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Author Topic: Pollution  (Read 58274 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #540 on: July 14, 2017, 02:12:58 pm »


Severe diesel accusations against Daimler / "My home, my power plant"

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/severe-diesel-accusations-against-daimler-my-home-my-power-plant

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #541 on: July 14, 2017, 09:06:27 pm »
Mass Animal Die-Offs from Abrupt Climate Mayhem
Paul Beckwith

Published on Jul 14, 2017

Accelerating, abrupt climate change is an enormous threat to humanity, as outlined in the well written, long-overdue article "Uninhabited" published in New York Magazine. But it is even worse for non-human animals and plants. At least we regulate our body temperatures and some of us have access to air-conditioning.

What about animals that have body temperatures the same as their surroundings? Their metabolic rate doubles with a temperature rise of 18 F (10 C). Even a 2 C rise (Paris Agreement) increases metabolism 20%, decreasing lifetime 20%. Many species around our planet are today undergoing mass die-offs.

To me, it appears that Earth is losing its ability to sustain life, under the onslaught of human stupidity. Countries are dropping like dominos as infrastructure is decimated from abrupt climate change induced extreme weather.


Abrupt Climate Mayhem Now, in Spite of Main-Stream-Climatologist Posturing




Paul Beckwith

Published on Jul 13, 2017

Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of people, especially main-stream-talking-head-scientists, downplaying the huge unprecedented threats that are accumulating daily and will soon take down our civilizations. Our world is one that is full of specialists, with no ability to join-the-dots and recognize that humanities existence, and that of our entire ecosystems of plants and animals is degrading rapidly. Even exponentially. 
 

From my chair, I categorically state that anybody who downplays the significance and importance of our planets peril is part of the problem, and needs to get with the program or step aside so that the rest of us can do what is needed. The public needs the truth, no matter how bad it is to have any hope of changing course. And the truth is truly awful, at present
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #542 on: July 15, 2017, 12:11:57 pm »
 


July 12, 2017

Jerry Brown: Climate Champion or Big Oil Ally?

California Gov. Jerry Brown poses as an anti-Trump climate-change savior, but his policies support Big Oil's agenda, says Adam Scow, California director at Food & Water Watch

Adam Scow is the California Director at Food & Water Watch. Adam oversees the California organizing program, which tackles some of California's greatest challenges to the long-term health of its water, energy and food.

SNIPPET from video interview:

DIMITRI LASCARIS:   Adam, I had the privilege of being in California earlier this year and I actually passed through some beautiful vineyards in the central valley area. To my astonishment, I saw oil pumps nestled among certain of the vineyards. These pumps were sucking oil out of the ground in the heart of one of the world's great wine producing regions. It struck me that such images simply don't fit with the mainstream media's narrative, where California is typically depicted as an environment leader. When it comes to support for the fossil fuels industry in particular, and fracking especially, how much do the policies of Jerry Brown's government actually differ from those of the Trump administration?

ADAM SCOW:   Well, it's a great question. The unfortunate fact is that they're not all that much better. California is a major oil-producing state. It's the third largest oil producing state in the country. In particular, Kern County is about 10% of the nation's crude. Indeed there are toxic oil operations, fracking, coexisting near agricultural fields, and creating a lot of pollution to our water and to our air. For the most part, the Brown administration here has supported big oil and their agenda. We've seen it in his refusal to ban fracking. In his current support of cap and trade, which allows big oil just to pay for its pollution, instead of making them reduce it, which is what we should be doing.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #543 on: July 23, 2017, 05:04:17 pm »

Air pollution limits in U.S. inadequate to prevent deaths

Published June 28, 2017

(Reuters Health) - With the Trump Administration threatening to loosen air pollution controls, a new study is showing that even existing rules are causing tens of thousands of extra deaths in the United States each year.

Researchers used 12 years of data - health records from nearly 61 million Medicare beneficiaries, combined with a massive databank of pollution readings - to link specific air quality levels to death rates.

They found that for every increase of just 10 micrograms in small-particle pollution known as PM2.5, the death rate went up 7.3 percent. That's the equivalent of 120,000 fatalities among people age 65 and older, lead author Qian Di of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.

For every 10 part-per-billion rise in ozone concentration, the mortality rate rose by 1.1 percent, producing an extra 19,000 deaths just among the elderly.

Even in years when the concentrations in a region were low, "we continued to see significant associations between exposure and mortality," Di and his colleagues write in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Their conclusion: current U.S. rules are not strict enough to prevent pollution-related deaths and further reductions in pollution will produce a big drop in fatalities.

"It is clear from this study that there is not really a safe level of air pollution," said Dr. Brian W. Christman, vice chair of the department of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved in the research.

