Vida Enigmática

"Who speaks for Earth?"

Who speaks for Earth?

atmosphere Australia biodiversity buying case climate climate change consumerism don't Earth environment environmental extinction food home humanity know Leslie Dean Brown life Mars materials money natural nature oxygen part planet power products reason rich science scientific scientists sustainable technology tell thing trees value want water what work world

Take a look at this latest graph.

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Go on, have the balls to actually look at it:

nsidc_global_area_byyear_b-800x533

See where we are? We’re right at that point where we don’t want to be. That’s where we are. The appropriately red-coloured line that is beneath all the others (well beneath).

Look, I don’t claim to know much about climate science. I know about materials science. But if there’s one thing scientists know how to do, it’s to respect others’ areas of expertise. Especially the expertise of other scientists.

It’s a bit like the song:

“What you don’t know you can feel it somehow” — U2

We know that there are others who are cleverer than us. And we respect that knowledge.

So I admit that I don’t know how the Earth’s climate fully works. But this latest graph worries me. This graph worries me a lot.

Because its pretty darn obvious to anyone what is going on in this graph.

I don’t think the Earth is completely screwed just yet. But if we don’t change NOW, then it will be.

I think the Earth’s climate is remarkly resilient considering all we’ve thrown at it over the last century.

But all I know is, if man thinks he can change local environments —on a global scale mind you— without global consequences, well then he is sorely mistaken.

That is not the way this world works. That is not how any world works.

Because this is the graph of all graphs. This graph should be printed on the insides of all petrol tank lids.

Every time you wish to use your car, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you want to fly somewhere, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you eat meat, you should be thinking of this graph!

This is the “climate emergency” graph that James Hansen is referring to.

And what do I see? In reality? In reality, I look around today, and I see bugger all people talking about this problem. And yet it is a big problem. A very big problem.

People should be talking about this over their lunch break and their coffee break. And for some reason they’re not. They’re just not.

[Read more…]

Today’s update?

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Today, I refer you to two other links.

Please go and read this. And then this.

The cracked article is tongue-in-cheek and obviously not ‘serious’. I had a good laugh. Great writing skills.

But what about Goop? Seriously?! When you’re reccommending people to go out and spend £12k / US$15k / AUD$20k on a gold-plated dildo, I think rich people are just asking for a revolution. They’re just asking for it!

lelo_insignia_inez_packaging_gold_2x_0

If this is what being ‘rich’ is about, then you can stick that silver butt plug, with horse tail, right where the sun don’t shine and the moon don’t fit — right up your tight little arsehole! Right where it belongs. Instead of on that cheap acrylic perch you have it resting on. ‘Cause I want nuthin’ to do with it.

And not because it’s ‘kinky’. I don’t have a problem with ‘kinky’. It’s “rich kinky” I can’t stand. And it’s not just one gold-plated twenty thousand dollar dildo I’m whinging about. It’s two. Here’s the other one:

59985-0

 

Gwyneth, Coco de Mer, Lelo, I think you’re completely out of touch with reality.

The world doesn’t need more of this crap. The rest of us live on a different world. Another world with overpopulation, deforestation, extinction, pollution, global warming, etcetera. That world. Remember that one?

I think your designers ought to be shot.

And if you’re out spendin’ 20k on a gold-plated dildo, you probably deserve to get mugged on a French highway. Because poorer people are getting fed up with being fucked over by banks and insurance companies and everyone else who doesn’t play fair. They struggle to pay their mortgage or their rent. And then they see this. And that is their way to restore some sort of “monetary equilibrium”.

If you’ve got this much money to play with, give some it to charity. Seriously.

Our ancestors have not been working for hundreds, thousands of years so you can splurge on (and profit by) this unsustainable bullshit.

Perhaps I should change this site to “ecoNazi.org”? Maybe I’ll buy that domain… just in case.

What do I think of NASA’s emdrive?

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Firstly, the name reminds me of emdash —and secondly—

Don’t get your hopes up too much. If the world’s largest 8MW nuclear power station completely powered this emdrive thingo, it would generate 0.68kg of thrust. To put that into perspective, I have just done some very rudimentary calculations, and I think my greyhound generates more thrust on a daily basis… due to flatulence.

Seriously. Someone can check my basic calculations if they don’t believe me. On another note, I can’t believe that no one knows what an average nuclear power station weighs, yet plenty of people have asked about fart volumes.

What am I really saying? I think it’s time we focused a bit more on planet Earth than on silly outer space ventures…

What is the goal of humanity?

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What exactly are working towards?

Is the ultimate goal happiness? Or just to survive? Or something else?

This seems to be a popular question on the quora and TED forums. I’m sure most people don’t even stop to think about it.

It seems strange that your average doughnut factory has more of a business plan than the whole of humanity.

