breadandcircuses

@breadandcircuses@climatejustice.social

🌏 Born at 312 PPM

Retired NGO executive doing my best to stay informed and raise awareness about environmental crises, climate breakdown, and the rapacious, murderous impact of greedy capitalists and the politicians they own.

Why the name? Back in the day, empires placated their citizens with "bread and circuses." Now we get fast food and apps. But it's all basically the same — distraction from what's REALLY happening.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

breadandcircuses, to random
breadandcircuses, to mastodon

🌅 Good morning, ! ☕

breadandcircuses, to random

☮️ Imagine all the people living life in peace ☮️

breadandcircuses, to socialism

I don't have any problem with a market economy, per se, but I do have a BIG problem with capitalism.

In my preferred version of state socialism, there is no accumulation of capital, and thus no capitalism. All large industries and large-scale services are socialized, owned by the people and managed by the state (or by worker cooperatives, where practical).

In my version of a market economy, people can own and run small companies, hire employees, set prices, make a profit... that's all fine. But they can't buy their competitors and either take them over or put them out of business. They can't open franchises, where they sell (or rent) the right to operate a different company with the same name. They're not allowed to buy their suppliers and create a conglomerate. They aren't permitted to grow so large that the market no longer operates fairly. And every business owner's wealth will be capped with a highly progressive tax structure (which is the price of using the commons to turn a profit).

So, the marketplace as such is not the problem. The problem is capitalism.

#Capitalism #Socialism #Economics #Politics

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to politics

Our capitalist rulers, and the politicians they own, are playing the long game. Since the 1950s they have been working steadily to shift the Overton window, to reduce the influence of labor unions, to boost consumerism, and to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.

A large part of that strategy involves privatizing services that used to be (and should be) public.

They're playing the long game, and they are winning — much to the detriment of you and me and the environment we live in.

breadandcircuses, to politics

Want to hear some crazy radical ideas?

Check this out...


❝ Capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil. Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones.

The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population.

Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights. ❞


That's from 1949 (!) and it was written by...... wait for it...... Albert Einstein.

LEARN MORE -- https://archive.ph/jvlFD

ALTERNATE LINK -- https://glenhendrix50.medium.com/einstein-in-1949-predicted-how-and-why-society-would-go-sideways-d9ab65ed4882

breadandcircuses, to environment

If you realize that staying under 1.5C is now a fantasy... and if you've learned enough to know that temperatures will almost certainly climb far higher than that within the next few decades... and if you've heard all you need to hear about climate and ecosystem tipping points... and if you understand that our modern hyper-connected just-in-time society exists on a knife edge, where any major interruption in any part of the supply chain can potentially bring everything down... and if you've therefore accepted that collapse is inevitable...

What do you do about it?

Each of us here will have to decide for ourselves. There are no right or wrong answers.

One option is to try to prepare, to become a "prepper." That might work for some people, but not for all of us.

In any case, whatever we choose, it would be ideal if we can search deep inside and find peace within ourselves. That's the message, I think, of this heartfelt essay from Alan Urban...


I am tired of stressing out because I’m not fully prepared. I’m never going to be fully prepared. No one is.

Even if you’re already living off the grid and fully self-sufficient, it’s only a matter of time before a climate disaster kills your crops or destroys your home.

If a doctor told me I had 5-15 years to live, would I spend all my free time searching for a treatment that would only buy me a few extra months?

Of course not! I would spend my time enjoying nature, playing games, listening to music, hanging out with friends and family, and going on little adventures with my kids.

What’s the point of surviving a little longer if you aren’t really living in the first place?

Sure, I could spend all my free time learning knots, canning fruit, drying herbs, cleaning guns, smoking meat, sewing clothes, growing mushrooms, making candles, building booby traps, using the ham radio, and so on and so forth — and I will do some of these things.

But if I’m being honest, most evenings I would rather watch a movie with my kids without feeling guilty that I’m not doing enough to prepare.