"The Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency have done great work, but the data indicates that additional effort to reduce PM2.5 and ozone would save lives," Christman, who is also a spokesman for the American Lung Association, told Reuters Health by phone. "As a matter of fact, further reduction in PM2.5 below the (federal standard) of 12 micrograms per cubic meter are likely to be even more effective than previous reductions."

Senior study author Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard, told Reuters Health in a telephone interview that she hoped the findings "will change the course of recent discussions about dismantling EPA and EPA research and leaving the Paris agreement" designed to slow global climate change by reducing pollution levels.

"The evidence we're seeing here is very compelling," she said. The results come at a time when the Trump administration has begun "to dismantle guidelines intended to reduce emissions from coal-fired electricity plants" and may revoke the waiver that allowed California to adopt stricter vehicle emission standards, according to an editorial accompanying the study.

"Revoking this waiver could have the effect of exposing more than 100 million Americans to higher levels of automobile emissions," the Journal warns. "Trump’s proposed budget includes crippling cuts to the EPA, including cuts in funding for both federal and state enforcement of regulations. The increased air pollution that would result from loosening current restrictions would have devastating effects on public health."

The particles studied are dangerous because their tiny size - only visible with an electron microscope - allows them to get deep into the lungs to do damage, and from there they can also enter the bloodstream. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, from 2000 to 2015 the average concentration of PM 2.5 pollution nationally has declined by 37 percent thanks to stricter air standards.

According to the new study, the two regions that saw the greatest improvements in air quality were the central and southeastern United States.

Satellite and weather data, computer models and data from 1,928 particle monitoring stations and 1,877 ozone modeling stations were used to estimate exposure over each square kilometer of the country.

The task was so massive the number crunching had to be done by supercomputer over Harvard's Christmas break, Di noted.

Because the database was so large, Di and his colleagues were also able to determine that subgroups, including men, blacks, Asians, Hispanics and people eligible for the Medicaid health plan for the poor faced the highest risk from small particle pollution.

It shows "this is not just a health issue, but a social equality issue as well," said Di, a doctoral student in Harvard's department of environmental health.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2sPKef2 New England Journal of Medicine, online June 28, 2017.

http://www.lifescript.com/health/news/reuters/2017/06/28/air_pollution_limits_in_us_inadequate_to_prevent_deaths.aspx

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #544 on: July 24, 2017, 01:36:18 pm »
The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing, human health depleting CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!   

Environmental devastation, ruined economy and deteriorating health afflict Bodo community years after Shell oil spill.

Bodo Village, Nigeria - In 2008 and 2009, a 55-year-old pipeline owned by Shell ruptured twice, throwing up 600,000 barrels, according to UK court claims, of crude oil into the surrounding creeks of the Niger Delta.


In 2015, after many years of battles with campaigners, Shell announced it would pay out $83.2m in compensation for the spill. This was split up among the community. Most families received about 600,000 naira ($3,000). Yet after more than eight years that have passed, the community is still waiting desperately for the cleanup efforts promised to them. The creeks and shores of this once thriving fishing community remain decimated by the oil damage.




In January 2017, a British court blocked a lawsuit brought against the Anglo-Dutch Shell company by the devastated Nigerian communities, saying it must be filed in Nigeria. 

On January 26, 2017, as reported by the Associated Press, Kay Holtzmann, the former director of the project funded by Shell to clean up the oil spills, wrote a letter saying there are "astonishingly high" levels of pollution affecting the Nigerian community.


The letter was addressed to the chairperson of the Bodo Mediation Initiative, Inemo Samiama,  and outlined the potential health effect of the contamination on the Bodo community. "Although the locals are accustomed to their environment they are exposed to hazards and especially negative long-term effects on their health are unpredictable. The results dictate the need for a health screening of the Bodo people," Holtzmann stated.

Joyful Paango, a resident in Bodo village, says she and her family have struggled with their health since the spill. She is concerned for her six younger siblings, who have been directly affected by the contamination. "I pray that God will take me and my family from Bodo one day."







http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/07/long-term-effects-oil-spills-bodo-nigeria-170717090542648.html



The fossil fuel Industry is kiilling us all over the world, not just in Nigeria.


Response by the fossil fuel industry to the above irrefutable evidence of their criminal polluting profit over people and planet behavior:




He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #545 on: July 24, 2017, 07:12:36 pm »
Hat Tip to Azozeo for this news:

AG,
I tell you, this planet is gonna light up like a roman candle & then some with all this gas oozing out.

Check this out from Johnny Mneomic today......


2017-07-22 - Animal life dying off hard, odor of hydrogen sulfide present, at Lake Karasun in Krasnodar (Russia):
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/Dead-fish-spark-fears-of-Karasun-Lakes-contamination.html

"The inhabitants of Krasnodar reported that something strange was going on in Lake Karasun. A video appeared on the Internet, the author of which declares that the local fauna is dying massively in the Karasun lakes. In addition, there is a stable smell of hydrogen sulfide in the district, Live Kuban reports."

