L25kin’s Recent Comments

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  Well said, in a sweeping overview perspective.

  Two observations:

  It could be useful to outline the reasons why the dominant cultural paradigm since the heyday of Babylon, has been to grow in population and technological production. The best overall answer, I submit, is that human cultures have been sporadically aggressive toward other human cultures to the point of genocide, causing an amplifying feedback loop that renders almost all human cultures to be heavily fortified and offensively aggressive to prevent being aggressed upon (the best defense...), and dedicated to maximum population growth to better defend against other aggressors. We have to get over the fear and loathing of other cultures, uniformly, all at once, to accept any limitations on our addiction to growth. In other words, growth itself is a symptom of fear and loathing and hostile violence toward others. A forlorn hope: Maybe Pres. Obama's more diplomatic interactional attitude toward foreigners will start that process.

  For a fleeting moment, around 1965, a cultural shift began to amplify itself that rejected growth, war, hatred, exploitation and ostentatious material wealth. But a dirty, ugly war was thrown in our path, and the dominant corporate culture struck back and Reaganism was elevated to a national religion, and flower power was nipped in the bud. Just think how it could have been if some of the best thinkers of the 60's had been respected and listened to by the masses and the masters of the universe, and we could have tried adapting to reality instead of denying it in favor of infinite growth and dominance.

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 100 Responses

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  RMOEN and all others who refuse to help at a time when we need everyone to pitch in:

  Your clever scheme to say there needs to be an independent committee on global warming has been done already.

  See http://dels.nas.edu/climatechange/

  "At a time when responding to climate change is one of the nation's most important and complex endeavors, the National Academies provides helpful analysis and advice to policymakers and stakeholders through its expert, consensus reports and other activities. The reports are produced by committees of the nation's top scientists, engineers, and other experts who are convened to address key scientific and technical aspects of climate change and other topics.
  
  Science Academies Urge Faster Response to Climate Change
  June, 2009--In a joint statement, the science academies of the G8 countries, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, called on their leaders to "seize all opportunities" to address global climate change that "is happening even faster than previously estimated." The signers, which include U.S. National Academy of Sciences President Ralph J. Cicerone, urged nations at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks to adopt goals aimed at reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050. The academies also urged the G8+5 governments, meeting in Italy next month, to "lead the transition to an energy efficient and low carbon economy, and foster innovation and research and development for both mitigation and adaptation technologies." View Statement "

  On Deniers are “full of passionate intensity”—and eating our lunch on climate bill posted 4 months ago 16 Responses

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  George Will is a performer speaking for sponsors

  There never was a scientific consensus about global cooling, and it's not happening now. That's an ignorant thing to claim. Will and the ranks of deniers he appeals to in this exercise in deception, have no standing to issue an opinion on the conclusions of the geophysical and meteorological sciences. It's absurd that he or anyone without strong credentials and background in climate science would be so arrogant as to contradict them. It's as if we're debating whether to take out a brain tumor. We're simply not qualified to debate the conclusions of trained specialists.
  It's sad really, that so many, including Will, are so afraid of the physical realities firmly established by the IPCC, the Nat. Academy of Sciences and (finally) NOAA, and/or so afraid of the kind of responsive government that can lead a coordinated and cooperative revision of the way we live. Instead they opt to ignore and deny, and refuse to help meet the challenge of global warming, and even scoff at those who do rise to the challenge.
  By their weight of numbers and by the effective perversion of public opinion by the fossil-fuel industry - their wealthy sponsors eager to sell more product in the short term - they are effectively paralyzing needed conversations and dooming all of us to suffer extreme droughts, raging wildfires, starvation, coastal inundation, periodic floods, water scarcity, and mass dislocation. Do they simply lack the courage to imagine it? It can be scary. But scientists rely on what the physical realities tell them.
  Steven Chu and James Hanson are among the vast majority of scientists speaking for the unambiguous opinion of the scientific community. George Will is a performer speaking for his sponsors. It's sad that so few can tell the difference.On Conservative columnist lies to millions of people, again, ho hum posted 9 months, 1 week ago 36 Responses

