piping water out like mad — fortunately (or not) Butte hasn’t been getting much rain these days.
If you really want to get disgusted read up on Canadian Tar Sands and zoom in on Fort McMurray in Alberta Canada.
www.google.com/…
Really zoom in on the holding ponds. You’re seeing this from space. MILES wide muck ponds.
It takes one unit of energy to extract less than two units of energy from tar sands if you go through the whole transport and refining process. And the diluted bitumen is the crap they want to pipe across the upper US. One existing pipeline broke and the mess left on a river bottom is near impossible to clean up. Diluted Bitumen (dilbit) is REALLY nasty stuff. That SHOULD be an issue of concern but I have enver heard it mentioned in mainstream media.
insideclimatenews.org/...
I was born just after the middle of the 20th century and grew up in the booming post WWII years. The changes I saw were immense though not as huge as those seen by my great-grandparents (I had a great-grandfather was born 15 years before the first airplane flew. He worked most of his life as a tilesetter though he helped build planes for Grumman in WWII. He got his own pilot’s license at age 65).
I grew up when a family could have one wage earner — and a blue collar job could support a family. That didn’t last — my typesetter father saw his profession fade and my mother returned to work as a secretary when I was in high school. She went on to get a college degree, retiring from a Fortune 500 company after 25 years service, one of the last non executives to get a decent pension and benefits before all that changed. My father got nothing from his union as Linotype operators became dinosaurs and that union disappeared. The union officials took care of themselves, the members got nothing. His fading health would have left my parents in poverty if my mother had not returned to work (and worked for a large company). Health care costs were affordable until health care became ‘for profit’ (thank you Richard Nixon and HMO’s — particularly Kaiser, your buddy) Today…… forget it. It doesn’t matter if they can keep you alive when you can’t afford the cost.
My wife and I were the first in our families to go to college. My family had been here since the early 1600’s….. DAR and all that. American Revolution, Civil War and most of the rest. Surprisingly, most of my father’s family had stayed within a few hundred miles of where they arrived in NY. My mother’s family was more adventurous — spanning the continent. She’d gown up in Philadelphia, Chicago and NY. My wife was first generation. Her parents left Ireland when the Suez Crisis killed off much of the auto business in Ireland. He was a mechanic.
Our two sons have been all you could want in children. They both have done well in school and gone to ‘good’ colleges. One is pursuing a career in academia — I hope that will work out. He is brilliant but things are changing. Full professorships are rarer and rarer — associate professorships pay puny wages. The youngest is an outdoorsman and a geologist in his last year. Not wanting to work for mining or oil companies, he may be pursuing environmental jobs. He has a strong interest in hydrology. Our gift to them was an education without debt. I expect that may end up hurting our retirement plans but then I’m not sure much time will be left for retirement or anyplace worth enjoying to retire to.
I love my sons dearly and am immensely proud of them. They’ve managed to get a great view of America — we’ve taken most of our vacations in National Parks. Yet I fear that all we’ve done is give them a front seat view of the planet’s demise. I was far more optimistic even a few years ago but now… not so much.
Our first real vacation was to South Dakota 15 years ago. Our youngest son was back there this summer working for one of the National Monuments, caving and rock climbing in his spare time. He’s very concerned about the Keystone pipeline. He should be.
Our next family vacation was at Glacier National Park. It’s an astoundingly beautiful place. The hike up at Logan Pass to Hidden Lake is not to be missed. The mountain goats are friendly. I went back there 5 years later with my youngest — and the changes were frightening. There won’t be glaciers left much longer. The east side of the park had major fires in the interim — dead stands of blackened trees covered acres. We managed to visit Waterton that trip. I’ll always regret not making the hike to Crypt Lake but the view from Bear Hump overlooking the Lake is beautiful.
