While the mainstream media were portraying Sarah Palin’s patently ridiculous and profoundly offensive motorcycle rally opportunism as the purportedly most important thing happening, news that we all should hear, and constructively act upon, was almost completely swept under the rug.
On May 30, just a handful of primarily foreign or movement/left outlets disclosed the distressing fact that worldwide greenhouse gas emissions abruptly reached history’s highest carbon level in 2010, making global warming safety attainment practically impossible, according to an International Energy Agency assessment.
Despite the recessionary economic slowdown, which was supposed to ease environmental degradation, the alarming increase means that the objective of preventing a temperature hike of more than 2 degrees Celsius—the scientific marker for potentially “dangerous climate change”—is now likely “a nice Utopia” beyond our grasp, according to Fatih Birol, a top IEA official.
The disclosure came shortly after leading climate protection activist Bill McKibben published an important article, entitled “A link between climate change and the Joplin tornadoes? Never!”
Discussing that piece on a recent Democracy Now airing, McKibben pointed out that we’re not, to our infinite peril, connecting the dots regarding a troubling series of unprecedented weather related disasters.
“Look, what’s happening is we’re making the earth a more dynamic and violent place. That’s, in essence, what global warming is about. We’re trapping more of the sun’s energy in this narrow envelope of atmosphere, and that’s now expressing itself in many ways. We don’t know for sure that any particular tornado comes from climate change. There have always been tornadoes. We do know that we’re seeing epic levels of thunderstorm activity, of flooding, of drought, of all the things that climatologists have been warning us about.”
After citing a plethora of unusual and extremely destructive events on all continents, McKibben went on to say, “The scale of this stuff is immense. And as long as we just think about it as just a series of one-off, isolated disasters, we probably are not asking ourselves the most important questions. What can we do to stop this destabilization before it gets much worse?”
But how, when nonsensical “issues” like Palin’s antics get major media play while our ongoing rush to ecological Armageddon continues to mostly remain hidden, can we do anything to effectively ease, never mind eliminate, what could ultimately become the actual basis for a real end to our precious world?
After all, powerful fossil fuel interests and inflexible Christians who believe that God decides environmental factors both deny man-made climate change, each for their own vested reasons.
Palin, and others of her reactionary ideological ilk, gladly merge those currents in their retrograde thinking, and they’re being promoted as potential leaders for tomorrow . . . a tomorrow that may never come because such thought is inimical to our objective, long-term survival!
Meanwhile, plans move ahead to bring dirty Canadian tar sand oil to the United States via mammoth pipelines to fuel a growing list of internal combustion “conveniences” to which we’ve become thoroughly addicted.
Mountaintop removal continues across coal country, assuring a sky full of heat-retaining filth for everyone and moonscape surroundings for those living where giant mechanized shovels and tons of dynamite rule.
Despite aquifers so polluted that tap water catches fire, hydraulic “fracking” has the blessing of corporate operators lusting for huge profits to be destructively derived from exploiting natural gas.
And here, in the North Country, where pure lakes and streams are legendary, companies proposing demonstrably harmful copper-nickel sulfide mining are being enthusiastically courted by politicians—and unemployed citizens desperate for jobs—despite clear evidence that everything from wild rice beds to downstream fisheries would be grievously impacted.
As a youngster, I often wondered why a universe with so many planets basically like our own in terms of suitability for life had produced it only on Earth.
Later I experienced a disconcerting epiphany.
Maybe life had arisen elsewhere, but had subsequently been extinguished by mass-destructive foolery to which all higher living things are perhaps innately, inexorably susceptible.
Maybe war or environmental devastation took their final, lethal toll, everywhere.
Except here, where a farcical woman wearing a helmet and riding a Harley is treated with attention that might be expected for the second coming of Christ.
While the whole world goes to Hell in the inexcusably neglected background.
Dennis Rahkonen of Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the ’60s.
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Is Sarah Palin reason enough to kiss the world goodbye?