I’m tired of living in the future. I want to live in the now. I want to move beyond collapse awareness and into collapse acceptance. I don’t expect to get there all at once, but already I feel less burdened.


FULL ESSAY -- https://archive.ph/q4dwd

ALTERNATE LINK -- https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/i-know-collapse-is-coming-but-have-i-truly-accepted-it-18b74e3e0fd3

breadandcircuses, to environment

"You worry too much. Everything's going to be fine. Humans are the most adaptable species on the planet. We've always adapted before, and so of course we also can adapt to climate change."

Ever hear something like that?

Andrew Dessler (@andrewdessler), a climate scientist and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M, offers a response to the optimistic "We'll adapt" crowd...


“Humans have always adapted.”

If you’ve followed the climate debate, you’ve inevitably come across these soothing words, usually made by someone rich, often working for a think tank whose agenda is stopping action on climate change.

The argument taps into the romantic notion of human resilience, suggesting that adaptation is not just possible but a simple, cost-free solution to the climate catastrophe unfolding before us.

This view is overly optimistic. Adaptation, far from being an easy way out, is shaping up to be an absolute nightmare.

Here’s why.


FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/adaptation-to-climate-change-will

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to science

A few days ago, I linked to an article titled "We have destroyed our ecosystem – now we await the collapse of civilization." See https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/111171566319444868

The author of that article, Marshall Brain (https://marshallbrain.com/), has published a follow-up piece based on some of the reactions he got to the first one...


The article received a lot of traffic, and reactions were all over the map. Today’s article is for those people who think things aren’t that bad.

They say things like:

  • “Everything is going to be OK”
  • “Civilization is not going to collapse”
  • “We are on the road to solving climate change”

To those on this “positive” or “hopium” end of the spectrum, here is something to consider: Things are way, way worse than you think. The reason people can believe that everything is going to be OK is because they have not taken the time to comprehend all the different things that are going wrong simultaneously, nor how seriously these things are going wrong.

  1. Massive heat waves across the planet
  2. Rising fossil fuel emissions
  3. Heating of 1.5 degrees C in 2023
  4. Failure of the 2016 Paris agreements
  5. Huge wildfires in Canada
  6. Wildfires burning in the Amazon rainforest
  7. Arctic Tundra thawing out and tripping a climate feedback loop
  8. Other climate tipping points getting ready to trigger
  9. The acceleration of Arctic warming
  10. The coming Blue Ocean Event in the Arctic to make Arctic heating even worse
  11. All the mountain glaciers are melting
  12. Rivers are drying up
  13. Aquifers are drying up
  14. Reservoir lakes are drying up
  15. Aquifers and farmland are becoming contaminated with salt water
  16. Massive droughts across the planet
  17. Massive floods in other parts of the planet
  18. Crop failures
  19. Heating and melting in Antarctica
  20. Threats from the Thwaites glacier
  21. Sea level rise around the world
  22. Mass extinction events in every area

He goes into detail on many of those 22 items, and then concludes with this...


All these phenomena are happening simultaneously, and they will all be accelerating. If you can wrap your head around the convergence of these problems, you can begin to understand how bad things are getting.

Think about it this way: If we get together again next year in October, after humanity has released another 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, are any of these 22 things going to get better? What about in three years, after humanity has released another 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide? What about in 10 years, after humanity has released another 300 gigatons of carbon dioxide?

And then add in the unknowns:

◦ What if the Amazon rainforest collapses and releases another 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide?
◦ What if a large glacier in Antarctica collapses?
◦ What if all the ice in the Arctic disappears and we experience a blue ocean event?
◦ What if positive feedback loops like the Tundra really engage?
◦ What if droughts and floods and heat increase enough to cause major crop failures?


FULL ARTICLE -- https://wraltechwire.com/2023/09/29/just-how-bad-is-climate-change-its-worse-than-you-think-says-doomsday-author/

breadandcircuses, to random

If you’re looking for great accounts to follow, here are some of my favorites! 👏

@LeslieMaggie
@greg_b
@ArrowbearMoore
@climatebrad
@JeffAndDonkeys

#FollowFriday

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to science

But wait!

