Slowing down on fossil-fuels consumption should come as the first and the best solution to global warming

APRIL 3, 2008: “Angry African” is stating the bleeding obvious, and quite eloquently so, saying: Global warming is just not cool. If you’re out there and wondering what is going on down here, you should read this post. It ends like this: “But those kids of mine. I sometimes wonder. Just wonder how cool it will be when they grow up. Will it be too warm when they are my age? Might be a bit too warm for them. A little bit too warm to live? And that is so way not cool…”

Has he got a point?

“Sure thing! He’s got a point alright. The strange weather reports from around the world are just starting to make themselves heard. There will be much more of the same on a later stage. Early warning signs include heat waves and periods of unusually warm weather, ocean warming, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, glaciers melting, spreading disease, earlier spring arrival, plant and animal range shifts and population changes, coral reef bleaching, downpours, heavy snowfalls, and flooding, droughts and fires. It’s definitely not cool. And casting a blind eye at these most worrisome signs do not make them go away either.”

So what are we supposed to do?

“Not much! And that is the thing: it is not primarily a question of what you choose to do. It’s more a question of what you choose to stop doing. You could start by putting an end to your excess fossil-fuels use. It’s not so difficult, really. And it would be a very wise response to the information that the coal, the gas, and the oil are the substances that are in fact warming this planet and thus making climate systems go weird. Slowing down on fossil-fuels consumption should come as the first and the best solution to global warming. But here we are, looking at a species of fossil-fuel addicts. And we can safely say it proves difficult for whole societies of people to kick the habit.”

As noted previously, almost a thousand new coal-fired power plants are being built around the world. In the light of manmade climate change, it is not the best of ideas, but okay: this is what the policy makers of this world is choosing to do, so.

“So?”

We got to accept it!

“You do?”

Unfortunately, yes! I mean, think about it: hundreds of new coal-fired power plants are being built all over the world. It’s not a good idea, but it’s what’s happening. The only thing we, as ordinary human beings, can do, is tell the policy makers that the development is going in the wrong direction. After which we can only hope that they care to listen. At the same time, we’re up against millions of not-so-informed ordinary citizens who crave for more energy to consume. We can tell them that it is not good for the environment, and then sit back and accept that we’re losing out here. Ignorance reigns supreme, you see. It’s strength.

“But all humans ought to realise.”

What?

“That they can’t just continue doing what amounts to plain stupid behaviour. Just continue doing what ought not to be done, and continue doing so until people start dying from climate change. In big numbers.”

You see: this is what we do not like to think about. The worst case scenarios. We don’t want to hear of them no more. We just want to be ignorant and forget about all the signs. Allow Mother Nature to do what She is doing, unabated. While we continue partying like it’s 1999. Because that is much more convenient than starting to make rash and active climate change decisions that have anything at all to do with the consumption of fossil-fuels. The vast majority of us don’t want to hear of it. — And that’s final. — Because we’re not quite ready for lifestyle changes. Not now. And probably not ever! We depend on fossil-fuels and are going to make use of them indefinitely. Unless, of course, a fucking miracle were to happen. And I don’t think that’s a thing to count on.

“It may seem as if a growing number of people are ready to accept the facts of global warming and world-wide climate change. So things are indeed happening.”

Yes. But these are individual people. I guess they’re just starting to cope with facts that they are going to keep on coping with until tomorrow comes. — Because on a societal level, I’m telling you: we’ve got so many problems, we’d much rather wish to pretend it’s just not happening. —

We’re creatures of nature, too

“So, what if nature itself decided for them to take notice of global climate change challenges? Would that be possible?”

Which kind of question is that?

“Never mind.”

Okay. — I think there’s really no saying what’s possible and what’s not. The only development that seems to absolutely impossible to achieve is that of getting hold of sociological and anthropological reports on the urgency of social changes taking place around here. It seems as if these people with those titles have already reached the consensual agreement that proposing that any form of social change must be considered, is a non-starter. It’s as if the social and cultural life academics have already concluded that people are not going to make any real lifestyle choices, and since it’s not going to happen anyway: why bother even to think about it?

“You know, that’s interesting. And I just heard a bird singing a song about the need to look into enviromental devastation on a more local level, and pointing to the simple fact that smog, water pollution and bloated landfills can be more clearly seen without graphs and charts and addressed regionally. Less abstract, in a sense. It’s a good point.”

It’s excellent.

“It’s all knit neatly together, of course. If only humankind would dare to consider the fact that they are not only creatures of society and culture, but indeed also creatures of nature. — It is difficult to them, now isn’t it?!”

It sure is. They like to think of themselves as creatures of society, first and foremost, and not at all as creatures of nature, unless they deliberately go trekking into the woods of the planet in order to do some actual hunting, shooting and fishing.

“But that’s the key! If they were to accept that they’re creatures of nature living in big cities, like ant-hills or bee-hives, and affecting nature in such a lot of ways, I think there would be a glimmer of hope to be spotted. But they’re so involved with the metaphors, the symbols, and the logos of theirs. It’s just fabulous.”

Yes, sir! It’s all about the money. And what’s more: it’s all about the nation-states, the big business corporations, and the ins-and-outs of the corridors of power. — The banks, the insurance companies, the hotels, the shopping malls, and the football stadiums. And then it’s all about the diplomatic envoys, the beaurocratic ways and ends, the powers that be, and the need to go to war on other powers that be, from other parts of the world. I just can’t get my head around this one. The military spending is awesome. It’s up, up, up, all over the planet. It may seem as if some very few of them are about to reach the decision to just bomb the whole place back into the stone age.

“And what a pity that would be.”

So let’s assume that they’re simply being very afraid of each other, and let that be the reason why the military spending is soaring. I mean: think about it — even though they’ve had access to nuclear weapons for more than fifty years, and wars have been taking place throughout this period they still haven’t made use of the technology more often than a very few times. It’s like they dread the possibility of destroying everything while at the same time they invent and produce even more new weapons and new war technologies, just in case.

“In case of what?”

I don’t know. In case of the Russians, the Americans, the Chinese, the British, the French, the Israelis, the Indians, or the Pakistanis. You know. Just in case.

