Anyone care to go over that again? (Annie?)
are you kidding? when the real shit hits the fan i will go look for a good Zen Buddhist monastary in which to contemplate eternity while awaiting the end. unless i can persuade steinl to let me camp out on his real estate.

Posted by: annie | Sep 19 2006 7:03 utc | 4

@annie:

Ah, well, that’s one way to cope. I am fighting an urge to call you an environmental G**d G*rm*n. Think of Godwin’s Law, Truth. Must… Resist… Temptation…

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 19 2006 7:13 utc | 6

I’m gonna go with the obvious quote, but heck…
“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.”
It’s been many years since I’ve come to the conclusion that most of mankind will die, in a way or another, before this century ends. The questions are, will we allow it to be natural – meaning it’d be mostly random, leaving the same proportion of assholes and idiots ready to fuck over people and what’s left of the planet – or will there be any kind of selection, and then, which selection?
Whatever, there’s one sure thing. If it comes to this and 90% of mankind is to be wiped out in the next 20 years, we must make sure that the culprits pay for this.
The “they have a plan” scenario is possible, but insane on its face. They can try whatever they want, as soon as most people will see that they’re doomed and they’re nothing they can do about it, it will remove the biggest incentive so far to large-scale murder of heads of state, politicians, rich heirs of some wealthy firms, and the likes. If people come to lose all hope and be desperate, knowing they’re already sentenced to death in near future, what’s to keep them from exerting their own justice, or die trying? Having some shadowy figures hoping to get away with it and survive while conspiring to doom most of mankind would be just as short-sighted as hoping to bring democracy in the Middle East by killing tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
So, the “they know it and have a plan” theory may be true, but I’m not convinced it is *the* truth, and I surely don’t expect it to work.
Ultimately, if we’re down to 200mio humans left, and only in areas above 60° (or below, in the South), the chances of a complete wipe-out of mankind due to the stress and irreasonable reactions (nukes, wars of extermination and the like, not to mention plagues that will logically come) are greater than the survival of a couple hundreds of mio people. Chances would be greater if we were speaking of 2 billions and a good deal of Earth still livable.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 19 2006 8:20 utc | 8

Quite a fog of pessimism and suddenly I remembered the verse “faro cantando innamorar la gente” and I felt much better. On the same vein”l’homme est perissable, il se peut, mais si le neant nous est reserve, faisons que ce soit une injustice.” There is beauty on one side and duty in the other.That we may wish to join both together is the thought behind Billmon’s desire to retire in a monastery. I would like that also but it would be a benedictine one where I would pray and labor, but I have six children, ten gran children and one great grand child so I have to bear whatever comes and if annihilation is reserved for us let us make it to be an injustice.By the way I tend my garden.

Posted by: jlcg | Sep 19 2006 9:42 utc | 10

It is undoubtedly true that the primary cause of TODAYS atrocities is corporate greed masquerading as marketplace efficiency. It has been thus, so far as the US is concerned, for at least the last century or so. But in the 60’s that began to change, exposed for what it was.
And then the counter-revolution began. Let there be no mistake about this: it could never have been successful without the enthusiasisic cooperation of the fundamentalist Christians. It was they who gave Reagan, Bush I and II, and their corrupt corporate friends the moral legitimacy they needed to crush the rising dissent and ethics of liberal humanism.
Creatures like Bush and Rove are certain to become carcasses on the landfills of history. In the long run they will be revealed as what they are. It isn’t them we need to denounce. But we must denounce those who gave them their license, who exalted them, who so eagerly praised their faith and morals.
The reality wars are here.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 19 2006 10:42 utc | 12

