EXPLORING CULTURES: A Global Blog (all languages): March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

"We must tighten the noose around coal" -- Dr. Jesse Ausubel

"We must tighten the noose around coal" -- Dr. Jesse Ausubel, 1988

The theme of a virtual graduation speech to the class of 2099

YOUTUBE, video, produced and directed by Aremac Chuang, CCU, Taiwan
Speech text by Danny Bloom, Tufts University graduate, long ago
Actor: Virtual avatar of Dan E. Bloom, shot against a blue background in a blue room studio on the campus of CCU in southern Taiwan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wnrm2jE-E&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wnrm2jE-E&feature=channel_page

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Letters from 2030

Dear Family and Friends,

I wanted to share with you a piece that I'm involved in, currently as a blog post. It is something that Bob Williamson, the originator and author of Letter from 2030, and myself down the road would like to publish in book form (at least that is our plan).

We are looking for people to follow our posts, and more importantly, to actively comment on the entries. The more interest shown, the more likely we are to be able to bring to fruition the publication and screen possibilities. It's a serious piece, though it is fiction. Bob is an environmental activist in Perth, Australia; and me, well I'm just the girl next door who likes to write. We do have contributing, and will be continuing with this venture with us, hoping a few more will join us as well.

Please go to http://lettersfrom2030.blogspot.com ~ and please, forward this to your friends and family so that they can participate also.

We're already getting much attention, several environmentalist sites / blogs / news posts have picked up the original post. I hope that you will find it interesting and follow along with us on this journey as well.

You may be wondering how this all began. Bob Williamson, wrote "Letter from 2030" that was published on OpEdNews.com http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Letter-From-The-Future-by-Bob-Williamson-090306-313.html

A letter was submitted in reply. This was unsolicited, but caught Bob's imagination. It was posted by yours truly. My letter in response placed myself in the future, responding to Bob as if I too were living in 2030. As a result and to facilitate an ongoing series a blog site was set up at http://lettersfrom2030.blogspot.com/ - there are now others posting and although in the early stages, we have some regular followers and additional inquiries and writes for the series are coming in from around the world.

The series as proposed will continue as a blog, and will be used as the basis for a book and hopefully will attract the attention of a producer for a TV mini series.

Bob Williamson is the author of a non-fiction book on the reality and urgency of climate change 'ZERO Greenhouse Emissions - The Day the Lights Went out - Our Future World' In reality. Facts (and not very nice ones) are sometimes hard to sell to the general public who may prefer to remain oblivious and/or ignorant of the future. The Letters from 2030 however may provide the ideal vehicle to gain their attention with fiction while also supplying them (the reader - viewer) with the harsh reality of continued inaction on this very pressing and urgent issue.

We do hope that you will join us ~ follow the blog ~ and share your comments (you may comment anonymously if you wish). Again, please forward this to your friends and family so that they can participate also.
In hope for the future,

Suzanne
suzanne@bydezin.com
http://Lettersfrom2030.blogspot.com

If you are unfamiliar with following a blog, on the right side of the page you will find entries thus far, start at the bottom of the March 2009 entries and view them bottom to top to be in sequence of the events.

How some people react to the concept of polar cities for survivors of global warming in the year 2500

''jack'' at emilymagazine posts an angry blog comment post after reading my comments about the possibility of the need for polar cities in 500 years:

Hey Danny Boy

I need to address your inappropriate eco-political ramblings; because, well, it just REALLY PISSES ME OFF.

Now, you go right ahead and conserve. The rest of us will enjoy our lives, all the more, at your expense.

You are prophesizing an apocalyptic vision for the world by year 2500. Are you nuts? Do realize the infinite possibilities of what can happen in intervening 491.78 years? Has anyone told you that you are extremely negative?

And, of course, I love that you believe you have the right criticize the rest of us.

Who appointed you to be the world’s conscience? Did we ask for your advice? Has anybody ever asked for your advice? Do you know what delusional means?

I call your attitude:

Martyr-shit
Dictator-shit
Fascist-shit
Psycho-shit

Now please don’t take any of this too harshly as it was written in the spirit of love and service.

"Pet Dragon" chiildren's book by Christoph Niemann explains Chinese with character

Pet Dragon’ explains Chinese with character(s)

German illustrator Christoph Niemann’s unique take on the written Chinese language has caught on with children — and adults — worldwide

By Taipie Times CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009, Page 13

With Asian culture, music and fashion popular in the West now, many expat parents in Taiwan have wondered how best to introduce their young children to the “mysterious” Chinese characters used here. For artist Christoph Niemann, a transatlantic creative spirit with feet firmly planted in Berlin and New York, the answer was easy, and illuminating: a colorful children’s book.

He titled it Pet Dragon, found a publisher in New York, and before he knew it, the unusually formatted and illustrated book had caught on with children — and adults — worldwide. A native of Germany, Niemann is a prolific illustrator with style all his own. In a recent e-mail interview with the Taipei Times, the 38-year-old writer/illustrator talked about the book’s genesis and what drew him to such a unique concept.

When asked how the book took shape, Niemann said: “On a recent trip to Asia, and it was in Japan where the idea first came to me, I was introduced to the meaning and a little bit of the history of Chinese characters by Chinese designers I met in Tokyo. Their explanations made me feel a bit like a five-year-old boy who has his eyes suddenly opened wide to a whole new world. And since Chinese characters have such a beautiful visual and metaphoric meaning, I felt it would make a nice illustrated children’s book.”

Niemann added that he wasn’t trying to create a book to teach Chinese to children, or to adults by extension. What he wanted to do was create some preliminary interest in Chinese characters for Western children. “All I really wanted to achieve was to spark some interest in this wonderful written language, which then might inspire readers in the West later on to try to learn more in a real language class or on their own, whether the readers were 4 or 40.”

Niemann, whose earlier children’s books and newspaper illustrations are playful and colorful, said that he hoped the “playfulness” of the format and illustrations of Pet Dragon would spark Western children’s imaginations in a novel way.

The book was published in English in New York, and there is now a German edition, Niemann said. Some French publishers are looking at the possibility of putting out a French translation as well, he said.

When asked what kind of reactions he has received about the book, he said: “You know, it’s funny, but some of the most touching responses by e-mail have been from parents who purchased the book for their children but ended up enjoying themselves as well. I love that response.”

Niemann said he was about 10 years old when he first became aware of Chinese characters, and he said he while he was “intrigued by the graphic beauty of the characters, I was utterly confused by their complexity.”

When asked about his background, the artist told the Taipei Times: “I was born in Germany and majored in graphic design at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart in the late 1990s. After graduation, I went to New York where my career blossomed, but after a few years in the States my wife Lisa and I decided we wanted to try Berlin, so that’s where we are now. I still do most of my work for US magazines and newspapers, as well as for book publishers in New York.”

Niemann currently has a legion of new adult fans around the world who follow a visual blog he runs for the New York Times Web site.

“I love to visit New York every few months to catch up on things and be inspired, but thanks to the Internet, it virtually doesn’t matter where I work from now,” he added.

Christoph Niemann’s The Pet Dragon: A Story About Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters is published by Greenwillow Books.

This story has been viewed 1,235,742 times.

American expat 'citizen journalists' in Taipei air Tibetan protest rally video on CNN's iReport program

DRAFT NOT FOR PUBLICATION YET:

American expat 'citizen journalists' in Taipei
air Tibetan protest rally video on CNN worldwide

by Dan Bloom
Contributing Reporter

For two Milwaukee natives from the U.S. state of Wisconsin, Taiwan has
served as a stepping stone to international fame as citizen
journalists for CNN's popular iReport news program.

Joe Seydewitz, 39,
and Michelle Senczi, 27, have been living in Taipei for the past two
years, and a recent news video they sent to CNN headquarters in
Atlanta, Georgia was picked up last month for an international new
media program .
Now the American couple are looking for more stories to send in to CNN
about life in Taiwan.

In a recent interview, Seydewitz, who has been teaching international
business at a Taipei college for the past two years, explained how the
CNN gig came about.

"Michelle and I happened upon a Free Tibet rally
near our apartment on Zhongxiao East Road in Taipei on March 14, a Saturday," Seydewitz said.
"The rally's message was directed firmly at China,
particularly Chinese President Hu Jintao. Chants included, 'Stop The
Killing' and
'Free Tibet' and what sounded like 'Who's the killer? Hu Jintao!'
Michelle was the cameraman, and I was the street reporter. We had no
idea it would eventually air on CNN, but it did."

Seydewitz added that along the route of the protest rally he spoke
with a young Tibetan man who said that since Taiwan is free of any
Chinese Communist Party control, "the rally and its
message rang loud and clear." Seydewitz added that the man "seemed
quite proud to be Tibetan, as well as pleased to have an open forum to
speak openly in."

When asked the iReport was first one for CNN, Seydewitz, said: "Yes, it
was. I watch CNN often mostly to keep-up on U.S. political and
economic news , but also for global current events. So I've watched
the iReport program on CNN several times, and was intrigued by the
possibility of doing my own story one day. I really like the format
and the endless possibilities. I sent the Tibet rally video to CNN as
my iReport in because I had the feeling, by being there in the streets
that day, that it was a serious story about an intense, globally
recognized political situatio, and I thought iReport would at least
consider using it."

Seydewitz said he has felt like a citizen journalist for several
years. "When I was living in the U.S., before coming to Taiwan, I
wrote some comedy material for a comedy group in
Chicago. I always considered myself, before this, to be an 'observer' of
people and life, and humor was my main interest. As a so-called citizen
journalist, I'm still observing things, but not exclusively to find
humor now."

When asked what was next on their plate, Seydewitz said that with the
first CNN iReport aired globally in March, he and Michelle are excited
about future
story ideas. "It's hard not to keep thinking about potential story
ideas now," he said. "I am evaluating everything that I see and think
about here in Taipei now, based on a quick assessment of its
newsworthiness for the CNN audience. I'm considering doing a video
story that relates to the global economy as seen from here in Taiwan."

Errol Barnett, a 29-year-old Briton educated in California, hosts the
iReport program on CNN. When Seydewitz was asked how CNN contacted him
and Michelle about using their video
submission for its on-air show, he said that a CNN staffer first
emailed him to confirm his identity. Later, he spoke with a CNN
producer in the U.S., he said.