“Okay. In case something happened, you mean. Newclearly.” –

That’s right.

“And this would probably be the reason why it is impossible for these people to agree on the emissions levels of CO2 and other toxic gases as well, don’t you think? Just in case of one local economy made this thing or that start to happen over there. — I hear they are going to meet in Bangkok soon. Where they are probably going to continue talking about how to stress the importance of the Kyoto agreement and the IPCC’s climate science, but not do something significant about it.”

Oh yes. There’s a meeting in Bangkok coming up. I wonder what is going to come of the final meeting, in 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark, where (and when) they are supposed to reach some kind of a final agreement as to what they are going to do about the CO2 emissions. The meeting in Bangkok is nothing but a preparatory measure to that end. They’re buying time. In a year or so you’ll probably never be hearing about that 2005 augmented 10-year-window of opportunity no more, as they’re going to decide to start pushing and shoving at it until it finally cracks and breaks.

“Another great opportunity lost. Another great idea turned to waste. That would be such a shame, you know.”

Yes, I know. But the population of this world keeps growing at an exponential rate. The world economy is also expected to grow at an exponential rate. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the fossil fuels consumption of this world to keep growing very fast. And the people, well, they are all news consumers. They won’t be doing nothing while they’re reading the latest newspaper articles on how the atmosphere and the ecosystems of this planet is being destroyed. They’ll just buy another cup of coffee and look forward to reading the next newspaper of the next day and the next magazine of the next week, and think: what a wonderful world, it’s amazing. –

“You’re growing tired down there. I can see that. It means that you’ve got to work harder, you know. Get a change on. And then a little fix it. You know.”

I wish you didn’t steal my flying saucer.

“You wish!”

A peculiar sense of identity

“So why don’t they change their ways? Now that they’ve got all this climate change science, and most of this science is all about the misuse of oil, gas, and coal. I mean: burning it. How stupid.”

Yeah.

“Why don’t they change their ways?”

Heh, well, that’s what we’re here to find out about, I suppose. But you see: first of all we’ve got to recognize the fact that the human species has never in history been in complete peace with themselves. And that’s a problem. All this shooting and killing, all this bombing, and all this placement of explosive mines in the terrain, hell you know, it’s a problem.

“The first problem.”

In a sense: yes. The first problem. But the real problem is the human beings’ strong ties to a multitude of flags, logos, symbols, and metaphors. The first and most important metaphor is that of the nation-state. Bigger and smaller, there are about 200 of those. Each of these 200 nation-states have their own laws and regulations, their own parliaments and governments, their own currencies, and of course their own armed forces. Police officers. Soldiers. People who get paid for hunting down and, sometimes, killing other people.

“Hm.”

Now, each and every nation-state has its own flag. That’s the national logo. Each and every nation-state has its own song, too. That’s the national anthem.

“Tell me about it.”

The national anthems are being used to create national identity on the part of the masses of the people who are born, live and do their business inside the nation-state’s borders. Each nation-state has its own national anthem. And the singing of the national anthem is, I believe, more of a ritual than anything else.

“I see.”

People don’t usually smile while singing the national anthem. They look rather mournful, really, as they’re doing it. –

“OK?!”

Ah, there are such a lot of things that are difficult to understand. They place a lot of value on the importance of the nation-state. — Patriotism, they call it. And it’s among the most important values any person can muster. Loving the country. Respecting the flag. Placing the right hand on the chest and rising to ones feet as the national anthem is being played. Things like that. I mean: strange things. But equally quite natural as they do the same things and act the same way all over the planet, no matter what might be the name of the nation-state. Every human is expected to show signs of reverence whenever a national anthem is being played. Yes, that would be the correct term. Reverence.

“How odd.”

Truly!

“Okay, continue.”

Each and every nation-state is divided into different sub-sections. A nation-state can consist of as many sub-sections as the founders of the states at some point found there was a need for. 50 or 400 sub-sections, it doesn’t matter. But these are all sectors belonging to the realms of beaurocracy. This is the point where the human species is starting to look retarded. They all need to control each other, you see. There’s no music in that. Not many songs about beaurocracy are written and composed, hm … to put it that way. But it’s the beaurocracies that bring a sense of stability into the lives of human beings. That, and family affairs. It’s important to humans. A sense of stability. Balance, so to speak. Only never any kind of balance as concerns the whole planet. The ecosystems of this world get lost under a carpet of metaphorical sizes: nation-states and counties. They’re all tied down to the different nation-states of theirs; each individual person being a member of a nation state. Tied up and held down by a massive force of symbolic power! It’s extraordinary!

“No ties to the planet?”

None. Well, not officially anyway. If you make the claim that you’ve got this certain tie to the ecosystems of the planet, or even to the planet itself, you will be understrood as some kind of a whacko. Or an artist at best. Which is often about being a serious whacko on a professional basis, so to say. But still a legal citizen of some country, of course. There’s no getting around this one.

“So how are these people going to go about saving the planet from all sorts of environmental devastation, if they are hardly even allowed to call the planet their home, but lead their entire lives tied down to some metaphorical nation-state entity?”

It’s going to be difficult.

“You’re damned right about that! They’ve got to connect with the fact that they’re disturbing the ecosystems of this planet on a global scale as well as a local one. They’ve got to connect with the fact that planet Earth is their planetary home.”

They all know that.

“And yet they do nothing about it, am I right?”

You’re right.

“I thought so. You know, this species is never going to stop amazing me. As a matter of fact it is going to amaze me ceaselessly.”

You’re right about that too, I suppose.

“That’s too bad. They’d better make a clean break with the nation-state system if they are going to succeed here. They should, as a matter of urgency, make way for a planetary sense of identity down here. And they’d better do that as fast as possible. — I hear they’ve given themselves a window of opportunity of about ten years, isn’t that so?”

That’s so.

“Now, they have the internet and they’ve got all these satelites, so communication should not be a problem. It makes you wonder what’s keeping them from coming together and dissolving a few symbols and metaphors, don’t you think?”

I sure do. But it’s not all that easy. We’re talking hundreds and thousands of years of keeping the national borders under strict military control. That’s a very long time. It’s long standing tradition. And bad habits are hard to change. –

“So, what if nature itself decided for them to take notice of global climate change challenges? Would that be possible?”