Death by Discomfort
The internets are full of words and warnings about Professor James Lovelock’s latest book (“The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity.”) and his views, and his C.V., and his credibility. Most of these essays and comments explore how to dismiss, disprove or ignore him. Or, how to whistle into the abyss he has revealed. Or, how to survive what he describes is coming, if it comes. When it comes.
Well, he is talking plainly about hell AND high water, and right soon, he is. He is talking about only two hundred million humans surviving this century we’ve already begun, and only by migrating to a newly temperate North Pole to grow food as we can manage. He’s talking about seriously scary stuff.
The editorial and blog reactions to his tome are uniformly hasty brews of false bravado and fear. To paraphrase Woody Allen somewhat, ‘I don’t fear the end of my species — I just don’t want to he there when it happens.’
Or, to quote Daffy Duck directly, “I’m not like other people — I don’t LIKE pain.”
For who truly fears a killer asteroid, or an H-bomb? How do you fear such a thing? It’s extremely unlikely; you don’t see it coming, and you’re only there for a millisecond before — poof! It’s quick and painless.
But guaranteed death? By the billions? Over a century? That’s sounds like a personal prescription for Death by Discomfort, the worst way a human can go. Better a bullet in the brain pan than hunger, cold, wet, or slowly succumbing to the galloping shits. Yet, that is what Professor Lovelock predicts, based on hard facts and figures.
Certain, slow, hard death. For you. For me. For everyone we know, and everyone we love.
Human nature being what it is, the unspoken aim behind most lively Lovelock discussions is, ‘how might I find MYSELF among the lucky creatures at the North Pole, still eating well and making babies after this mass extinction unpleasantness is all tidied up? What about ME?’
The very thought that occurs to every sentient pig in the trailer as their Peterbilt rig pulls into the abatoir. These other pigs are goners, for sure. But I’ve got a plan.’
People do have plans for surviving Lovelock’s Lament. The internet tubes are full of them. Most involve five acres, a paid mortgage, some fruit trees and a picket fence.
Lord! Do they write these things as tragedy? Or farce?
Fortunately, these are just the opening reactions to the bad news from St. Giles On The Heath. In days ahead, we will hear more thoughtful responses and discussions, taking into account that warlords and cannibalism are rather more likely than picket fences.
But Lo! the global warming discussion just got one hell of a jolt. Which is all to the good.
Because the prime and lasting value of Lovelock’s book is to stain the trousers and skirts of walking apes everywhere — of humanity. Getting ourselves off our collective duff is the most critical, most healthy, most sane thing that can happen at this juncture. If the threat of imminent death by discomfort is what it takes, well, someday we can all tell our grandkids that’s what it took.
Only fear will start the herd towards a safer and more comfortable pasture, away up North where grass doesn’t grow.
Yet.
We’re all human. So our first reaction to this scenario will be fear — maintaining our life. Our second will be concern for maintaining our comfort level (planning for picket fences at the North Pole). Our third will be progeny — will our children, our knowledge, our legacy survive?
Factually, we can start right now to step beyond the fear reactions:
One, the stark choice of whether it is too late to do a damned thing about global warming is moot. Even if it is too late to avoid a wild ride, it is not too late to work on reducing the effects we have set in motion, nor is it too late to save as many people, and as much of our human heritage, as possible. As people get over their initial fear, they will see surviving this as a species as a gigantic job to be done, and we will start to see results in this direction.
Owning and operating Spaceship Earth will emerge as the guiding principle. The First Directive.
For example, atmosphere CO2 scrubbers will be a growth industry in a few years, kind of like blogging in the ‘Ought decade of the 21st century.
Two, if things proceed as the Professor predicts, and especially if people begin to die by the hundred million, nations and regions will circle the wagons and begin to command their populations and resources in detail.
To what aim? Certainly not plutocracy or oligarchy or theocracy or ideology of any faith or flavor. That won’t last to the weekend.
No, the aim will not be the comfort, or survival of the elites or of anyone in particular — it will be ‘saving the best of ourselves’ for better times. Bunker mentality, yes, but with a noble purpose of rising above the situation. Lifeboat mentality, with everyone in it for the whole nine yards, for one another, for common goals instead of private ones. You’ve seen this at work in every beseiged wartime population, historically.
Three, the warlords and the dispossessed. With entire nations, and regional alliances, vying for territory, resources and survival there will be zero patience or sympathy for outsiders, nor for charity toward them. When the societal goal is preserving the best of the human experiment, no one will countenance bringing along the unskilled, unlearned, sick, weak, or hungry.
Mercy has never been the human forte. It never will be. It was always a luxury, and will continue to be one. Warlords will rise and rule for a time among refugee populations. They will not be tolerated among or against the civilized enclaves striving to preserve knowledge, wisdom and technology.
Fourth, science and religion — the true battle of civilizations. People everywhere will always want to live in myths about reality rather than reality, just as they always have and as they do today. It’s a human trait too deep in our brain stems to eradicate. But, as the survival of some remnant of our species on a broken down Spaceship Earth becomes the collective goal, the one true goal, religions that do not serve this goal will erase themselves or be erased.
No biggie. Religions are far more adjustable than factual. One of the chief virtues of a good story is that it grows up as you do.
Conspiracies? Dark legions of evil plotters? Are there plans among the elites to save the elites only? To premptively nuke competitors? To starve whole continents? To release genetic plagues that only kill Chinese, or blacks, or Russians, or Arabs, or short people with too much back hair?
So what if there are? No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
We are the enemy. And we have been contacted. No plan is going to proceed as planned, especially not any kind of Us versus Them plan. Not on Lifeboat Earth. The wealthy and the learned had better roll up their sleeves and pitch in with the rest of us, or it’s over the side in a hurry — the same choice you and I face. The only plan that will proceed as expected is the plan to work together.
The only certainty is that whomsoever does stand among those fabled 200 million at the North Pole, when they finally do ring in the 22nd Century about four score and fourteen from now — they will not be warlords, wealthy, blue bloods, refugees, religiously insane, stupid, starving, or plain dumb lucky. None of the above.
They will be, the the very last one of them, people who relentlessly qualified themselves and cooperated on getting themselves there. They will be people who pulled all together, and only all together. And they will each and every one of them hold the gift of knowledge, wisdom, and earned experience left behind by the millions of human beings who helped get them there, or gave them something to carry forward.
There’s your work. There’s your job. You won’t be there. You won’t make it, not unless you are young enough to still be reading books about Dick, Jane, and Spot. But you can make it happen, and you can make your mark upon it.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 19 2006 11:45 utc | 14

Where’s Casandra?

