... and look out when it hits the big fan in the sky.
The headlines are making the news services everywhere this week:
US ducks out of climate change talks (Filed: 10/12/2005) UK Telegraph
U.S., Under Fire, Refuses To SHIFT in Climate Talks. NY Times. 10Dec2005
The United States has refused to join more than 150 nations which have agreed to launch formal talks on reducing greenhouse gases after 2012.
In a sign of its growing isolation on climate issues, the Bush administration came under sharp criticism for walking out of informal discussions shortly after midnight Thursday on finding new ways to reduce emissions under the United Nations' 1992 treaty on climate change. "As Kyoto deepens and broadens, U.S. business and industry will mount irresistible pressure on United States leadership to re-engage in the process rather than be shut out of markets of the future," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group that supports binding reductions in heat-trapping gases.
[and were they apparently Concerned Scientists 60 years ago while assisting in armament of nuclear and sonar weaponry while building *better* plastics??]
But environmental groups did not sit idle. The National Environmental Trust distributed custom-printed noise-making rubber whoopee cushions printed with a caricature of President Bush and the words "Emissions Accomplished."
[in other words - you're full of hot air and your power trip stinks to high heaven. And they're sick of it.]
How Bad Is It? As of 2003:
90% of the planet's large fish are gone.
The entire overfished North Atlantic hangs on the verge of ecological collapse.
83% of the planet surface shows signs of human occupation.
98% of the areas where grains or rice are grown shows them as well.
27% of the world's coral reefs are gone;
another 14% face extinction over the next decade.
The ozone layer has a hole in it the size of the Moon.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased more than 30% over pre-industrial levels.
1998 was the warmest year on record.
Ten square miles of forest vanish every hour.
One in eight plant species face imminent extinction.
Every species and subspecies of great ape are dying out.
25% of all animal species everywhere face extinction in thirty years, and 50% by the end of the century.
http://www.tearsofllorona.com/statistics.html
Our roots are in the dark, the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing--instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
-- Ursula K. LeGuin
Our solutions must be commensurable with the scope of the problem, or else nature will take a terrifying revenge on humanity.
-- Murray Bookchin
Here's a simple solution. Perhaps the politicians could practice closing their mouths and actually *do* something. That could significantly reduce a lot of hot air.
Mr. Bookchin is not waxing rhetorical in speaking for Nature. Look at the climate and weather changes over the last 20 years. Heck! Look at this past year. But, I believe that it is probably less "revenge" than simply a devastating consequence fashioned by our own attitudes. Until we look upon this Earth *and* the Heavens as living, life-sustaining forces rather than objects for our personal conquest and consumption --- then, indeed, we will continue to see the external effects as something done *to* us, rather than effects caused *by* us. We're only "victims" of our own choices. I can choose to ignore a dying Mother Earth and Gravely Wounded Father Sun - or I can take action. Maybe the choice to do nothing is an action. But, it's contributory to self annihilation. Just so's we all understand.
George - you're being asked to shit or get off the pot. Take your corncobs and run. The way you're headed is going to ensure that we all end up shifting into your downhill cesspool. I ain't going quietly.
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