I know you are right. Peter (New Testament) said something about fire eventually consumiing the planet a couple of thousand years ago. It sure looks like we are almost there.   :(

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #546 on: July 28, 2017, 05:28:52 pm »
You can bet this will be cleaned up faster than Flint.  Scarsdale is where RICH people live.

RE

https://patch.com/new-york/scarsdale/cancer-causing-pollutants-found-scarsdale-drinking-water-study-shows


Cancer-Causing Pollutants Found In Scarsdale Drinking Water, Study Shows
A new study found 11 harmful contaminants in the state's drinking water. How clean is your community's water supply?


By Michael Woyton (Patch Staff) - Updated July 27, 2017 4:45 pm ET
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Cancer-Causing Pollutants Found In Scarsdale Drinking Water, Study Shows

SCARSDALE, NY — When water flows out of the faucet and into a glass, it usually appears clean and healthy. A report released Wednesday, though, found hundreds of harmful contaminants across the American water supply that can cause cancer, developmental issues in children, problems in pregnancy and other serious health conditions.

In the communities served by Westchester County Water District #1, nine contaminants above health guidelines were detected across the district's water supply, according to data from the Environmental Working Group that was released on Wednesday.

EWG notes, however, that tap water provided by this water utility was in compliance with federal health-based drinking water standards in the latest quarter address by the Environmental Protection Agency, which was from January to March 2017.

From 2010 to 2015, EWG collected results of tests conducted by the water utility, which was provided to them by the New York Department of Health-Bureau of Public Water Supply Protection, as well as information from the U.S. EPA Enforcement and Compliance History database.

The following contaminants were detected above health limits in communities served by Westchester County Water District #1:

    Bromodichloromethane
    Chloroform
    Dichloroacetic acid
    Radiological contaminants
    Trichloroacetic acid

Long Island Water Conference Legislative Committee Co-Chair Paul Granger did not agree with this study. "This report is nothing more than a fear mongering scare tactic for the sole purpose of selling unnecessary water filters," he said.

Read Granger's full statement below:

    "The premise of this report is patently false and the information portrayed is extremely misleading. This report is nothing more than a fear mongering scare tactic for the sole purpose of selling unnecessary water filters. The water being delivered to our customers is meticulously regulated by federal, state and local authorities on a weekly basis. Under no circumstances would water containing harmful levels of these chemicals, or any other chemical for that matter, come out of our treatment plants and be sent to the public. In fact, water providers publicly release information about their water quality on an annual basis. The authors of this report should be ashamed of themselves for purposely broadcasting misinformation about the safety of drinking water to the public for the sake of selling water filters."

“There are chemicals that have been linked to cancer, for example, that are found above health-based limits, or health guidelines, in the water of more than 250 million Americans,” said Nneka Leiba, director of Healthy Living Science at EWG.

In New York, EWG tracked 140 contaminants across the state’s water supply. The following contaminants have been detected above health limits in New York (contaminants in bold have been linked to cancer):

    Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) which are linked to bladder cancer, skin cancer and fetal development issues
    Chloroform which is linked to cancer and fetal development issues
    Bromodichloromethane which is linked to harm to child and fetuses, as well as reproductive difficulties
    Radium-226 and -228 which is linked to cancer
    Dibromochloromethane which is linked to cancer and harm to fetuses
    Dichloroacetic acid which is linked to cancer and harm to reproduction and child development
    Trichloroacetic acid which is linked to cancer, and harm to reproduction and child development
    Chromium (hexavalent) which is linked to cancer, liver damage and productive system damages
    1,2,3-Trichloropropane which is linked to cancer

These contaminants were detected above legal guidelines:

    Trihalomethanes which are linked to bladder cancer, skin cancer and fetal development issues
    Haloacetic acids (HAA5) which is linked to cancer and harm to fetuses
    Arsenic which is linked cancer, harm to the central nervous system, harm to the brain and nervous system, skin damage, changed to the heart and blood vessels, heart disease, stroke and diabetes
    Barium which is linked to harm to the kidney, high blood pressure and harm to the heart and blood vessels
    Radium which is linked to cancer

EWG, in conjunction with outside scientists, assessed health-based guidelines for hundreds of chemicals found in drinking water across the country and compared them to the legal limits. The law often permits utilities to allow these dangerous chemicals to pollute our waters.


Contaminants in Your Water

EWG has released a public database cataloguing contaminants in water systems in every state in the country — the first comprehensive database of its kind that took two years to build. First select the state where you live, and you'll see state-level data. For more local information, enter your zip code.