"In fact, I was vetted and questioned via telephone, email and webcam
by a handful of CNN iReport staff," he told the Taipei Times. "My most
lengthy conversation was with the show's producer in Atlanta. I did
the webcam interview that aired on CNN from my home computer here in Taipei."

Seydewitz said the entire experience of working with CNN on his
iReport was "a pretty cool way to tell a story and be heard by a lot
of people around the world." He added: "The entire process was great,
from capturing the footage on the streets here in Taipei, to
communicating with CNN staff and then eventually seeing myself
actually reporting the story on television for a global audience. I am
going to keep my eyes open for anything else here in Taiwan and around
Asia that might be of interest for future iReports."

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-229514

[NOTE: Michelle used a Sony Cyber Shot camera for the iReport video shown on CNN]

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Come Hell and High Water: -- How I Became James Lovelock's Accidental Student

Come Hell and High Water: -- How I Became James Lovelock's Accidental Student

American climate provocateur Danny Bloom explains how he became a
climate activist calling
for Polar Cities to house Dr Lovelock's "Breeding Pairs in the Arctic"
in the Far
Distant Future

I've often been asked by inquiring journalists
overseas how I came to
be "James Lovelock's Accidental Student".

Let me explain: Two years ago I read an
interview in the Guardian with Dr Lovelock where he talked about his
vision of survivors of future global warming as being
"breeding pairs in the Arctic". I kept thinking
about those words for a few months over and over and finally, I asked
myself, where
will these "breeding pairs" live?

I mean, what kind of settlements
will they be housed in, and where will these settlements be located?
And" who will govern these settlements, and who will be
allowed in, or who will get in, and will they survive the long long
Long Emergency that will be happeneing then?

I envisioned settlements I called "polar cities" for
these breeding pairs in Lovelock's Arctic. That's how the term ''polar
cities'' was born. And that is how I became James Lovelock's Accidental
Student.

This was also around the same time as the IPCC report was
coming out in February 2007 to great media fanfare, and there were
headlines every day in my local English newspaper in Taiwan. As a result, I was
obsessing with the issues of climate change and global warming for the
first time in my life -- in my late 50s.

I knew I needed to put this idea of polar cities for breeding
pairs into some kind of visual showcase, because when I first started
blogging about my polar cities idea, the response was basically, well, no
response at all. The words themselves -- polar cities for survivors of
global warming in the year 2500 or so -- just did not wake people up
and attract interest from readers or reporters or bloggers. So I knew
I needed some kind of visual to show what I was talking about.

Near my home in Taiwan, there is a small advertising agency run by a friendly,
pontailed man named Deng Cheng-hong. I rode my bicycle over to his
shop one Sunday afternoon and asked him if he could illustrate my
polar cities idea with some hand-drawn art or some computer-generated
work.

I showed him some very rough sketches I had done up
in pencil and crayon on paper. He took these sketches and 8
weeks later came back with some futuristic color illustrasrtions of
what a polar city might look like in, say, 2500 AD.

Voila! Mr Deng had given life to my vision, which I gotten directly from
Dr Lovelock's interviews and books and speeches.

When I showed Mr Deng's images to reporters in the USA -- and to Dr
Lovelock himself by email -- the response was very positive.
The New York Times science blog Dot Earth, written by veteran science reporter
Andrew C. Revkin, wrote about polar cities and Dr Lovelock, with Mr
Deng's images printed
on the blog as well.

The response was immediate,
both pro and con. I decided to spend
the rest of my life promoting and talking about polar cities, come
hell and high water.

But this was not part of my life plan before 2006. But after I read Lovelock's
words about "breeding pairs in the Arctic" I became haunted, obsessed,
with those words. And here I am, age 60, James Lovelock's Accidental
Student. I have no PHD, no academic sponors, no credibility at all.
This is my life's work
now.

I care
about the future. I care about what life will be like on Earth
30 generations down the road, in 2500 or so. Polar cities might save
us -- Lovelock's breeding pairs -- from extinction.

I have never met or spoken with Dr Lovelock but I did send him the
images of Deng's polar city designs
and he replied: "Thanks, for showing
me those images. It may very well happen, and soon!"

I plan to keep promoting the concept of polar cities, what I
also call climate retreats for climate refugees. Let me explain one
more thing: These polar cities will be not be at the poles per se.
They will
be in northern and southern regions of the world, from Tasmania and
New Zealand and Patagonia and Antarctica in the southern hemisphere to
Alaska and Canada and Russia and Greenland and Iceland and Norway in
the north.

These polar cities are where Lovelock's breeding pairs will
live. We need to think hard about who will get in, who will govern
them, who will administer them, and what life inside will be like.
That's my brief.

Dr Lovelock gave this brief to me. He does not know it, but he gave it to
me, or I should say: I took the brief from him. I am using my
out-of-the-box thinking to create an important
discussion.

All all this is not something that makes me
happy, and it's not a pretty picture. We are talking about some very
dark times coming down the road in 30 generations or so. I don't get
enjoyment out of this work. But I do get a sense of doing something
positive and important.

And I remain an optimist, despite what it
might seem. I am an eternal optimist. That is why I envisioned polar
cities to save humanity from extinction in some future time when
global warming's major impact events have reduced the human tribe to
just 200,000 men, women and children barely surviving -- but
surviving, yes! -- in polar cities scattered around the world.

As Dr Lovelock's accidental student,
without a phd or an academic backing, I plan to keep talking about
polar cities an important adaptation idea for the future.

It's not easy catching the attention of the news media or reporters
around the world. Although it's easy to get a mention or two about
polar cities on blogs and websites, it's almost impossible to get a
story about my work in a print publication anywhere in the world.

In fact, this essay is the first to ever appear in print, and I thank
the editors for publishing this.

Just the other day, a reporter for a major wire news
service in Europe told me in an email, explaining why
he could not write about polar cities for his
agency or interview me for a story: "I appreciate the originality of
your idea of polar cities, and your enthusiasm, and
your independence. I really do. But unless you are a scientist or
engineer, or your idea has gotten some serious traction somewhere, I
cannot justify doing a piece on you and your work."

And he added: "Interesting
coincidence: I spent an hour in conversation with Dr.
Lovelock yesterday."

Monday, March 23, 2009

Landmark Global Warming Lawsuit Settled

Landmark Global Warming Lawsuit Settled

SustainableBusiness.com News

March 15, 2009 A.D.

A USA federal lawsuit that sought to force two U.S. agencies to address the global warming implications of their overseas financing activities was settled Friday after more than six years. The suit established important legal precedents related to global warming.

The plaintiffs, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the city of Boulder, filed the suit in 2002 alleging that Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation illegally provided more than $32 billion in financing and insurance to fossil fuel projects over 10 years without assessing whether the projects contributed to global warming or impacted the U.S. environment, as they were required to do under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Fossil fuel projects financed by the two agencies from 1990 to 2003 produced cumulative emissions that were equivalent to nearly 8% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, or nearly one third of annual U.S. emissions in 2003.

In August 2005, a federal judge found that the U.S. cities suffering economic and other damages from climate change had standing to sue under NEPA, opening up the courthouse doors for the first time to those injured by climate change. Testimony from the case, which successfully asserted that climate change is real and caused by human activities, later informed the Mass. v EPA decision, in which the Supreme Court held that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Under Friday's settlement, the Export-Import Bank will begin taking carbon dioxide emissions into account in evaluating fossil fuel projects and create an organization-wide carbon policy. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation will establish a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects by 20% over the next ten years. Both agencies will commit to increasing financing for renewable energy.

A federal lawsuit that sought to force two U.S. agencies to address the global warming implications of their overseas financing activities was settled today after more than six years; the suit established important legal precedents related to global warming.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the city of Boulder, Colorado, filed the suit (Friends of the Earth, Inc., et al. v. Spinelli, et al.) in August 2002 and were later joined by the California cities of Arcata, Santa Monica and Oakland. The plaintiffs alleged that Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation illegally provided more than $32 billion in financing and insurance to fossil fuel projects over 10 years without assessing whether the projects contributed to global warming or impacted the U.S. environment, as they were required to do under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Fossil fuel projects financed by the two agencies from 1990 to 2003 produced cumulative emissions that were equivalent to nearly eight percent of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, or nearly one third of annual U.S. emissions in 2003.

In August 2005, a federal judge found that the U.S. cities suffering economic and other damages from climate change had standing to sue under NEPA, opening up the courthouse doors for the first time to those injured by climate change. Testimony from the case, which successfully asserted that climate change is real and caused by human activities, later informed the Mass. v EPA decision, in which the Supreme Court held that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Under the settlement agreed to today, the Export-Import Bank will begin taking carbon dioxide emissions into account in evaluating fossil fuel projects and create an organization-wide carbon policy. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation will establish a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects by 20 percent over the next ten years. Both agencies will commit to increasing financing for renewable energy.

“This settlement is a substantial victory for our climate. It will force federal agencies to move away from fossil fuel projects and account for the climate impacts of their lending," Michelle Chan, Senior Policy Analyst for Friends of the Earth, said. "As President Obama said in his inaugural address, 'We can no longer consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.' The settlement agreed to today is a first step toward making Obama's vision a reality for these institutions.”

In Related News...

The Obama administration took steps on Friday to create more stringent controls on mercury pollution from the nation's power plants, abandoning a Bush administration approach that the industry supported.

The Justice Department on Friday submitted papers to the Supreme Court to dismiss the Bush administration's appeal of a ruling struck down by a lower court last year.

Read Associate Press coverage at the link below.

Website: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29056827/

Climate activist sues world leaders for manslaughter over future global warming deaths -- asking for US$1 billion damages in Court of Public Opinion

Putting Climate Laggards on Trial: Climate activist sues world leaders for manslaughter over future global warming deaths -- asking for US$1 billion in damages in Court of Public Opinion [CoPO]

WEBBY POSTED: year 2009

Ballsy.

That is perhaps best word to describe a class action lawsuit filed this week in the Court of Public Opinion -- CoPO -- against national governments refusing to act on reducing carbon emissions.

The suit was filed by climate activist Danny Bloom who is asking for "US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth - if there are any".

No Joke.

The lawsuit is specifically seeking damages from ""all world leaders for intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2, causing possible apocalyptic harm to the Earth's ecosystem and the very future of the human species."

The point of the suit of course is not to wring money out of carbon emitters, but to embarrass the legions of laggard governments in advance of upcoming international climate negotiations next December in Copenhagen.