I don’t know.

“Hm.”

And the hearts turn cold

And hard as rock. The minds turn hard as steel and heated to the extremes. What the future might bring? In the short term and in the long term? If at all we are to dare thinking about the long term? The existence of the IPCC scientific consensus, is such a terrible pity. The consensus may even be too kind on mankind, or too rosy, for realistic futures thinkers to even consider. But no matter what might be the case: most people would rather not know about the IPCC findings, but pretend the climate science just doesn’t exist. And since it exists, many people waste a lot of considerate people’s time rejecting the ugly science. They say a little warming of the planet is good for the human condition. They say there is no warming of the world that cannot be explained as natural cycles. They say it is impossible to make the connection between global warming and human activites. And what they are saying is what all human beings would have loved to believe, but can’t, because the scienitific evidence is way too strict to the point. What is happening to the atmosphere comes as a result of what is happening on ground level, and the cows are to blame for all the extra methane, of course. Now, that’s what they say, and that’s a pity. As many of us believe that mankind should start responding to the same unfortunate science that the skeptics of this world spend a lot of time reading and responding negatively to. And that’s a pity. It makes a silly wild cat like me always wonder what these skeptic’s true agenda is? And the answer must be somewhere along the line that the industrial and economic status quo suits them just fine (must be), and that any move towards changing the status quo will, for that simple reason, be vehemently subverted.

Uh. So it’s a pity about the future then. –

As the human soul seems to work in such a way that there is a general realization about the place that time has come to finally cash in. The future may seem short now, so this is every person’s last chance to make a fortune. And now that the future is looking so bad, we’d better live to seize the day. Even on other people’s expences. Seize a lot of other people’s day, and make a quick fortune. That’s good and that’s nice, and you’re worth it. Oh yes. You earned it. But now, excuse me: even if we should decide to do absolutely nothing in order to saving this planet from human overgrowth activities, it is going to take us hundreds of years to destroy this planet completely. I think we ought to be worried about that, but hey: that may simply be because I believe in reincarnation? So what?

And nobody cares if I live or if I die. Nobody cares if anyone lives or dies. We’re all going to die. And that’s the most basic fact of all facts. So. –

Cold and steady in mood: slow to act or change

And the world is genuinely ruled by aged men who are safely seated upon big business office chairs, leading their entire lives protected by similar people who are seated in similar office chairs placed inside a disorienting range of national and transnational administrative and beaurocratic office buildings.

And the physical world is in shambles. Parts of the world is like a slaughterhouse and all of the world is in a scientifically proven state of great distruction. The world’s social systems are all in a state of great confusion, disorientation, morose and resentful silence and repression. Something is terribly wrong around here, but the so-called “family of humanity” (an extremely distorted, disintegrated and disunited species of gamblers and brutes) just don’t know what to do about it. All so very distracted.

And the world is populated by people who ever more frequently are asking themselves what they’re at all doing here? As if the human species really should have moved into the extinction phase by now. And that not a single human being should have been around no more. They all appear either to be desperate or sad, I mean. But who am I to say that? It sure feels to me as if I don’t know anything at all for certain.

“It’s a shame about the car,” this girl said. What she meant by that, I don’t know. On the one hand I am fully aware of the fact that about 30% of the total emissions comes as a result of motorised transport. On the other hand I’ve been told that there’s a taxi driver waiting for me. Ready to kill. Put my corpse in the boot and just dump it at a roadside somewhere. A hit and run accident. Perfect.

And the world remains in shambles. Thrash, litter, and garbage everywhere. Human corpses floating away in the harbours and canals of third world cities. And small stains of microscopic oil spills on every highway, every road, and every street of this world. There is one hell of a lot of tarred roads around here. Tarred roads and parking lots. About 40% of the world’s population is lost in the supermarket; the remaining 60% being poor people who are equally lost, only not in the supermarket. Who cares?

And the world is a penitential colony for more than 6 billion people, all looking to a future which appear dimmer and dimmer everytime they care to think about it. They don’t care to think too often about that. What will be will be, and carpe diem. Don’t worry about tomorrow, it will only make you feel bad. And you should not think too much about the past, either, as that will make you feel equally bad.

And the world is a self-oriented place. It is every person’s damn right to be self-obsessed. Not to worry about other people’s fate is a privilege belonging to each and every one of us: it’s a human right, that’s what it is! So never mind. No one can make the demand that anyone should start to care about their neighbours; never mind the fates of people leading the hopeless lives of refugees: a timeless life of eternal fatigue, under the canvasses of the crammed refugee camps in Pakistan, Thailand, Kenya, Kongo, and Sudan. Just don’t worry about that. It’s not your life, it’s theirs, and that’s perfecty alright with you, now isn’t it? And how about all those people leading a life of police harrassment and eternal squalor in the middle of the completely packed slums of all these multi-million-citizens big cities of the third world. And how about the poor people of the first world? Forget! Their poverty is their own doing! And this is the way things work.

Damn!! I’ve seen too much.

- –

On quite a different note, but still on the same topic of the general state of madness on the part of humanity in general: I’m thinking the mere existence of words spelt out loud by a couple of British scholars would certainly be enough to make any person feel a bit sullen.

“Professor Stephen Hawking, celebrated expert on the cosmological theories of gravity and black holes, believes that traveling into space is the only way humans will be able to survive in the long-term. He has said, “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers … I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.” Another of his famous quotes reiterates his position that we need to get off the planet relatively soon. “I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years unless we spread into space.” — “Dr. Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity.”

On the future of this planet, Dr. James Lovelock says: “Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics. — Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth’s surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.”

Lovelock says: “We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.”

Now, the social outcomes which might follow from world-views like these could equally be a renewed resistance to change. I mean: when famous scholars like Hawking and Lovelock both say that humanity has nothing much left to hope for on this Earth of ours, the best thing to do could equally be to kill all proponents of change and do nothing of the crazy shit the environmentalists among us urge people to do, but just continue our way and just keep travelling along that primrose path of self destruction. As the end, according to Hawking and Lovelock, is (relatively) near anyway. That’s what they’re saying anyway. — So why bother?

