I have been trying for the last few days to discover a coherent logic towards my feelings on man’s relationship with his environment. This is proving not to be simple.
The process started when I heard on World Service radio a gentleman from the International Panel on Climate Change discussing their latest report. As you know, I tend to accept the established opinion on climate change, and rather take the view that if all our industrial activity were not affecting the atmosphere, that would be strange.
But what struck me was that the gentleman said that a pause in warming for the last fifteen years was not significant, as fifteen years was a blip in processes that last over millennia.
Well, that would certainly be very true if you are considering natural climate change. But we are not – we are considering man-made climate change. In terms of the period in which the scale of man’s industrial activity has been having a significant impact on the environment, surely fifteen years is a pretty important percentage of that period? Especially as you might naturally imagine the process to be cumulative – fifteen years at the start when nothing much happened would be more explicable.
Having tucked away that doubt, I started to try to think deeper. Man is, of course, himself a part of nature. Anything man does on this planet is natural to this planet. I do not take the view man should not change his environment – otherwise I should not be sitting in a house. The question is rather, are we inadvertently making changes to the environment to our own long term detriment?
That rejection of what you might call the Gaia principle – that the environmental status quo is an end in itself – has ramifications. It is hard to conceptualise our relationship with gases or soil, but easier in terms of animals. I am not a vegetarian – I am quite happy that we farm and eat cattle, for example – and you might argue that the cattle are pretty successful themselves, symbiotic survivors of a kind. Do I think other species have a value in themselves? Is there any harm in killing off a species of insect, other than the fact that biodiversity may be reduced in ways that remove potential future advantages to man, or there may be knock on consequences we know not of that damage man somehow? I am not quite sure, but in general I seem in practice to take the view that exploitation of other species and substantial distortion of prior ecological balance to suit men’s needs is fine, so presumably the odd extinction is fine too, unless it damages man long term.
I strongly disapprove of hurting animals for sport, and want to see them have the best quality of life possible, preferably wild. But I like to eat and wear them. I am not quite sure why it is OK to wear animal skin on our feet or carry it as a bag, but not to wear “fur”. What is the difference, other than that leather has had the hair systematically rubbed off as part of the process of making it? A trivial issue, but one that obviously relates to the deeper questions.
Yes I draw a distinction between animals which are intelligent and those which are not. I would not eat whale or dolphin. But this does not seem entirely logical – animal intelligence and sensibility is evidently a continuum. Many animals mourn, for example. The BBC World Service radio (my main contact with the outside world at present – I have just today found my very, very weak internet connection just about works if I try it at 5am) informed me a couple of days ago that orang-utans have the ability to think forward and tell others where they will be the next day. Why cattle and fish are daft enough to eat is hard to justify.
I quite appreciate the disbenefits to man of radically changing his environment, even if it could be done without long term risk to his existence – the loss of beauty, of connection to seasons and forms of behaviour with which we evolved. But I regard those as important only as losses to man, not because nature is important intrinsically. In short, if I thought higher seas, no polar bears and no glaciers would not hurt man particularly, I don’t suppose I would have much to say against it. I fear the potential repercussions are too dangerous to man. At base, I don’t actually care about a polar bear.
I’d say alleged victims. Can’t be sure it was a set-up: not enough open-source information to conclude. Its also possible that he simply did not use condoms and then things spun out of control with a possible crime, not being a civil case. The tag rape is also premature since Assange is yet to be thoroughly interviewed. It remains a field of all possibilities.
Lifted from Press TV
WAKE UP PEOPLE
Satanyahu is a monstrous DEVIL. The proof is looking at us in the face. A total of 426 children were monstrously gassed in Ghouta to start a war against Syria, when that failed THIS 911 PERPETRATOR fired a missile towards Damascus to start the war instead – hoping to suck in the US Navy who were totally unaware of the “training exercise”. But the US Navy does not forgive or forget for putting thousands of its sailors at risk from the Syrian yakhont. They will retaliate with another INS Dakar type sinking, which they did after the USS Liberty false flag.
Fuckedup you’re just a spunk-less little yobbo of a peasant. Your tiny penis is way too small to fill a condom; so slip it over your swollen tongue. Give it a go. Are you following any of the the advice given you by Herbie and Jemand.?
Lets take the ZFW temperature shall we:
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=nw#filter=0&hl=en&q=ziofuckwits&safe=off
A little lower today! You got some catching up to do — get on with your plebeian circus.