Different trips to the Southwest came and departed through Las Vegas. The white ring around Lake Mead got bigger and bigger and the water levels lower and lower each time. A sister in law who’d lived in Vegas got out a few years back. She was lucky. It’s an insane place in the middle of the desert. They were still building houses like mad even though there were empty foreclosed ones everywhere. Only in the US do you build a city in the middle of a desert that people have to fly or drive to where the main attraction is a chance to lose money.
The Grand Canyon is spectacular. Visit Havasu Falls if you can get there — it’s not easy. Pay a little attention to those living in Supai. You’re in a very different world, though that’s true on any Native American Reservation. We (all of the immigrants that came to the Americas) really screwed the native populations. Too bad an accurate picture of the continent in 1491 will never be known. We killed off millions before most Europeans ever arrived. The Pilgrims showed up on a shore empty of inhabitants (killed by disease) and were saved themselves by a native who spoke their language.
Visiting places like Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Waputki and Walnut Canyon makes you think. People lived in these inhospitable places for decades — but eventually abandoned them. The climate changed, water became harder to find and things got desperate….. cannibalism that supposedly occurred in some areas is a topic of great controversy. Mankind is amazingly resourceful but has limits.
Rocky Mountain National Park makes you pause to think — and want to cry. The number of dead brown trees interspersed with green ones is astounding. The pikas — small furry animals — are cute but likely to go extinct as temperatures warm.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon was surprising. Driving from San Francisco, you go through California’s central valley which is yellow and brown. Irrigation leaves patches of green but there are dying trees all over. As you climb up into the mountains you pass through a literal line in the atmosphere. It’s brown below were the pollution is trapped and blue above. Nonetheless, the air quality in both parks was ‘unhealthy’ for the duration of our vacation. If you visit, read up on the local history. It’s unbelievable how much logging occurred there — giant trees felled and cut into lumber. Yet none of the logging companies ever made a profit. The cost of getting the trees out was enormous.
I love Yosemite. I’ve been there three times. Once as a kid when visiting grandparents in California, second with our family and third to pick up our youngest who worked a trail crew in the Sierras one summer. The tree we drove through on our first trip was long gone but the place was still beautiful. That last summer California was on fire. We dropped our son off and spent a few days going down 395. A fire near Mammoth Mountain filled the valley with smoke. Unable to breathe at 4 in the morning, we bailed out and drove north for 2 hours. Back in a month to pick our son up, Yosemite’s north rim was on fire. We stayed one night in the valley but the trip out was ‘eventful’ with fire crews clogging the road. Mono Lake was covered with smoke. You couldn’t see the mountains from 395 — the smoke hid everything — even the top of buildings in Reno. The smoke extended west to Trukee. That fire burned from July through October. Our son was lucky — his crew was at 10,000 feet elevation for most of the time- the smoke stayed in the valleys. Some of his photos at lower elevations look like they were taken in hell with red skies and a dot for the sun.
The only time I’ve really been out of the US (continental North America) was when we tacked a family vacation onto a business trip in Iceland. Interesting place. Trees are just coming back after the Vikings denuded the island. Beautiful and at times barren. Mankind has managed to adapt to a wide range of extremes all over the planet but I suspect we are coming up on serious limits.
Our oldest was in Greenland a few years later working on a school project. They visited a Dartmouth crew studying the tundra. Greenland was melting that year (it has every summer since — they just don’t report it). Methane outgassing levels were off the charts and the whole ice sheet was melting. Nuuk — the capital -was full of mining and oil company types salivating at the chance to explore places that had been ice covered, well since man has been around….. A melting Arctic Ocean free of ice had people excited about shorter shipping lanes.
We spent two weeks in Alaska before our oldest went to college — our last family vacation. One week on land one week on a ship. Astoundingly beautiful but again, dying trees. Telephone poles tipped over at crazy angles and washboard roads. The permafrost WAS melting even if locals make jokes about global warming. The extent of the glaciers we saw reinforced that point. Compare where they were then to a decade earlier. The huge amounts of ice calving off into the ocean further made the point.