Posted by: DM | Sep 19 2006 12:10 utc | 16

Frodo: …I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Posted by: beq | Sep 19 2006 12:17 utc | 18

“Certain, slow, hard death. For you. For me. For everyone we know, and everyone we love.”
As quoted in some previous thread, from the V for Vendetta movie – if not the comic book itself: “We deserve to be culled”.
Everyone single one of us, you, me, everone you know and everyone you love.
Once you’ve come to this quite obvious conclusion, you can begin to think of the future, when the real shit will hit the proverbial fan.
Deep down every nation and people rightfully deserved to be exterminated and therefore should consider themselves lucky still to be around, and every nation and people should be particularly grateful that they haven’t been totally wiped out by their neighbors – notwithstanding the fact that said neighbors also deserve to be annihilated.
At the end of the day, some are more deserving of total destruction than others, but there’s none which hasn’t enough evil deeds and thoughts in history not to deserve some kind of painful end.
Some would call this misanthropy, but I’d say it’s just having a cold hard look at reality.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen that the time of punishment was close for mankind, for its sins and crimes. As a species, it quite deserves extinction, and more. Yet, the same way a Christian assumes every human is a sinner that God could deservedly ship to hell, yet has the possibility to do enough good to be saved, mankind also has produced some few (or even not so few) things that deserve to survive, and which may show that under very specific and unprobable conditions, mankind could perhaps grow into something better, more mature, and maybe could even save itself.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 19 2006 12:39 utc | 20

New bird found in India after more than 50 years.
go figure (no webbed feet either)
😉

Posted by: beq | Sep 19 2006 12:52 utc | 22

a couple recent articles from NOAA
U.S. HAS SECOND WARMEST SUMMER ON RECORD
Nation Experienced Warmest January – August Period On Record

Sept. 14, 2006 — Summer 2006 was the second warmest June-to-August period in the continental U.S. since records began in 1895, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Additionally, the 2006 January-to-August period was the warmest on record for the continental U.S.
…
The average June-August 2006 temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) was 2.4 degrees F (1.3 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 72.1 degrees F (22.3 degrees C). This was the second warmest summer on record, slightly cooler than the record of 74.7 degrees F set in 1936 during the Dust Bowl era. This summer’s average was 74.5 degrees F. Eight of the past ten summers have been warmer than the U.S. average for the same period.
The persistence of the anomalous warmth in 2006 made this January-August period the warmest on record for the continental U.S., eclipsing the previous record of 1934.
A blistering heat wave in July impacted most of the nation, breaking more than 2,300 daily records and more than 50 all-time high temperature records. Additional high temperature records were broken during the first part of August.

NOAA ISSUES UNSCHEDULED EL NIÑO ADVISORY
El Niño Makes a Comeback

Sept. 13, 2006 — Scientists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center reported today that El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific and are likely to continue into early 2007. Ocean temperatures increased remarkably in the equatorial Pacific during the last two weeks. “Currently, weak El Niño conditions exist, but there is a potential for this event to strengthen into a moderate event by winter,” said Vernon Kousky, NOAA’s lead El Niño forecaster.
Some impacts from the developing El Niño are already evident in the pattern of tropical precipitation. During the last 30 days, drier-than-average conditions have been observed across all of Indonesia, Malaysia and most of the Philippines, which are usually the first areas to experience ENSO-related impacts. This dryness can be expected to continue, on average, for the remainder of 2006.
…
Typical El Niño effects are likely to develop over North America during the upcoming winter season. Those include warmer-than-average temperatures over western and central Canada, and over the western and northern United States. Wetter-than-average conditions are likely over portions of the U.S. Gulf Coast and Florida, while drier-than-average conditions can be expected in the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest.

Posted by: b real | Sep 19 2006 15:23 utc | 24

Each one of us faces extinction; dealt with only by faith or denial. When corporate and political leaders are lying about reality, spinning issues, killing troops for no good reason, it is not unreasonable to transfer the fear of the personal apocalypse to everyone else and the world around you.

Posted by: Jim S | Sep 19 2006 15:56 utc | 26

@dr2chase:

That’s not terribly comforting, because you’re thinking that the world’s biomes will somehow magically move toward the poles. If the average temperature climbs 10 degrees Celsius, then most of the plant life will be struggling, if not dead, very quickly. It will take decades for the ecology to fix things up, if it ever does at all. Just for purposes of comparison: during the last ice age, glaciers pushed plant and animal life in North America south (according to fossils, etc. etc.). When the ice age ended, about 18000 years ago, things started to move northward again. The process took so long to complete that it has only finished in the last couple of centuries. The problem is a chicken-and-egg kind of thing: the plants can’t move much, and rely on local animal species to spread their seeds geographically, but of course the animals don’t want to move too far from their food sources, the plants, so they don’t travel far. Conscious human reaction might help somewhat, but it takes time to establish a forest; if the forests of New England die off, it will change the prospects for Boston quite a bit, and it would take decades, if not centuries, to grow warmer-temperature forests in the area.

And, of course, where will the oxygen come from for all those Bostonians to breathe? With no forests left, we’ll be gasping for breath…

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 19 2006 16:22 utc | 28

“And, of course, where will the oxygen come from for all those Bostonians to breathe? With no forests left, we’ll be gasping for breath…
Death will come quick and easy far sooner from carbondioxide poisoning ,…even at the north pole. So ‘Learn to stop worrying and love the carbomb.’

Posted by: pb | Sep 19 2006 17:05 utc | 30

Truth’s point is that things don’t just grow, they are part of immensely complex interconnected ecosystems. It takes perilously small changes to disrupt/destroy them. Read up on the destruction caused by a few yrs. of warmer weather on Alaskan forests It caused proliferation of a beetle that killed off vast stands of spruce trees. (This is an interesting example, since it killed the older trees, leaving the young one. Elites will use it as a justification for eliminating Social Security & slashing medical care – culling the herd.)
Last night I wondered what % of the earth’s oxygen supply is contributed by the Amazon rain forest. Turns out it’s 20%. Does that means the rest comes from the ocean? 30 yrs. ago the figure they were using was 98% of our oxygen comes from ocean. This geochemist claims we don’t have to worry about having air to breathe, but that’s just one possible scenario.