“Kempe, since when did consensual sex amount to rape? ”
Tell me; what part of “alleged victims” are you having trouble with?
Kempe:
Tony Blair is a war criminal, that’s beyond dispute. He ignored the millions who cried ‘Not in my Name’ and used their taxes to help initiate a global bloodbath that still continues. Then in a farewell two fingers to the UK electorate, he brazenly flaunted his true loyalties by running to Israel and accepting their blood money to support the continuing slow motion genocide of the Palestinian people, the greatest injustice in modern history.
As I’m sure you agree.
But all is not lost, Kempe. We have a chance, a rare opportunity in our disenfranchised democracy, to exact a little revenge. At the very least, we can shame him, make more people aware of his crimes, create a lasting indictment and a historical record that his children can contemplate. And if we’re lucky, perhaps our endeavours will actually be a meaningful contribution to the campaign to take him to the Hague where he can finally do some good as a deterrent to all other would be mass-murderering Zionist lackeys.
Who do we have to thank for this golden opportunity, Kempe? None other than our mutual friend, gorgeous George Galloway. He has organised a team to produce a film called “The Killing of Tony Blair” which will shine a public light into Blair’s shadowy places. Enough funds have already been raised to guarantee the film will go ahead, but the more that can be raised, the better the film will be. There are still FOUR MORE DAYS TO GO in which you too can stick the boot into Blair. Even a fiver guarantees a mention in the film credits – imagine how proud you’d be.
So far … 3,533 Backers; £136,669 pledged of £50,000 goal; 4 days to go.
Go on Kempe, if not to spite Blair, do it for George.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22595538/the-killing-of-tony-blair
@A Node – Bwahahahaha, surely you cant be serious, asking Camerons “Yiddos”: Kempe,RD,Anon and Villager to contribute towards GG’s “Bliar project”, stop the Blue Mountain skunk will ya !
@OT
I don’t know about those others, but I’m pretty sure Kempe’s a closet comrade. I know he likes to come over all Cameron-like, but I’ve noticed him giving Gorgeous George the eye. Not adverse to a bit of ‘hard labour’ if you ask me.
How did Blair come into it?
Much though I despise the bloke, it would be difficult not to, I can’t see that donating my hard earned cash to GG’s vanity project is going to do any good and I doubt the film will tell us anything we don’t know already.
‘Are you the same Villager that writes on the ‘Anna Ardin’ liar blog?’ Is that a fact John?
It’s almost a case of split personality.
On the one hand we have the sanctimonious preachy stuff with quotes from Krishnamurthy (?Sp) and then we have the revolting invective stuff as evidenced above. Pretty weird. Perhaps it’s a case of too much C2H6O!
Cameron’s mate Jonathan Luff, now over at Wonga, will have to put his thinking cap on.
Payday loan companies will have to put warnings in their advertising the FCA have decided.
How about this in large font?
___________________________________
Representative example:
Amount of credit: £150 for 18 days.
Interest: £27.99.
Interest rate: 365%pa (fixed).
Transmission fee: £5.50.
One total repayment of: £183.49.
Representative 5853% APR.
___________________________________
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-adviser-jonathan-luff-quits-to-join-payday-lender-wonga-as-lobbyist-8262326.html
Life for rich wasters in West London October 2013
A luxury car valued at £1.2m was clamped outside Harrods in central London after being illegally parked.
The Koenigsegg CCXR and a £350,000 Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SuperVeloce were both clamped on the afternoon of 22 July.
Kensington and Chelsea Council said the light-blue vehicles were in serious contravention of parking rules.
The Knightsbridge store was bought by investors from Qatar in April for £1.5bn.
______
Life for some mothers in London October 2013
Three families are challenging the government in court in a bid to prove its benefits cap is unlawful. [..]
It limits the total of housing benefit, child benefit and child tax credit paid to claimants who do not work enough hours to qualify for working tax credit.
Lawyers acting for three children and their mothers, who all live in London, say the “cruel and arbitrary” cap could be catastrophic and has left them in fear of poverty.
______
I’ve been arguing at Left Unity meetings that united socialism can only work when we control the media. Everyone seems aware of this. The trouble is we don’t so in the meantime we have to keep raising awareness that what people see on the BBC, ITV, NBC and all Reuters-owned shit-shovers is not the truth. That needs a vehicle of some description but most people are content to sit and watch a nice soap, which is also part of the brainwashing. Unless some initiative is taken it will be the same old, same old . . .