I thought all we had to do to fix the environment was go meatless once a week and buy a new electric SUV. That’s the solution, right?

Wrong.


While automakers and politicians scramble to transition to a zero-emissions sector in the coming years, the over two billion tires produced internationally may be a problem themselves.

The Yale School of the Environment discovered that tire dust — small particles that break down and wear off of a tire over time — accounts for 78% of the ocean's microplastics.

Rebecca Sutton, an environmental scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute told Yale that "extremely high levels of microplastics" were found in stormwater, adding that "our estimated annual discharge of microplastics into San Francisco Bay from stormwater was seven trillion particles, and half of that was suspected tire particles."

Tires are made of a combination of natural and synthetic rubbers and polymers that are intended to reduce the natural breakdown of a tire as it rolls over pavement.

According to a three-year study done in the UK, a car’s four tires churn out one trillion particles for every kilometer driven. And while two billion tires are made each year now, the Yale University report points out that number is expected to reach 3.4 billion by the end of the decade.


And remember, although they produce less emissions, EVs discharge MORE microplastics from tire wear than ICE cars, because the equivalent size vehicle is far heavier.

As I've said many times before, the best car is not an electric car. The best car is no car at all!

FULL ARTICLE -- https://english.almayadeen.net/news/environment/how-car-tires-account-to-78-of-ocean-microplastics

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to environment

A blogger at Medium offers a few unpleasant truths...


Here is my take on the state of our global civilization:

1️⃣ The human species is in absolute overshoot. We consume more resources and release more pollution every year than what could be regenerated or absorbed by Nature. Yes, some countries consume and pollute much more than others, but that doesn’t make the fact disappear that even if we all lived like Jamaicans, we would be still living beyond Earth’s biophysical limits. And that is just the renewable resources part of the story.

2️⃣ The four pillars of modern civilization (ammonia, plastics, steel and concrete) — the non-renewable part — all take immense amounts of fossil fuels to make. Currently there is no way to produce ammonia (a key ingredient of all fertilizers) at scale without using natural gas, nor to make plastics without oil, or to smelt iron without coal — not to mention making cement. Note how fossil fuels are not only sources of energy here, but also key ingredients for these materials: providing the necessary hydrogen and carbon atoms making these wonders of civilization possible.

3️⃣ The best of our non-renewable resources are being depleted, fast. Using the low-hanging fruit principle we harvested the richest, most concentrated — and thus most energy efficient to get — deposits first. What remains takes an exponential increase in energy investment to extract, and might as well remain buried underground. Resource depletion doesn’t mean that we are running on empty, but that we are running out of easy to get resources — and thus bump into all sorts of limits on how much we can afford to extract.

4️⃣ We are in a chronic transportation fuel shortage, which is expected to grow much worse due to resource depletion. Lower grade ores, deeper oil wells, switching to brown coal, etc., all provide much less value to this civilization while taking up even more diesel to mine and carry around. If you consider how depletion of conventional oil (the ideal feedstock of transportation fuels) ruins diesel supply, let alone its energy economics, you start to appreciate the scale and immediacy of the predicament we are facing. Hmm, a shrinking energy base and an ever increasing energy demand to get the same amount of stuff… what could possibly go wrong with that?

5️⃣ Ecosystems all around the world are in free-fall. Even if we solve the energy dilemma tomorrow, this alone would still put an end to our existence. If we managed to kill 70% of vertebrate land animals, empty the seas and usher in an insect apocalypse with such a limited energy source as fossil fuels, what would we do to the planet with unlimited energy? Strip mine the entire Andes mountain range in a search for copper? Convert the whole planet into a bare concrete and glass hothouse, boiling the oceans just with the waste heat of our activities?