When you spend most of your life living within a 20 mile radius circle you really notice changes. Sure the old diner is gone and car dealerships got replaced by CVS pharmacies but you notice other things too. The street I grew up on was old — dating to the mid 1800’s. One side had old places that once housed quarry workers — the other had houses built by 1950’s developers. The place I grew up in had started as a two room shack and had been added onto piecemeal for the next 100 years. I grew up three houses from the house my father lived in for high school.
That street used to have huge trees lining it. You felt like you were walking in a tunnel. In winter we’d have great sledding down the hill. The woods at the bottom of the street were a source of unending adventure. Follow them to the end and you’d cross over to a large lake surrounded by forest. I ran cross country there in high school. We’d play hockey on the frozen lake. Snow enough to sled on is unheard of now. Even though the lake is far shallower it never freezes enough to walk on. All the old trees are gone. Even the trees my great grandfather planted in the back yard are gone. I drove by not long ago. The old Maple in the front of the house is gone now too.
I now live one town over now — that’s where my sons grew up. The big old trees here are dying as well. We had to trim down an Oak in the front — the top lead had died. I remembered an old Native American prophecy warning that the end was coming when trees began dying from the top down. I see lots of them dying that way when I drive along the parkways here. We’ve had some major storms in my time here — more than in times past. Sandy was a real mess, though the Boy Scout in me got us through ok. Lots of free firewood too. No electricity for weeks but I had a generator. But I can’t imagine that lasting for months — or forever.
I’ve got an engineering degree — a reasonable understanding of science and it sure seems to me like we’re screwed. If I were a fundamentalist Christian it would sure seem like signs of the apocalypse are showing. Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods……’wars and rumors of wars’….. The earth axis is wobbling from ice and aquifer distribution changes. You’re seeing massive animal die offs — especially in the ocean. Even the random river and lake turning red.
By the way, how is it that Fukashima has faded from scrutiny? The Pacific has become a radioactive sewer and they still haven’t figured out how to stop the radioactivity from flowing out into the water from the submerged cores. Funny how you don’t have reports on radioactivity off the pacific Coast and in Canada….. An event worse than Chernobyl and it’s already been ‘forgotten’. The west coast of the US is suffering from its effects but nothing is said
I won’t get into how we’re getting poisoned by GMO foods, or how fertility rates are dropping like a rock so that we’ll HAVE to implement Huxley’s Brave new World. Orwell tremendously underestimated the capabilities of the modern surveillance state. Seems like we’re getting a combination of the two. ‘It HAS happened here’ — apologies to Sinclair Lewis. Odd how so few people under the age of 20 have read any of these books. It’s almost as if we don’t want our youth to think about such things.
The world’s financial crisis — still unresolved — worries me. They’re not even trying to deal with unmanageable national debt, upcoming hyperinflation and the abject looting of the planet for the benefit of a very few. Lying about reality seems to be the preferred ‘solution’ — there’s even an acronym for it — MOPE — management of perspective economics ( controlling how peopel percieve what’s going on… like shouting ‘All is well’ and hoping people will believe you).
I expect that ‘the plan’ was for the US to grab all we could from the rest of the world (oil, minerals, etc) while we could, at the muzzle of a gun if need be, for as long as possible before the American Empire collapsed (as all empires eventually do). When things really hit the fan, when the $US finally collapsed after being revealed as worthless, the rest of the world would be stuck with our debt and we’d get by using the resources stashed away in federal lands and national parks and such. But TPTB underestimated how screwed the planet is. We may kill the planet before we finish looting it. But then that’s what happens when ‘politicians’ are planning out the future. They’re good at Machiavellian plotting, political, military and economic matters but they really don’t pay much attention to science (unless a new weapon is involved). This is why the some of the same people actually seem to thing you can use nuclear weapons without ending humanity and killing the planet.