Posted by: jj | Sep 19 2006 17:41 utc | 32

Guthman Bey,
As regards to climatology I haven’t done that even one bit. In Rumsfeldian terms: I know that I don’t know. If somebody exists on here who has had climatological inclinations in the past and can come up with a diverse list of intelligent contributors, I would be grateful.
So would I. The problem is that climatology barely exists. If you look up your nearest university odds are that they will not have a department of climatology. And it is a subject that makes most other things look easy. You need to juggle meterology, ecosystems as well as human systems.
On good startingpoint should be the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.
A short write-up on that I think I know:
1. The climate is an extremely complex dynamic system. Lots of feed-back loops in different directions. It has been resonably stable.
2. CO2 and methane levels are right now higher then in the measured history of the athmosphere (some couple of 100 000 years) and rising quickly.
Dynamic systems are predictive as long as they stay within some parameters, they have different feedback loops that makes them return to (or close to) the point of origin. Stressed enough you can get them out of the parameters and then you can not from their previous behaviour see where they are going to land.
So for an analogy: place a small ball in a bowl. If you spin the bowl the ball will describe trajectories in the bowl. It is reasonably predictive. Now spin the bowl faster. The ball will come closer and closer to the edge of the bowl. If you keep increasing the speed the ball will eventually flow out.
The climate is right now at a point in the bowl which is higher then ever before and picking up speed. Are we already out of the bowl or can we slow down and return to previous states? There are guesses but no firm knowledge. And if we are out of the bowl we really have no idea where we will land eventually or what states the climate will go through in the meantime. Past experiences simply does not help us predicting this.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 19 2006 20:09 utc | 34

sage advice juannie.
also the counteractive effect of pollution (“dimming”) may detain climatic demise. you see, there are hardly any solutions to the problems of manical consumerism that consumerism cannot supply.

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 19 2006 21:12 utc | 36

Jerry Pournelle (Chaos Manor) is a big skeptic about any climatological predictions
Jerry Pournelle is a right-wing hack science fiction writer whose background is in Republican politics and the aerospace industry. You might as well cite Michael Cretin, um, I mean, Crichton, as an authority.

Posted by: billmon | Sep 19 2006 22:15 utc | 38

How the hell are we going to do anything about global warming when we can’t even stop Dick and the Fuckhead from getting us all killed.

Posted by: pb | Sep 19 2006 22:55 utc | 40

“Each one of us faces extinction; dealt with only by faith or denial”
There’s a third way to deal: acceptance.
Juannie has the right idea:
“I don’t believe that we need to enter Zen retreats to be prepared, we only need to come to grips with our own mortality, count our blessings while still here, and work toward the benefit and well being of ourselves, our families, our friends and even our perceived enemies.”
That’s basically what I was gonna say; enjoy each day like it’s your last as it may well be.

Posted by: ran | Sep 20 2006 0:45 utc | 42

maybe some insight can be gleaned thru this resource on the insurance industry perspective: Insurance in a Climate of Change. haven’t had time to dig in, but you gotta imagine that the big insurance companies are going to want to know what their risks are. munich re[insurance], for instance, has been watching the climate changes carefully since 1973.

Posted by: b real | Sep 20 2006 1:11 utc | 44

slothrop,
consumerism creates the problem and then gets richer supplying the solutions, all in a finite box. An obvious path toward sure demise unless there is a bifurcation along the way. And even then there is no high probability that any of the new paths are any less virulent. I think, yes, I’m beginning to see.
I’m sure if i were to correlate and re-read all your posts from the last – how many years now?- i could find the answer, slothrop, but just what the fuck are we all doing here, hanging in, discussing, regurgitating, seeking … ah seeking. Maybe that’s still all our underlying motive. An admission of un-fulfillment.
btw thanks, i take your response to me as a genuine kudo.. Hope I haven’t blown that. I think i should really read Gravity’s Rainbow.

Posted by: Juannie | Sep 20 2006 1:19 utc | 46

That’s basically what I was gonna say; enjoy each day like it’s your last as it may well be.
Passivity is always an option. No denying that.
@b real, it’s damn hard to get home ins. around Fla. coast these days, supposedly.
What we do know, is that research is in the early stages, which means that we know only a few of the probably countably infinite variables that will influence things. This means not that Lovelock is wrong, but that since it cannot be known that he is right, the main role of his book is political. It will be the leitmotif of the JackAss Party & World Staters drive to consoldiate all power in their hands. Politically it represent a major turning point. Al Gore tell us that it will be to the Kleptocratic World Staters driving the JackAss Party, what the Fund Religious Horseshit is to the Fascist Party – it will provide delusionary moral cover for their agenda.
This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. It affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left vs. right; it is a question of right vs. wrong. Gore’s Bullshit – Global Warming Is an Immediate Crisis
Consider what becomes of the demand for “single payer medical system” in light of this discussion. It’ll be a state sponsored Culling of the Herd. Child gets cancer will get immediate treatment. Adult will wait 6 mos. for appointment. Drop dead, we don’t need you. Separate system to provide real medicine for those serving the kleptocracy.
Global Warming will be the battle cry for accelerating the Elite war upon us & even more disgustingly, if you scan Gore’s garbage, imbuing it with moral purpose.