It’s very important to note how all these crises are interrelated and downstream to our civilizational activities (building, mining, deforesting, tilling, burning etc.), and are not due to CO2 alone. Climate change is but one of the many symptoms and consequences of overshoot and must be treated as such.

Replacing one energy source with another will not solve the climate predicament (let alone ecosystem collapse), nor will it alleviate resource depletion. Erasing the biosphere with electrified bulldozers in search of raw materials and places to expand our cities into, or dispersing a different set of pollutants does not change a thing for the better.


There's more, a lot more, and it's all rather bleak, but at least it's truthful.

FULL ESSAY -- https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/a-sneak-peak-6a8087cb5ee7

ALTERNATE LINK -- https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/a-sneak-peak

breadandcircuses, to science

We know there are scientists who WILL tell the truth about climate change — such as David Ho (@davidho), Peter Kalmus (@ClimateHuman), Ruth Mottram (@Ruth_Mottram), Zeke Hausfather (@hausfath), Katharine Hayhoe (@kathhayhoe), Brad Rosenheim (@Brad_Rosenheim), and more — but sadly, there are many others who will NOT level with the public about the crisis we are in.


"Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why."

In March, the United Nations released a massive climate change report. The biggest takeaway: Global warming will soon pass the oft-mentioned target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Honestly, as a climate journalist, that totally freaked me out.

That “1.5 C” number comes up a lot in climate change conversations. That’s because at around 1.5 C the climate starts hitting points of no return. Like, almost all the coral reefs die. Ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland get scary wobbly. Permafrost starts to thaw faster than a popsicle on a hot sidewalk. Rising seas drown island nations.

But the UN scientists were pretty clear: 1.5 C is coming.

“Almost irrespective of our emissions choices in the near term, we will probably reach 1.5 degrees in the first half of the next decade,” said Irish climate scientist Peter Thorne, one of the lead authors on the UN report.

Why is overshooting 1.5 C inevitable? Physics. There’s a nearly linear relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the average global temperature. More CO2 in the sky means a warmer world. It’s like pouring water into a bucket — keep pouring it in, eventually the bucket overflows.

Our carbon bucket will overflow in about nine years; by the early-to-mid-2030s, we’ll be living in a post-1.5 C world. Unless we quickly cut carbon emissions to zero. Last I checked, that’s not happening.

After this report came out, something weird happened. Unlike the blunt Dr. Thorne, most climate scientists (and journalists) didn’t change how they publicly spoke about 1.5 C. Admitting defeat could risk “demotivation” said Pascal Lamy, the commissioner of the Climate Overshoot Commission. Scientists kept saying things like: “We need to act now to stay below 1.5” or “it’s getting harder, but still technically possible.”

Technically possible? Like, if aliens appear with magic tools that fix climate change?

I felt like I was being gaslit by climate scientists. I wanted to know what was going on. So, I called Kristina Dahl, the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

She told me that staying under 1.5 C is now “largely unrealistic.”

But, she added, “like other climate scientists, I'm not ready to say that we have to give up on this goal.”

I asked her why. Why wouldn’t she just give it to me straight? And she told me a story that I found revelatory...


I'm out of room here, but I urge you to click on the link and learn more about why some scientists continue to downplay the true threat of climate change.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2023/10/03/1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moran

breadandcircuses, to india

It's hard to find this in the corporate-owned (and fossil fuel friendly) news media of the Global North, but here's a story from India's Hindustan Times about a devastating flash flood and dam burst, taking many lives...


"Sikkim: 14 dead, 120 missing, bridges, dams, roads washed away in flash flood"

At least 14 persons were killed and another 120 people went missing after a flash flood triggered by a glacial lake outburst following heavy rains in north Sikkim in the early hours of Wednesday.

The toll is expected to rise sharply with officials saying that at least 40 bodies have been recovered by different agencies after the disaster struck.