Maybe we’re also due for some giant asteroid strike which has sped up the end date. It sure seems like there are a lot more fireballs showing in the atmosphere lately…...
My thought is that nobody really cares about the long term because THERE IS NO LONG TERM.
The planet is screwed and most of us are going to die — quickly or slowly. A select few will head for their doomsday shelters to wait out the coming cataclysm while everyone else riots on the surface until they die of starvation. We have massive shelters for ‘continuity of government’ — never mind if there won’t be anyone left to govern. That sure explains the militarized police et al. NO nation on Earth has ever built such a power without the intent of using it against their own population. I used to think the US was way too gun-happy. Now I wonder if the nut case right wing types are right. Police are no longer taught that they are public servants. They are taught to consider ANY possible person they stop as a mortal threat.
Well, at least the police are prepared — for anything. Hey, if you have a SWAT Team you might as well use it to serve a warrant on the wrong house — the one with the old lady instead of the drug dealer. Pretty common these days. right? How about MRAP vehicles? Really? They have them in nearby cities (not really big cities either) How many RPG’s or landmines have police departments encountered ANYWHERE in the US — EVER?
But who knows, once you say you can’t afford to pay for foodstamps or that Social Security is bankrupt, who knows what’ll happen. But I bet the guys in riot gear going to be po’d when the doors are shut leaving them outside the survival bunkers. A week of MRE’s won’t compare to what the guys underground are getting.
I expect the lack of an optimistic future (for all of us) explains American politics.
Nobody WANTS to take over as Captain of the Titanic when the stern is up in the air.
I suspect Trump never thought he’d win the primary — it was all a PR stunt to improve the brand — though he’ll make a great patsy.
Hillary’s whole campaign seemed to be that she DESERVED the Presidency (and its now clear the Dems made sure Bernie wouldn’t have a chance). She was simply ‘more of the same’ serving Wall Street — hardly what people wanted — the first go around or the second. Trump at least sounded like he wanted ‘change’.
We missed an opportunity after W left office — never mind BEFORE he got into office under very questionable circumstances. I suspect Obama was a marketing campaign designed to soak up all the outrage that could have elected someone the country NEEDED after Bush, someone who might have held people accountable, rolled back the abuses and extremes…. but no…...People were so fed up they went for the ‘Hope and Change’ and he won the nomination instead of Hillary the anointed. The ‘Occupy’ movement — though disorganized — showed how huge a number of people were fed up with the way things were going. Obama could have pulled an FDR but noooooooooooo. Hell, the Tea Party started out complaining about similar issues as well — before it got co-opted by the right. Imagine if Obama had called Wall Street on the carpet, if he’d used the popular outrage to change things bak while he still had a Democratic Congress. You wonder what a Kucinich or Feingold might have done. But such a thing can’t happen. Even if you could get someone with some real morals and ethics to run, they’d be shut out of the process and even if elected they’d be unable to accomplish anything.
The media report totally fake statistics (unemployment is REALLY 25% and inflation over 10%) while saying that the alternative media is filled with ‘fake news’ when it reports the truth. No focus on serious issues — massive distractions with a focus on sports and sex (unless government officials are involved). How many sex scandals have occurred in DC over the past 50 years? All disappear without any in depth investigations. Hmm.. Franklin Scandal, Gay prostitute at White House, congressional pages (a few times), DC Madam and the list goes on…..just as Britain has a massive pedophile scandal breaking…. ) Funny how the ‘fake news’ sobriquet became the phrase of choice in belittling the last DC scandal. I wonder how long before the Ministry of Truth kills off any ‘unapproved’ reporting?
Our society seems to be a parody of what you’d find in the years just before a bleak dystopian totalitarian state comes into full bloom. The level of pure irony in terms like ‘Homeland Security’, “Patriot Act’ and the rest of the newspeak of the last 20 years is eerily reminiscent of a 4th Reich.