According to Bloom, the public lawsuit action at the CoPO venue "is about trying to protect future generations of mankind, humankind, and a positive judgment in this case will help prod more people to take the issues of climate change and global warming more seriously. We fully intend to make all world leaders of today responsible for their actions in the present day and age."

This case is a legal long shot no doubt, but Bloom said: "It's up to the court of public opinion in every nation to decide whether this case has any merit. We fully expect the court to agree to at least hear the case and make a responsible and measured decision later."

It would also be the first case of its kind to seek to act on behalf of future generations for the irresponsibility of their ancestors.

The need to put world leaders on the hot seat is very real. International climate talks have happening for over a decade yet global emissions just keep climbing. A recent report showed that in spite of international commitments, carbon emissions of 40 industrialized countries rose by 2.3 percent between 2000 and 2006.

Back to the future, back to Mr. Bloom. His CoPO lawsuit seems directly targeted towards irresponsible nations worldwide that have refused to take this issue seriously.

If he wins, Bloom is planning to donate the US$1 billion in damages to the Nobel winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Godspeed, Mr. Bloom. (If there IS a God, which at this point is highly unlikely!)

"Lite'n Up: Laugh Yourself Skinny" by Samara Q. Klein is a book for those who want to diet with humor attached

In "Lite'n Up: Laugh Yourself Skinny", Samara Q. Klein pens a diet book with her funnybone well positioned

by Dan E. Bloom

"Lite'n Up: Laugh Yourself Skinny" by Samara Q. Klein is a new book for those who want to diet with humor attached. How the book came to be is an interesting story. By the way, for those of you who are curious, the Q. of her middle name stands for Quirine.

When this reporter asked Klein what the
genesis of her book was, she replied in an email: "Over ten years ago, I gained a fair amount of weight and was determined to
lose it. The serious side of me decided this was no laughing matter and
took control. But it failed. Miserably. I became obsessed with
dieting, which caused me to be anxious all the time -- a sure prescription
for disaster."

"Stressed out about losing weight, I reached for a bag of
chips to pacify my anxiety, which caused me to feel badly about myself, so
I reached for a pint of ice cream in which to drown my sorrows," she added. "It was a
vicious cycle -- for both my hips and psyche."

Klein, 29, continued: "I was faced with a conundrum. I knew that the only way to lose the junk
from my trunk was to diet, but sticking to a diet seemed impossible. Every
time, I'd start off strong, full determination, only to get anxious and
lose my resolve three days later."

"That's when the not-serious side of me came to the rescue," she said.

Her not-serious side told her,as she remembers: "Samara, dieting doesn't
need to be serious and humorless. In fact, that's exactly what
it shouldn't be. Stay chill and you'll stick with it."

Klein continued her email to this reporter: "So, each day, I thought of a funny phrase such as, 'If I had to choose, which would I take:
a) great sex or b) fettuccine alfredo. Helpful thought, Samara: you do have
to choose.' and whenever I got stressed-out about dieting and wanted to
pacify myself with junk food, I harkened back to my silly reminder and the
anxiety diminished -- along with it, the desire to eat."

She added: "Happily anxiety free and slim, I decided to compile all of my funny
reminders, which I then presented to my a literary agent in New York who then showed the project to a savvy publisher, who saw the book as a diet journal: a notebook in which to record the date, your weight, what you eat, and your hits and bombs, each page
accompanied by a funny reminder. That's how the book came to be."

Klein has a website up now at www.samaralitenup.com, and there's a blog and space for readers to comment and react.

"My hope is that my book -- 'Lite'n Up: Laugh Yourself Skinny' -- will help women see that
dieting doesn't need to be such a serious undertaking -- that, in fact, the
two seemingly-contradictory positions of maintaining resolve and having fun
is the only way to lose weight. After all, itss hard to stuff your face
when you're laughing," Klein said.

When asked how the book was being marketed, she replied: "The book is being marketed to women of all ages who are on a diet via radio interviews, an IndieBound mailing and also a targeted mailing to key media and sales accounts, as
well as a larger sample mailing."

There's more coming soon, too, she said. From late June through August (bikini season in the USA), there will be a contest,
the details of which are still being worked out, Klein noted. The grand-prize winner
will receive a work-out wardrobe from KDDance.

Pub Notes"

Title: Lite’n Up: Laugh Yourself Skinny
Author: Samara Q. Klein
Retail: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0977738359
Pages: 128
Format: paperback

Publisher:
Plain White Press
White Plains, NY 10601
publisher@plainwhitepress.com
www.plainwhitepress.com

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Fareed Zakaria blows the Eliot Spitzer GPS interview by not saying what exactly Spitzer did wrong in terms of hooking up with a paid sex worker

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE.
When being briefed by academics from the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked a simple question: Why did nobody notice it?

UH, Fareed, better way to say that is "WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY NOTICE IT?" SPEAK ENGLISH MAN!

Fareed Zakaria is a good man, with good intentions but he is now part of the problem in the USA. When he had Spitzer on his GPS show this week, Fareed never said the real words that define what Spitz did wrong. Fareed and ES just spoke of some general vague thing he did wrong, they did not say that Spitz engaged in adultery, that he paid a sex worker for her services in a high-class hooker op, that he showed made judgement etc.....

No, Fareed by not saying what Spitz really did wrong, without saying the words on air, means that Fareed is also not using proper judgment or moral reasoning and pretending all is okay with adultery and paying sex workers on the sly and hoping not to get caught, and this is the same spin they use on the economy. Now Fareed has become truly American: he is also dissembling in public on his show and it lowers his truth meter ratings. Shame on you, Fareed Zakaria....

RE: In his first television interview since being forced from office in a prostitution scandal, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer talked with CNN about his personal failings, the AIG bailout and President Obama's handling of the economy.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Spitzer told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" that he thinks he still has a duty to speak about issues like million-dollar bonuses to American International Group executives, but that he comments on the issues "with full awareness and heaviness of heart about what I did."
"I would say to [critics] that I never held myself out as being anything other than human," he said in the interview, which airs Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. "I have flaws as we all do, arguably. I failed in a very important way in my personal life. [FAILED AT WHAT? WHAT DID HE DO? THEY NEVER SAY IT ON AIR.] And I have paid a price for that." "These are issues that I feel deeply about," he said. "But I am where I am because of my own conduct. [WHAT WAS THAT CONDUCT, ELIOT? SPELL IT OUT ON AIR AND DON"T HIDE BEHIND VAGUE GENERALITIES. FAREED IS GUILTY HERE TOO. THIS IS WHY AMERCA IS IN BAD SHAPE, PEOPLE USE LANGUAGE TO HIDE THINGS. TALK STRAIGHT, FAREED. YOU ARE BECOMING AN UGLY AMERICAN NOW. SHEESH. AND I SAY THIS AS A FRIEND. I LIKE YOU. BUT YOU ARE PLAYING UP THE RICH AND FAMOUS AND VIPs, MAYBE YOU ARE IN THEIR CLUB OR WANT TO BE. THIS IS WHAT OFTEN HAPPENS TO IMMIGRANTS TO THE USA. SIGH. ] And as I say, I make no excuses."

AND, Fareed opened his show with very poor grammmer. He said "WHY DID NOBODY SEE THIS?" but he should have said WHY DIDN't ANYBODY SEE THIS COMING?"

Okay, he was quoting the UK Queen. It is still the wrong choice of words. Fareed, you failed the test this week. wake up, man!

Aired March 22, 2009 - 13:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

This has been another week of outrage over Wall Street. But mixed in with the outrage, there continues to be a bewilderment about how these problems in the financial industry could have been piling up without warning.

When being briefed by academics from the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked a simple question: Why did nobody notice it?

Friday, March 20, 2009

How I Became James Lovelock's Accidental Student, Come Hell and High Water

How I Became James Lovelock's Accidental Student, Come Hell and High Water

REJECTED BY UK OBSERVER COMMENTARY PAGE: Dan,
Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been in Ireland for the last week.
Thanks for the piece. it's not really for me, I'm afraid as it is more
about your journey than a comment piece.
All the best with it though,
Editor
Observer

Danny Bloom explains how he became a climate activist in Taiwan, calling
for Polar Cities to House "Breeding Pairs in the Arctic" in the Far
Distant Future

Published by the UK GUARDIAN, [in some future parallel universe]

TAIPEI, TAIWAN -- I've often been asked by inquiring journalists overseas how I came to
be "James Lovelock's Accidental Student".

Let me explain: Two years ago I read Fiona Harvey's wonderful lunchtime
interview in the Financial Times in the UK with Dr Lovelock over
some good wine they were sharing in London, and in the interview, and
in other places, Lovelock talked about his vision
of the far distant future being a place in northern regions where the
only survivors left on Earth, perhaps just 200,000 people,
would be "breeding pairs in the Arctic". This hit me hard, right in
the gut and right in the center of my brain, too. I kept thinking
about those words for a few days and finally I asked myself, where
will these "breeding pairs" live, I mean, what kind of settlements
will they be housed in, and where will these settlements be located?
And also: who will govern these settlements, and who will be
allowed in, or who will get in, and will they survive the long long
Long Emergency that will be happeneing then -- an event I now call The
Great Interruption -- and so one afternoon after waking up from a nap
in my cave in Taiwan I envisioned something like "polar cities" for
these breeding pairs in Lovelock's Arctic. That's how the term polar
cities was born. And that is how I became James Lovelock's Accidental
Student. This was also around the same time as the IPCC report was
coming out in February 2007 to great media fanfare and there were
headlines every day in my local English newspaper in Taiwan, so I was
obsessing with the issues of climate change and global warming for the
first time in my life. Just two years ago. Before that, I was not
involved in this activism or visionary thinking at all.

I knew I needed to put this idea of polar cities for breeding
pairs into some kind of visual showcase, because when I first started
blogging about my polar cities idea, the response was basically no
response at all. The words themselves -- polar cities for survivors of
global warming in the year 2500 or so -- just did not wake people up
and attract interest from readers or reporters or bloggers. So I knew
I needed some kind of visual to show what I was talking about.