Posted on June 6, 2011 by Dennis Rahkonen
Memorial Day weekend was a real eye opener.
While the mainstream media were portraying Sarah Palin’s patently ridiculous and profoundly offensive motorcycle rally opportunism as the purportedly most important thing happening, news that we all should hear, and constructively act upon, was almost completely swept under the rug.
On May 30, just a handful of primarily foreign or movement/left outlets disclosed the distressing fact that worldwide greenhouse gas emissions abruptly reached history’s highest carbon level in 2010, making global warming safety attainment practically impossible, according to an International Energy Agency assessment.
Despite the recessionary economic slowdown, which was supposed to ease environmental degradation, the alarming increase means that the objective of preventing a temperature hike of more than 2 degrees Celsius—the scientific marker for potentially “dangerous climate change”—is now likely “a nice Utopia” beyond our grasp, according to Fatih Birol, a top IEA official.
The disclosure came shortly after leading climate protection activist Bill McKibben published an important article, entitled “A link between climate change and the Joplin tornadoes? Never!”
Discussing that piece on a recent Democracy Now airing, McKibben pointed out that we’re not, to our infinite peril, connecting the dots regarding a troubling series of unprecedented weather related disasters.
“Look, what’s happening is we’re making the earth a more dynamic and violent place. That’s, in essence, what global warming is about. We’re trapping more of the sun’s energy in this narrow envelope of atmosphere, and that’s now expressing itself in many ways. We don’t know for sure that any particular tornado comes from climate change. There have always been tornadoes. We do know that we’re seeing epic levels of thunderstorm activity, of flooding, of drought, of all the things that climatologists have been warning us about.”
After citing a plethora of unusual and extremely destructive events on all continents, McKibben went on to say, “The scale of this stuff is immense. And as long as we just think about it as just a series of one-off, isolated disasters, we probably are not asking ourselves the most important questions. What can we do to stop this destabilization before it gets much worse?”
But how, when nonsensical “issues” like Palin’s antics get major media play while our ongoing rush to ecological Armageddon continues to mostly remain hidden, can we do anything to effectively ease, never mind eliminate, what could ultimately become the actual basis for a real end to our precious world?
After all, powerful fossil fuel interests and inflexible Christians who believe that God decides environmental factors both deny man-made climate change, each for their own vested reasons.
Palin, and others of her reactionary ideological ilk, gladly merge those currents in their retrograde thinking, and they’re being promoted as potential leaders for tomorrow . . . a tomorrow that may never come because such thought is inimical to our objective, long-term survival!
Meanwhile, plans move ahead to bring dirty Canadian tar sand oil to the United States via mammoth pipelines to fuel a growing list of internal combustion “conveniences” to which we’ve become thoroughly addicted.
Mountaintop removal continues across coal country, assuring a sky full of heat-retaining filth for everyone and moonscape surroundings for those living where giant mechanized shovels and tons of dynamite rule.
Despite aquifers so polluted that tap water catches fire, hydraulic “fracking” has the blessing of corporate operators lusting for huge profits to be destructively derived from exploiting natural gas.
And here, in the North Country, where pure lakes and streams are legendary, companies proposing demonstrably harmful copper-nickel sulfide mining are being enthusiastically courted by politicians—and unemployed citizens desperate for jobs—despite clear evidence that everything from wild rice beds to downstream fisheries would be grievously impacted.
As a youngster, I often wondered why a universe with so many planets basically like our own in terms of suitability for life had produced it only on Earth.
Later I experienced a disconcerting epiphany.
Maybe life had arisen elsewhere, but had subsequently been extinguished by mass-destructive foolery to which all higher living things are perhaps innately, inexorably susceptible.
Maybe war or environmental devastation took their final, lethal toll, everywhere.
Except here, where a farcical woman wearing a helmet and riding a Harley is treated with attention that might be expected for the second coming of Christ.
While the whole world goes to Hell in the inexcusably neglected background.
Dennis Rahkonen of Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the ’60s.