- –

And it still is a shame about the car. In fact, it still is a shame about all of our climate gas emitting motoric and mechanical devises. It still is a shame about the greenhouse gas traps which are the millions of factories that so many people depend on in order to make the money that it takes to provide food, water, and shelter for themselves, their wives, their children, and also, perhaps, their old parents. It’s funny how people lead their lives around the world, no isn’t it? And it’s funny how people go happily to work at the garbage factories of theirs. It’s a real shame, isn’t it? Or is it? I mean: I’m feeling the vibrations between people here; and it sure seems to me like I live in a society which understands that changes are indeed needed, but also a society which simply can’t come to terms with the most realistic side-effects of a change to the better on the part of the environment. Goddamn! Life in the over-industrialized factory society of ours is like a riddle.

And all the while, the world is traditionally being ruled by the generation of old people who very often make the claim that they have seen and experienced so much it makes them smarter than young people. It’s a shame about the old people who quite naturally are park themselves up somewhere in between the spirit of change which is the prerogative of the younger generation and the actual change which would put them out of power. It’s a shame about the 50 – 80 year-old boardroom rulers of this world, who are camouflaging themselves as in favour of the kind of change that would not affect anyone who has the right to make the red phone call to the military leadership of the nation.

“Nuclear warheads, doh! What the fucking shit is this?! What’s up, man? Are these people out of their minds?”

They sure are. And they’re all surrounded by a wall of bricks, and existing in a dazzling sphere of cocktail parties and exclusive dinners, celebrating themselves and their sponsors. This is the ruling class of the world. These are the people all military-industrial complex protects and defends.

“It’s a crazy world we sent you to report from. Hapless lunatics.”

You’re right. The whole thing here is absolute bedazzlement, uh. –

How about a boomerang future marked by ecosystems destruction acceptance?

Would it be possible that our common future might come to be one of ecosystems destruction acceptance? I mean: a future in which every adult has finally come to acknowledge the fact that runaway global warming and manmade climate change are developments that are real, but that the social and lifestyle changes that humanity would have to undertake in order to avert catastrophy and minimize the effects of global warming (along with a whole lot of other most problematic environmental and ecological themes) make it impossible to believe in a change for the better, so we stop thinking about it while we just continue doing the detrimental things we’ve grown used to doing over the past 150 years or more, and try not to think about all possible end results of such behaviour?

The possibility of such a social development can’t be ruled out. — I’m thinking about a future in which everybody’s going to know about the fact of ecosystems destruction, and be damned to talk about how much time it is going to take us to finally do away with all life support systems of this planet? Some centuries or some decades, eh? Depending on where you live or whatever? There can be no stopping this, baby, so go crazy. — I say this in recognition of the undisputable fact that absolutely nothing is happening in the area of emissions reductions anywhere, no matter what all sorts of politicians are saying. They are putting it off. We’ll start doing dsomething about these damn emissions some twenty years from now, maybe? As right now we do not yet have technological means to do it in such a way that it is not going to be felt, and that’s importnat. And doing something about these emissions, hell: it’s an undertaking far too costly to even imagine. Makes me wonder: just too costly, eh? The obvious fact that nothing could ever be more costly than putting the future of all the life support systems of this planet in jeopardy, does not mean that the growth cult will ever decide to hinder or stop it. Doing so would be far too costly in the short term, and it is the nature of growth cult members to be living like there ain’t no tomorrow beyond the next quarterly report on last year’s gains and losses.

Knowing that the ruling political classes of our societies are all kept in place and supported by the same growth cult which is in complete control of all the financial markets of this world, and have their powers backed up by the complete control of armies as well as legislators, I can see no reason to hope that the exponential revenue growth insistence of the mighty few (which is the demand that all ordinary workers of this world are well aware of and in agreement with) will take a hike any time soon enough to avert catastrophic levels of ecosystems destruction. The next couple of years are likely to provide the answers to many questions. It is my fear that all that I’ve been dreaming of over the past few years will come to nothing, because humanity — as a functional whole — proves to be absolutely growth crazy, to the extent of being quite ready to embark on the last lap of this planet’s human habitability, but poised to destroy all ecosystems, knowingly and willingly, and slowly but certainly, and with no regard of science. Why, because this would be the true and rather devilish make-up of the contemporary world culture, and the first basic truth concerning modern human existence: the fact that we thrive on destroying the biosphere on which we do not recognize that human life depends, since that would be a truth way too inconvenent to swallow.

So they’re going to say that global warming is only good for us. When the polar icecap of the Arctic Ocean melts away, it only means that new areas are opened up for further oil and gas explorations and new economic adventures will soon be in the making. Tomorrow will never be of much interest as we shall all have to live to seize the day. Whether we like it or not, that is. As there is nothing anyone can do with the fact that humankind is an exponentially growing species of paracitic apes who can no longer remember what it once meant to depend on nature in order to survive. Modern humanity is in need of food, that’s all, and will try to at least prove me right in one aspect: namely the fact that I actually believe that human beings are quite capable of adapting to a warming planet and a future marked by extreme weather events and widespread climate chaos. — If not forever then at least for long enough to please the oldest (and traditionally most powerful) members of the human race.  What our children will think about it, well, that’s of no interest to our democratic political class who can never dream of thinking any longer ahead than the next four or five years. As for the interest of our children: who gives a damn? Not the 70-year-old CEOs of the multinational corporations of this world: influential interest groups paying their way through the political systems of this planet as a matter of long standing habit and daily routine.

I mean: if it is going to be our common goal to at least make it through the next hundred years without any change of attitudes towards our current disconnectedness with nature, my guess is that the species will succeed. Sure enough: there will be a lot of sorrow, tears and blood, but hell, looking at the history of mankind there is nothing new in that, so. — It’s business-as-usual anyway, and that’s what most of us seem to want, no matter what might be the price.