It’s as if we’re living in season 40 of ‘The Man in the High Castle’ or a George Orwell aficionado was in charge of labeling all federal government productions.
Are the American people really that oblivious? It’s hard to believe that there are even 6 companies left controlling media in America when Conan O’Brien can show a dozen local news anchors reading the exact same script reporting a nonsensical ‘puff’ story on something like how to celebrate a birthday — while nobody mentioned expansion of warrantless wiretapping or an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan on the same day.
I heard a great comment somewhere. Someone said if he wants to hear the truth about the US he goes to RTV or ALJAZEERA — ANY MEDIA NOT IN THE US. He doesn’t believe a word they report on their own local nations of origin but they’re pretty darn accurate in their US reporting. I have to concur — AlJazeera had some great US reporting and documentaries — far better than the crap on US news. I suspect that the epitome of the US memory hole operations was the destruction of W’s TANG records — replaced with ‘forgeries’ saying the same damn thing. W got preferential treatment and WAS AWOL. Any doubts there? Really? When the truth was reported, W could accurately say the documents were fake. End of story. Nobody ever really checked to verify the truth. Bye Bye Dan Rather. But then NOBODY talked about Iran-CONTRA drugs during the HW/Clinton (Googgle Mena Arkansas) race because it would be ‘inconvenient’ for both parties to have to explain certain things. Gotta love a nation where both candidates have ‘possible’ links to illegal drug and weapons running that endruns Congress. I still love that Gary Webb committed suicide with two shots to the head. Reveal a major scandal and have your life destroyed while a certain Colonel is proclaimed a ‘patriot’…… but I digress.
Throughout history the few ruling a society have done all they can to insure their survival — not caring a whit about the rest. With hindsight, looking back on national politics, it seems like the last 50 years have only seen a decreasing concern for the majority. It matters little which political party is in power, nobody is held accountable for anything. JFK might have done the right thing but ‘can’t let that happen’…….. since then, everyone has gotten the message.
More people I know voted for Trump because they WANTED the system to collapse and thought he would bring that about than people who thought he would actually fix things.
I’m no longer surprised at the number of people that are fed up but have lost hope.
Most don’t even watch the news anymore.
Few people realize we’ve been in Afghanistan for 16 years. Maybe your long term heroin addict knows because the price has come down since we ousted the Taliban — production is way up. Nobody I know thinks things are going well. Most are expecting one disaster or another.
‘Guns God and Gays’ keep everyone divided and po’d while the important issues like rule of law, accountability, financial fraud, and so much more are utterly ignored. I’ve got a kid who falls into he LGBT category but sorry, I really think holding people accountable for torture, illegal surveillance and countless other violations of the Constitution are more a bit important than trans gender bathrooms. I want to know where the TRILLIONS given out by the Treasury went during the financial crisis.
NOBODY gave a damn about statues of Confederate Generals 6 months ago. Why now? Sure seems like symbolic overkill. Maybe people should be more worried about the wholesale export of JOBS overseas.
But then when all is a disaster, you resort to bread and circuses. Make sure the masses aren’t starving and keep them distracted. Meaningless violence is good. Stuff like Gladiators and Ultimate Fighting. It’s even ok to tear down old statues. You do NOT want a focus on people rioting at G10 meetings or otherwise pointing out the sins of the ruling class.
Everyone I know thinks things are VERY messed up. Trump is the final joke. It all proves that the US has totally lost its mind. What’s worse, the Democrats couldn’t beat the guy and let a bunch of other incompetents get elected with him. The economy is a joke with a bubble of a stock market propped up by the Fed. Retail is dying, manufacturing is dead. Jobs are evaporating. Savings are gone. Retirement funds nonexistent for most. And NOBODY thinks anything is going to get better. (Well car sales might improve with all the vehicles underwater in Texas….. Better run a title search if you buy a used car in the next year. Avoid Texas registrations. I bet Mexico will begetting deals on used pick-up trucks). And all of these are things politicians could do something about.