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2006 1:43 utc | 48

My last paragraph wasn’t at all tongue in cheek sloth. I was being genuine. No criticism taken at all. 🙂

Posted by: Juannie | Sep 20 2006 2:44 utc | 50

@ran:

Depends. If you’re already doing as much as you reasonably can to stop things from getting worse, then no. But if your sole concession to global warming is that from now on you’re “enjoying cheating death” then yes. You’re being passive. In fact, you’re being kind of smug about it; wipe that silly grin off your face.

I’ve had a lot of conversations that, stripped down, went basically like this:

Me: So, how about that global warming, huh?

Other Person: Terrible. Someone should do something about it.

Me: Well, how about taking the bus to work instead of driving yourself?

Other Person: Oh, no, I can’t possibly do that. It would be inconvenient.

That is the heart of global warming: we are dying for convenience.

@jj:

That’s just stupid. Al Gore wants (or claims to want) a stop to carbon dioxide emissions, so the elites must be using it to control the world and there must be no validity to global warming. Al Gore wants (or claims to want) single-payer health insurance, so the elites must be using it to control the world and there’s no need for insurance reform. It’s kind of sad — you’re so desperate to revile Al Gore that he could in practice turn you into a rabid right-winger by agreeing with you.

Global warming needs to be addressed now for the simple reason that, while we don’t know everything, most of what we do know says immediate action is needed. If we take action now and become carbon-neutral, then we won’t have to worry about it again regardless of whether we’re right or wrong. If, on the other hand, we leave things as they are, we stand a good chance of screwing up everything.

As for healthcare: single-payer health insurance is one of the few systems that could potentially guarantee healthcare for the U.S. (There are some other options, but single-payer is the easiest and least costly to implement starting from the current system, and also has the benefit of finally starting to gain acceptance by the various professional groups like the AMA who indirectly control a lot of public opinion via public statements by their members.) I suspect, from your statement, that you have your own health insurance right now, and have never gone without it for long, right? Either that or you have never actually needed a doctor. Better hope you never contract diabetes, or fracture a bone. Your attitude is the attitude of someone who doesn’t have to worry about such things, and therefore assumes nobody else does, like a white male claiming that there is no discrimination in the workplace.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 20 2006 3:10 utc | 52

@truth you misunderstand my points.
Medical Care. Canadians & perhaps the French have about the best in the world, at least outside of Scandinavia. If those options were on the table, absolutely. But if you watch the Guardian & saltspringnews to see what’s going on in UK & Canada, you’ll see that’s not the case. I also heard Robert Rubin discuss plans for America. He said point is to relieve corps. from paying for medical care & provide basic care – very basic care. In short, what they’re planning is a superb system for the Elite, and a Cull the Herd system for the masses. That is what I oppose. It’s just a continued assault on the middle class, taking away their currently very good system, which they’re working like hell to erode as I write.
Carbon-tax etc. I oppose any notion of “market solutions”. This is the hugest transformation ever consciously undertaken. It has to be done in a way that those currently being screwed don’t bear the brunt. I live in Ca. Housing prices are so through the roof, that people have to commute huge distances to work to be able to afford housing. Those w/more money live closer to work, thus I oppose carbon tax.
To make this work, we need a plan of Produce Locally, Consume Locally, as is happening w/food production to a small extent. The factories have to be brought back, and the productive apparatus placed near homes; not waste energy shipping things back from China (to Mexico to break longshoremen’s & truckers unions, as is currently planned.).

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2006 3:45 utc | 54

@Truth, forgot to answer yr. question re my medical insurance. Actually I did go w/out for a good long time & it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Nothing like not being able to afford MD’s to open your eyes to the far better actual health maintaining system that has grown up outside of it in recent decades, based on diet, exercise, Nutraceuticals etc. MD’s are great for accidents, but know nothing about staying healthy. My Naturopath keeps me healthy & I pay out of pocket (~$75/appt – 30mins. -1hr.) But I’m not generalizing that to everyone.
(I first learned about it when I was about to get a flu, the year everyone I knew had spent a week in bed. I couldn’t afford it, so I looked at my huge bookshelf. Pulled out a book, “Foods that Heal”, by the century’s foremost Naturopath. He said juice up celery, grapefruit & add pinch of cream of tartar. Worked like a charm; while my insured friends went to their doctors to get antibiotics that do precisely zilch for viruses & spent their week in bed.)
But the only thing that really matters is that there be One System For All. If the Elite have no stake in it, it’ll be Cull the Herd, slum school grade disaster. For more on this, read Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance” She’s a leftist no less. Clinton read it when he was pres. She comes out & says we shouldn’t waste money on people w/cancer, etc. Just maintain a good public health system to prevent communicable diseases. A few yrs. ago, she quit being journo. for Newsday for job w/CFR, so her thinking is anything but inconsequential in elite planning circles. Then keep an eye on what they’re doing to UK medical system. They basically kill off people w/cancer – endless waits, few good treatments, insufficient x-rays…it’s a disaster. Devil is in the details….

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2006 4:39 utc | 56

Everybody–
It is not ten degrees. Ten degrees Celsius is EIGHTEEN degrees Fahrenheit.
The southeastern US routinely hits 100 F at 90% humidity. But around 120 F at that humidity you die.
Whether he is right or wrong, Lovelock is not talking about a few more days to work on your summer tan.

