Aug 18, 2013

The Earth's Not Getting Hotter....We're Just Getting Colder

By Ghost of Spartacus / itisnotyourfaultblog.com

cold: adjective- “aloof” synonyms: “uninterested; unresponsive; solitary; secluded; unconcerned; unsympathetic; indifferent; hard-headed;…”

adjective- “antisocial” synonyms: “alienated; unfriendly; misanthropic;…”

We can’t be concerned with the planet warming. It’s just not interesting to us. The thought of it interrupts our day. Why should we respond to such a thought? What sympathy should we have for the world that we are entitled to conquer? We’d have to give up so much of what we do every day anyway. We’d have to think of ourselves as a community, a social contract with each other, sharing the bounty of this Earth, and realize that we are part of the world, and not masters of it. It’s so much easier if we just get “colder.”

So, what if we just forgot about this whole “Global Warming” thing? Let’s just pretend, or even accept that the whole thing is just a hoax. Then, we can just get on with our lives, and stop worrying about it. In fact, there won’t be anything about what we’re doing, going about our daily lives, that we will have to feel responsible for. Let’s just believe that the Earth is immune from anything we can throw at her.

However, there are several things  we will have to consider. For instance, how about that Deep Horizon oil spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico not long ago. Thousands of species were affected by the spill. Hundreds of dolphins were washed up on shore dead. Untold amounts of toxins released to clean up the mess. Special chemicals were used to influence certain bacteria to “eat up the oil.” Yet, the more the food, the more the bacteria reproduce. Unknown to the public, this process leaves huge “dead zones,” where the area is depleted of oxygen, smothering any fish that attempt to swim through it. It has been said that it will take a century for the ecosystems affected by just this disaster to recover to “sustainable” levels before the event. Also, it has been said that if the spill had lasted any longer, there may have been enough surface spill to expand out into the Atlantic Ocean, and have affects on the Gulf Stream, which is what keeps most of Europe from being much cooler, near “ice age” temperatures.

It begs the question: What if there were 10 or 20 of these spills happening around the world, all at once? What if there were dozens?  Certainly the impact of such an event would cause so much chaos, that it could threaten humanity, our civilization, and our way of life- An event completely separate from our affect on “global climate change.” Isn’t that just as bad as anthropogenic global warming?

Each day, because of the expansion of the dominant culture, driven by industrialized capitalism, 200 species of life goes extinct forever. Certainly, we have to admit that at least some species on this planet we depend on for our life. Certainly, we must admit that some of these species rely on other species for their life, to in turn give us life. Certainly, then, we have to admit that if a certain percentage of species go extinct, if it gets to that point, our expansion across the globe and the exploitation of the lands and ecosystems these species depend on will eventually begin to hamper our ability to survive. Again, not any of this human behavior causing this has anything to do with us “causing global warming” (that thing we’re calling a hoax).

Another thing we’ll have to try to ignore is the fact that there are only two primary groups of species that produce the oxygen we need to breath on this planet. One, the obvious, and the one even your Sunday School teacher would agree with, are plants, especially large forested regions. And, two, phytoplankton, small creatures that populate most of the world’s oceans. According to most estimates, plants provide around 50% of the world’s oxygen, and phytoplankton produce the other 50%.

Now, I know this will be hard for some, but it’s a bit mathematical to calculate how much we are going to have to accept, even if we are forgetting about that global warming hoax. It is no controversy that we are rapidly depleting the earth’s forests. Since even the time of Gilgamesh, and the Sumerian culture of the Middle East, we have been ravaging and exploiting old growth forests. Most of this area was once covered from border to border by giant cedars as far as the eye can see. It was said that when the so-called “New World” was discovered, there were so many trees that a squirrel could go from treetop to treetop, never touching the ground, from the East Coast to the Mississippi River.

There are very few old growth forests remaining today. The great rainforests of the world are nearly 80% depleted from their extent they held just a hundred years ago. Everywhere you go on this planet, more and more of these great oxygen producers- life givers to us- are being replaced by our buildings, our cement, our cattle farms, our ethanol, and more. The plants that give us 50% of our oxygen are being depleted at such a rate that even if we stopped now, and each of us, all 7 billion, planted a tree each week, it would take us nearly a century to bring back the amount of plant life that we have taken from the planet since civilization began.

Let’s not forget about that phytoplankton. The size and fragility of these near microscopic creatures is their own death warrant, since we’ve been around. Their shells are not very resistant to chemical changes in the water, as well as intense doses of ultraviolet rays from our sun. It’s well known, and widely accepted, and especially free from claims of “hoax,” that the ozone layer has been affected, and indeed thinned, by many types of chemicals we have released, and despite laws to prevent such action, are still releasing into the upper atmosphere, further depleting this protective layer that blankets our atmosphere. The wider the “hole” becomes, the more phytoplankton will be affected and killed off. And, of course, the less oxygen for us to breath.