But meanwhile you still have our President denying climate change and opening up Federal Lands for oil drilling when oil is at the lowest price it’s been in how long? Even at these prices, nobody can afford to drive.
While everyone has been distracted by bread circuses and dysfunctional politics, the planet has said ‘enough’. We might have noticed if the media actually covered such issues instead of giving air time to studies financed by oil companies. But too late. We lost control of things and Earth wasn’t going to wait for people to notice. Sure a few have been playing games behind our backs trying different tricks, playing their own games with climate and weather control but that only seems to be making things worse.
We’re screwed. There’s no hope. That seems to be an all too common belief.
Obama fell through on Hope and Change — and worse, killed Occupy instead of embracing and using it. The Democratic Party killed off Bernie and snuffed the last hope left for those who still believed change was really possible.
Maybe that’s the strategy. Lower expectations and hope so much that you’ll have a passive bunch of sheep who’d rather face a quick painless slaughter than fight for survival. Maybe that IS the end game. Our ‘rulers’ — all those that powerful, wealthy, influential people that belong to all those organizations that meet in secret to discuss our fate — seem to have come to a consensus. People themselves are humanity’s biggest problem. The planet has way too many of us. Reduce the number of people and the ones left have a better future (or at least HAVE a future).
The sociopaths that seem to always end up in positions of power, those that chart the course followed by humanity may delusionally believe they know better, that they are acting for the greater good. They think they are following in the path of divinely chosen royalty.
If nature takes its course and kills most of us off it saves them the distasteful role of planning the next massive world war, or engineering a pandemic capable of reducing the population. Better yet if an asteroid or something does the job for them. The sooner the better.
I’m personally thinking we’re getting a planet killer type event — like Toba or the comet that hit 10,000 years ago. That would explain recent events, the continual ‘kicking the can down the road’ we see with the world’s financial system instead of any attempt to deal with the fundamental problems at hand.
If the end is near I just wish someone would say so.
I’d take the time remaining and travel a bit — three are a few things I’d like to see. If Yellowstone is blowing I’d like a front row seat — that’s another amazing place btw. If an asteroid is inbound I’d want to get good view before the impact. I really don’t want some long drawn out miserable demise. I always thought that if stuck in the upper floors of Tower 1 or 2 I’d want to see how many somersaults I could get in before hitting the ground. If the end is coming….. what the hell…. I’ve had a good life and done more than I expected. I wish my sons could have the same opportunity but sorely doubt they will. That grieves me no end.
I used to think that the really smart ones — people like my sons — might be able to change the course we’re on. But all I see are the sociopaths focused only on insuring their own survival — at any cost. They’ll loot all they can before retreating to their New Zealand megashelters. The government officials in Mt. Weather, under the Denver Airport and elsewhere may take pride in making sure government survives but they’d have gotten more credit if some people were left to govern when they emerge to confront an uninhabitable Earth. You can save some people from an asteroid. A few members of government may survive a nuclear WWIII or a massive civil war with starving rioting people calling for their heads. Go hide, wait long enough and the ‘surplus population’ is gone.
No matter what happens, a few pockets of humanity on the surface may survive but I suspect the plan is that the mole people in their shelters will eventually exit their idyllic underground lairs to ‘start over’ and repopulate the Earth.
That plan might work (in a totally psychopathic way) if they gave some thought to who should survive. I don’t think they did. Keeping a bunch of sociopaths underground for a decade might prove to be more ‘Lord of the Flies’ than anticipated. And even if they don’t kill each other off I suspect the survivor list is way too heavy on lawyers and sorely lacking in people with pragmatic skill sets. Hell, we ended up here because there were not enough scientists and engineers in political office. Want to bet the survival selection committee excluded any scientists that believed in climate change? You can bet that anyone opposed to the use of nuclear weapons was blacklisted.