“The Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), which caused the rise of water levels with very high velocities downstream along the Teesta River Basin in the early hours of October 4, 2023, has caused severe damage in Mangan, Gangtok, Pakyong, and Namchi Districts,” said a statement issued by the Sikkim government.

The flash flood also washed away the Teesta III dam at Chunthang. At least six bridges were washed away and the National Highway 10 (NH10) was damaged in multiple areas.

“North Sikkim has been totally cut off from the rest of the state while Sikkim has been cut off from the rest of India as the flood had badly hit NH10,” said Prabhakar Rai, director of Sikkim’s disaster management department, said.

North Sikkim received around 39 mm rain between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning.

“The rains had probably triggered an avalanche which led to a GLOF. As huge volumes of water and debris comprising boulders came gushing down they hit the hydro dam in Chunthang. The dam was washed away and the entire load gushing down with tremendous force,” said Ashim Sattar, a scientist with IISc Bengaluru, who had studied the lake and the glacier extensively.


Unfortunately, stories like this will become all too common in the months and years ahead. What now seems like (and is) an unthinkable tragedy may soon be almost a daily occurrence.

We are in a climate emergency. It's past time for system change, and Degrowth.

FULL REPORT -- https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/sikkim-14-dead-120-missing-bridges-dams-roads-washed-away-in-flash-flood-101696430052672-amp.html

#India #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

breadandcircuses, to politics

How the system works...

(and why we need to change it)

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to politics

Why are political leaders so blatantly unwilling to make the hard choices needed to confront the existential threat of climate change?

One reason, of course, is that their main focus is simply to be re-elected. Voters don’t like hearing that they may be required to alter their lifestyles, and so politicians won’t tell them that, even if they know they should.

But another reason could be that these elected officials are getting some bad advice, especially from economists, whom they are far more likely to listen to than scientists...


Scientists say severe climate change is now the greatest threat to humanity. Extreme weather is expected to upend lives and livelihoods, intensifying wildfires, and pushing ecosystems towards collapse as ocean heat waves savage coral reefs. The threats are far-reaching and widespread.

So what effect would you expect this to have on the economy in coming decades? It may surprise you, but most economic models predict climate change will just be a blip, with a minor impact on gross domestic product (GDP).

Heating the planet beyond 3℃ is extraordinarily dangerous. The last time Earth was that warm was three million years ago, when there was almost no ice and seas were 20 metres higher.

But economic models predict even this level of heat to have very mild impacts on global GDP per capita by century’s end. Most predict a hit of around 1% to 7%, while the most pessimistic modelling suggests GDP shrinking by 23%.

In these models, some countries are completely unaffected by climate change. Others even benefit. For most countries, the damage is small enough to be offset by technological growth.

This, it is becoming clear, is a failure of the modelling. To make these models, economists reach into the past to model damage from weather.

But severe climate change would be a global shock that is wholly outside our experience. Inevitably, models can’t come close to capturing the upheavals climate change could cause in markets fundamental to human life, such as agriculture.


This article by Timothy Neal, a senior lecturer in Economics at the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney, is truly frightening. The political, governmental, and economic systems currently in place, which control the world, are wholly incapable of responding to the threat we face.

FULL ESSAY -- https://theconversation.com/have-some-economists-severely-underestimated-the-financial-hit-from-climate-change-recent-evidence-suggests-yes-214579

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to science

The large majority of people on Mastodon, and the majority of my followers, live either in Europe or the United States.

And so, ironically, even though nearly all of you reading this already will have a clear understanding intellectually of how bad the climate crisis is, most of us here have not yet experienced in person the full wrath of 2023's unprecedented heating.

As David Ho writes:

"It’s unfortunate (in a sense) that while temperatures were extreme this year (warmest in the instrumental record in many places), most of the US and Europe were spared. So, many will feel that this level of warming is no big deal."

See -- https://mastodon.world/@davidho/111171767782155538

breadandcircuses, to science

Earth has a bad fever. Our ecosystem is gravely ill.

If Gaia were a real person, she would be in the hospital, on life-support...