What’s more, is that this is not the most serious threat to the phytoplankton. An interesting thing happens to water when it is exposed to CO2. It becomes more acidic. As even the most ardent believer in the hoax of global warming would agree, the condition on the body called “respiratory acidosis,” is a primary example of this phenomenon in nature and in our bodies. People who have an acute metabolic condition, where the blood is not cleared of the right amount of CO2, begin hyperventilating, because the body is going into shock over how acidic the blood is becoming, hyperexpanding the lungs to expel as much of the gas out of the body as possible before impending death.

So, likewise, if the world’s oceans are exposed to an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, they too will become more acidic. Evidence is abound over the past couple decades that the world’s oceans are becoming rapidly more acidic, parallel with the increase in gross domestic product, or simply, the amount of our consumption and commerce around the planet. Coral reefs around the world show damage of acidic water and are in severe decline, and most importantly, the phytoplankton are showing the same pace of decline from the rise in acidity. The phytoplankton can’t form their shells, or exoskeletons, and die off, unable to produce the life-giving oxygen we breath.

Again, I haven’t mentioned anything about any affect we’re having on “warming” of the planet or “climate change,” and I am still sticking to the premise that global warming is a “hoax.” Yes, I mentioned CO2, and how just as exponentially as our affect on oxygen producers has grown, so too has our release of this “greenhouse gas,” which, in turn, is parallel to the rate of consumption and exploitation of the resources of the planet, but I did not lay out any of the claims of proponents of the affects of increased CO2 release by humanity is “warming the planet.”

Yet, I haven’t even covered half of the major threats to our well-being, and the ground beneath us seems to be going to fall out! It’s becoming very clear, even to “us deniers,” that even if we take anthropogenic global warming out of the equation, out of our lives, and just become “cold” to it, it doesn’t stop the threat to our lives if we continue to keep living the way we do on this planet. Our children, our grandchildren, and so on, will still be living, if at all, in a wasteland, looking back at us and saying, “Okay, so you didn’t accept that global warming hoax, but, hey!- There ain’t no more trees!”- or something of that sort.

And, it seems we’re coming to the premise of this thought experiment. Let’s reverse things a bit to show you what I mean, using a sort of “reverse non sequitur” argument, if you will. Once you let go of global warming, and any affect humans are having on exacerbating or disturbing the climate of the planet, you are forced to have to give up on any affect we may have that will kill us. This is simply by being honest with ourselves, and that we are simply refusing to take any responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Most of “us deniers,” are lead into the denying by an emotional attraction of the whole “debate.” Some of it comes from tradition or even religious dogma that we somehow are entitled to exploit the planet, “go forth and multiply” as much as we please, and consume what we want, and it won’t have any affect on us or our future.

On the other side of this coin is what brings us “cold” towards the proponents of anthropogenic global warming these days, such as those who tell you, “you have to go get an electric car; you have to cut down on energy consumption; you have to recycle; youhave to reorganize your whole life, your whole community, your whole family, and your whole way of life to combat global warming.” Why you? It’s not your fault that this is happening. You didn’t organize this destructive society. You don’t control it now. And, you didn’t run it all into the ground. This is also more truth and more honesty about the whole matter. It’s no wonder we’re “getting colder,” while the world get’s hotter. It’s no wonder more people believe it’s all a hoax!

The truth is that we affect the balance of our planet. It’s true we can lead to our own destruction, as well as thousands, even millions of species on this good Earth we are given. And, the truth is, that it is not all your fault. And, in reality, individuals can’t stop all this from happening by changing a few elements of their lifestyle, not even millions of people! And, don’t count on millions of people to change in time to stop us from destroying ourselves through all this, including warming the planet.

We cannot let the leaders who put out propaganda of both sides of this “debate” to continue to play the lyre as the world burns. They are still playing the game as if their way of living, the empire of tyranny over all of us and all living things, will continue, and that we will be continually hypnotized by their conjuring. Their message is the entire antithesis to the truth, to honesty.

We are supposed to be stewards of Creation, not plunderers, not exploiters, not destroyers of it. It’s no wonder those that promote the idea of the “hoax” are in bed with the industrialists who do the most exploiting of this Earth. Isn’t it any wonder why they promote the idea of the “invincibility” of our planet or the “rights” to exploit? And, those of this same mold who present us with the other side of the debate, provide us only with solutions that conveniently put the blame on you, instead of themselves. They are, in truth, part of the same exploitation, never to blame the system they too benefit from. They’re not like their colleagues who deny global warming, but they’re certainly not going to pay for fixing it. Let’s put the responsibility to the people. Let’s make them change, and scare them into it with the truth of it all. Let’s put out a film. We’ll call it “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Inconvenient for who? Certainly inconvenient for these “captains of industry” and the powerful if they dare change their ways. But the inconvenience they wish to make is all for you!

Once we think about the lies, and that there are charlatans to blame on both sides of the debate, we realize there is no debate about the crisis itself. What clouded our thoughts was the noise of it all. As the smog clears, we just realize we’ve been had, and we begin to get mad. We become not so “cold” anymore. We begin to see where the blame for all this really lies. We begin to realize what and who needs to be changed.

“They journeyed a long time and found nothing. At length they discerned a small light, which was Earth…but they could not find the smallest reason to suspect that we and our fellow citizens of this globe have the honor to exist.”

-Voltaire, Micromegas

[from Ghost of Spartacus]

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