Now, on another note, I’m worried about the mental health of the millions of people who are in the habit of thinking about the probable end result of the human overgrowth activites of our times. I know they’re out there. Not to worry. A lot of people do in fact believe like I do, that “the human family” ought to change its ways. Not just a little, but a lot. But okay: as I can readily understand that the best thing for us to do would be to make a clean break with the industrial society and start to live a little too much like red indians, heh! I can see why we are most probably going to get our minds fixed on that boomerang which is returning from its roundtrip only to hit us in the scull. And here we stand waiting, ready to head the wretched thing as if it was a football. –

Albert Bandura: Dissecting group psychological and socio-moral mechanisms

Yesterday, I spent the entire evening reading a long article by Dr. Albert Bandura, in which he “argues that we can disguise environmentally harmful practices and dress them up in words to help ease our consciences, but such practices will have a negative impact on the planet and the quality of life of future generations, no matter how we label them,” and that “we must stop attempting to disguise our actions and switch on our environmental conscience to save the world.”

I shall advise everyone who reads this blog post to do the same thing: spend an entire evening reading this article, and do so for no other reason than try to get a hang on what it really is that is keeping us here. We have the IPCC science on global warming and manmade climate change, but still we allow ourselves to not worry too much about the rising CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere, but keep at it, polluting the air relentlessly. What is more, we have all the knowledge which is needed in order to realize that the planet is in dire need of rainforests, yet we continue to allow forestry, mining, and agricultural companies to join forces in cutting down and destroying the rainforests of this world. We have all the knowledge which is needed in order to understand that the world’s fish resources are being depleted at record pace, but allow the owners of whole fleets of trawlers to keep at it. These are just a couple of problems that all sincere adults ought to the very least to have heard about by now. I’m tired of writing long lists of ecological problems. In my honest opinion, and as I am quietly and solemnly coming to see it, everyone is free to do the googling.

Dr. Bandura’s article is a psychologist’s attempt to describe and explain the psychology, the group dynamics, the social and moral impediments that are constantly at work here, and making it what looks like absolutely impossible for humanity to respond wisely to the mass of scientific evidence of ecological degradation and planetary climate stress that we are all facing here, no matter who or what we are, and irrespective of whether we like it or not, and irrespective of whether or not it is our belief that we have anything to do with it. As a matter of fact, I think the reason why people can still allow themselves to wash the stains of personal guilt off their hands is a matter for future scientific ethics discussions to try to deal with. As it is, right now, intellectual dishonesty among a large part of the scientific community is making it possible for ordinary everyday people to make the claim that “some scientists are saying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has got it wrong,” and then go ahead and feel good about themselves while they just get on with lives in good rhythm, not making any changes to their highly polluting lifestyles. ‘Cause what’s the use? — “Al Gore and the IPCC has got it all wrong anyway. And by the way, I know there was a short ice age some six hundred years ago, this is all a matter of natural cycles, that’s what I’m saying. And if you say otherwise, please feel free to get stuffed! Get out of my way, you’re not welcome.” — //blush//

It is my working hypothesis that people in general are way too afraid of the probable end result of global warming and manmade climate change to even contemplate the idea of actually trying to do something about it. It is my most basic argument that many people are extremely worried that the world ought to be saved. I can read it on my personal computer screen, and I can hear them whispering between themselves: “Is the world about to come to an end?” And in loudness: “Well, if so, there is nothing any human being can do about it, so grab a beer, mate, you deserve it.”

Echoing in your mind is perhaps a general realization that the actual fact of saving the world for future generations to enjoy living in, is going to take the co-operation of more than six-and-a-half billion people, and that the likelihood of such a thing ever to take place in this world is rather slim. So go ahead. Fuck the world, I don’t care. And don’t even think you can try and save it, ’cause noone else will. You’ll only end up feeling sorry that you ever sat down, read up on James Lovelock, and took to think to yourself: “We’re screwed.”

- — – –

P.S.: I know I am going to return to Dr. Bandura’s article shortly, just because I have a thing or two to say about the population connection, too. — A problem which is not played down even the slightest in the linked article; to the contrary it is being played up as the world crisis the on-going population explosion really is. As a matter of fact, there is no measure of intellectual dishonesty to find in the article. Again: to the contrary, large parts of the article is informed by the professor’s wish to arrest a situation in which too much intellectual dishonesty among scientists and political groups is becoming a problem as concerns making way for the social undertaking of climate change mitigative activites, for example. So well done, Bandura. Well done.

Many of your dreams will be destroyed

The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050. This means that the world population will rise by a massive 50 percent in the next forty years. Now, that’s a lot. And here we are, discussing humankind’s impact on the ecosystems of this planet. –

Digesting a little piece of experimental mathematics is all that it takes for you to understand that an average of three childbirths in every woman’s lifetime inevitably leads to population explosion. Since the ecosystems of this planet are faced with such a lot of human induced problems, it should be very easy for people to understand that the ongoing population explosion is a very unfortunate natural fact. As a social fact, though, the simple mathematics of population explosion realization, is for the most part absolutely impossible for individual human beings, cultures, social systems, and religions to take in. There are way too many spiritual, psychological, instinctive, intuitive barriers to cross here. Like the general idea that God, the Creator, in making it possible for every female of this world to give birth to fifteen children in a lifetime, as a matter of personal choice and free will, could possibly have made some sort of mistake. I mean: yes. Of course there is a religious dimension to this. And yes: I have been told, straight out, by people unknown to me, who have heard about me and my simple piece of population maths, to “please” get stuffed. Oh, and yes: I know that the kind of natural science I am thinking about here, is the form of natural science that noone ever asked for. As a matter of fact, I know, very well, that this is the kind of natural science that makes a lot of people feel a sudden urge to kill, as a matter of basic principle, or (more likely) pure instinct. Killing the unknown perpetrator of population explosion natural (mathematics) and social (anthropology) science would not make the problem of population explosion go away, but it just might make it easier for a number of people to breathe freely? And go ahead with their free-breeding lifestyles, unabated. That would be a convenient solution, of course. So why not?

– – — – — – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0uoy0krJe8

The IPCC analysis implies that we need to curb fossil fuel use within a decade, but the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts energy use will increase by 50% by 2025, with fossil fuels still the dominant component. The World Energy Outlook report from the IEA predicts that “global greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 52% by 2030, unless the world takes action to reduce energy consumption.” And as it happens, US President George W. Bush ended up, in Bali, in the early part of December 2007, saying “we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people.”