Following the hottest June through August on record, and the globe's hottest-ever month in July, last month's preliminary data has astonished climate researchers who anticipated such extremes eventually.

The figures show a temperature anomaly of about 0.9°C (1.6°F) above the 1991-2020 average. Converted to the preindustrial era, this amounts to a departure from average of 1.7°C (3.06°F), temporarily exceeding the Paris Agreement's temperature target of 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels.

In data from the Japan Meteorological Agency, September 2023 beat the previous warmest September by 0.5°C (0.9°F). Typically, monthly records are beaten by fractions of a degree, with such narrow margins that different climate centers around the world can rank them differently.

"We've never seen a record smashed by anything close to this margin," climate scientist Zeke Hausfather told Axios. "It's frankly a bit scary."

September featured numerous extreme weather events, including heat waves in Europe, devastating and deadly flooding in Greece and Libya from an unusually powerful Mediterranean storm system, record heat in Japan, and continued anomalously large wildfires in Canada. In the U.S., the month ended with a record-breaking deluge on New York City and surrounding areas, bringing parts of the region to a halt.

"This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas," said Hausfather.


FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/earth-hottest-september-record-year

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to science

Okay, last one for today on why collapse is inevitable, but this time with a bit of life wisdom thrown in at the end...


The official narrative is that we will get off of oil and switch to 'green energy', but this is a fantasy. Oil is the lifeblood of global industrial civilization.

Not only do we need oil to transport goods around the world on diesel-powered trucks and ships, we need fossil fuels to create thousands of everyday items we take for granted: Plastics, cosmetics, medicines, lubricants, adhesives, fertilizer, cleaning products, and much more.

Yes, some of these products could be made without oil. For example, hemp could be used to make plastic (although that could be difficult as we’re already using all of the arable land), but it won’t be cheap. Whether we use oil or not, everything is going to get a lot more expensive.

Consider the fact that we are already in a global food crisis with more people going hungry every day due to the high cost of food. In ten years, we’ll be well beyond 1.5°C of warming and approaching 2°C. Crop failures will be even more common, water shortages will be widespread, and we’ll have less energy to work with.

Now, if you could find out exactly when collapse will take your life, what would you do differently? Would you reconnect with old friends? Spend more time with your family? Read a book you always wanted to read? Learn an instrument you always wanted to play?

If so, why aren’t you doing these things right now? Given the fragility of our supply chains and power grids along with the increasing threat of nuclear war, it could all come crashing down by the end of the decade.

I’ve decided not to worry about it anymore. When people ask me when civilization is going to collapse, my answer is, “It’s already collapsing.”

Time is running out. Use what’s left of it wisely.


FULL ARTICLE -- https://archive.ph/CgbcB

ALTERNATE LINK -- https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/when-will-the-collapse-kill-me-2c7577678be9

breadandcircuses, to science

At this point, it's too late.

If leaders in the Global North had shown true leadership 50 years ago — or perhaps 40 years ago or even 30 years ago — and begun an urgent shift away from fossil fuels and away from the mantra of growth-at-all-costs, then maybe we would be in a position today where some form of modern society could be maintained without enduring catastrophic collapse.

But they did not make that choice. They did not display any vision or show true leadership. Instead, they did the exact opposite.

Since 1990, greedy capitalists and the governments they own have doubled down (see attached graphs), completely wrecking our climate and environment, placing not only humans but thousands of other plant and animal species in grave danger of extinction.

If you've been following me for a while and reading my posts, chances are you already understand how bad our current situation really is. But if you're just being introduced to this topic, or if you simply want to learn more about our impossible predicament, then here is an article filled with relevant information:

"We have destroyed our ecosystem – now we await the collapse of civilization"
https://wraltechwire.com/2023/09/22/doomsday-authors-analysis-we-have-destroyed-our-ecosystem-now-we-await-the-collapse-of-civilization/

Too late? See the first comment below...