Posted by: Gaianne | Sep 20 2006 5:27 utc | 58

Drat! I had a nice post worked out, with links and stuff, previewed it, edited, clicked “Post”, and then closed the window before it “took”, so it’s lost. The following is a reconstruction, but, I’m afraid, just not as good. (Not that I was expecting a gem of composition, mind you…)

@dr2chase:

You are dismissing the Gaia Hypothesis wrongly. There is nothing in it about a planetary consciousness or intent. It’s a case of Lovelock using unfortunately flowery language combined with a name that sounds New Age-y. The Gaia Hypothesis, in brief: in a functioning ecology, natural selection will behave in a way which maintains the environment in a way which supports life. No intelligence necessary. Nobody who is serious about the theory has even debated that for years, and only a few of them ever did. Most of the furor along those lines is presented by the same folks who don’t want you to think too hard about global warming.

The G.H. is likely to remain only a hypothesis until such time as at least one other living planet is discovered and studied. In the meantime, there is much more circumstantial evidence to support it than to discredit it, and most of the discrediting is, shall we say, not terribly well-thought-out. (Darnit, I had examples! Grrrr….)

The most famous thing supporting the G.H. is the Daisyworld simulation, which is a very simple computer model of a planet. On the planet, there are only daisies (we ignore atmosphere and concentrate on temperature). The daisies vary in color, with lighter ones reflecting more light (and thus lowering their temperature) and darker ones in reverse. Since the planet’s temperature is largely controlled by the amount of sunlight that gets absorbed (true of the real world, too), the daisies interact with the temperature. The point is that, without any intelligent organization, the simulation still shows that such a planet would be able to maintain a constant temperature conducent to daisies under changing circumstances (usually represented as changing solar input). Thus the G.H. is at least possible, although no direct analogues for daisies have been found in the real world. (On the other hand, in the real world there is far more to regulate than just temperature, so things are presumably vastly more complex.)

As for whether things “will grow in that weather”: if all the forests in the north die off in a few years, as Lovelock is predicting, it will take a long time to replant, even if humanity works really hard at it. And where would the seeds come from, anyway? You can’t go to the hardware store and order ten tons of kudzu seeds, even if it sometimes seems like it in the south.

@jj:

Without reading any of her stuff, I can’t say whether I agree with her or not. I had a nicely-worded phrasing of this, now lost, but the gist: if we agree that the current population of the earth is long-term unsustainable, then we need to begin thinking about letting people die who would otherwise live, at least for a while. If we don’t cull the population ourselves, nature will do it for us, and will probably be a lot more brutal about it. It would be better overall to operate where such is still simply possible, provide enough care to make sure people catch cancers early, and make sure there are painkillers for inoperable cases. Trying to keep inoperable cancer patients alive is something we can come back to later, after we solve our resource problems. (And before you criticize: I’m a diabetic. I’m probably for the cull, too, and it stinks to be me, but I can understand it. Nobody ever said life was fair, after all. Except Bush in one of his speeches, I think, but consider the source!)

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 20 2006 6:06 utc | 60

Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial

Britain’s leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.
In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain’s premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence”.
The scientists also strongly criticise the company’s public statements on global warming, which they describe as “inaccurate and misleading”.

Posted by: b | Sep 20 2006 8:14 utc | 62

@truth – rather than target the disabled or physically sick, if we’re really talking about natural selection, we start as cluelessjoe suggested – with the rich & powerful, that anti-social/hoarding/exploiting/alpha male/insane bunch. parasites on all of humanity, those folk. and a real threat to ever finding a truly sustainable way of living.

Posted by: b real | Sep 20 2006 20:15 utc | 64

Diabetes is “vastly over-rated as a serious problem”. Really? I know of at least 1 person with a pancreas producing no insulin and no amount of Naturopathy or diet will replace the regular zaps of insulin required.
Do you wear a Q-Ray bracelet while you read Trudeau?

Posted by: gmac | Sep 20 2006 21:28 utc | 66

If we don’t cull the population ourselves, nature will do it for us, and will probably be a lot more brutal about it.
You and what army/party/state? Who are ‘we’ who are going to do the culling?
My problems with your approach is twofold:
1) I do not believe this can be done in a way less brutal nature would be.
2) If you are really interested i getting a smaller population step one is to stop the growth. The best way to do that is strengthening womens positions in societies and making sure that children survive as long as possible. I have a really hard time combining this with the proposed culling.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 20 2006 23:59 utc | 68

Having gotten my shot back at yr. nasty post out of my sytem, to generalize that’s where Pharmaceutical Medicine excels – and is essential – offsetting inborn genetic errors. For the more numerous one of us that reached a similar end via a different path there are other remedies that are preferable.

Posted by: jj | Sep 21 2006 1:57 utc | 70

On “negative feedback”, I mean, as in “negative feedback loop”, in the engineering and control theory sense. In the sense of population ecologies, I mean that if a population of (say) seagulls gets very large, then they will begin to exhaust nesting space (thus limiting further population growth), and any predator, or parasite, or disease, that cracks the seagull code, will thrive, at least until the seagull population is reduced again. And in crowded nesting colonies, diseases and parasites will find it easy to spread. The birds may well out-eat their fish supply, which will (temporarily) create niches for fish that are not seagull food.

For various combinations of prey/predator population growth rates, this can lead to either a steady state, or a boom/bust cycle, and it can even become chaotic, but what goes up, eventually goes attracts attention, and goes down. In that sense, there is a tendency to preserve the status quo, but that tendency says nothing about the environment.