As the population explosion continues to take place, and (under normal circumstances) there can be no good reason to hope that the world population will begin to stabilize before it has reached the 9 billion mark, there is every reason to suspect that the strictly humanly driven deterioration of the world’s ecosystems will continue. Even if people in general and a number of governments in particular are indeed starting to think about what the fucking hell it seems we are up to here, destroying this planet’s ecosystems by means of such a lot of activities and routines; so long as the world’s population continues to explode, there can really be no hope for a better future in terms of the general state of world’s biosphere. A fast growing third (developing) world human population is definitely going to continue pursuing an American (kingsize ecological footprint) lifestyle, and political leaders from around the world are going to have to continue to welcome such a development, as it will be very good for the world capitalist economy and also very good for the developing countries’ populations, as the development ensures greater prosperity for them; and possibly also a way out of the poverty trap. Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the planet is going to be thickening with a rising amount of greenhouse gases; global warming’s effects on the climate systems of this planet are only just beginning to be experienced as we speak. Deforestation and desertification are other topics of concern. Industrial agriculture is eroding the farmlands. Overfishing is a serious problem all over the world. As is the building and construction boom which is being experienced all over the planet, even if it’s good for the people (for example: how many people are involved in, and receiving payment for work done on the construction sites?). Now, I just don’t feel like listing every possible problem of this ecosystems-studded planet which can be associated with human overgrowth activity. I’m starting to think that it should soon become easier and easier for people to think for themselves. Not that it is going to be of any help. Not so long as humanity insists on being the fossil fuels addicts that we are, and the potential paracitic species of mammals that we currently are to be categorized as. — Oh yes: I am not kidding. It is only that I’m making use of a language that Big Brother (disguised as a sentient being; a thinking and caring humanist, and your best of all friends) disapproves of. Uh, anyway: that is also to admit to the fact that my own Orwellian language skills are poorly developed, of course.

– – — – — – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxuWdEbxAn4

The one thing we can actually do in order to changing things to the better around here, on the spheric globe which is planet Earth, would have to involve the active reduction of general consumption. I have not yet begun to dream of seeing real world changes in this direction, as consumerism seems to be the fastest growing religion of our times, and all things possible are strictly commercial. I’m a zombie lost in the supermarket myself, of course. I’m not buying much. I’m not buying needlessly. But I’m still buying things, and I guess it is bound to remain that way.

I believe it should be possible to arrange for a development that would come as good news to the biosphere of this planet. But it would certainly have to happen in a future which had everything to do with the correction of all the mistakes humanity has made over the past century. The large scale abandonment of the industrial culture of our times would have to be regarded as the first and most important objective. Humanity as a whole would have to get ready for a long range of lifestyle sacrifices. People in the western world would certainly have to lead the way. As I said: it is possible. But as I do not see any movement in the direction of good taking place anywhere near to where I am seated, I can’t say that I am very hopeful on the part of humankind as a whole. We are probably going to allow ourselves the luxury of continuing leading our pantomime lives in this utter make-believe civilization of ours, in which ignorance is strengt, and war is peace. We’ll be waiting it out, I believe. And stop overconsuming when we reach the point when no further growth can be carved out of the natural resource base, which is the biosphere of this planet. Or better still, until we all just give in to a feeling of jolly communal insanity, turn all our television sets off in a swift social movement, and mutter: “No more of this.”

But I do sometimes wonder: as we all ought to know that air travel is the most polluting of all forms of transport, why is it that all of the airline companies of this world are consistently reporting of a rising numbers of passengers every single year? Is it because people are proud to be stupid?!! — Oh yes, I wonder.

Shaken, not stirred

ENGLISH LESSON: definitions from Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

shake stir

Okay, so I’m not a native of an English speaking country. I’m just an internet idiot leading the zombie life of some kind of a political criminal in the Royal Kingdom of Norway. It is not that I’ve been brought before the courts of law or anything, and it is not that I have a criminal record. It is definitely not that I’m a prisoner. It is only that, as of today, I just might be one of the best versed environmentalists and system critics this country’s government can point its disapproving finger at. And it does. Now, I am being all too emotional in my writing, I guess, and as a consequence of this, I am positively not to be considered sane. Nine years of University education has no bearing on the situation: I remain trapped inside this cell which is known as cencorship. It is a very small country, this. Almost five million people, and that’s it. This country is just about the size of a New York City village, to be exact. Everybody knows about everyone here, and global minded environment or ecology philosophers lacking of an upper class family history had better go and buy themselves an American or a British passport, and get the hell out of here. Because, you see: stupid, unemployed people with the greenest of all intentions are basically not very well off living in countries that are really small and extremely oil rich. There is simply too much money at stake here. And the important thing is, everyone here is familiar with the Law of Jante, written by Aksel Sandemose in “En flyktning krysser sitt spor” — “A refugee crosses his tracks” – a novel first published in 1933.

It goes like this:

1. Thou shalt not believe thou art something.
2. Thou shalt not believe thou art as good as we.
3. Thou shalt not believe thou art more wise than we.
4. Thou shalt not fancy thyself better than we.
5. Thou shalt not believe thou knowest more than we.
6. Thou shalt not believe thou art greater than we.
7. Thou shalt not believe thou amountest to anything.
8. Thou shalt not laugh at us.
9. Thou shalt not believe that anyone is concerned with thee.
10. Thou shalt not believe thou canst teach us anything.

These ten sentences are the guidelines to how ordinary nobodies are supposed to think. If they don’t do that they must certainly be trolls, and will invariably end up with all of their heads chopped off. With an axe or a sword. — You choose. — If this was the year 1647, I would certainly have ended up dead on a stake and a mighty bonfire, I guess. But this is not the year 1647, of course. I guess I will only have to wait and see what becomes of me. An advanced nut case, eh? Or something entirely else that figures?

