stevenearlsalmony’s Recent Comments

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  Dear amazingdrx...............

  ......Not to worry.

  Hopelessness and collective despair are real.  Thankfully, these feelings are momentary and will pass once people begin to reasonably and sensibly do what they know to be best.

  The time is coming, in large part because of the election of Barack Obama, that those who have betrayed America will be held to account.  Let me be crystal clear. The so-called "brightest and best" from Wall Street and their bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington, DC are the ring leaders of a colossal pyramid scheme that has "cratered", as George Bush has said repeatedly. These greedy 'leaders' have eschewed honesty, accountability and transparency in their duplicitous double-dealings. America has been done in by thieves of the highest order, I believe.

  Even as the global economy was cratering late last year, the greediest of these self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe were passing out billions of dollars in unearned bonuses to themselves and their cronies, while binding one another to secrecy with regard to their illegitimate business activities. Rather than allowing avarice and arrogance to be institutionalized and richly rewarded as if they were virtues, the day is coming when the people who elected Barack Obama will insist that the liars, cheats and double dealers be named, shamed, held to account and removed from positions of power.

  Sincerely,

  Steve    On Inhofe's resident media agitator leaving to start a new climate-skeptic website posted 8 months ago 9 Responses

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  Dear Kate Sheppard..........

  ............Let us agree never to give in and certainly not to ever give up.

  At no time prior to recent days can I recall more vibrant and worthwhile discussions of humankind's distinctly human-driven predicament. For me, the Gristmill community is a microcosm of what needs to be occurring ubiquitously. This work, the work of other groups, organizations and institutional instrumentalities appear to be necessary parts of an overall effort that simply has to continue, I believe, because our efforts will eventually lead to change.

  Change from unsustainability to sustainability is the goal of the human community, I suppose.

  It seems that if our leaders keep doing precisely what they are doing now and the family of humanity keeps getting what it is getting now, then the chance of some sort of unimaginable collapse of human civilization at some point in space-time appears likely..........perhaps sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if we can determine what human behavior changes need to be achieved and then move forward boldly to encourage policy formulation and implementation of the changes, perhaps the mere perception of the necessary behavior changes would be experienced as tantamount to another sort of crash, one that would accompany the unwelcome change of worldviews, expectations and lifestyles. While in the former instance, Nature would be in control of the fate of the human species, in the latter circumstances perhaps the human family could assume at least a modicum of control, initiate behavioral changes and, by so doing, take some degree of control over its fate.

  Please note that I am a psychologist. For a moment imagine a patient that is suffering from an addiction to a patently unsustainable way of living in the world. You ask the patient, "As you see it, what can you do about your addiction?" The patient replies, "If I keep doing precisely what I am doing now and have been doing for a long time, I am sure to be dead soon. On the other hand, if I choose a different way of living in the world, then I am afraid I might die." The avoidance of an actual danger exposes the patient to a perceived danger. Behavior change would also mean that the patient's experience of comfort would be exposed to the time-limited experience of subjective discomfort.

  Despite the best efforts of Kate, Jon Rynn, David Roberts, Joe Romm, Geoff Dabelko, Gar Lipow, amazingdrx and many other sensible people, there are people in high places who vigorously object or remain willfully blind to efforts such as these. Gatekeepers {Bilderberger Group and Trilateral Commission members are excellent examples} of the global political economy and the status quo are not large in number; nevertheless, these self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe are so well-entrenched within the most recently reconstructed Tower of Babel {called the global economy in our time} that it is difficult to imagine how the family of humanity prevails against them. But prevail we shall because we must. Alternatives to our success would be ever so much more catastrophic and destructive than what is wrought in the process of voluntarily making necessary changes in the unsustainable ways human beings live today.

  Let's keep going and hope others will choose to join us by doing the same.