As far as humans go, at least in the US, we are so gross and crude in our overconsumption, that IF we could get it into our heads to change our ways, it would be a relative piece of cake to tread much more lightly on this planet. We eat too much meat, we waste water, we should probably be growing much more hemp than cotton (cotton’s a water pig). We could even continue to drive cars, if we were willing to drive smaller cars, not even tiny ones, and also with a bit less power (honest-to-goodness, I learned to drive in a car with less than 50 horsepower, and I owned another car with all of 65 hp for 10 years, and drove it all the way across the country.)

Posted by: dr2chase | Sep 21 2006 3:51 utc | 72

Wow, go away for the day and the messages pile up, yes? Lots to read.

Starting with the reply I can see:

@askod, #68:

I do not believe this can be done in a way less brutal nature would be.

Well, let’s see… I’m making the assumption that, since Lovelock’s prediction is 96% of humanity killed through starvation, thirst, or heat, which are all terrible ways to go, any scheme which results in less than 96% death would be less brutal. (Heck, just shooting 96% of humanity through the head would probably be more humane, but let’s assume that can’t possibly work.) Furthermore, it seems to be widely agreed that if we cut carbon emissions by 90%, then global warming would cease to be a problem.

Suppose for a minute that it is actually impossible to cut emissions in any way other than killing people. (Quick bullet through the head, or a massive tranquilizer injection like they use for putting down pets, or something like that. Something better than starving to death.) So: is it possible to kill less than 96% of humanity and get a 90% cut in emissions? Yes. Using the most obvious idea, you could save about 25% of the world’s population (a big improvement over 4%) by just running down the list of countries with the heaviest emissions, killing their populations, until you reached 90% of emissions. (By current figures, you’d end up killing off the top 37 producers, in case anyone is curious, which takes you up through Greece. You personally — a.s.k.o.d. — would be safe, since Sweden is number 53.)

Since such a brain-dead idea (most of us would rather make dramatic cutbacks than die) would be an improvement over letting 96% of us die, there must be some plan with the necessary qualification of reducing emissions by 90% which is better than this one, which is already less brutal than nature. Any improvement to the brain-dead idea automatically helps. For example, if the survivors could cut emissions by an average of 50%, without any other changes, you could eliminate just China, the U.S., and Russia, and save over 67% of humanity! And, of course, this is without doing anything like prioritizing by the populations with the worst problems; I’m sure you could do better using some in-depth thought. And we’re still assuming that people have to be killed! So, yes, a less brutal solution is possible.

Stopping population growth is also important for long-term feasability, I agree. But Lovelock’s point is that a cut in emissions is needed now, not a decade from now when cutting growth would make a difference. Also: although tax anti-incentives are a good basic idea, there’s a basic problem: if taxes make it too costly to have children, then only the rich will have children. That isn’t a good thing. How about “incredibly massive disincentives for having multiple children”? (Of course, you would have to make paternity testing much more widespread, or else you’d end up with single mothers getting hit with the tab for the children, like they need more problems!)

@dr2chase, #65:

I agree that the name is stupid. And about the potheads. That’s why I generally don’t talk about the Gaia Hypothesis, but about Global Warming, which has the added advantage of being instantly understandable. Trying to explain the problem by starting with homeostasis and albedo and ocean salinity makes things needlessly complicated. But if you want the background material on why global warming is considered to be a problem, you have to start considering that sort of thing.

As for whether there is negative feedback in the real-world environment: most biologists accept that it exists, as far as I know, but would add that it is often obfuscated by the complexity of real-world ecology. (In fact, that is an interesting notion for why humans are “special”, now that tool usage has been discredited: humanity is able to harness external energy sources — beyond chemical energy derived, ultimately, from photosynthesis — to override the negative feedback from overpopulation. Of course, that may be reification; we don’t have any other species with that capability to compare to, that I know of at least.)

@b real, #64:

Actually, if we’re going to just slaughter people, I would semi-seriously suggest the following order, at least to start:

1. The world’s richest 5% (this would reduce carbon dioxide emissions dramatically right away, since the richest 5% are disproportionate consumers)
2. Seriously religious people (not because I dislike them or anything, it’s just that, well, if their religion is true, then they will suffer the least by being killed, since they will get a nice afterlife or will be reincarnated, and if they’re wrong, they are guilty of misleading people; either way, they make better candidates than the rest of us)
3. People with serious illnesses, starting with the ones which require heavy resource consumption (like long-term life support machines).

After that, you’d have to start looking at other things.

(I would probably fall somewhere in group 3, but if you could do them in order, I’d be happy to take my turn.)

As for elimination of the sick in general, well, if you are concluding that a lot of death is necessary for civilization to continue and that population growth must be controlled, then sterilization of people with illnesses that would be fatal without medical care becomes very hard to argue against. But that’s basically a red herring on this subject, since we aren’t in agreement about the two premises anyway. Let’s not even talk about it for now, unless governments start talking about implementing it. (I’m all for debate on that one if it actually becomes important in the real world.)

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 21 2006 5:34 utc | 74

@jj
Sorry if I offended you but your original post said that you know a naturopath that was able to have their mother quit insulin and that is BS. Hence the snark. Control or eliminate Type 2 with diet/exercise sure, one doesn’t need a naturopath to know that. Do the same for type 1? No.
Out of curiosity, how often and for how many days must you take your flu concoction to be cured? Is this the same for anyone else you’ve given it to or does it vary?