As far as I’m concerned the year is 1984, and Big Brother is oil rich, power drunk, armed to his teeth, and in total and complete charge of everything. Big Brother cannot be moved. He is not a living soul. Heartless and brain dead, that is what he is. He has framed people into believing that he is everybody’s best friend, and that he can actually be touched. But it just isn’t possible. Big Brother is nothing more than the complex but still very straight-forward mechanisms of industrial, financial, legal, and military power that he wields. With the social and cultural institutions of the mass media at his service – television channels, radio channels, newspapers, health and fitness magazines, science magazines, sports magazines, fashion magazines, computer magazines, boats, cars and motors magazines, etc., etc. – Big Brother is also in charge of the social production of knowledge and societal concern. Money is, in the broadest sense, the only subject of real concern amongst the citizens of all these Big Brother controlled political and social zones known as countries or nation states. Now, we are talking about more than 200 different pieces of worldly landmass, all neatly joined together and strictly kept apart from one another by national borders (lines written in the sand and geographical coordinates stretched across ocean waters), all of which are complete with a national flag, a national seal, a national anthem, a national currency, a national government, and a national football team which the citizens of each and every country are supposed to watch and support, as a token of patriotism, general well-being, and jolly sanity. More than 200 national entities complete with more than 200 different national laws, national judicial and legal systems, national and local police and law enforcement agencies, armies, navies, and air forces, that control and direct the lives of everyone; — all the human beings of this planet. Big Brother is not only associated with the nation state. He is also known to make certain multinational, international, and transnational moves. The United Nations are full of him. Every single business corporation of this world is full of him. Every bank in this world, every stock market in this world, every other institution and organization of this world is full of him. The IOC is full of him! FIFA is full of him! Big Brother is everywhere, but nowhere to be seen. Remember: he is not made up by flesh and blood. He is nothing more than a picture, a scetch of an image. Big Brother is a spirit: a benevolent spirit which does not care about what problems it is causing, and which will prove extremely difficult to conquer. “God moves in mysterious ways,” they say, and I say: Big Brother moves inside a cold labyrinth of dark corridors laid out in a chaotic pattern. And beware of this ghost, as it is moving terribly fast or horribly slowly, depending on which way you see things, especially when it comes to environmental and homeland security measures: you know, nothing is more relative than time. Big Brother doesn’t think, he only does, and he expects nothing less and nothing more of you, either: so long as you perform your duties as a good and lawful citizen, an honest and loyal servant of the system which is Big Brother, you’ll be alright. — You’ll be doing exactly the same thing as everyone else is doing, and that is very reassuring. It only means that everything will be okay. So long as you do what is expected of you — nothing more and nothing less — the ultimate goals of business-as-usual and status quo will certainly be achieved. Even if it is not good for you. But that, of course, is in the long run, so not to worry.

– – — – — – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu8LpalUelY

I believe you ought to be worried. Especially when it comes to human overgrowth activites. Our species is going insane. The biosphere itself, under the guise of Mother Nature, presently resorts to all sorts of catastrophic signals of warning (increase in extreme weather events, peculiar seasonal weather patters, extended periods of floods and draughts, rougher monsoons, and increased hurricane and tornado frequency; in other words: climate chaos), thereby indicating to us that the human species, which was always supposed to taking good care of this planet and it’s ecosystems, has now reached the point at which some kind of a time-out would be just splendid. A period of peace in which humanity would wisen up just a little, and readjust itself in relation to the needs of the ecosystems … it would be splendid, I say …

Splendid!

But this is esoteric blather, I know. Just me being a creep. Never mind.

I’ve spent the last couple of years on the internet trying to raise awareness on the enormous topic of global warming. This is an issue which doesn’t seem to be of any real concern to Big Brother. It may even be because Big Brother simply isn’t a living soul, but a robotic, motoric or mechanic means of societal organization; who knows? Big Brother is as dead as can be, and the environment is something that can only be of concern to living creatures. Big Brother can do without it. All he needs to survive is a lot of robots plodding at control buttons, fixing and handling the machines. The environment is an issue which concerns only the animals of the forest. The simple fact that this includes the species of mammals that reside on the top of the foodchain, is of no concern to Big Brother. So long as all these wheels keep turning, he’ll be feeling just fine by that.

Environmental issues are problems that Big Brother is incapable of solving. He is barely capable of acknowledging the fact that any such problems exist. Big Brother isn’t interested in any such thing. He is only interested in whatever seems to be going on inside the societies, the cultures, the nation states, the international markets, and all other regions of interest that are of any use to him. Big Brother only cares about symbols and metaphors. All things natural or spiritual is beyond him. If ever he is confronted with something of a natural or spiritual quality, Big Brother freaks out and instructs some of his loyal servants — human beings like you and me — to pick up the nearest weapon and move to exterminate.

This is the reason why we need to get rid of Big Brother. And we need to do so urgently. As a consensus of climate scientists is making it crystal clear that the window of opportunity is relatively short (only 8 -10 years), and that “allowing the window of opportunity to close would represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history.”

The unfortunate fact is, however, that most of the people who are alive today depend on Big Brother for their existence. Big Brother is that shadowy entity which arranges for jobs and career opportunities, wages and salaries for such a lot of the people who inhabit the various regions in which Big Brother takes charge of most everything and exerts total and complete control. In this sense, Big Brother serves the society in ways that the people can both appreciate and enjoy. Big Brother can also be understood as the engine of social and cultural machineries that people depend on in order to lead a life that is normal, as people with local identities, languages, dialects, moral grounds, ethical rules, and value systems, etc.

For reasons such as those I just mentioned, there is no use thinking about the evolution of systems in which no symbols and metaphors exist, and no instruments of control can be of value. What is needed, though, are systems that are capable of connecting facts of nature to wisdom as well as reason. What is needed, instead of Big Brother, is perhaps a Little Sister? One who is able to care both for the family, the local community, and the hard, natural reality of her surroundings. But here I am, dreaming again. What am I thinking?

Right now, I am thinking that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) did one hell of a job shaking us all up in the duration of the previous year. What started out, in February 2007, as the beginning of a final warning, ended up, in December, as something like a dotted line and an electricity bill. It feels perfectly fair to say that the world has been shaken in the most fundamental way, but that it has yet to be stirred to action.

As it happens, the IPCC analysis implies that we need to curb fossil fuel use within a decade, but the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts energy use will increase by 50% by 2025, with fossil fuels still the dominant component. As it happens, The World Energy Outlook report from the IEA predicts that “global greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 52% by 2030, unless the world takes action to reduce energy consumption.” And as it happens, US President George W. Bush ended up, in Bali, in the early part of December, saying “we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people.”