After you enter your zip code, you'll be directed to a page showing the water utilities in your county. Select your town to see which contaminants put your families at risk.

No single group has collected all this information for all 50 states in an easily searchable database — until now. And it’s incredibly easy to use it to see what contaminants are coming through your faucet.
What You Can Do

Once people know about the high levels of dangerous contaminants lurking in their water, the question becomes what they can do to protect their health.
Get free real-time news alerts from the Scarsdale Patch.
By clicking "Subscribe", you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

”There’s a way to reduce those levels simply by buying a water filter,” said Leiba.

“We don’t want to scare the population by saying there are 250 chemicals and just leaving it there,” she continued. “As a consumer you may look at it and get a little overwhelmed."

For this reason, EWG provides a guide to buying water filters.

Hudson Valley based-Consumer Reports also has a buyers guide for water filters. See it here.

The EWG website allows you to search for filters that block particular chemicals and pollutants. If you find that your local water supply has a particularly high level of a dangerous chemical, you can search for a filter that blocks that substance.

There are many types of filters, including carbon filters, deionization filters and distillation filters. Each type has its own strengths and weakness, so sometimes a filter will include multiple filtration methods to eliminate more potential threats.

To find the most effective filter, look for certifications from the Water Quality Association and NSF International. Different filters remove different contaminants.

It’s important to remember, though, that even high-quality filters are not 100 percent effective.

“Filters don’t remove everything,” Scott Meschke, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at Washington University, told Patch. He emphasized that it’s important to make sure you’re using a filter that is designed to fit your local needs.

He also said that users should change water filters on a regular basis. Old filters that are never replaced can host bacterial, which also pose potential dangers.

People who don’t get their water through a public utility will have different needs.

“If you are on a private well, I would say that you need to be monitoring your water. You should be paying on a regular basis to have it tested,” Meschke said.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #547 on: July 28, 2017, 05:44:38 pm »
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-unspoken-failures-of-save-the-earth-science-world-destruction-with-nuclear-weapons-the-poisoning-of-the-earths-ecology/5587796

The Unspoken Failures of “Save the Earth Science”: World Destruction with Nuclear Weapons, The Poisoning of the Earth’s Ecology
By Edward Curtin
Global Research, May 01, 2017
Theme: Environment
In-depth Report: Nuclear War



“In our society those who have best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.” – George Orwell, 1984

“This has inspired me to new heights, to wage war against these forces [‘the unfruitful ocean’] and subdue them.”  Faust from Goethe’s Faust

The recent marches on April 22nd to promote science and to celebrate Earth Day were perhaps well-intentioned, but they were delusional and conducted without any sense of irony. They served power and its propaganda. Obviously science has benefited us in certain ways, but it has become untethered from any sense of moral limits in its embrace of instrumental rationality and its unending efforts to sabotage faith in human freedom by rationally “proving” its illogical deterministic credo. And in doing so it has created and sustained a nightmarish world on the brink of destruction and undermined people’s will to resist this death march. Ostensibly rational, it has engendered a spiritual alienation that goes to the roots of the world crisis.

“In short,” says Dostoyevsky’s underground man,
Quote
    “one may say anything about the history of the world – anything that might enter the most disordered imagination.  The only thing one can’t say is that it’s rational.”


For two of the major problems the world faces – world destruction with nuclear weapons and the poisoning of the earth’s ecology and atmosphere – are the result of the marriage of science and technique that has given birth to the technological “babies” (Little Boy and Fat Man) that were used by the U.S. to massacre hundreds of thousands of Japanese and now threaten to incinerate everyone, and the chemical and toxic inventions that have despoiled the earth, air, and water and continue to kill people worldwide through America’s endless war-making and industrial applications.

The Save-the-Earth-Science marchers failed, for self-serving reasons or ignorance, to see the obvious.  But their failure goes even deeper than omitting the links between science, war, and pollution.

In our technopoly, logical thinking has become illogical; cause and effect, means and ends have been inverted.  The causes of our problems are touted as the means to end them. These “solutions” are always offered with a straight face, as if they made perfect sense.  This is how societies operate when in the grip of myths.  In this case, the myths of science, progress, and history.  Such myths render the obvious invisible as they create a hopeless inevitability in people who can imagine no alternative and have been convinced that science is the secret to salvation and the means to the things they have learned to desire, including longevity and perhaps “immortality.”And these things have become the means to additional means in an endless loop from which, by definition, ends are absent.  As a result, the search for truth, celebrated as a goal of science, is slyly eliminated.