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  Missing: social analysis at the PS/GB conference

  At that session and throughout the conference scientists presented indicators that show diminishing habitats, fewer whales, fish and birds and more pollutants.
  The conference asked participants to come up with a "call to action." Recommendations included more research, better communication with the public and among scientists and more stringent regulations on human activities, usually business practices. But rather than record and react to ecological disasters, isn't it time to go to the source of our bad behavior?
  We all live downstream from a long turbulent flow of human decisions going back centuries. The first major impacts to the Pacific NW began around 1850, with clearcutting, mining and overfishing among the early abuses. More recently we have seen dams and dikes, riparian and wetland disruption, shoreline destruction, chemical dumping and stormwater runoff in ever increasing scale. And of course we have global warming to contend with. This conference documented the declines and suggested some mitigations, but Hugh Shipman is right that natural disasters will drive the human response.
  Or, a panel of social scientists could look into the dominant ideas that have directed large-scale human activities for the past 150 years. Beginning with clear-cutting and over-fishing and abusive mining practices, and continuing on to dams, dikes, destruction of wetlands, estuaries and shorelines, chemical dumping, sprawlng impervious surfaces and resultant polluted runoff, all these practices were driven by certain motivations for economic reward, usually in the short term. The over-arching theme of "growth" both in economic scale and human population is fundamental to our support for all those damaging economic practices.
  We need to look at the values, personal and institutional, that direct the flow of investment capital, historically, more recently and currently, since these economic decisions plan the settlement and consumption patterns, the disposal of waste and strategies for circumventing government regulatory schemes. We need to look at the influence of business interests on governments, media and schools and universities. We need to examine the dominant players, like bankers, builders and industrial leaders, who make economic choices that are destroying our own habitat. We need to conduct a social science investigation of our own society, rationally and critically, with the value of a healthy ecosystem as our organizing principle.
  We have assumed the position of cleaning up after the more powerful economic engines. We have placed ourselves in a subordinate, reactionary role under the dominant culture of exploitation and consumption, so it's no wonder we seem powerless to cease the assaults on our ecosystem. It's time we examined and described those drivers. Effective social controls on bad behavior would likely follow objective analysis.
  Of course this is a "radical" proposal because it goes to the root of the problem of ecological devastation, but we really have no other choice, except to increasingly suffer the disasters already destroying the natural world.On Looking at climate change from a regional perspective posted 9 months, 1 week ago 3 Responses

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  Removing some dams would help

  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004386630_ ...
  Connect the dots to save orcas, salmon

  May 2, 2008 (Seattle Times op-ed by Kathy Fletcher and Howard Garrett)

  Most people realize that saving Puget Sound's beloved resident orca whales depends on saving the Sound itself, removing the toxic chemicals that are killing the whales, preventing oil spills, and restoring the orcas' essential food, salmon.

  But it may be news that our local orcas also depend on restoring salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin. Recent reports of the dramatic declines in West Coast salmon populations make this connection between the mighty Columbia and Snake rivers and our endangered orcas all the more crucial to examine.

  Orca and salmon scientists alike have identified the Columbia River Basin, which once produced more salmon than any other river system on Earth, as an essential food source for southern resident orcas during their seasonal travels away from Puget Sound to coastal waters. In fact, the federal government's orca-recovery plan cites the decline in Columbia River Basin salmon as "perhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s."

  Strangely, though, the plan does not call for the one action scientists say is central to any Columbia Basin salmon-recovery plan: removal of four costly and outdated dams on the Lower Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia.

  Climate change makes removing the dams even more important, because the salmon and steelhead that will be saved are more likely to survive warmer temperatures. These fish spawn at higher elevations than any other -- some at over 6,000 feet above sea level, where streams are likely to stay cooler. Removing the dams will also lower water temperatures downstream, providing help to fish in the lower river system.On One of the West Coast's most iconic species feeling the heat posted 1 year, 6 months ago 11 Responses