Addressing the delegates to the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Bali, as well as a global television audience, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore made use of surprisingly harsh language as he started out by stating the obvious: “I am not an official of the United States, and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties. So, I am going to speak an inconvenient truth. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that.”  

So here’s for the dotted line and the bill: nobody seeks to undermine economic growth.

Now, all you need to do in order to begin to understand the ecological problems concerned with unbridled economic growth activites, is sit yourself down and study John Feeney’s marvellous site, Growth is Madness! — an excellent archive on all problems concerned with population growth, economic growth and a seemingly endless list of ecological problems connected to the former.

Now, I wonder what is going on in the minds of all these people who are at work inside the public sector of civilized societies, in work places where absolutely nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions, no matter what the people of the Ministries of Environment might be saying to the members of the press. — I have my mind fixed on lines like this one: “Industrialised countries need to continue to take the lead in climate change abatement.”

While not a single lightbulb in any single office building of the entire nation state is being changed.

We are great pretenders.

Concerning our fear of confronting the environmental crisis

I’m an internet idiot, just like you. But I’m not going to treat you as an ignorant fool. — Because it’s not that we have never heard about the environment. All sincere adults are well aware of it. It’s just that we are too afraid to talk about it, and dread the idea of actually trying to do something about it. No social undertaking would ever be more scary than this one. So, consequently, we tend to act as if the environment simply doesn’t exist. We don’t think about it, we don’t talk about it, we carry on with business as usual, and certainly don’t do anything about it. We block it out as no part of our everyday reality. It’s paradoxical psychology of sorts, but hey: it’s much better that way. — More convenient. 

After several years of broad press coverage of the global ecological or environmental crisis, and especially so in terms of global warming and manmade climate change, extreme weather events, the melt down of polar ice caps and glaciers, the deforestation of rainforests (“the lungs of the planet”) due to logging and other economic activities, and the over-fishing of the world’s seas and oceans — only to mention some of the more pressing issues of which the media world has consistently published an ever growing number of documentation about — I believe adult humans in general are all but totally aware of the fact that the ecosystems of this planet are in pretty bad shape, and that the sorry fact of the matter is that we’re in the midst of an environmental crisis which cannot and should not be underestimated.

This is my working hypothesis: nothing more, nothing less. I appreciate the fact that most of the people with whom I spend a great deal of time on the internet discussing the ins-and-outs of the environmental crisis the human race is faced with, still believe it is a basic lack of awareness among people in general we are up against here. However, I think this may have been the case, but that it is now a thing largely of the past. What we got on our hands (or rather stuck between our ears), is a psychological melodrama of the vastest and widest kind possible; complete with the state of blind denial and that other state of equally useless open-minded acceptance. Among so many other spiritual and emotional side effects or simple gut reactions, a whole set of which is available to each and every one of us; a fact which ought to go without saying.

Anyway. –

Granted that nothing much is happening in the field of climate change mitigation efforts, it is fair to say that the people with whom I am so often discussing the state of things in the natural world — as well as the artificial one (we’re a very civilized, cultured, and socialized lot, now aren’t we?) — may have a point. Because who would believe that a human race that is fully aware of the apparent fact that we are about to destroy this planet, knowingly and willingly, and ever so slowly or even at the highest speed possible (please remember: there’s not a thing that is more relative than the notion of time, and that some people have actually come to conclude that time can be both circular and imaginary), would just keep on doing it? Like a six-and-a-half billion strong bunch of patent morons, deliberately ignoring all facts of science while just getting on with their business-as-usual and easily explainable unsustainable lifestyles. It’s not reasonable, it’s not wise, and it’s totally unbelieveable. But there must be a reason — or a massive set of complex reasons — why it is so.

I say the reason is fear. We are — as a whole and undivided species — so fearful of what is in actual fact going on with the climate these days, that we just don’t know how to react in a way more proper than cashing in on the situation and allow whatever is going to happen to happen, business as usual and status quo style. I say we’re all stiff with fear, and that a few of our political, financial, military, social, cultural, religious, and other scum leaders are about to start panicking here, so beware of the crazy witlings who have the power to push the red button of the electronic devise which is hidden inside that black suitcase, if you know which one I mean? — As the situation can turn very dangerous very fast now, I guess. But then: I do not know much about the realities of international policy making. All I know is that we are, most definitely, not in need of a NATO which is looking into how a planned U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic could relate to the alliance, on both technical and political levels, as stated by its secretary general on February 8, 2008.

What the whole wide world, with all of its people, cats, dogs, chickens, rats, snakes, whales, and pandas, along with all of the other living species which may be endangered by human overgrowth activities of a tremendously large — and escalating – scale (not forgetting about the sharks, the wolves, the parrots, the otters, the ice bears, the tigers, and the harts) intact, is in urgent need of, is PEACE. Now, of course, I’m talking about the short term here. WORLD PEACE is what is needed around here. Nothing more, nothing less, and I say that in recognition of the statements made by Al Gore (who everyone has heard of), the IPCC (The United Nation’s Climate Scientists’ Club or whatever), and a whole lot of other climate diplomats, all talking about a so-called “window of opportunity” which is, supposedly, of no wider breadth than eight years. I repeat: what the world is in need of, is not a U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, but a very long period of peace. So that we can get our act together here, so to speak. All aligned to one another and really up to the task of saving Mother Nature for the benefit of future generations or something. I’m quite something of a dreamer don’t you think? World Peace. –

But we are not going to get that, now are we? We are going to start being disturbed by a crazy lot of stupefying visions, now aren’t we? As we’re coming to conclude that the entire civilization (which all of a sudden went global and ultra capitalistic some time between 11/9 1989 and 9/11 2001) is perfectly safe-guarded against any and every form of change to the better on the part of the entire species and all of the other goddamn species as well? — Because George Orwell was right. He wrote “1984″, and only missed the target by a matter of some twenty lousy years. So well done.

Okay, yeah, I’m angry. I’ll promptly go and light myself a cigarette, just in order to calm down just a little, and relax at least some of my nerves.

That’ll be just fine by me, don’t you think?