In this comforting yet absurd myth, science is viewed as the “miraculous knight of reason.”  John Saul Ralston elaborates:

    Science led the way in the battle against the forces of darkness. Discoveries were celebrated as if new territories were won on the road to a place of eternal light where knowledge would reign. And yet these very real advances in the uncovering of nature’s secrets seemed increasingly to create a world which escaped the control of society. New knowledge and new positive powers in the hands of man seemed inevitably to be matched with new inaccessible elites and a new sophistication in the arts of violence and destruction….As for the scientists, the vast majority of whom continue to believe in the inviolability of progress, they still do so with the driven purity of terrorists.

Comforted and paradoxically terrorized by our creations, yet immobilized by our myths, we seem to lack the imaginations to conceive a different approach.  So we applaud what seems so “sensible”: marching for science to save the planet.  Meaning well becomes a substitute for missing the meaning of our contradictory thinking and the myth that sustains it.


Delude ourselves as we might, the probability of making all possibility impossible is very real.  Poised on the edge of nuclear conflagration and environmental collapse, we tell ourselves that reasonable minds will prevail, knowing, if we choose to think at all, that the central experiences of the past century – the mass slaughter of human beings with progressively more “advanced” weapons and ecological destruction as a result of scientific/technological “advances” (we are always advancing in the myth) – were not prevented by such “reasonableness.” In fact, instrumental reason and its perverted logic of efficiency – our Gods – caused them.

We inhabit a nightmare, and reason is insufficient to awaken us.

    “The madman,” wrote G. K. Chesterton, “is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”

This is true even when the reasoning is faulty.

This scientific/technological nightmare is a world where everything has become a means and the ends no longer exist.  We are travelling at breakneck speed to nowhere, but as long as long as we keep moving in our “usefulness,” no one seems to notice that we are travelling in circles and getting nowhere.

    He’s a real nowhere man
    Sitting in his nowhere land
    Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

    Doesn’t have a point of view
    Knows not where he’s going to
    Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

 I’d say the boys – the Beatles – have a point, wouldn’t you?  But what do artists know?

We can’t conceive of our ends since they conjure up nothing, having been swallowed by the means, while the purpose of our lives is reduced to staying alive as long as possible.  The Faustian goal has always been immortality, and we have been infected with the fear that death, and therefore life, may be meaningless.  The quest for scientific “immortality” is a means to a means without end.  It is a symptom of the profound spiritual crisis of the age.

Writing about our twisted logic that has banished anything “useless” or “gratuitous,” – including art, people, and nature – the great French sociologist Jacques Ellul says this about modern science:

    Once, knowledge of truth was what mattered, but then after the philosophers came the scientists.  They developed their theories, which were then applied, first in order to prove the truth of these theories, and then because of their usefulness. From that point on, science was lost!  Technical means gradually came to dominate the search for truth.  Science became more and more about the effectiveness of technical means. Science today takes its meaning from technique; it is completely oriented to application.  It is in the service of means.  It has become a means of perfecting the means.  The ab- straction ‘science,’ to which we still pay lip service, has replaced the search for truth.

Yes, marching for science is marching for science, but not in the way the demonstrators think.  It is marching for a means to a means.  Wedded to government support and instantaneously applied to technical applications, science serves no ultimate end but its own existence. Holding signs supporting science as a cure for the planet’s ills that science has created is like taking psychotropic drugs for depression because you were told the “cause” of your depression is a brain abnormality for which no causal scientific evidence exists since there are no definitive empirical lab tests. In the former case the cause becomes the solution; in the latter, the imagined cause is remedied by an imagined solution. In both cases, delusional thinking prevails.

Such inverted logic about cause and effect is the way the myth of science works today. No evidence required. The cause is the solution. The means justifies the means.

It is the same “logic” used to support the materialistic, murderous, and imperialistic American empire. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. – bomb, invade, kill, destroy – and when those means don’t work, double down on them.

Paul Virilio, the great scholar of dromology (the study of speed), asks:  “Has the prohibition to prohibit – the basic law of scientific progress – become the only law of a lawless globalism?”  His answer: Yes.  This prohibition to prohibit informs our science, war-making, rapacious globalization, and capitalist death trip – everything – as we accelerate toward global suicide.

It was Dostoevsky who long ago warned us of the path we were on and the spiritual nihilism that lay at its heart:

Quote
    That is not all; then, you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind it’s a superfluous luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature.  Consequently, we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him.

But “easy” turned out to be hard, as an uneasiness of profound proportions wed to the spiritual crisis of free will created by science has been dismissed as the rantings of religious fanatics who want to return us to the dark ages.  Blinded by the myth of science, we fail to see that the loss of our belief in our own freedom is connected to the instrumental rationality that threatens all life.

Nature and all living creatures, including ourselves, have become our enemies and are rejected as ends in themselves. Everything and everyone is a means. We must bomb, bulldoze, manipulate, drug, control, poison, etc.– all in the service of a diabolical willfulness that brooks no resistance.