Good to see you appreciate the problem. Though the solution is not so much controlling the media (we see above the not unjustifiable howls of protest from the bourgeois as they suddenly realise their ‘freedom’ is being taken away and given to someone else) as getting reasonably fair access to the media. Here, I think the unions, which have existing lines of communication with both the media and the employers, aren’t doing enough. They’re about 20 years behind the times and haven’t caught up with practical political methods/ globalised brainwashing techniques yet. Also, vast amounts of cash will be needed to buy access and spin. Which the Left will need to unite first to raise. Catch-22.
And you have to sell the customer a product he actually wants. This is how it’s done.
http://www.portland-communications.com/2013/09/demonising-ed-miliband-as-red-play-into-his-hands/
Portland is actually plugging Cameron in this piece. The firm was set up by Blair’s spin-doctor Tim Allen, and subsequently recruited various more-or-less Tory heavies to do the propaganda. What do they do? Put lipstick on pigs, basically:
http://www.portland-communications.com/what-we-do/
I really detest myself for saying this, but any unified Left project MUST accept the need to match and surpass this kind of bollocks, simply in order to get any kind of a message across to more than the already converted.
“Good to see you appreciate the problem.”
What problem?
Google ‘bbc “right wing bias”‘ and you get 164,000 hits.
Google ‘bbc “left wing bias”‘ and you get 2,760,000 hits.
Most people, apart from the extreme left, consider the BBC to be left wing biassed.
Let’s get serious for an instant….
Why don’t economists call a spade a spade and come right out and start their analytic description of modern economics with a profile of where most wealth is accumulated, and the fact that it consists more of land-price gains than growth in manufacturing enterprise? The explanation is to be found in the fact that real estate is by no means as romantic as industry. Most people admire innovators and creators, but resent landlords—and usually also bankers and insurance companies as well, for being more parasitic than creative. There is a general awareness of the obvious fact that the growth in mortgage lending does not add to the supply of land, whose site value is created by public infrastructure investment and the general level of prosperity. In any case, the great bulk of property loans are for land and buildings already in place. The growth of real estate lending thus provides borrowers with credit to compete against each other to buy as many properties as they can, bidding up land prices in the process. The upshot is a bubble, not an industrial boom.
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/how_the_rentier_class_cannibalizes_the_economy_20130111
In a nutshell, where it all falls apart for global capitalism. The idea of real growth no longer has any meaning. Never mind the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, ownership of the means (etc) and the rest of the Marxist canon. Marxism too is based on a false assumption, that wealth is somehow related to honest productive effort. It may once have been valid, but it isn’t now. Dividing up the ‘wealth’ more equally is fatuous, as much of the wealth doesn’t actually exist.
And, you know(TM) Tony Blair Associates (Gibraltar)… Thatcher was more egalitarian than the Left, in a way, because she sought to extend the rentier class and give it access to imaginary money, backed by infinitely-rising property prices. Pity about the poor sods who couldn’t afford the entry fee, and a pity about the incredible greed of the bankers, but hey.
Food for thought, I propose.
Most people, apart from the extreme left, consider the BBC to be left wing biassed.
Which means that most peoples’ views are to the right of the BBC. Which (for me) is a problem.
Fool.
“Which means that most peoples’ views are to the right of the BBC. Which (for me) is a problem.”
You have a problem with democracy? You have a problem with people having the right to choose their own politics?
“Fool.”
Shit for brained retard.
You have a problem with democracy? You have a problem with people having the right to choose their own politics?
Wonder where you get that from. To what extent do people actually choose their politics, Fred? As far as I can see they get a choice between people whom they have never met, and who have a lust for power, and who will say anything to get their vote, once every five years. Probably the majority read The Sun. Most believe that more stuff = success. But I don’t expect a white settler to see this.
Foul-mouthed fool.
No irony.
Fukushima Leaks Radioactive Water Into Pacific
Workers at Japan’s crippled nuclear plant discover new leaks of toxic liquid believed to be seeping into the ocean.
http://news.sky.com/story/1149607/fukushima-leaks-radioactive-water-into-pacific
Hinkley C nuclear plant deal ‘within weeks’ of completion
The planned reactor will be the third to be built on the site A contract to build the UK’s first nuclear plant in a generation is said to be “within weeks” of completion.
Energy Minister Michael Fallon told the Financial Times he was “working intensely” to seal a deal for the £14bn Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset.