  With thanks to all for what you are doing here and elsewhere,

  Steve

  Steven Earl Salmony
  AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
  established 2001
  http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...
  http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
  www.panearth.org
  On Inhofe's resident media agitator leaving to start a new climate-skeptic website posted 8 months ago 9 Responses

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  Dear Kate, amazingdrx and power shifters....

  .........Please do continue with your good works. The implications of your efforts to "shift power" are profound.  Keep going.

  Even though many people are following your examples and paths of action, please note that there are people in high places who vigorously object to the acknowledgement of any truth or "cause of action" that does not conform to the standards of economic expediency and political convenience. Gatekeepers of humankind's  political economy and the social status quo are not large in number; nevertheless, these self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe {Bilderberger Group and Trilateral Commission members are excellent examples} are so well-entrenched within the most recently reconstructed Tower of Babel {called the global economy in our time} that it is difficult to imagine how the family of humanity prevails against them. But prevail we shall because we must. Alternatives to our success would be ever so much more catastrophic and destructive than what is wrought in the process of voluntarily making necessary changes in the soon to become patently unsustaiable ways human beings live today.

  Perhaps new leadership is in the offing.

  Sincerely yours,

  Steve

  Steven Earl Salmony
  AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
  established 2001
  http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...
  http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php On Kids go crazy for the great taste of climate policy! posted 8 months, 1 week ago 7 Responses

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  Dear Joe Romm............

  .............Your outspoken, forward-looking, action orientation represents a path to necessary change and to a good future for our children and coming generations, I believe.

  Please understand my stridence and sense of urgency, expressed on so many occasions over the past 8 years, are responses to the way so many members of my generation of leading elders are arrogantly shirking their responsibilities to intellectual honesty, moral courage, and responsible action by not acknowledging and addressing the human-induced global challenges for which my generation can reasonably and sensibly be held accountable.

  At least to me, many too many leaders are making conscious determinations to conspicuously overconsume limited resources, to eschew the option of responsibly sharing with others, and to authorize the unbridled growth of large-scale, global industrialization to the point of its unsustainability. At least to me, these behaviors are undeniable, indefensible, soon to become unsustainable. Even so, the soon to become unsustainable overgrowth activities continue to be ubiquitously condoned by those with wealth and power, for whom nothing matters more than the maintenance of the status quo.

  Perhaps change toward sustainable lifestyles and away from lives organized around the institutionalization of arrogance and avarice are in the offing.

  Thanks again, Joe, for being an exemplar.  We need many more people to speak out and take steps necessary to move away from what soon could be unsustainable over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities of the human species to an alternate path marked by sustainable levels of human consumption, production and species propagation.

  Thanks to you and to others like you.

  Godspeed,

  Steve

  Steven Earl Salmony
  AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
  established 2001
  http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...
  http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php   On Climate change is here and now and getting personal posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

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  GLOBAL GAG RULE finally rescinded...

   

  Somehow, we have got to keep talking about the colossal, human-induced problems the "Global Gag Rule" was designed and implemented to hide. It is not possible for me even to imagine a way real challenges to human wellbeing and environmental health can be addressed and overcome if people are effectively "gagged" and otherwise dissuaded from speaking openly about such potentially calamitous events as the human overpopulation of Earth in these early years of Century XXI.  It is not a good idea to timidly yield to widely shared and consensually validated appeals from the promulgators of gag rules and other devices designed to silence people, deny what could somehow be real, and conceal the truth.

  The socially agreeable inclination of many too many leaders in our time to discuss only those selected issues that meet standards of political correctness, economic expediency and religious dogma is behavior I would go so far as to label pernicious.

  Silence has to be replaced by speech; scientific evidence needs to replace ideological factoids; moral courage needs to show itself more powerfully than cowardly conformity; and intellectual honesty needs to be substituted for selfish thought, judgment and action.

  Always,

  Steve  

  Steven Earl Salmony
  AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
  established 2001 On Video of Obama's press conference on environmental directives posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Responses