American society is nihilistic and the ruling political and intellectual elites are of course the leading nihilists. But this nihilism is widespread because it works at the mythic level. Unable to grasp the circular and repetitive nature of instrumental reason and its propaganda that have resulted in a spiritual/existential crisis that is leading to world destruction, average people fall into a deeper malaise that leads to widespread despair, unhappiness, and hopelessness. Everything becomes a means to a means in a kaleidoscopic death trap.

The question is: how can we break out of this mystification of experience that has resulted in a double-bind that has trapped us?

I thing Goethe hints at a solution in a “warning” that the devil, Mephistopheles, gives to a student in Faust, and which Faust failed to heed:

    Who would study and describe the living, starts

    By driving the spirits out of the parts:

    In the palm of his hand he holds all the sections,

    Lacks nothing, except the spirit’s connection.

But are we capable of taking such a hint? Or have we passed a point of no return?

I will take up this hint in a sequel to this article, and explore the possibility of a path out of the seeming impossibility of escaping the cul-de-sac of our spiritually disinherited current condition.

Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely.  He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/]http://edwardcurtin.com/
The original source of this article is Global Research


Copyright © Edward Curtin, Global Research, 2017

Yep.  :(


Quote
“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― Fyodor Dostoyyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Quote
“I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.” ― Fyodor Dostoyyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Human Inequity is directly proportional to the amount of human iniquity. - A. G. Gelbert
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #548 on: July 30, 2017, 02:52:19 pm »


2017-07-27 - 100 fossil fuel companies are responsible for 71 Percent of carbon emissions since 1988, and they’re being sued for it:
http://robertscribbler.com/2017/07/26/100-fossil-fuel-companies-responsible-for-71-percent-of-carbon-emissions-since-1988-and-theyre-being-sued-for-it/






He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #549 on: July 31, 2017, 07:48:43 pm »
A Republican Candidate's Campaign is Being Funded by Corporate Polluters (w/guest Dr. Kyle Horton)

Jul. 28, 2017

Thom speaks with guest Dr. Kyle Horton (Internal Medicine Physician and Democratic Candidate for Congress - NC, 7th District)
 
about her run for Congress and what she hopes to achieve if she wins.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #550 on: August 03, 2017, 02:55:58 pm »


Sixth Mass Extinction Event is Under Way - video 17min. 7/31/2017


Biodiversity hot spots of 80% of biosphere's species endangered by Global Warming Pollution

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/climate/mass-extinction-animal-species.html
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #551 on: August 04, 2017, 07:57:28 pm »
2017-08-02 - Why many people are naively optimistic about climate change:
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/08/02/541095519/why-we-are-naively-optimistic-about-climate-change

Quote: "The dead zones spur the growth of oxygen-eating bacteria, making it impossible for fish to survive. Decomposing organic matter generates hydrogen sulfide, a highly poisonous gas that shuts down the nerves regulating breathing, killing in seconds even at low concentrations. Hydrogen sulfide played a key role in the most severe of all mass extinctions in Earth's past, when 97 percent of all life died 252 million years ago."

Note: We don't have any 70 years either. Anybody could drop dead or burn to death by tomorrow. The problem isn't far off into the future; it's rising all around us right now, a tidal wave of death. It's well past Wake-Up-Or-Die O'Clock...


Agreed. As to why people are so "naive", I have an explanation.  ;D

A long time ago and in a military academy far far away (USMA), I was a lowly plebe for a while. The upperclassmen had some very creative ways of insulting plebes. Plebes are otherwise known as fourth classmen (i.e. college freshmen). All those eggheads at the USMA hate to be called stupid, so the upperclassmen made sure they called us that often. The most creative way to do that is to arrange the back and forth dialog so that we had to insult ourselves.

It went like this:
Upperclassman: Mister, you are a wedge.
Plebe: Yes sir!
Upperclassman: Do you know what a wedge is?
Plebe: Yes sir!
Upperclassman: Mister what is a wedge?
Plebe: Sir, a wedge is the simplest tool!
Upperclassman: Post! (that means the plebe can now leave)
Plebe: Yes sir!

Agelbert thinks most people who are "naive" about climate change are part of the wedge family of Homo saps.

The sub-human group of wedge brains is over-represented in the fossil fuel, chemical, military, political and financial segments of the human population.


The wedges are in the driver's seat of the trajectory of human civilization (see below). 







