EMMYdiocracy
Mediocracy is a situation which can occur in a democracy in which mediocre people prevail. The society is then subordinated to a quasi-egalitarian ideology in which words and ideas are redefined by mediocre people, to be convenient for mediocre people. Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a frequent critic of mediocracy in contemporary Western countries. || This where the tag cloud goes if the tag cloud loads:
“Hugely destructive weather events are going to keep happening, and they are going to get worse and worse, and living through them is something that will be a part of all our lives from now on, whether we like it or not.”
(via rjinswand)
(via socialuprooting)
This is what we have lost hope would ever happen. This is politically important. Those of us who recognize that global warming is real and is caused by human activity will not find this scientifically important. But we do know that the reason no mitigation action has been taken for the past at least 30 years of our knowledge is that the issue has been highjacked by corporate interests and in turn their water carriers the republican party.
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) is poised to release its findings next week on the cause of recent global warming. A forthcoming NY Times op-ed by Richard Muller, BEST’s Founder and Scientific Director, has been excerpted on a conservative website with the headline, “New Global Temperature Data Reanalysis Confirms Warming, Blames C02From Richard Muller:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human.
These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the IPCC consensus statement, that the warming before to 1956 could be due to changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.
Do you suppose that the Koch Brothers are getting hot under the collar? Do you think that they might be starting to realize that they will be affected by climate change as well as the rest of us? Their misinformation and denial campaign is starting to bite them in the butt with the undeniable evidence of extreme weather.
According to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center’s “State of the Climate: National Overview for June 2012” report released Monday, the 12-month period from July 2011 to June 2012 was the warmest on record (since record keeping began in 1895) for the contiguous United States, with a nationally-averaged temperature of 56.0 degrees, 3.2 degrees higher than the long-term average.
According to the report, every single state in the contiguous U.S. except for Washington saw warmer-than-average temperatures during this time period. The period from January to June of this year also has been the warmest first half of a year on record for the U.S. mainland.
For a large portion of the contiguous U.S., these first six months were also drier than average. The U.S. Drought Monitor showed that as of July 3, 56 percent of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions. In June, wildfires burned over 1.3 million acres, the second most on record for the month.
As for that brutally hot June? More than 170 all-time warm temperature records were broken or tied last month.
(via socialuprooting)
The science of climate change is pretty clear at this point: our current path leads to catastrophe. There’s plenty of uncertainty on the details, particularly in how fast and how much carbon reductions could affect the outcome. But that basic fact — status quo means disaster — is not in serious dispute. What if it were an asteroid heading toward Earth? What if it were a foreign power mustering an army to march on our shores? How would the media treat it then?
Answer that question and you’ve answered how it would look to take climate seriously. Just to take a small example: the failure on both the international level and the U.S. level to muster any serious climate policy is inevitably described by mainstream reporters as “a blow to environmentalists,” as though it’s some boutique policy meant to benefit a special interest group. If reporters took climate change seriously, they would say, “the failure to secure serious climate policy makes widespread suffering and destabilization in the latter half of this century far more likely.” I call this the “and thus we’re fucked” principle.
from Deep Green Resistance News Service
After extensive study over the years, there is absolutely no question that today we face the greatest threat ever in human history to the inhabitants of Earth. Never has there been a more crucial time of all people of good will, compassion, and care for our children and later generations to come together and demand of our elected officials to prevent irreversible, catastrophic climate disruption or demand that they get out of the way so that somebody else will take informed, responsible action.
Those who fail to take action, both in elected office and at the grassroots level, and that includes each and every one of us, are creating a far more dangerous planet for our children and grandchildren. For those who have been confused, and I know there have been a lot of people confused. Especially when we have elected officials saying the kinds of things that they have been saying here and passing the kinds of resolutions that they have been considering here. There are many people confused by this intensive campaign of misinformation.
To those who are confused, I plead: please consider the leading international scientific bodies, the scientific academies worldwide, in dozens of nations including our own national academy of science are all in agreement: we are facing a climate crisis caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas and if we continue along this path with business as usual, tragedy and untold misery will result to billions of people, including very likely our own descendants. These increases in temperature are due to human actions, the burning of fossil fuels, and will result in immense, catastrophic consequences for our Earth and its inhabitants.
"(via socialuprooting)