Near my home in Taiwan, there was a small advertising agency run by a
pontailed man named Deng Cheng-hong. I rode my bicycle over to his
shop one Sunday afternoon and asked him if he could illustrate my
polar cities idea with some hand-drawn art or some computer-generated
work. He also had never really thought about global warming in a very
deep way, either, but he understand what I was talkingh about, even
though he did not speak English and I do not speak Chinese, but we
communicated and I showed him some very rough sketches I had done up
at my home in pencil and crayon on paper. He took these sketches and 8
weeks later came back with these wonderful, color illustrastions of
his artistic view of what a polar city blueprint might look like. I
knew this was it. He had given life to my vision, which I gotten from
Dr Lovelock's interviews and books and speeches. Dr Lovelock is my
mentor in all this.

When I showed Mr Deng's images to reporters in the USA -- and to Dr
Lovelock himself in the UK by email -- the response was very positive.
The New York Times blog Dot Earth, written by veteran science reporter
Andrew C. Revkin, wrote about polar cities, with Deng's images printed
on the blog as well, on March 29, 2008. The response was immediate,
both pro and con. I have not stopped promoting polar cities since that
day. The New York Times gave me the greenlight and I decided to spend
the rest of my life promoting and talking about, both pro and con,
polar cities. But this was not part of my life plan before 2006. I am
a writer, an editor, a poet, a dreamer. But after I read Lovelock's
words about "breeding pairs in the Arctic" I became haunted, obsessed,
with those words. And here I am, age 60, James Lovelock's Accidental
Student. I have no PHD, no academic sponors, no credibility at all. I
am nobody. I am nothing. AndI love this work. This is my life's work
now. A few more years here on Planet Earth and then I'm gone. I care
about the future. Deeply. I care about what life will be like on Earth
30 generations down the road, in 2500 or so. Polar cities might save
us from extinction.

I have never met or spoken with Dr Lovelock but I did once send him an
email with images of Deng's polar city designs
and he replied: "Thanks, for showing
me those images. It may very well happen, and soon!"

What's next for my seemingly impossible polar cities quest?

I plan to keep quietly promoting the concept of polar cities, what I
also call climate retreats for climate refugees, for the rest of my
life. These polar cities will be not be at the poles per se. They will
be in northern and southern regions of the world, from Tasmania and
New Zealand and Patagonia and Antarctica in the southern hemisphere to
Alaska and Canada and Russia and Greenland and Iceland and Norway in
the north. These polar cities are where Lovelock's breeding pairs will
live. We need to think hard about who will get in, who will govern
them, who will administer them, and what life inside will be like.
That's my brief.

Lovelock gave this brief to me. He does not know it, but he gave it to
me. I am just following in his footsteps. Using my visionary skills
and out-of-the-box thinking and global PR skills to create an important
discussion, both pro and con, online, in print and in classrooms, too.
Who gave me this brief? I gave it to
myself. I am James Lovelock's Accidental Student. It's energizing. I
enjoy this work.
It's my 24/7 obsession, but a healthy, productive, creative obsession.
Thank you, James Lovelock! But all this is not something that makes me
happy, and it's not a pretty picture. We are talking about some very
dark times coming down the road in 30 generations or so. I don't get
enjoyment out of this work. But I do get a sense of doing something
positive and important. And I remain an optimist, despite what it
might seem. I am an eternal optimist. That is why I envisioned polar
cities to save humanity from extinction in some future time when
global warming's major impact events have reduced the human tribe to
just 200,000 men, women and children barely surviving -- but
surviving, yes! -- in polar cities scattered around the world. The
Earth's populations of humans will have dropped by then from 25
billion to just 200,000 souls.As Dr Lovelock's accidental student,
with a phd or an academic backing, I plan to keep trying to promote
polar cities an important adaptation idea for the future.

It's not easy catching the attention of the news media or reporters
around the world. Although it's easy to get a mention or two about
polar cities on blogs and websites, it's almost impossible to get a
story about my work in a print publication anywhere in the world.
In fact, this essay is the first to ever appear in print, and I thank
the editors for publishing this.

Just to show how hard the path is, in terms of getting any mainstream
media coverage of my cockamamie idea, a reporter for a major wire news
service in Europe recently told me in a friendly email, explaining why
he could not write about polar cities for his
agency or interview me for a story: "I appreciate the originality of
your idea of polar cities, and your enthusiasm, and
your independence. I really do. But unless you are a scientist or
engineer, or your idea has gotten some serious traction somewhere, I
cannot justify doing a separate piece on you and your work. But I have
made a note of your website and your work, and if the opportunity
arises for me to allude to them, I will get back in touch. Interesting
coincidence: I spent an hour in conversation with Dr.
Lovelock yesterday."

George Monbiot and Polar Cities and Climate Change

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

By George Monbiot

20 March, 2209

Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than two degrees of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt AND THINK ABOUT POLAR CITIES to what nature sends our way. If we can.

This, at any rate, was the repeated whisper at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last week(1). It’s more or less what Bob Watson, the environment department’s chief scientific adviser, has been telling the British government(2). It is the obvious if unspoken conclusion of scores of scientific papers. Recent work by scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, for example, suggests that even global cuts of 3% a year, starting in 2020, could leave us with four degrees of warming by the end of the century(3,4). At the moment emissions are heading in the opposite direction at roughly the same rate. If this continues, what does it mean? Six? Eight? Ten degrees? Who knows?

Faced with such figures, I can’t blame anyone for throwing up his hands. But before you succumb to this fatalism, let me talk you through the options.

Yes, it is true that mitigation has so far failed. Sabotaged by Clinton(5), abandoned by Bush, attended half-heartedly by the other rich nations, the global climate talks have so far been a total failure. The targets they have set bear no relationship to the science and are negated anyway by loopholes and false accounting. Nations like the UK which are meeting their obligations under the Kyoto protocol have succeeded only by outsourcing their pollution to other countries(6,7). Nations like Canada, which are flouting their obligations, face no meaningful sanctions.

Lord Stern made it too easy: he appears to have underestimated the costs of mitigation. As the professor of energy policy Dieter Helm has shown, Stern’s assumption that our consumption can continue to grow while our emissions fall is implausible(8). To have any hope of making substantial cuts we have both to reduce our consumption and transfer resources to countries like China to pay for the switch to low-carbon technologies. As Helm notes, “there is not much in the study of human nature—and indeed human biology—to give support to the optimist.”

But we cannot abandon mitigation unless we have a better option. We don’t. If you think our attempts to prevent emissions are futile, take a look at our efforts to adapt.

Where Stern appears to be correct is in proposing that the costs of stopping climate breakdown - great as they would be - are far lower than the costs of living with it. Germany is spending E600m just on a new sea wall for Hamburg(9) - and this money was committed before the news came through that sea level rises this century could be two or three times as great as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted(10). The Netherlands will spend E2.2bn on dykes between now and 2015; again they are likely to be inadequate. The UN suggests that the rich countries should be transferring $50-75bn a year to the poor ones now to help them cope with climate change, with a massive increase later on(11). But nothing like this is happening.

A Guardian investigation reveals that the rich nations have promised $18bn to help the poor nations adapt to climate change over the past seven years, but they have disbursed only 5% of that money(12). Much of it has been transferred from foreign aid budgets anyway: a net gain for the poor of nothing(13). Oxfam has made a compelling case for how adaptation should be funded: nations should pay according to the amount of carbon they produce per capita, coupled with their position on the human development index(14). On this basis, the US should supply over 40% of the money and the European Union over 30%, with Japan, Canada, Australia and Korea making up the balance. But what are the chances of getting them to cough up?

There’s a limit to what this money could buy anyway. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that “global mean temperature changes greater than 4°C above 1990-2000 levels” would “exceed … the adaptive capacity of many systems.”(15) At this point there’s nothing you can do, for example, to prevent the loss of ecosystems, the melting of glaciers and the disintegration of major ice sheets. Elsewhere it spells out the consequences more starkly: global food production, it says, is “very likely to decrease above about 3°C”(16). Buy your way out of that.

And it doesn’t stop there. The IPCC also finds that, above three degrees of warming, the world’s vegetation will become “a net source of carbon”(17). This is just one of the climate feedbacks triggered by a high level of warming. Four degrees might take us inexorably to five or six: the end - for humans - of just about everything.

Until recently, scientists spoke of carbon concentrations - and temperatures - peaking and then falling back. But a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that “climate change … is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.”(18) Even if we were to cut carbon emissions to zero today, by the year 3000 our contribution to atmospheric concentrations would decline by just 40%. High temperatures would remain more or less constant until then. If we produce it we’re stuck with it.

In the rich nations we will muddle through, for a few generations, and spend nearly everything we have on coping. But where the money is needed most there will be nothing. The ecological debt the rich world owes to the poor will never be discharged, just as it has never accepted that it should offer reparations for the slave trade and for the pillage of gold, silver, rubber, sugar and all the other commodities taken without due payment from its colonies. Finding the political will for crash cuts in carbon production is improbable. But finding the political will - when the disasters have already begun - to spend adaptation money on poor nations rather than on ourselves will be impossible.

The world won’t adapt and can’t adapt: the only adaptive response to a global shortage of food is starvation. Of the two strategies it is mitigation, not adaptation, which turns out to be the most feasible option, even if this stretches the concept of feasibility to the limits. As Dieter Helm points out, the action required today is unlikely but “not impossible. It is a matter ultimately of human well being and ethics.”(19)

Yes, it might already be too late - even if we reduced emissions to zero tomorrow - to prevent more than two degrees of warming, but we cannot behave as if it is, for in doing so we make the prediction come true. Tough as this fight may be, improbable as success might seem, we cannot afford to surrender.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Eg David Adam, 13th March 2009. Stern attacks politicians over climate ‘devastation’. The Guardian.

2. James Randerson, 7th August 2008. Climate change: Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist. The Guardian.

3. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, 2008. Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Published online. doi:10.1098/rsta.2008.0138
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications
/journal_papers/fulltext.pdf

4. They are referring to stabilisation at 650 parts per million CO2 equivalent. The IPCC suggests that this would produce something the region of 4C, even before all the likely feedbacks have b een taken into account. See Table SPM6 of the IPCC’s Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report - Summary for Policymakers. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

5. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/12/17/hurray-were-going-backwards/

6. http://www.sei.se/index.php?page=newsitem&item=5720

7. http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/publications/
Carbon_record_2007.pdf

8. Dieter Helm, 21st February 2009. Environmental challenges in a warming world: consumption, costs and responsibilities. Tanner Lecture, Oxford.
http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/publications/
TANNER%20LECTURE%20Feb09.pdf

9. Oxfam, 29th May 2007. Adapting to climate change. Briefing Paper 104. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/climate_change/
downloads/bp104_adapting_to_climate_change.pdf

10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/
sea-level-rises-climate-change-copenhagen

11. John Vidal, 20th February 2009. Rich nations failing to meet climate aid pledges. The Guardian.

12. ibid.

