Help me

Here's a comment I made on my climate sounding board. It's been 102-110 around here in Texas and so hot the lizards are drinking their own blood. Of course this is Texas and it's hot here so everyone will say that it's no proof the climate of the whole planet is getting worse. And there will always be a sunny day somewhere on earth so some asshole on Fox News will cast doubts on the scientific evidence. They are the flat earth society of modern culture, distracting the masses with pantyhose ads and celebrity cellulite gossip...side boob, liposuction of the soul. It's enough to make my heart throb in desperation and sadness. The topic today was mitigation or adaptation. Do we concentrate on recycling aluminum cans (for 20 years I did this and ended up in Texas where nothing is recycled except polluted wastewater for hydrofracturing. haha.) or do we build sea walls (which will do tons of good for wildfires) but might save Miami's porn and luxury yacht industry? This was my response:

Fox News at Mcdonalds "Poisoning your Brain and Body"

No conversation about either mitigation or adaptation can take place without a plan to topple CNN and Fox News. It's like trying to teach a kindergarten class while a house full of celebrity cartoon characters is burning outside the window. It's totally pointless to think a success will be some 10% retention by the one student paying attention. A teacher MUST eliminate the distractions but I am completely stuck on how to accomplish that.

This one issue of how people get their information seems the most hopeless to me because the whole structure of capitalism and free press supports lie-brokers. A scenario that involved the complete destruction of CNN and Fox News would have to be something like Egypt's back-to-back revolutions which definitely won't lead to a climate-friendly society. But a society that includes and protects CNN and Fox News will never be climate friendly due to the lies they are paid to spread and the self-perpetuating micro economy of ad-sponsored news.

This is the ultimate paradox that has me pricing property in a high altitude in Central America. After 20 years of pondering this subject this media roadblock paradox seems insurmountable and it's only gotten much more Orwellian. What am I missing?

The reason professional activists don't talk about shutting down news sources is because it's a blatantly fascist strategy...easily labeled as a terrorist threat...definitely contrary to the beloved constitution. But Fox News (Now on big screen display 24/7 in many McDonalds lounges) is a perfect plague of ideas that will hinder all positive efforts. I try to imagine an America that's sustainable and believe it's not possible with Fox News still broadcasting. It's also not possible with rampant drug and alcohol addiction either. So, we're either moving toward a total utopia of rational news sources and a sober populace (Imagine Zurich with 500 million people)...or we're heading toward Mad Max. Right now we're headed toward Mad Max and Fox News is doomed no matter what. So, isn't that a justification for an Ed Abbey Monkey Wrench Gang? For the good of humanity? Or is that Unabomber-style flawed thinking?*

For anyone who wants to comment, "Enjoy your life, Oggy. Who cares?" I'll direct you to www.fuckwads.com where pathetic flippant advice like that finds a happy home. I'm talking about serious matters here. What kind of enjoyment or purpose is there in knowing a holocaust is being implemented under your nose while you sit back and don't do shit. Not everyone can be a complete fucking coward in times of crisis.

Here's another comment made with futile back pain indifference.


"An institution that had always existed, that people believed would always exist, that was believed to be essential to prosperity, ceased to exist.  The British economy did not collapse.  Abolition spread to other nations."

Sternman stops short of reminding us that the end of slavery in the U.S. came 2 years into a 4 year civil war and only applied to the Northern States or Southern States that had been subdued. Only with the surrender of the South in 1865 were they forced to recognize the Emancipation Proclamation. 600,000+ died in that war.

Since energy consumption is even more private and defensible and standardized than slavery was I'll predict a similar violent end, one way or another, to carbon-based energy.

The better comparison would be to whale oil lamps. People didn't suddenly grow sympathetic to whales. That energy source was eclipsed by kerosene. The problem I see is that the petro will still be available and the addiction will be hard to kick even with prolific solar charged electric cars.

I think the only argument is for a complete and immediate conversion to sustainable energy sources regardless of the consequence or inconvenience...backed by laws to shut down all carbon-based operations. I live in Texas and I suspect this will lead to a secession followed by Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, North Dakota, New Mexico...maybe all the states the Keystone XL passes through. California will probably become it's own Republic and close its borders. This is why I'm not a politician.

The scenarios I go through in my mind that should lead to sustainability never end in anything less than chaos that sets the entire movement back a century. And if we do anything less than what I think is required then we're all going to burn up anyway. I'd like to think there will be social justice for all women...until I remember that men exist.

As BobbyL says, Slavery really is a bad comparison because as immoral as it is and was, it is environmentally irrelevant. Slavery has persisted for human history specifically because it CAN. The last two humans on earth will probably be a slave killing his master. Polluting our habitat has a finite end we can either avoid or be drowned by.**


* This comment failed to pass the climate censors so it never got published. This is probably due to the violent nature of my suggestion. (Fox news wouldn't care if I cut and pasted it there because they don't care about anything) As it stands I don't see a non-violent solution to Fox News. They are the equivalent of Goebbels' ministry of propaganda and it took 60 million deaths to kill that cocksucker. So why does anyone think this will be different? I feel it's probably too late for action against a disease like Fox News but I still haven't completely turned my back on some kind of effort to protect the integrity of mankind. But I understand we should be peaceful even as all hope dwindles and our children are escorted to the ovens. "Find a political solution" was the classic excuse used by the fuckwads in Santa Cruz and Humboldt county who daily slapped cuffs on homeless cripples who had no money and cut down one redwood grove after another...without recognizing that once a 1200 year old tree is cut down for Marin County bannisters and window trim THAT'S THE END OF THE 1200 YEAR OLD TREE! You don't get to replant it. It's gone. So, no, we're not going to find a political solution because that will be too late. YOU are going to find the political solution. And they did that with purchased police armed with pepper spray, swabbing pepper spray into the eyes of chained activists, using q-tips so the application would be perfectly torturous. Not in Syria or Egypt. No, A few miles north of San Francisco!

** This comment got published.