Chart showing "Monthly averages of atmospheric CO2 as recorded at Mauna Loa in Hawaii." Amounts of CO2 rapidly climb from ~325 ppm in 1960 to ~418 ppm in 2020. Graphic also notes when various meetings were held and agreements were made to limit or reduce carbon emissions. None of this has had any effect.

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to environment

We urgently need to get off fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas. Right? Does everyone agree with that?

Human extraction and burning of fossil fuels is destroying Earth's delicately balanced ecosystem and radically altering the stable climate that sustains us. Our industry and commerce are quickly making this world unlivable both for people and for countless innocent species who are dying now and who will disappear along with us in the near future if something doesn't change fast.

But the problem is, where do we go from here? How can we sustain our complex modern society without using fossil fuels to power it?

And… take another step beyond that. Are we even asking the right question? Does it truly make sense to try and find a way to sustain an unsustainable way of living?

Indrajit Samarajiva (https://indi.ca/about/) is a writer living in Sri Lanka. I’ve pointed to his essays before, and now I want you to consider his challenging response to the type of questions I’ve posed above.


The common understanding of winning the climate fight is that we stop using fossil fuels, stop emitting (and even capture) CO₂, and carry on with a virtually indistinguishable type of civilization. Broadly, we change the engine, but not the type of vehicle or where it’s going.

The general vibe is that one type of product (fossil fuels) is bad, and so we should switch to consuming other products (renewables!). If you look at the marketing of our climate change fight, the promise is that you can have the same lifestyle but in an electric vehicle and with a different type of milk.

The promise is that the future will be even better, faster, more comfortable, and without all that pesky guilt weighing you down. As the Miller Lite slogan goes, “same great taste, less filling.” This type of marketing is just another emission, called bullshit.

All of the ‘solutions’ to climate change are just marketing slogans to ‘keep capitalist and carry on’. It’s like cigarettes telling you that they have ‘less tar.’ Okay, but what about all the other shit? Infinite growth on a finite planet still gives you cancer in the long run, which is where we are.

As you can see, our stated goal of ‘fighting climate change’ is precisely the problem, which is human domination of the natural world. It’s the very idea that we should control nature that caused the problem. You can’t mitigate the effects of this hubris with more cause.

What are we proposing, really, with all this 'green growth' and ‘innovation’? We’re proposing to bind nature in lithium chains instead of hydrocarbons. That’s all. We’ve gotten away with it for so long that we think we can pull a fast one on nature again, but nature will not be fooled.

This is just the same old hubris in new packaging. This attitude of ‘fighting’ and ‘winning’ over nature is precisely why we lose. Nature is a balance. One species ‘winning’ is an oxymoron.


There’s much more in Indi’s potent essay, including numerous links to his previous work and to other useful information sources. I hope you’ll read the whole thing.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://indi.ca/why-we-need-to-stop-fighting-climate-change/

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to environment

Our capitalist rulers are very clever. They realize that many people are concerned about climate change and want our governments to take action against it.

So they come up with cool-sounding ideas like "Carbon Capture and Storage" to make it appear as if something is being done — when in reality that same technology is being used to increase fossil fuel extraction and sales, producing even more profits for the oil and gas industry.

It's a win-win for the capitalists: They look good AND they make more money.

Business As Usual goes on...


When Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber opens the 28th annual UN climate conference in Dubai in November, he will be juggling two roles – convincing the world of the United Arab Emirates’ leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while preserving the very industry that’s causing them.

In addition to his job as summit president, Al Jaber heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which plans to increase its oil and gas output by 11% by 2027. The company says that more oil will mean less emissions, however — provided the industry builds enough facilities to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas causing the climate crisis.

On September 6, ADNOC finalized a deal to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the UAE’s Habshan oil and gas field, extending the company’s existing CCS operations at a steel plant. Now projected to become one of the largest carbon capture plants in the Middle East, ADNOC says the facility will have the equivalent climate impact of removing 500,000 cars from the road.