13. Oxfam, 29th May 2007, ibid.

14. Oxfam, 29th May 2007, ibid.

15. IPCC, 2007b. Assessing key vulnerabilities and the risk from climate change.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter19.pdf

16. ibid, Table 19.1.

17. IPCC, 2007b, ibid.

18. Susan Solomona,1, Gian-Kasper Plattnerb, Reto Knuttic, and Pierre Friedlingstein, 16th December 2008. Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/
2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html

19. Dieter Helm, 21st February 2009, ibid.

A Chinese writer's take on James Lovelock and Global Warming (not to mention POLAR CITES)

Our Mother Earth is ailing and there's no quick fix
By Wan Lixin | 2009-3-21 | NEWSPAPER EDITION

JAMES Lovelock is a scientist known for his "Gaia Hypothesis," after the Greek goddess of the Earth.

In this hypothesis, Lovelock states that the entire mass of living and nonliving matter on Earth functions together in a complex, interdependent system that can be viewed as a "living entity."

The Gaia, our Earth, is very ill, and is becoming even sicker due to global warming.

Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back -- and How We Can Still Save Humanity" concludes that HUmankind has passed the point at which it is possible to reverse the dangerous effects of global warming.

"If we fail to take care of the Earth, it surely will take care of itself by making us no longer welcome," the book warns.

This view of interdependence is a drastic departure from prevailing perception, implied or otherwise, of humans as conquerors of the nature.

Lovelock's vision somewhat approaches traditional Chinese attitudes, as expressed by sage Chuang Tzu.

He believed that since humans are born of nature, live in it, and will return to it, "I" is part of nature. Just as you do not give more weight to one bodily function over others, the stress of pitting oneself against nature is ridiculous.

The sage thus laments the man who (in Burton Watson's translation) is "sometimes clashing with things, sometimes bending before them. He runs his course like a galloping steed, and nothing can stop him."

"Sweating and laboring to the end of his days and never seeing his accomplishment, utterly exhausting himself and never knowing where to look for rest -- can you help pitying him?" Chuang Tzu wonders.

Much of human strife conjures up an image of an Antaeus (titan) trying hard to cut his nexus with mother Earth.

Chuang Tzu's vision of human beings as part of nature has important implications for Chinese.

For instance, it explains why traditional Chinese dwellings emphasize oneness with nature, and the modern "comfort" of living confined to an stuffy, air-conditioned highrise or a moving metal box -- all the while poisoning the air -- is incomprehensible.
This insight into human nature ensures that the Earth's relatively simple homeostatic mechanisms work, since "The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components," a consensus reached by scientists at a climate-change conference in 2001.

Lovelock makes it clear that Gaia's ability to self-regulate is at risk.

"The humanist concept of sustainable development and the Christian concept of stewardship are flawed by unconscious hubris," Lovelace claims.

If we conceive of this life like that of a sparrow that flies into the warmth and light of the feasting hall from the darkness and storms outside, and then flies out again into darkness through the opposite door, we have little incentives not to make the most of our brief stay in the feasting hall.

Although Chinese society is partly characterized by the absence of institutionalized religion, this has always been balanced by our strong bond to our posterity, and this empowered view of our life as an endless stream infinitely enhances our awareness of our responsibilities.

In his diary for December 16, 1923, scholar Hu Shih recorded an exchange with one of the most revered contemporary classical scholars Wang Guowei, who believed that Western preoccupation with desires would in time lead to destruction and catastrophe.

Hu Shih, while less pessimistic, claims that "we have no choice but to head to this direction too."

Lovelock warns that a dangerous state of "Positive Feedback" can have disastrous consequences.

In positive feedback, the response is to amplify the change in the variable. This has a de-stabilizing effect.

Among such instances are the "ice albedo feedback," in which the melting of snow-covered ground would accelerate the earth's warming.

"The planet we live on has merely to shrug to take some fraction of a million people to their deaths," Lovelace warns.

Yet Lovelock's capacity as a scientist also dramatically limits his vision.

He still takes comfort in technological fixes, in his belief that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming."

He also proposes that nations should begin planning to synthesize food from available materials.

The Age of Stupid: Polar Cities and More!

London is underwater, New Orleans won’t be rebuilt a third time, the
arctic is ice free, people are living in polar cities, and agriculture is failing, which leads to global
food riots and ultimately the collapse of civilization…. This is the
premise of the British independent film The Age of
Stupid.

Set in 2500 AD, the film portrays a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by the
worst impacts of climate change, and looks back at the critical period
between 2005 and 2015 to examine why we didn’t save ourselves when we
still had the chance.

In an opening sequence, the narrator (played by Oscar nominee Pete
Postlethwaite) takes us through a montage of news reports describing
visible impacts of climate change: A 101 degree day in London, 700
dead after record flooding in India, record breaking drought in
Melbourne, desertification in China progressing at the rate of 3 miles
per year, dozens of Antarctic ice shelves collapsing faster than
anyone predicted, 18 million affected by flooding in parts of Africa,
and a glacier in France having shrunk 150 meters since 1945.

The fact that the clips in this montage are all real-life news reports
from 2007 and 2008 is chilling.

Indeed, although framed by a post-apocalyptic narrative set in the
future, the bulk of the film is actually a documentary about the
impacts of climate change that we are already seeing in 2009 — and its
not pretty.

That the impacts are depicted through the lens of real human stories
makes the film’s message all the more accessible and compelling. Here
is a snapshot of some of the characters and their stories:

Alvin DuVernay is a career oil paleontologist from New Orleans who
spent his life directing drill bits for Shell. When Hurricane Katrina
hit in 2005, he personally rescued 100 people in his boat, but lost
his home and all his possessions.

I lost everything. Everything that I owned. Quite literally. Except
for my boat. I mean everything from family heirlooms to the paper
towels sitting on your kitchen counter. And everything in between. It
goes on and on.

I mean what more of a wake up call do you need? At the very local
level all the way through and including the top federal level I just
don’t see that awakening, that epiphany in the politicians’ eyes. I
don’t see the sense of urgency. And I certainly don’t see movement. A
year or so later, after the event, and not a whole lot has changed.

Then there is the 80-year old French Alps mountain guide who, over the
course of his 45-year career has seen the glacier that he loves shrink
by 150 meters:

When I first saw all these mountains. The beauty. It was wonderful. It
was truly love at first sight.

We created this problem. Always progress, progress, progress. Always
demanding more and more from the planet.

And then there is the wind farm developer whose noble attempts to get
a few wind turbines installed in a rural part of England are rebuffed
by selfish grassroots resistance (the whirling of the blades might
hypnotize people while they are driving….)

The fact that you can’t go skiing anymore or that the glaciers are
melting is not really the point. The point is that’s a signal that
basically the earth is destabilising and all the norms that have
allowed life to exist as it has done are changing.

If we don’t face up to our fears, I just feel we’re abusing it, our
environment which gives us so much. We’re just rampantly,
disrespectfully trashing it.

The film traces these real human stories to convey the impacts of
climate change on a personal level, and is at times funny, scary and
tender. What’s amazing is that all of the material is real.

The fictional aspect of the film serves only as a narrative device
until the very end, when a final sequence of news reports takes us
from the year 2007 to 2055: 80,000 fatalities from a giant cyclone in
Asia, water rationing in Holland, forest fires sweep across Spain, the
decision is made not to rebuild New Orleans for a 3rd time, a drinking
water crisis erupts in Pakistan, heat waves strike San Francisco, 35
million Chinese become climate refugees, skiing in the alps is over,
100 million are homeless in Bangladesh due to massive flooding, the
European Union permanently closes its borders, the last Indonesian
tree falls to make way for palm oil production, a 30-foot swell
overcomes the Thames and floods London, New Zealand closes its borders
to Australian refugees, 100 million refugees flee the middle east,
half of all species become extinct, ecosystems collapse across the
planet, the north sea boils, food riots become so severe that people
begin to eat their own cats and dogs, nuclear war breaks out.

The stated goal of The Age of Stupid is to “turn 250 million viewers
into climate activists,” and it makes the case that we have to
stabilize and begin to reduce global emissions by 2015 to avoid the
catastrophic consequences it speculates about above.

Even if a bit over-the-top (come on, the North Sea boiling?) this
hard-hitting final sequence is nonetheless powerful, and left me
watching the credits role with a sense of urgency that even as a
long-time climate activist I had not experienced before.

Postlethwaite’s final monologue then really drives the message home:

We wouldn’t be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would
be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say
about us?

The question I’ve been asking is: why didn’t we save ourselves when we
had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren’t sure if
we were worth saving?

The Age of Stupid is set to premiere in US theatres next month.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Michael McCarthy is environment editor of 'The Independent'. His book,

Michael McCarthy is environment editor of 'The Independent'. His book,
'Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo', will be published by John Murray on 2
April

The Age of Stupid: New Film Gives Us a Painfully Realistic Look at Life in 2055

The Age of Stupid: New Film Gives Us a Painfully Realistic Look at Life in 2055

By Sean Pool, Climate Progress. Posted March 19, 2009.

The central premise: We would be the first life form to knowingly wipe itself out. What does that say about us? Tools
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London is underwater, New Orleans won’t be rebuilt a third time, the arctic is ice free, and agriculture is failing, which leads to global food riots and ultimately the collapse of civilization…. This is the premise of the new crowd-funded British independent film The Age of Stupid.

Set in 2055, the film portrays a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by the worst impacts of climate change, and looks back at the critical period between 2005 and 2015 to examine why we didn’t save ourselves when we still had the chance.

In an opening sequence, the narrator (played by Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite) takes us through a montage of news reports describing visible impacts of climate change: A 101 degree day in London, 700 dead after record flooding in India, record breaking drought in Melbourne, desertification in China progressing at the rate of 3 miles per year, dozens of Antarctic ice shelves collapsing faster than anyone predicted, 18 million affected by flooding in parts of Africa, and a glacier in France having shrunk 150 meters since 1945.

The fact that the clips in this montage are all real-life news reports from 2007 and 2008 is chilling.

Indeed, although framed by a post-apocalyptic narrative set in the future, the bulk of the film is actually a documentary about the impacts of climate change that we are already seeing in 2009 — and its not pretty.

That the impacts are depicted through the lens of real human stories makes the film’s message all the more accessible and compelling. Here is a snapshot of some of the characters and their stories:

Alvin DuVernay is a career oil paleontologist from New Orleans who spent his life directing drill bits for Shell. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, he personally rescued 100 people in his boat, but lost his home and all his possessions.

I lost everything. Everything that I owned. Quite literally. Except for my boat. I mean everything from family heirlooms to the paper towels sitting on your kitchen counter. And everything in between. It goes on and on.

I mean what more of a wake up call do you need? At the very local level all the way through and including the top federal level I just don’t see that awakening, that epiphany in the politicians’ eyes. I don’t see the sense of urgency. And I certainly don’t see movement. A year or so later, after the event, and not a whole lot has changed.

Then there is the 80-year old French Alps mountain guide who, over the course of his 45-year career has seen the glacier that he loves shrink by 150 meters:

When I first saw all these mountains. The beauty. It was wonderful. It was truly love at first sight.

We created this problem. Always progress, progress, progress. Always demanding more and more from the planet.

And then there is the wind farm developer whose noble attempts to get a few wind turbines installed in a rural part of England are rebuffed by selfish grassroots resistance (the whirling of the blades might hypnotize people while they are driving….)

The fact that you can’t go skiing anymore or that the glaciers are melting is not really the point. The point is that’s a signal that basically the earth is destabilising and all the norms that have allowed life to exist as it has done are changing.

If we don’t face up to our fears, I just feel we’re abusing it, our environment which gives us so much. We’re just rampantly, disrespectfully trashing it.

The film traces these real human stories to convey the impacts of climate change on a personal level, and is at times funny, scary and tender. What’s amazing is that all of the material is real.

The fictional aspect of the film serves only as a narrative device until the very end, when a final sequence of news reports takes us from the year 2007 to 2055: 80,000 fatalities from a giant cyclone in Asia, water rationing in Holland, forest fires sweep across Spain, the decision is made not to rebuild New Orleans for a 3rd time, a drinking water crisis erupts in Pakistan, heat waves strike San Francisco, 35 million Chinese become climate refugees, skiing in the alps is over, 100 million are homeless in Bangladesh due to massive flooding, the European Union permanently closes its borders, the last Indonesian tree falls to make way for palm oil production, a 30-foot swell overcomes the Thames and floods London, New Zealand closes its borders to Australian refugees, 100 million refugees flee the middle east, half of all species become extinct, ecosystems collapse across the planet, the north sea boils, food riots become so severe that people begin to eat their own cats and dogs, nuclear war breaks out.

The stated goal of The Age of Stupid is to “turn 250 million viewers into climate activists,” and it makes the case that we have to stabilize and begin to reduce global emissions by 2015 to avoid the catastrophic consequences it speculates about above.

Even if a bit over-the-top (come on, the North Sea boiling?) this hard-hitting final sequence is nonetheless powerful, and left me watching the credits role with a sense of urgency that even as a long-time climate activist I had not experienced before.

Postlethwaite’s final monologue then really drives the message home:

We wouldn’t be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us?

The question I’ve been asking is: why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren’t sure if we were worth saving?

The Age of Stupid is set to premiere in US theatres next month.

See more stories tagged with: global warming, climate change, age of stupid

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More than one way for humans to think the species to death.
[Report this comment] Posted by: aouie01 on Mar 19, 2009 12:47 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

One other way may be traveled on by the people who believe that the world is better off without humans.

Another way is that we may evolve to be so reliant on medical intervention, could result in mass vaccination with an unknown long-term effect killing off everyone.

Another way (similar to the previous one) is that we may release some chemicals or nano-particles specifically meant to fix some global issue that results in human extinction due to an unforeseen possibility.

Another way (similar to the above two) is that we may someday carry out some experiment that accidentally results in a massive explosion or implosion or biological weapon or other catastrophic thing that winds up killing all of us humans.

Sincerely,
Aouie

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The ego & self-centered fear is a killer
[Report this comment] Posted by: weathered on Mar 19, 2009 12:59 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Fear that I'll loose what I have, or not get what it is I think I need that motivates selfish, destructive and fearful behavior.

Humility eludes us, denial becomes us and trouble follow us.
For some this simple, but essential lesson is too hard to grasp.

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The Age of Stupid is Right - But It Started Over 30 Years Ago
[Report this comment] Posted by: tony_opmoc on Mar 19, 2009 3:01 AM
Current rating: 3 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

We have allowed stupid Religious and Political leaders to continue to encourage us to go forth and Multiply as if it was 2000 years ago, and the Earth was of infinte space and at the Centre of the Universe.

We have built Weapons of Mass Destruction such that we can kill everyone 10 time older - simply on the basis of powerful Political Leaders having Personal disputes.

We have dumbed down Science to such an extent that the core of Science is no longer taught in Schools - merely the Story of Science as if history or religious studies are being taught.

Science has been totally corrupted - such that only results that concur with the funded objective are retained. Any results that disagree are discarded. The result is for example - a range of powerful, highly profitable drugs that cause far more damage to human health than they resolve. Yet most people believe that these drugs are doing them good.

Another result is that most young people believe that CO2 is a pollutant and is responsible for Global Warming. They are indoctrinated with this - continuously - in school - in the media etc - as if it is a New Religion.

The Agenda is simple to understand. It is about mass population reduction via every method available to those in control.

The most efficient cleanest way to depopulate the Earth has been deemed to massively reduce Energy Supplies.

The promoted story that we are running out of energy is nonsense. The Earth is abundant in energy. Peak oil is a hoax - but population growth isn't. But if the oil and money supply is switched off - then there will be mass starvation, poverty, civil wars and genocide.

That's what we have in store for us because we are Stupid. We believe nonsense promoted by corrupt extremely rich idiots. The lunatics have taken over the asylum - and we are being culled.

It's already happenning - check out what those drugs you are taking - for your high blood pressure, your cholesterol, your depression etc etc are actually doing to you. Virtually all such problems are a result of an unhealthy lifestyle. Taking drugs will not solve the underlying problem. Change your diet, do more exercise, relax and have far more sex. Clear your body of all the shit - and clear your mind of all the indoctrination. Think for yourself. Realise that you are being fed nonsense. You are right to be paranoid because the bastards really are out to kill you - and you are like a Turkey voting for Christmas.

So go to your Global Warming demo in the coldest temperatures in generations - but don't be surprised if you get frostbite. The bastards have already taken your mind.

Tony

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» RE: The Age of Stupid is Right - But It Started Over 30 Years Ago Posted by: weathered

» Because THEY won't let them, see. Posted by: -matti

» RE: The Age of Stupid is Right - But It Started Over 30 Years Ago Posted by: tony_opmoc

» So rock-oil is NOT finite? It is renewable? Posted by: -matti

» RE: So rock-oil is NOT finite? It is renewable? Posted by: tony_opmoc

» RE: So rock-oil is NOT finite? It is renewable? Posted by: robert.noll

» RE: The Age of Stupid is Right - But It Started Over 30 Years Ago Posted by: F-Abdolian

» If you DON'T check, how do you KNOW the monsters AREN'T under your bed? Posted by: -matti

» RE: Are you trying to prove yourself a product of the Age of Stupid? Posted by: Jasonix

» RE: Oh yea, I forgot to add this question, Tony... Posted by: Jasonix

» RE: Oh yea, I forgot to add this question, Tony... Posted by: tony_opmoc

» RE: I'd think you're part of that 25%, tony Posted by: Jasonix

» RE: I'd think you're part of that 25%, tony Posted by: tony_opmoc

» RE: Not sterilized, just tweaked Posted by: Jasonix

Will this climate shift be worse than the end of the last Ice Age?
[Report this comment] Posted by: -matti on Mar 19, 2009 3:22 AM
Current rating: 1 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Humans survived that.

'Course they didn't have many nukes laying around, then.

Just in case the whole "taming the entire ecosphere" thing doesn't work out, should we maybe take the "hair-trigger launch kill everything 5 times over weapons" off line first?

Y'know, seeing as how they sprung from a cultural misunderstanding/greed stand-off that ended 20 years ago, maybe we don't need them anymore?

They worry me just a bit more than climate instability itself does.

Also, why do climate prediction models -especially Brit ones- always forsee both hotter AND drier conditions? Did warmer air stop holding more water vapor than cooler air when I wasn't looking? And what's the Gulf Stream, chopped liver? It's the only reason Britain isn't as cold as Nova Scotia. What's the fresh water dumping from the Greenland ice-sheet gonna do to it, make it work harder?

How much of this climate change scare/panic is about the end of humanity, and how much is it about the end of the current hierachical systems we tend to call Industrial Civilization?

Because if the former is more important, then shouldn't the nukes that could kill us all in 45 minutes take precedence over the climate shifts that may kill many of us indirectly through famine and war over decades or more?

Questions, questions.

-matti.

P.S. BTW I totally buy the idea that the climate is shifting or going more chaotic -I even see Industrial Civ.'s pollution contributing to the process- so please no "right-wing denier-nutcase" comebacks, okay? I just don't think there's any reason to be in quite the hysterical panic about it that many seem to wish to induce in the population. Several decades is a helluva lot of time to find high ground and good microclimates, don'tcha think?

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» Here's what you don't understand. Posted by: SpiderWoman

» Here's what YOU don't understand. Posted by: -matti

» RE: Here's what YOU don't understand. Posted by: leafsong1

» The problem is.. and most environmentalists don't talk about this... Posted by: JoshuaLudd

» RE: The problem is.. and most environmentalists don't talk about this... Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

There's more to the film.
[Report this comment] Posted by: SpiderWoman on Mar 19, 2009 3:31 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

The Age of Stupid is multifaceted. It also brilliantly displays people's hypocrisy - and makes it a bit difficult for anyone to think him/herself to be different - and it, somehow, offers hope by getting people all wound up to do something about it.

My review of the film's premiere is here: Is Humanity Suicidal? A review of The Age of Stupid. This is a wakeup call and a call to action. The premiere acted as a kickoff for a brilliant campaign, Not Stupid. The question is, are you Stupid or Not Stupid? Let's start marching in the streets and force our politicians to do the right thing in Copenhagen.

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Both of you do not understand
[Report this comment] Posted by: Rod on Mar 19, 2009 4:35 AM
Current rating: 4 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Yes, average global rainfall goes up.

Areas that were in food production become unusable.

Some become deserts. Other areas become too wet.

Current agriculture is adapted to between 20 to 60 inches a year, more than that and you can not work the fields where you need to, plant or harvest. Rain forests do not produce a lot of food per acre.

There will be different crops and methods. They probably will not provide enough food. It is hard to predict technology. It is a risk.

Stop breeding now. Begin conservation now.

Rod

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Thus saith Arthur C. Clarke
[Report this comment] Posted by: social democract on Mar 19, 2009 5:13 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

There is as yet no proof that intelligence has any survival value.

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A Question for -matti
[Report this comment] Posted by: redbridge on Mar 19, 2009 5:23 AM
Current rating: 4 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Would you consider reading President Carter's Energy Address from April, 1977?

linked text

The opportunities lost - by ignoring the evident for the last 3 decades - are not recoverable. While I agree that nuclear proliferation is a real threat to humanity, I'm also able to recognize that there is much work to be done on this planet, every day. I revel that some will fight the fight against arms build-ups, while others consider earth stewardship their mission.

Peace.

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But a growing frequency of rising oil prices will eventually put an end to this.
[Report this comment] Posted by: Zipidee DooDah & Dipidee DooDog on Mar 19, 2009 5:32 AM
Current rating: 4 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

The article assumes that everyone will still be rewarded for staying their guzzling course. However, what's not mentioned is that folks with greener solutions might finally get better representation down the road especially if we can throw out the Republican and Democrat parties and replace them with strong 3rd parties such as the Green Party, Reform Party, Peace and Freedom Party, etc ... Hey, give me some tax cuts for riding my bike to work, not some gas guzzling consumer !

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» There is no evidence that rising oil prices will actually... Posted by: leafsong1

» Actually, there is. Demand declined a little last year until the prices were articially lowered. Posted by: maxpayne

the sociopathic agenda
[Report this comment] Posted by: dongarb on Mar 19, 2009 6:09 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

All of human history for the past 10,000 years has been influenced, directed and controlled by sociopaths. Them and their psychopathic thugs and human followers. And what's really important to the insane group that runs the world: is that they remain in the driver's seat.

To be the ultimate masters of a poisoned, burned out cinder of a dead planet, is far more preferable to them than being just another happy human in an abundant, healthy Earth. It's not just ordinary people with a bit too much greed who execute the lies, waste and atrocities that plague this world, it's the insanely evil.

Until the human race snaps out of it's domesticated stupor and realizes that it's evil people who do evil things, then everything we know will die so that a few elites can remain in power.

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» RE: boy, way to let yourself off the hook, fella Posted by: Jasonix

Sam
[Report this comment] Posted by: samdale@mail.com on Mar 19, 2009 7:07 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Good article on probable total destruction of Planet Earth. But once again, not a word about population control as a means to either slow down the extinction or perhaps put a stop to it. The subject of population control, thanks to religion, is taboo. It is NEVER mentioned or, god forbid, discussed. And yet the world's exploding population is the direct cause of just about every problem faced by every nation & the planet in general. Too many people & too few resources to support them. Lack of fresh water throughout the world looms on the horizon as our next big worry. Mankind continues to breed its way toward extinction. Unfortunately, we're going to take all the other species with us in the process. Man is the worst thing to ever happen to Mother Earth. Lucky for me, I'm old & probably won't be around when it really hits the fan, but on the other hand, you never know.

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» Population control must be the most talked about taboo subject around :-) Posted by: jparsons

Bye-Bye suckers
[Report this comment] Posted by: torbis5661 on Mar 19, 2009 7:38 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

In 2055 I will be 99 years old.
But with 2 incurables (being a diabetic & Have M.S.) I don't think so.
I will be long dead before any of you,when that year comes.

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» RE: Bye-Bye suckers Posted by: alturn

We will not change
[Report this comment] Posted by: frankly1 on Mar 19, 2009 7:39 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

I have lost count of the number of movies, articles and books that I have read or watched on this subject. Most of them are well done and quite scary. However, it seems quite obvious that our species is not going make any serious attempt to change our behavior. I talk to people every day who firmly believe that this issue is a hoax. I feel so privilidged to be able to converse with such genius. To be so sure, based on almost nothing, must be a sign of a vast intelect. You see I am one of the poor souls that has to take in information from the thousands of highly educated scientists and their thousands and thousands of hours of research and investigation to form the opinion that humanity is indeed in peril because of the harm we have inflicted on the system that we are part of and depend on for our existence.
If and when I can get one of these super smart folks to admit that we have a problem they usually say something to the effect that they won't be around to see the worst - I always reply "yea, fuck the kids and the grand kids, we got ours, right".
Governments will do nothing, except squabble and bicker and kowtow to few that own them and whose interest they represent.
Step right up folks and take your places for the next mass extiction.

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choose one
[Report this comment] Posted by: mwildfire on Mar 19, 2009 7:40 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Okay folks, choose one: you can worry about nuclear war, or climate change. We can reduce our population to sustainable levels, or we can force the rich to stop their massive overconsumption. We can move toward green transportation infrastructure, or we can have renewable, carbon-neutral electricity production. But we can't do more than one thing, or acknowledge more than one problem, because...
WHY exactly, does this sort of thing come up in every thread? Why can't we reduce our population AND our consumption? Deal with peak oil AND climate change AND put an end not only to the insanity of nuclear weapons but all weapons? The challenge of greening our energy and transportation and agriculture in the very short time we have before the positive feedbacks kick into overdrive and make catstrophic further warming unstoppable, is perhaps not possible unless we divert the HUGE percentage of our resources now going into warfare and start using it constructively.
And by the way, nature does not feel obliged to pick and choose--we will have both floods AND desertification, warming in most places but a possibility of cold in Europe if the Gulf Stream shuts down entirely, which has happened before. We may have floods one year and drought another in the same place. What we'll get is more extremes, and extremes are not good for agriculture. Millions will certainly starve, and if we don't recognize the need to start cooperatively reducing our numbers it will happen for us, in a drastic die-off with probably billions culled (especially if we also fail to address the other challenges mentioned).

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Not everyone is stupid or will be stupid. Besides,
[Report this comment] Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Mar 19, 2009 8:09 AM
Current rating: 3 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

those of us who aren't stupid are called "stupid" while those who are actually stupid are called "gifted". It starts in school and goes all the way into adult life. I worked my butt out getting better education and I found myself still fighting tooth and nail for a higher level position against an arrogant uneducated freak. No offense to him but while he deserves to be employed, he was supposed to be in the mid-level position while I was supposed to be in his place based on my education and experience. It was a tough fight but I eventually won him out.

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» RE:"...arrogant uneducated freak." Posted by: sausage

» RE: "...arrogant uneducated freak." Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

» RE: Gee, I'm white too! Posted by: sausage

» Oh KISS MY ASS ! Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

» RE: Oh KISS MY ASS ! Posted by: leighsure

» RE: Oh KISS MY ASS ! Posted by: LaughingModerateIndependent

» RE: Oh KISS MY ASS ! Posted by: CarlaWaters

North Sea Boiling, probably inference to methane clathrate
[Report this comment] Posted by: abbadon2007 on Mar 19, 2009 9:39 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Also known as methane hydrate, or methane ice.

This stuff is the largest and most distributed form of methane known on the planet, forming a layer immediately beneath the surface of all known submerged continental shelves, but particularly in cold regions. It's the reason for the enormous Siberian methane offgas over the past few years.

Methane clathrate has even been implicated as a cause for several shipwrecks. Methane hydrate deposits can become unstable and rise to the surface in sufficient amounts that the water appears to "boil" and its local density decreases enough to sink a vessel.

I hope that clears something up a little. The scientific community has been working on methods to harvest this stuff as a resource since the early 90's.

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» Only the Arctic Ocean will boil Posted by: PaulK

Progressives need to offer answers, not doomsday scenarios
[Report this comment] Posted by: zooeyhall on Mar 19, 2009 9:47 AM
Current rating: 3 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

If I were a non-commited person, rather moderate in my politics, I would truly find it hard to become a Progressive. Especially after reading articles like this one.

Yes.. we have problems. But we are more equipped today to deal with them then we were in the past.

Instead articles like this and the people who write them have a sinister Malthusian agenda. I have talked to some "greeners" and read some articles that seem to just stop short of advocating mass culling of the human race.

All done in the name of some grotesque "mother earth religion".

It seems like Britain, of all places, is the epicenter of this.

While the Nazis are most associated with the mass killing of human beings in the name of some nebulous "greater good", the Left is fully capable of this as well. As seems implied by certain elements of the environmental group today.

Remember--Pol Pot's Killing Fields was not planned in some jungle hideout. It was hatched by him and some other fellow cronies in the leftist climate in the academia of late 1950's France.

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» RE: So, f*ck for Jesus, right? Posted by: sausage

» STOP THAT !! He's not some religious freak you paint him to be ! Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

» RE:An 80-year-old man who regularly wears dresses... Posted by: sausage

» Thank you zooey ! You're one of the few who makes sense on this topic. :) Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

» There is a difference between persecution... Posted by: leafsong1

» Did you actually study the population shifts of the past 2 decades? Posted by: maxpayne

» Logic works somewhat differently with your head up your butt. Posted by: leafsong1

» I agree with zooey on this one Posted by: frantic1971

It's only a movie
[Report this comment] Posted by: sausage on Mar 19, 2009 10:18 AM
Current rating: 3 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

I can see from the tenor of may of the comments on the above movie review that the Idicoracy is upon us.

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Numbers game
[Report this comment] Posted by: willymack on Mar 19, 2009 10:26 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

The plain and simple truth regarding the human condition is this: There are far too many of us to continue to feed, educate,house, etc. More people means more STUPID people as well as more smart ones, and let's face it; STUPID people predominate, and continue to force the rest of humanity to their will. Left to the STUPID people, the fate of humanity is grim, indeed.

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Check out the movie "Idiocracy"
[Report this comment] Posted by: Defenestrator on Mar 19, 2009 11:04 AM
Current rating: 4 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

It's a comedy, really funny, Fox never released it in theaters. Written by Mike Judge; it shows the future of the world after only stupid people are breeding.

You can get it on Netflix

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Plagues
[Report this comment] Posted by: LeeAnnG on Mar 19, 2009 11:54 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

The late, great Kurt Vonnegut said something to the effect that humans are a plague upon the earth, and now the earth's immune system is fighting back.

A poster above indicated that articles like this one present an "either or" scenario in which we must fight, for example pollution or overpopulation. I definitely did not get that from the article. None of the factors were specifically rejected; some of them were simply not included. Too often, people seem to assume that if a writer addresses one problem rather than another, that author does not see the importance of related issues. But it's not possible to include every problem in every piece of writing.

There are many, many problems that contribute to the environmental collapse. Overpopulation is certainly one, excessive use of fossil fuels is another. But the fact that one author elects to discuss the effects of fossil fuel use does not in any way indicate that he or she is indifferent to the problems caused by overpopulation.

People like to nitpick, and it's probably not such a bad thing because it keeps us thinking. However, it is likely that a more productive discussion could occur if posters focused on the topic of the articles and found specifics that ARE included rather than going on rants about what the author neglected to include.

The fact is that our earth is in bad shape. We are losing more and more species to extinction every day, ice caps are melting, extremes in weather are becoming more severe and common, heat waves kill people each summer, pollution in our water is causing hermaphroditism in fish and amphibians - and it is likely to be causing illnesses in the human population, too. Think about how many people you know who have cancer, allergies, or other maladies and whether it seems to be a higher percentage than it used to be. When I was in school, many years ago, I don't recall that there were any students in my classes with asthma or chronic sinus infections or food allergies. Now they are absolutely commonplace.

Any discussion of these issues should be welcomed, not trashed in every way possible. We may not agree about the premise or the conclusions, but the comments could still be thoughtful and helpful rather than kneejerk reactions that simply scoff at what the author says simply because a pet project (no matter how worthwhile) was not mentioned.

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The root of all evil – and our death.
[Report this comment] Posted by: monkeywrench on Mar 19, 2009 12:03 PM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

"The question I’ve been asking is: why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren’t sure if we were worth saving?"
. . . .

No, it was because it would cost too much. After all, when money becomes the goal of all effort, then money is all that you're left with.

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All this doom-and-gloom articles is just plain idiot.
[Report this comment] Posted by: maxpayne on Mar 19, 2009 12:15 PM
Current rating: 3 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Constructive ideas please.

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» Constructive Ideas Posted by: Artkansas

» RE: Constructive Ideas **STAY AWAY FROM OTHER PEOPLE"S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS** Posted by: maribelle

GLOBAL WARMING
[Report this comment] Posted by: foxxx on Mar 19, 2009 1:10 PM
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I FIGURE IF OUR SPECIES IS LUCKY WE MAY SURVIVE 2028, BY THAT TIME MOST OTHER NATURAL SPECIES ON EARTH WILL BE GONE. LET ALONE 2055. IT SEEMS PEOPLE DONT CARE ABOUT SURVIVAL. LIKE WASHINGTON STATE. THE ARMY ENGINEERS STOPPED A COMPANY FROM PULLING LOGS FROM BOTTOMS OF RIVERS TO SELL FOR FOOD AND AT THE SAME TIME LOWER THE RIVERS. SEPT/08 I CONTACTED THE WALLAPA HARBOR HEADQUARTERS AND ASK FOR A LICENSE TO LOWER THE RIVER, SINCE WE CAN SEE SAND BARS IN IT AND WE HAD A FLOOD RECENTLY. I WAS TOLD THE ARMY ENGINEERS REFUSE FOR IT FOR 2 YEARS. SO I FIGURE WE'LL ALL BE FLOODED AND SOME MAY DIE. THE ARMY ENGINEERS IGNORE WORK AND TELL EVERYONE TO GET FLOOD INSURANCE. LAST YEAR THEY LET SOME WATER OUT OF MUDD MT. DAM AND MANY CITIES GOT FLOODED NEEDLESSLY. I EMAILED THE WHITEHOUSE, FIGURING MAYBE THE PRESIDENT WILL DO SOMETHING, BUT I DOUBT IT. IT SEEMS HE ONLY TALKS, BUT NO ACTION, JUST TALKS. MY URL http:/'/www.inventube.com/ooojay/blog/ IF YOU WHO NEED DIRECTION FOR FOOD, FRESHWATER, STOP FLOODS + MY URL HAS FREE SOLUTIONS, ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS USE THEM AND BY ALL OCEAN CONTINENTS EXTRACTING THE SAND FROM ALL BEACH FRONTS WILL LOWER ALL OCEANS TO STOP YOUR COUNTRIES FROM GOING UNDERWATER. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS DO IT. I'VE EMAILED THE ARMY ENGINEERS AND ASKED THEM IF THEY WOULD LOWER ALL RIVERS IN WASHINGTON STATE 15 FEET, SO WE WONT GET FLOODED AGAIN, BUT THEY REFUSED IT AS SPAM EMAIL. ALL RIVERS IN ALL STATES NEED TO BE LOWERED AS LONG AS THE OCEANS ARE RISING, WE'LL KEEP GETTING FLOODED. ONE REASON FOR NOT ALLOWING PEOPLE TO LOWER RIVERS IN WASHINGTON IS BECAUSE OF THE DIAMONDS THEY GET FROM OUR RIVERS, SINCE THE VOLCANO'S HAVE BEEN ERUPTING EVER SINCE TIME BEGAN FOR VOLCANOS IN MY OPINION. BY IGNORING THIS AND NOT LETTING ANYONE ELSE DO IT ONLY BRINGS DEATH, DESTRUCTION AND DISPLACEMENT FOR ALL SPECIES INVOLVED. I THINK THE ARMY ENGINEERS SHOULD BE DISBANDED FOR IGNORANCE AND UNNECESSARY DESTRUCTION AND LOSS OF LIVES ALL OVER THE U.S.A.. I'M SURPRISED THAT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES HAVENT SUED THE ARMY ENGINEERS YET. THE NEXT FLOOD WE GET I'M GOING TO SUE THE ARMY ENGINEERS FOR REFUSAL TO PREPARE FOR FLOODS BY LOWERING ALL RIVERS.THE REAL SUBJECT WAS 2055 OF WHICH IN MY OPINION, DUE TO LAZINESS OF STOPPING THIS PROBLEM WONT MAKE IT TO 2055. HAVE A NICE DAY. MIKE SCHMITZ

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» RE: GLOBAL WARMING Posted by: Ahimsa

Who you calling stupid?
[Report this comment] Posted by: Geonomist on Mar 19, 2009 1:31 PM
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Problem is, people like calling others names, and exaggerating -- there's no way to know if the film describes the future realistically, since people have acted intelligently before. The real problem is the scientific gene is a rarity. Even do-gooders and social critics fail to think things thru. If policy is to make a difference, a critical mass must look to what has worked before. That brings us to economic justice, a powerful tool to make the world work right for everyone. Yet even AlterNetters ignore it. If you're ready to move beyond name-calling and hand-wringing, google geonomics; its variants have worked wherever tried.

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PRIOR TO 2055
[Report this comment] Posted by: foxxx on Mar 19, 2009 1:34 PM
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FOR YOU THAT NEED HELP NOW I SUGGEST YOU USE MY GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS, SINCE MY GLOBAL TEAMS ARE SEARCHING FOR THE BEAMS SO WE CAN DESTROY GLOBAL WARMING SO MOST SPECIES CAN MAKE IT THROUGH 2055. DUE TO THIS WEB SITE ALTERNET= WWW.ALTERNET.ORG IS REFUSING ME TO SHOW YOU FOR THE SECOND TIME THE FIRST SOLUTION OF GLOBAL WARMING, SO YOU'LL ONLY SEE 3 OF THE SOLUTIONS.

SOLUTION 2/ OF 4 SEARCH IN CREVICES FOR BEAMS, BY PLACING NETS OVER MAIN PART OF OPENINGS AND 3 CAMERA'S WITH TRIP WIRES ATTACHED TO NETS. 1 AND 2 LINK UP. SOLUTION 3/ OF 3 IS IN FULL OPERATION. A PARTIAL OF SOLUTION 3 MAY HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY COMETS IN DEEP SPACE, I HAVE BEEN WAITING CONFIRMATION FROM THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE, BUT STILL NO WORD AFTER WEEKS OF WAITING TO SEE IF ITS STILL THERE OR DESTROYED. SOLUTION 4/ OF 4 =THE FINAL SEQUENCE TO DELETE GLOBAL WARMING BY USEING THE EXPERIMENT OF WHICH I CAN EXPAND TO ANY SHAPE NEEDED AND THE MINERAL TO COMPLETELY DELETE GLOBAL WARMING BY DESTROYING EACH BEAM, BUT SOLUTION 1 AND 2 MUST BE COMPLETED FIRST. THATS WHAT I MEAN BY SURVIVING TO AND THROUGH 2055. THIS TAKES TEAM WORK FROM ALL NATIONS TO WORK TOGETHER OR NO NATURAL SPECIES ON EARTH. HAVE A NICE DAY. MICHAEL J. SCHMITZ==GLOBAL COMMAND.

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This movie reminds me of that Scientology move put out by...
[Report this comment] Posted by: stop_censorship_on_Alternet on Mar 19, 2009 3:32 PM
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...John Travolta. Like that movie, this a big pile of BS as well.

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Just more fodder for the gloomy doomers
[Report this comment] Posted by: dayahka on Mar 19, 2009 4:07 PM
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Look, everyone these days seems to be joining the gloomy doomer bandwagon, with at least several new scenarios a day. This is getting tiresome. Let's just take a look at some key facts.

There have been numerous climate change events over the billions of years of life on this planet. In all cases, whether massive cooling with mile-thick glaciers down to the tropics, or searing heat, life has survived, including, at least over the last four or five million years of the life of our species. Did civilization survive, whatever civilization means? Who knows? Civilization means organized living, and surely even the presumed Yeti or Big Foot have survived even amidst the wholescale savagery of homo sapiens.

Will our species survive? Who knows? If we can learn to adapt, we might. If we try to repudiate the laws of nature and move the clock back in time through some alleged mitigation strategy, we will likely just be wasting our time.

As for the time line in this movie, 2055 is way too far in the future. We are already facing economic collapse, water problems, food production shortages, and numerous problems that could come together far sooner than 45 years hence to force our hand. In any case, there is no imperative that says our species is exempt from extinction, and stupid or not, when we break certain laws of nature (like overpopulation and sustainability), we're likely to get hit by the consequences. I don't think intelligence or lack of it is the key. The most likely culprit is a severe case of narcissism and arrogance--moral failings, in other words.

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