Posted by: gmac | Sep 21 2006 13:56 utc | 76

gmac,
how about a minimum of knowledge before calling something BS: (a) type 2 diabetes makes up more than 90% of all diabetes cases (b) a lot of type 2 diabetics are on insulin (c) the majority of patients even with type 1 diabetes still produce some insulin. Diets high in fat that eliminate concentrated carbs have allowed lots of people (but not all) to either go off insulin altogether, or to drastically reduce their intake.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 21 2006 16:14 utc | 78

@Bey
According to these folk some Type 2s are on insulin. So yes, maybe a few of those might be able to succeed with diet alone. It would seem to be a rare exception rather than the rule – which is the impression I got from the original post and to which you allude.
With a mother, sister, brother and both outlaws with Type 2 diabetes (none using insulin), I have done some research. I doubt a Type 1 would get by without insulin (regardless of anything you might say you mean or don’t mean in as many words as you need) and despite one’s best efforts, a diabetic could still fall prey to such overrated things like blindness and kidney failure.
My understanding of Type 1 is that it is a failure of the pancreas not poor diet and I still doubt the mother was a Type 1 whether it took 3 months or 3 years. Of course a naturopath will relate a tale like this. It is called marketing and word-of-mouth is priceless.

Posted by: gmac | Sep 21 2006 18:17 utc | 80

It isn’t as though they immediately put people on pills and never tell them to fix their diet.
I never said that they do. What I said is that I know Naturopaths who frequently are able reverse adult-onset diabetes through diet & non-pharmaceutical supplements. The ones I’ve worked w/in various capacities have in depth knowledge in areas MD’s don’t, and not being crippled by the costs of billing insurance companies, high-tech equipment, or the expectation of making hundreds of thousands of bucks/yr, are able to spend far more time w/patients than MD’s possibly can, as this approach requires.
What I am saying is that when I filled the vacuum of my ignorance w/the notion that there are MD’s & beyond that quacks, I was full of shit. There are MD’s who play an essential role in remedying certain types of sickness, particularly acute, & injuries, and Naturopaths who are very knowledgeable in teaching us how to maintain our health; and, the distinction between good medicine & quacks cuts at right angles between them.
As for “most people” – hell, most people supported Pres. Bozo til recently…so what else is new – see Nixon’s “silent Majority”….why wouldn’t the same prevail in medicine as in politics. Most people are ignorant fools… Most people think AA is the best way to deal w/alcohol/drug abuse. That’s their loss. We’ve been raised in a culture of eat shit, take a magic pill ‘n’ get better when the consequences become apparent – or pray to “god”, or meditate… Some people are higher on the information food chain than others. I’m not generalizing, just passing along some experience. If it doesn’t speak to you, fine.

Posted by: jj | Sep 22 2006 0:15 utc | 82

As for whether there is negative feedback in the real-world environment: most biologists accept that it exists, as far as I know, but would add that it is often obfuscated by the complexity of real-world ecology.
Even in the simple cases, the negative feedback can lead to chaotic outcomes. What goes up, evntually comes down, but how drastically cannot easily be predicted. This is where the status quo preservation breaks down, but not in a good way. The complexity can show up in very simple models — see the Wikipedia article on bifurcation diagrams. The diagram shows the fixed points of a simple population equation. Note that it’s not very fixed on the right side of the diagram. Imagine this happening to our weather.

Posted by: dr2chase | Sep 22 2006 4:21 utc | 84

NO, gmac. I’m saying that the division between healing & quakery isn’t, as I used to think, isn’t MD’s are the repositories of knowledge, those outside are the quacks. Both are governed by the bell curve – there are superb healers in both camps, and plenty of know littles as well passing on what they were told as well. Same w/any field. But if you’re not willing to even look beyond the bounds of classical medical practice at the unbelievable treasure trove of knowledge that’s been accumulated in the last few decades, you’re short changing yourself. That’s your choice.
If you get the flu, try it if you wish. If not, then be sick. Again it’s your choice.

Posted by: jj | Sep 22 2006 18:18 utc | 86

jj
Naturopaths are possessed of infinite knowledge? So much in fact, that the infinite selection available boggles the mind, preventing you from listing a couple?
ALS is incurable; even today they don’t know why people get it. Have you been tested? One generally doesn’t find out until one realizes something is amiss. Slurred speach when stone cold sober, loss of balance amongst others.
Funny, the doc told my friend that nothing could be done, hence the naturopath taking their money as the disease progressed just as their doc told them it likely would.
The site you reference refers to homeopathy a practise with dubious at best origins and ideas as I have pointed out.
And yes some MDs will promote baseless ideas as they are additional revenue streams. A local pharmacist has magnetic bracelets “because the public wants them”, ka-ching, not because they have ever been proven effective. They haven’t.
Being open minded doesn’t mean allowing your brain to fall out.

Posted by: gmac | Sep 22 2006 22:22 utc | 88

And jj, you have fun in the 14th century with it’s alchemy, witches and pockets full of posies. Gotta run, I have to meet the barber for my weekly bloodletting. No bad humours for me.
Perhaps I should visit John of God or Sylvia Browne to learn more of being higher on the information food chain since your arguments have completely failed to indicate your ascension to such a lofty plateau.
The idea that water has a memory is foolish and nothing you’ve said has proven it otherwise. This aspect of naturopathy is pure bunk as are possible others.

Posted by: gmac | Sep 23 2006 14:16 utc | 90