In fact, the project will be used to squeeze even more oil from the ground. Most of the CO2 ADNOC already captures is pumped into existing oil wells, forcing residual crude to the surface in a process known as “enhanced oil recovery.”

It is a trend reflected across the sector: Of the 32 commercial CCS facilities operating worldwide, 22 use most, or all, of their captured CO2 to push more oil out of already tapped reservoirs. But the fact that existing carbon capture projects are mostly used to bring more oil to the surface has not stopped oil and gas companies championing the technology as a climate solution in the run-up to COP28.


That's from an excellent investigative piece by DeSmog, which makes it clear that Al Jaber is not the only villain. Oil companies in the US pioneered this devious plan years ago, and Europe soon followed.

Meanwhile, as long as people continue to believe this decades-old lie, why not just run with it?

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/25/how-carbon-capture-and-storage-projects-are-driving-new-oil-and-gas-extraction-globally/

breadandcircuses, to environment

In an opinion piece posted at Common Dreams, Tom Weis says, "To keep pretending, year after year, decade after decade, that the U.N. process is working when everyone can see that it is failing, is its own kind of denial."

Here's more...


Every year, the world’s governments gather at what the United Nations calls a Conference of the Parties, or COP, to talk about lowering carbon emissions while they just watch emissions continue to rise. It is time to start calling these annual gatherings what they are: COP-OUTs.

COP28 is already shaping up to be the biggest COP-OUT of them all. Taking the dressed-up climate pageant to a new level of absurdity, the COP28 conference being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12 is being chaired by — get this — an oil baron. The president of COP28 is Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Lest you think the Biden administration truly gets that we’re in a climate emergency, John Kerry, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, publicly praised Al Jaber’s appointment as “a terrific choice,” as if the idea of an oil baron presiding over international climate talks wasn’t preposterous on its face.

We need to stop thinking things will get better with the next COP-OUT, when things just keep getting worse. The hostile takeover of the international climate negotiations by fossil fuel industry arsonists is an unconscionable betrayal of our children’s trust and of all generations to come. Big Oil has not only been lying to the public for decades, it is knowingly perpetrating ecocide and crimes against humanity.


FULL ESSAY -- https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/boycott-cop28

breadandcircuses, to science

So heartbreaking...😢

I have to be careful not to overdo my exposure to terrible news like this, and to balance it with things I enjoy that make me happy. Otherwise I'll lose myself in grief and rage.


More than a hundred dolphins have been found dead in the Brazilian Amazon amid an historic drought and record-high water temperatures that in places have exceeded 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

The dead dolphins were all found in Lake Tefé over the past seven days, according to the Mamirauá Institute, a research facility funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science.

The institute said such a high number of deaths was unusual and suggested record-high lake temperatures and an historic drought in the Amazon may have been the cause.

The news is likely to add to the concerns of climate scientists over the effects human activity and extreme droughts are having on the region.

Below average levels of water have been reported in 59 municipalities in Amazonas State, impeding both transport and fishing activities on the river.

Authorities expect even more acute droughts over the next couple of weeks, which could result in further deaths of dolphins, CNN Brasil reported.


FULL STORY -- https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/americas/amazon-river-dolphins-dead-temperatures-drought-intl-hnk/index.html

breadandcircuses, (edited ) to random

Q: “What’s on TV tonight?”
A: “Same old, same old.”


It's time for another week of BUSINESS AS USUAL, sponsored this time by Toyota, Shell, and General Electric.

🎶 "Keep driving, keep flying, keep shopping, keep buying!
We've got this, everything's fine." 🎶 😃

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • JUstTest
  • mdbf
  • everett
  • osvaldo12
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • normalnudes
  • Youngstown
  • Durango
  • slotface
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • tester
  • InstantRegret
  • ethstaker
  • GTA5RPClips
  • tacticalgear
  • Leos
  • anitta
  • modclub
  • khanakhh
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • provamag3
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines