The closing portion of Thom Hartmann’s article 10-9-13 is worth quoting entirel See [http://www.alternet.org/environment/last-hours-humanity?akid=11037.315724.ChFNRc&rd=1&src=newsletter909255&t=17]
“Geologists who study mass extinctions are becoming concerned. As more and more research is coming out about the massive stores of methane in the Arctic and around continental shelves, climate scientists are beginning to take notice, too. ¶ The fossil fuel companies are sitting on roughly 2 trillion tons of underground carbon. That, in and of itself, is enough to warm the earth by 5 or 6°C, and is an amount of carbon consistent with tipping points during past mass extinctions. ¶ There are an additional estimated 2 trillion tons of methane stored in the Arctic and probably 2 to 5 times that much around continental shelves all around the Earth. ¶ If our burning fossil fuels warms the oceans enough that that methane melts and is quickly released into the atmosphere, the Earth will be in its sixth mass extinction. ¶ And make no mistake about it, the animals and plants that are most heavily hit by mass extinctions are those that are largest and at the top of the food chain. That means us. ¶ We must stop the carbon madness and move, worldwide, to renewable 21st century energy sources.”
NOTE, THAT ANY WHO DISLIKE MY USE OF THE WORD “FOOLS” in what follows, please feel free to substitute “geniuses” or “wizards” in the manner of irony or satire!
In time, our backward thinking fools will come to recognize the important correctness and intelligence owned and projected by Albert Gore, Jr. Like Darwin, he was not (in first writings) entirely complete and right about everything, though like science itself, he has been self-correcting. Our fools don’t bother to really read his books. They accept the manufactured prejudices against him that have been foisted from the Koch-interest’s bad data bubble. Fox News & Views, etc., are part of the world’s destruction machine. Indeed, out of antipathies swallowed whole they jump on the bandwagon against him, mainly because he told unforgivable, factual truths about the Bush-Cheney regime, in his memorable book, The Assault On Reason, 2007.
So do our local, radical pretenders* to “conservatism.” One way or another, these fools champion TransCanada, the XL pipelines and selling of petroleum coke (a byproduct or ash left from processing low-grade crude oil) to China, of all places, to burn in power plants that ruin their air quality that reaches across the world. Investment shame! Bad gains that buoy up the “upper-crust” in the short term but add devastation, long term.
Ad hominem pronouncements supplant actual reading of his wise words to the world in several fields. It does not stand against him that he is aided by ghost writers, research -and-other assistants. Renaissance painters, sculptors, architects and manufacturers also formed “cottage industries” to carry out their work. A well-motivated rich person ought to be allowed the same freedom without being snidely carped at about it. The results are what count, and if they don’t support the greedy wishes of some folks, that’s tough.
Still, all in all, the fools atop the food-chain are running everything to ultimate ruin. They have learned, T. S. Eliot fashion, “to care and not to care.” Some analysts are saying we’ve dawdled too long, and it is already to late even for massive, sudden, world-wide correction. We are heading down into a trough we can’t climb out of, and had best start adapting to the worst. It won’t help you much to stock up on matches, Sterno, canned goods and bottled water! You can’t cache enough to last it out. [Slightly revised, 10-18-13. rms]
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