 

EVERYONE at Zero Hedge is a WEDGE!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #552 on: August 04, 2017, 11:51:35 pm »
The Sport of Plutocrats: Golf Is Trump
Thursday, August 03, 2017

By Robert Lipsyte, TomDispatch | News Analysis

SNIPPET:

To understand golf is to understand Trump. He uses golf as a social lubricant for business, which is its most important function in American culture. Since it operates on the honor system, golf is convenient for lying cheats. As the joke goes, the difference between boastful golfers and fishermen is that golfers don't have to produce proof. Golf jokes, invariably evoking sex or religion, are a staple of stale pale-male humor. The locker-room quip for which "golf" is an acronym -- "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" -- may no longer be totally accurate but it certainly captures the sensibility of the game. And as a perfect complement to Trump's own relentless boasts about his wealth, the most popular ranking of professional golfers has always been "the money list." There are no batting averages in golf. It's all about prize money and endorsement fees.

Trump is more than a golfer. He owns and operates golf courses. The Trump Golf website lists 18 "iconic" ones in "the world of Trump Golf," stretching from upstate New York to Dubai. And yet none of the domestic ones even made the list of Golf Digest's 100 top American courses. Despite widespread protests last year about his 2005 ****-grabbing remarks, the U.S. Women's Open was held this July at Trump's Bedminster, New Jersey, course, also the site of his green desecration. Only recently was it revealed that The Donald had threatened to sue the United States Golf Association if it dared move the event as some in the Ladies Professional Golf Association had evidently suggested.

For him, golf isn't just a sideline presidential activity, it's central to his plutocratic vision of his presidency and of the promoting of the Trump brand (clearly synonymous in his mind). His golf courses, after all, are considered a critical part of his family's revenue stream, although typically, actual financial information on them is scanty and may eventually reveal less profit than he claims.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41494-the-sport-of-plutocrats-golf-is-trump
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #553 on: August 05, 2017, 04:56:31 pm »
Agelbert Note: Luciddreams is a good man forced to seek other employment in order to feed his family. He prefers permaculture and farming bamboo, which he is experienced in and has done for some time, but he cannot make enough money doing it. He was also an EMT for a few years. He is now driving a truck to earn the money to better care for his wife and two small boys while saving enough money to buy a large piece of land to grow bamboo on.

I know I'm being taken advantage of.  But isn't that just the nature of money?  We sell our time for it, and there ain't no time that works out is there?  Because our time is not worth money.  Our time is priceless.  Our time can't be quantified with money, but we all quantify our time with money based on how much of it we can get.  Based on what we are willing to do for it. 

Yeah, I'm tired of reality, but what choice do I have?  We deal in reality whether we want to or not.  Our time may not be worth money, but reality is.


The fastest growing, and also reasonably paid, job in the USA is that of a Wind Turbine Technician.  If you are not afraid of heights, I recommend you pursue a career there. If we even have a future, which is highly doubtful, it will be in Renewable Energy jobs that CANNOT be outsourced AND NO profit over people and planet CAPTALISM, period.

Anyone that thinks human civilization can survive with Capitalism controlling everything is a wedge (see my other post defining Homo Sap  Wedge).  ;D

Which brings me to my decision to go trucking. 

Look, I Been There, Done That, Own the T-Shirt.

I will tell you one more time this life **** SUCKS on all levels, and that is even if you are single with no kids.

Get a Janitorial Bizness going.  It will be a fuckload better than driving around a **** truck.

RE
Nothing wrong with trucking.  It is as you say one of the last well paid trades that does not involve years of college. The homestead game is expensive.  We were lucky we built a nest egg before kids and the move so the land and house shell went up from savings. It's a small town so we just moved in at that stage and nobody cared.
I wish you luck. 
David B.

Thanks David.  Ultimately this is a way to get my family into a situation similar to yours.  I plan to buy land and a domicile with the proceeds...at some point...hopefully.  I plan to build a new permaculture/bamboo paradise.  On land that I own, and in a home that is ours.  It takes money.  I can get that money truckin', and so that's what I'm going to do.  There are other ways I could get that money...but none that I have seen that I will be able to stomach.  I'm betting that I can stomach truckin', so I'm going to find out...and soon.  If all goes well I'll be up in Wisconsin September 1st.

Good luck, Lucid. I'm sure you will have a few years before the future of Trucking "persuades" you to look elseware for a job. RE knows of what he speaks. So do I. 

Quote
According a recent report from management magazine strategy + business, fleets could save billions across the industry by switching from human controlled trucks to those that drive themselves. Overdrive sister site CCJ‘s Senior Editor Kevin Jones has a full write-up on the latest on autonomous trucks on CCJ‘s site, where he says the economic upside for fleets would immediately include productivity, as hours of service rules would no longer be a worry.



Nor would driver wages, says one analyst in Jones’ story.


The numbers now are roughly this: It costs $200,000 to outfit a truck and trailer to run autonomously, which would yield savings of about $100,000 every year, which, obviously, would put any fleets that made the switch in the black on the change in just two years.

The analyst also says fleets that do adopt autonomous trucks early will set establish “industry-leading positions.”