I think it’s because there seems to be some unspoken notion that at the rate we are going we won’t really even last more than about 300-500 years, let alone 50,000 or more years. So why bother thinking about it?

Talking about our long-term future is almost a taboo subject with some people. Why is that? Is it because we have no fucking idea at all what we are doing? Is that it? Are we embarrassed? Is it because we already know that we are ‘doomed’? No? Then, what?

If we are going to survive, I think it is worth thinking about. Otherwise you have to ask yourself “why are we working so hard now?” What’s the point of it? If we’re all so doomed already, why do we bother still going to work forty or more hours a week? Eh?

So we must be working towards something. We just don’t collectively know what it is (yet). And note that I’m not talking about an ‘afterlife’. I’m talking about what will become of humanity, the world, in one million years’ time.

Assuming something terrible doesn’t happen, wouldn’t it make sense to have a “humanity plan” that we can all refer to? A humanity plan might even give us a reason to avoid WW3, WW4 and WW5. A reason to exist.

We don’t really know what we are doing let alone why we are doing it. People are feeling lost, hopeless and depressed. I think that’s why there were so many volunteers on that Mars one space mission.

The hugely controversial Dutch-based Mars One mission has admitted that only 4,227 people actually completed its application form properly, rather than 200,000 … 202,586 applicants registered their interest online in 2013.

I think the first thing we need to do is not let go of our hope. Because that’s what most people [adults] tend to do in fairly hopeless situations, isn’t it? They lose hope and then they give up. I think we need to try to remain optimistic about the future. Hope is what normally keeps us going. Hope is what motivates people. So let’s start by hoping for a better future, not a worse one. I personally think that there is hope. Not a lot of hope, but maybe –perhaps– just enough.

Hope starts with an idea. A dream, if you will. Visionaries inspire us all. Because now is the time to choose. Are we even working towards the same goal?

I ask google and the people who are asking these questions are individuals. Not governments, but individuals. Shouldn’t there be some kind of a long-term “mission statement” for each country?

Even the ancient Egyptians had more of a plan… build pyramids…

I think we need a one year plan. A ten year plan. A hundred year plan. A thousand year plan. A ten thousand year plan. A hundred thousand year plan. A million year plan. It surprises me that our entire civilisation is wandering almost completely aimlessly through time.

For example, do we want to be so addicted to technology? Won’t we become a bit borg-like if we continue unabated down that path? Is it even sustainable? Can we even know? Do we need to know? Can we still have a plan that encompasses future discoveries and inventions?

To answer this question, I think we need to ask ourselves a very important question: What de we want to become? What makes us happy? If we didn’t have to work, what do we want to do in our spare time? As soon as we know that we will know how we are going to get there.

What do you, the reader, think the goal(s) of humanity should be?

Green economics

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What is happening to the world?

In short, most people refuse to act, because they’re be too busy justifying their need for a high standard of living, blaming governments for the situation, & avoiding the underlying social & environmental crises. This sounds like an inescapable viscous cycle to me.

Yes its all been brought about by greedy 1st world nations. Blatant consumerism- which capitalises on the latest scientific advances and all the while fueled by governments who only think in short term economic gains. The first need is to communicate the problem. The next requirement is change. People are afraid of change, but to me it seems the world is changing for the worse anyway.

Anyone who has read Schumachers book “Small is beautful” will know that over the long term, what we are doing to planet Earth surely must be considered uneconomical. Are people so afraid of change now that they’re willing to bury their heads in the sand about the future repercussions? I think where we’re headed, the changes will be a lot more daunting than the thought of giving up our most prized possessions. Chaos will be surely covered in one of my future articles, but who wants to live in a world without nature?

TRADITIONAL ECONOMIC WORKING PRINCIPLE:

  • There is a general consensus that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour
  • Businesses & Governments maximise profit, consumption and therefore economic growth
  • Employers maximise labour effort (bosses expect their “pound of flesh”)
  • Employees minimise labour effort (to work is viewed as a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort; wages being a kind of compensation)

BUDDHIST ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE OF WORK:

  • Work gives each person a chance to utilise and develop their [unique] faculties
  • Work enables humans to overcome their ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task
  • Work provides the goods and services needed for a becoming existence [creativity activity is vital]

The former, in short, tries to maximise consumption by the optimal pattern of productive effort, while the latter tries to maximise human satisfactions by the optimal pattern of consumption. It is easy to see that the effort needed sustain a way of life which seeks to attain the optimal pattern of consumption is likely to be much smaller than the effort needed to sustain a drive for maximum consumption.

It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them.

But what can we actually do about it? Firstly, don’t replace things before we need to; repair them if necessary, use them until they can no longer be repaired. Yes, there is some real satisfaction to be gained by owning things that last through time. Do we need the latest 3G phone or mobile electronic device? Buy services, not products.