Long negotiations have taken place with France’s EDF over the price it could charge for the electricity generated.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24377296#
~~~~
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/11/what-would-happen-if-a-tsunami-hit-the-severn-estuary
If any terrorist groups want to instigate an attack on the US, now would be a good time to do it. Tho’ it might be offset by the drop in FBI/CIA coordinated incidents now that they’re on leave.
You keep them straight, Fred. Lots of fuzzy ‘thinking’ around here.
The ‘foul mouth’ bit is laughable. You’ve made your ‘red-line’ perfectly clear supported by rationale, but they don’t ‘get-it’, do they? All part of their fuzzy-thinking i guess.
“Wonder where you get that from. To what extent do people actually choose their politics, Fred? As far as I can see they get a choice between people whom they have never met, and who have a lust for power, and who will say anything to get their vote, once every five years. Probably the majority read The Sun. Most believe that more stuff = success. But I don’t expect a white settler to see this.”
Ah you think the people are stupid, you see yourself as superior, the people are not fit to make their own choices as far as you are concerned.
Shit for brained elitist retard.
We’d have better policy if banks themselves were at risk of foreclosure when Joe Sixpack still can’t find a job. We should work to put them in that position.
http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/1837.html
Dear me, Fred. Is it raining up there?
It’s lovely here.
Never mind, it will clear up soon and you’ll be able to put on your Stewart tartan kilt and go and milk your haggis.
Or make love to Villager?
Mary appears with her usual, predictable, unhinged morning hat-trick interjections.
Glad to see she’s fallen back in love with her country, from “hating the country she was born in”. Hope its not just a schizophrenic reaction to all the peer pressure you received? You certainly took your time over it so perhaps you actually do see your gaffe.
“Dear me”
Quite enjoying watching you doing it to yourself. Embittered loser that you are. As Ben would ask, how’s it hanging? 🙂
@Komodo
I’m just someone who believes in democracy.
I just think the world would be be better place without bigoted scum who see the general population as plebs.
@Komodo,
If you haven’t already thought about it, have you considered contacting George Galloway regarding your digging into Blair’s off-shore tax dodging, as his proposed documentary, « The Killing of Tony Blair”, will also focus of his “ financial killings” ?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22595538/the-killing-of-tony-blair
Also wrt to the discussion about trying to organize the Left, I found this recent piece by Chris Hedges addresses this at a more concrete level;
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36384.htm
Komodo at 8.30 a.m. You are of course correct. But there has been such a long period, probably forever, since the left had any reasonable access to mainstream that a period of ‘positive discrimination’ might not go amiss. It is infuriating that the perpetual brainwashing is in the hands of the alien right. Sorry, just seen the movie “They Live” which while being a bit corny certainly has some parallel to society today. Anybody got a pair of those sunglasses.
http://tu.tv/videos/they-live-1988-full-movie
Fred, I too think that people are stupid; I know that I’m stupid; when I reflect on my past I see what stupid things I did and believed, and I have to assume that my stupidity will be ongoing.
But what annoys me about the corporate media (of which advertisers and perception managers form a large part) is that they actually employ psychologists etc. to determine how best to manipulate opinion. They actually strive to create more stupidity.
I wonder if like old generals who are always fighting the last war, the debate about global warming and the anthropogenic origins or otherwise of our perceptions of global warming has not become irrelevant.
If, as seems likely, Fukushima continues to poison the Pacific, background radiation levels around the world will make the debate about CO 2 purely an academic exercise. Also let us include the Yellowstone caldera which is stirring even while WW3 is brewing. Discussing the nice subject of global warming might be just the dreams of ostriches. As much as I admire Craig on many subjects I cannot share his insouciance regarding useless species unfit for Human consumption, like the endangered a Polar Bear. We must share our planet with all its biodiversity and we must respect what we cannot yet appreciate!
The reality is that background radiation levels have risen enormously in the last century. But unlike the perceived drama of global warming, the steady and invisible rise in IR ( ionising radiation) worldwide goes unnoticed. Since Human fertility is dependent or sensitive to IR it is a serious challenge to our very species, (q.v. “No Immediate Danger” by Dr.Rosalie Bertell )
Unlike flooding or other physical phenomena, this radioactive, unseen pollution attacks us silently, without any visible presence until the damage is obvious. I believe IR, either by slow poisoning or a theatrical Armageddon will be the cause of our Human Extinction, not by flooding or by Global Warming. We will not be around that long, unfortunately.
My positive advice? I think purifying our own karma is a good place to start. It will not change the world much but it has a placebo effect. Being calm in a storm is not an advantage?