Do drivers need to be watching their backs? Click here to see Jones’ full post on autonomous trucks

http://www.overdriveonline.com/robotic-trucks-set-to-push-drivers-out-of-a-job/


   


It's not the driverless truck that is the problem it's the entire system built up around trucks that would have to be rebuilt. Just imagine the simple act of backing up in the built up areas involving convincing traffic to stop for you and give you a window for doing it.  Imagine the tens of thousands of docks that predate 18 wheelers let alone autonomous trucks.  Do you honestly think the money is there at that end to replace anything.  How about unloading.  Have you even seen some of the sketchy places freight gets dropped off at? A robot would go into convulsions.   It will happen but it will take at least 10-20 years for the wet ware at the delivery points to be ready to accept autonomous freight...
Just an opinion of course I did run a warehouse in a previous life though...


The short answer is, of course there is money to do that.

Every objection you present to robotic driving, including enroute challenges, delivery constraints, docking in non-automation friendly arreas, etc. is being addressed successfully. Automated driving is going to be far more accident free than human controlled driving.

I was an air traffic controller for many years. I used to say, and I was right in 1972 when I first said it, that I was in the most short lived profession in the history of the human race. WHY? Simply because computers are far better, quicker and more reliable at spacial visualization, vector probabilities, etc. (which is what is involved in keeping airplanes from hitting each other)  than humans. There still are human ATC specialists, but the computer is gradually taking over the ATC to aircraft (bypassing the pilots too!) commands.

Now if you think that moving things from here to there is not going to be nearly 100% automated (with human supervisors overseeing an entire trucking fleet, not just one vehicle at a time), you are not fully cognizant of the present abilities of computer software with the appropriate sensor IO. I know what I am talking about. I was an automation specialist after being an air traffic contoller. The technology is OLD to move trucks without humans. What is NEW is the lower price for the sensor package needed to do that reliably and safely.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Pollution
« Reply #554 on: August 05, 2017, 05:37:55 pm »
It's not the driverless truck that is the problem it's the entire system built up around trucks that would have to be rebuilt. Just imagine the simple act of backing up in the built up areas involving convincing traffic to stop for you and give you a window for doing it.  Imagine the tens of thousands of docks that predate 18 wheelers let alone autonomous trucks.  Do you honestly think the money is there at that end to replace anything.  How about unloading.  Have you even seen some of the sketchy places freight gets dropped off at? A robot would go into convulsions.   It will happen but it will take at least 10-20 years for the wet ware at the delivery points to be ready to accept autonomous freight...
Just an opinion of course I did run a warehouse in a previous life though...

The short answer is, of course there is money to do that.

Every objection you present to robotic driving, including enroute challenges, delivery constraints, docking in non-automation friendly arreas, etc. is being addressed successfully. Automated driving is going to be far more accident free than human controlled driving.

I was an air traffic controller for many years. I used to say, and I was right in 1972 when I first said it, that I was in the most short lived profession in the history of the human race. WHY? Simply because computers are far better, quicker and more reliable at spacial visualization, vector probabilities, etc. (which is what is involved in keeping airplanes from hitting each other)  than humans. There still are human ATC specialists, but the computer is gradually taking over the ATC to aircraft (bypassing the pilots too!) commands.

Now if you think that moving things from here to there is not going to be nearly 100% automated (with human supervisors overseeing an entire trucking fleet, not just one vehicle at a time), you are not fully cognizant of the present abilities of computer software with the appropriate sensor IO. I know what I am talking about. I was an automation specialist after being an air traffic contoller. The technology is OLD to move trucks without humans. What is NEW is the lower price for the sensor package needed to do that reliably and safely.


Look, there ain't **** that any of us can do about the robots.  They are going to put us out of work.  Work can be done by robots, robots are getting cheaper by the day.  At this point it's still a viable career option.  Hopefully I can make the money I need in the time I have before robots put me out of work. 

On another note, we just signed a contract for our land...37k.  I'm probably going to pay to have the water, power, and septic dove tailed onto my mom's build with that cash.  Then we'll finance our own double wide and be set, in a doublewide down by the river...a far bit better then a van down by the river. 

11 acres for the bamboo and food forest, a double wide down by the river, and maybe a decade of 50k a year before the robots put me out of work.  Bamboo is virile, it doesn't require tender loving care.  My groves will grow just fine while I'm OTR trucking and so will my food producing trees and shrubbery.  The income will enable me to buy infrastructure for animals and whatnot.  I'll save as much of it as I can.

In the end, the robots will put us all out of work and we'll run out of oil which will put the robots out of work.  It will be game over, and then we can all learn how to be uncomfortable while we transition into 21st century third world dystopian ghettos.
 

Say what you want about my decision to go truckin'...at least I'm not delusional about it.

True.

     


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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