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Alaskan Village Sues Over Global Warming
hightower_40 writes to mention that a small Alaskan village has sued two dozen oil, power, and coal companies, blaming them for contributing to global warming. "Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal areas."
Even if I do live in a cartoon city.
BTW, I'm not a Democrat. I voted in the Republican primary this year. My candidate lost.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"The new and latest religion"
by Janer Cristaldo
~~~~~
About ten years ago, I wrote that someone who saw clearly the void of faith that would devastate the West was Italian director Nanni Moretti, in Palombella Rossa. The film came in '89, significantly the year when the Wall of Berlin fell. The story has as its main character a communist deputy that suddenly loses his memory.
The final scene is emblematic: in a highway, hundreds of youths run to greet the sun. It is inaugurated the new religion, the worship of nature. Not by chance, the privileged interlocutor of the Dalai-Lama -- word that modestly means Ocean of Wisdom -- in Brazil is Fernando Gabeira, former marxist guerilla fighter that switched his faith in History for the ecological militance. Gyatso intuited quickly this western turnabout and now preaches in defense of the environment.
I read in today's El País: "The climate change has mobilized scientists that study it, engineers that seek technological solutions, and economists that measure them. And it also starts to take a spiritual dimension that is converting it, in the opinion of some, into the new religion of the 21st century. A new ecological spirituality. The messianic language and the nearly religious instruments that are utilized break the more rational plans and silence in a public opinion more skeptic before past causes."
As well know the ornitologists who peck me. Their zeal is religious. Before the hypothesis of the extinction of the swamp streamcreeper, they brandish the apocalypse. Without intending to analyze the so called global warming -- since I do not have the instruments to do so -- I distrust it. For it is preached with the same divine wrath of John of Patmos. To bet on the apocalypse is a comfortable bet. For the apocalypse won't come right away. It's always in the future. Therefore, while it won't come, its prophets are not proven wrong.
Late the past year, the newspaper says, Al Gore arrived in Seville to speak of his movement against climate change. In his eagerness to reach his audience, Gore, who is a deeply religious man, uses phrases such as: "Noah was told to save the living species and this today is still our duty." Before preaching to the ambassadors or disciples that belong to his movement, 1700 all over the planet, he asks of them a "spiritual connection".
To biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro, "the structure that Gore organized is almost religious, with disciples that spread the good word, like Jesus Christ." To biologist Miguel Ferrer, "the radical ecological trends have much in common with religious schools. More and more one hears that man is the evil, destructive being and he must be expelled from the last of paradises."
One of Al Gore's 200 ambassadors in Spain is Juan Negrillo. Asked about the connection between his speech and religious feelings, he said: "All religions have their roots in faith, and in that sense the ecologist message and climate defense can be mistaken for as a religious message, because, as we are not able to touch, smell, weigh or see the CO2, it's almost a question of faith in the scientific community."
Who has not heard of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, that regarded Earth as a living being? Here in Brazil, we had a loon that earned fame as ecologist, José Lutzenberger, that believed deeply in that mystical theory.
"But what we are going to do first: unveil this wonder, or will we continue as a cancer in Gaia's organism, devastating, causing mass extinctions, intoxicating to the point of no return?", Lutzenberger wrote, and continued:
"In the time of that mortal threat that was the oxygen pollution crisis, that nearly extinguished the life forms then existing, Gaia, rather than succumb, knew how to benefit. It transformed a ferocious enemy into a powerful ally, a factor of more life, of more complex life, more perfect, more diversified, more harmonic - a st
Circumcision is child abuse.
"Gore, like many people, needs air travel to do his work"
Before you get defensive, that is as good a reason as any. It's certainly good enough for me.
Now, to my questions (real questions, not those silly "I know the answer, but I'm a slashtroll trying to prove my point questions).
1) Does he fly commercial? If not, does he "airpool"?
If the answer is no to those questions, fuck him. Any excuse he gives as to why he isn't doing these things is just that, an excuse.
In this case, a tax analogy is applicable. If, as Al Gore believes, people who make more money should pay more tax, then why shouldn't someone who uses more energy have to do more to offset?
2) Why isn't "I need it for work" a good enough reason for me and my SUV? Or everyone else? We are taking Mr. Gore at his word that he needs it, is he (a professional politician and former aspiring lawyer) somehow more believable when he says he needs something?
I would really like to know the answer to #1 by the way. I suspect he takes a private jet, and it's only his flunkies that are on it, but I don't know that for sure, and would actually like to be wrong.
No such thing as global warming. Not mistargeted, just ignorant people, AKA idiots. In fact, anyone who believes in global warming is ignorant. What a bunch of B.S. Any climate change is because of earth cycles, Gore's hot air, or.. Gore's hot air. Please, volcanoes release much more pollution into the air than our own vehicles. (However, I do admit to smog being a problem in many locations, such as Chinese Cities and various other highly populated areas.) However, SMOG \= GLOBAL WARMING
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IMPORTANT NOTE: It seems the "Kill-zone" does cause stupidity and docility.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Hey, I like your rhetorical technique, and I'll reverse it on you.
CUNTS DENY WARMING. See? Pretty awesome argument by your standards.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!