I posted this comment to junkscience.com but it was removed. . .hmm
I came across your site by accident and feel compelled to reply. . .although I may regret it, I’m going to attempt to engage with this conversation which is, I’ll admit, contrary to what I believe.
I’m not anything. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a politician. I’m not religious. I have been inclined to believe in climate change and environmental sustainability as a direction we need to start pursuing but it’s never been for any gain to myself. I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t work for the government, a university, a political party or any kind of media. . .I don’t even have a job at the moment. It might be a bit easier to swallow something if I did. I guess I would need to swallow something in order to find a job worth doing and I’m having a lot of trouble with that. I agree with you that a lot of things that we are told have ulterior motives.
The motive is, you are right, largely making money, reproducing the status quo, keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. It’s hard to believe anything these days, especially since large corporations are usually the ones funding research and only certain results will warrant more funding (someone else said that above). Even a lot of “green initiatives” are only being considered if they are profit making mechanisms. I would agree that “green” in many situations, has been used as a marketing tool and at the end of the day, everything seems to be driven by making more money.
BUT, I have been many places. I cycled across Japan and Cambodia and Canada, I lived in India for 6 months, I lived in Honduras for 3 months and I just got back from Nigeria (I funded this largely with savings that I made while teaching English in Japan. . .I’m from a western country and white and went to university so I am privileged, and I won’t deny that but I funded these things by myself with money that I earned from working as an English teacher. I lived cheaply when I was travelling too so I didn’t incur a lot of expenses. I haven’t invested in the future or used this time to procure a “good job” but instead wanted to try to see things and understand the world from my own point of view rather than just what FOX news or CNN or in my case CBC or Sun media or a university very far removed from the situation is trying to tell me).
I have seen a lot of things that don’t give me hope for the future. I was told by Indians that the monsoon in India failed this year. Agriculture in India depends on the monsoon rains which come from June to September. Farms in Ontario were flooded last spring because of too much rain and the growing season had to start late (I don’t know how normal this is and exactly what effect it had, I just know that it was very muddy and prolonged planting since the fields were waterlogged for most of May). In Ontario, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the winter conditions are also less severe than normal (which they have been) because the growing season can be longer, potentially. But that’s speculation and Canada, not south where most of the major monoculture crops are currently being grown. South Western US and Mexico are having a massive drought currently. Since a lot of our food is imported from Mexico, I wonder what effect that’s going to have on food prices here. Not to mention the Mexican populace. Mexico is desert in a lot of places, so maybe “the worst drought in 70 years” won’t have much effect on food. . .but it concerns me. When I was in Honduras floods and excessive rains had a huge impact on bean crops and the cost of beans in the market nearly doubled for the year. These problems will effect the poorest people first, obviously and unfortunately, but no one can escape from food scarcity if climate and weather conditions are the cause behind them.
Drought and lack of water, clean, safe, drinking water is another thing that we can’t escape. Regardless of water regulations, companies are dumping chemicals into water systems constantly. Mining companies in Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, China. . .those are ones I know for a fact, it’s happening lots of other places too. Mining companies, who have the go ahead from governments do their mining out of the way of western, journalistic eyes as much as possible and assassinate or intimidate locals who are making too much of a fuss because their drinking water is giving them arsenic poisoning. In Nigeria, Shell has been destroying the homes and livelihoods of people living in the delta region for decades. They keep spilling oil, contaminating water, killing vegetation, with impunity because corporations, politicians and the fuel price are always more important than human lives. In each case, the bottom line is always more important than human lives. Especially if those humans are poor and can’t afford good lawyers.
I don’t have any doubt that climate change is happening and I don’t have any doubt that we are the cause. Our own stupidity is the cause. We’ve set up a system that is determined to make money by exploiting resources and people as if they are infinite when we live in a finite world. The people making the most money from this won’t change their practices because REAL SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS are not profitable for them and mean that we would have to depend on one another, which is exactly what our system has determined to be evil. Not to mention that we are divided on and suspicious about so many different issues that we can’t even talk to our own neighbours without breaking into a cold sweat.
Logically, if we are continuously pumping carbon into the air (from stores of carbon that have been buried underground in the form of oil) at faster and faster rates, there is going to be SOME effect, even if you disregard everything else. Trees and plants that eat the CO2 have been desecrated and destroyed to make room for more profitable residential areas, cash crops, the development of mines to extract one thing or another. Pumping CO2 back into the ground and burying it also buries oxygen which I’m not sure is very productive. But even if you want to take the “we-have-no-idea-because-it’s-too-big-and-we-can’t-trust-anyone-to-tell-us-the-truth” approach, it can’t be denied that everything is utterly interconnected. That is the basic underlying rule of our life on earth that really can’t be disputed. Everything we do, has an effect. The earth is round (surprise!), what we do to the earth doesn’t just disappear, it sticks around and effects everyone sooner or later.
I don’t think it’s useful to question and confuse people to make them inactive and apathetic to issues happening in the world regardless of your politics or viewpoints. What I’ve said above are really happening. I’m not trying to get rich quick, I really don’t have an agenda besides survival. I’m hopeful that we can overcome our differences, stop our greediness and selfishness and start taking action before we all regret that we didn’t.
I came across your site by accident and feel compelled to reply. . .although I may regret it, I’m going to attempt to engage with this conversation which is, I’ll admit, contrary to what I believe.
I’m not anything. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a politician. I’m not religious. I have been inclined to believe in climate change and environmental sustainability as a direction we need to start pursuing but it’s never been for any gain to myself. I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t work for the government, a university, a political party or any kind of media. . .I don’t even have a job at the moment. It might be a bit easier to swallow something if I did. I guess I would need to swallow something in order to find a job worth doing and I’m having a lot of trouble with that. I agree with you that a lot of things that we are told have ulterior motives.
The motive is, you are right, largely making money, reproducing the status quo, keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. It’s hard to believe anything these days, especially since large corporations are usually the ones funding research and only certain results will warrant more funding (someone else said that above). Even a lot of “green initiatives” are only being considered if they are profit making mechanisms. I would agree that “green” in many situations, has been used as a marketing tool and at the end of the day, everything seems to be driven by making more money.
BUT, I have been many places. I cycled across Japan and Cambodia and Canada, I lived in India for 6 months, I lived in Honduras for 3 months and I just got back from Nigeria (I funded this largely with savings that I made while teaching English in Japan. . .I’m from a western country and white and went to university so I am privileged, and I won’t deny that but I funded these things by myself with money that I earned from working as an English teacher. I lived cheaply when I was travelling too so I didn’t incur a lot of expenses. I haven’t invested in the future or used this time to procure a “good job” but instead wanted to try to see things and understand the world from my own point of view rather than just what FOX news or CNN or in my case CBC or Sun media or a university very far removed from the situation is trying to tell me).
I have seen a lot of things that don’t give me hope for the future. I was told by Indians that the monsoon in India failed this year. Agriculture in India depends on the monsoon rains which come from June to September. Farms in Ontario were flooded last spring because of too much rain and the growing season had to start late (I don’t know how normal this is and exactly what effect it had, I just know that it was very muddy and prolonged planting since the fields were waterlogged for most of May). In Ontario, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the winter conditions are also less severe than normal (which they have been) because the growing season can be longer, potentially. But that’s speculation and Canada, not south where most of the major monoculture crops are currently being grown. South Western US and Mexico are having a massive drought currently. Since a lot of our food is imported from Mexico, I wonder what effect that’s going to have on food prices here. Not to mention the Mexican populace. Mexico is desert in a lot of places, so maybe “the worst drought in 70 years” won’t have much effect on food. . .but it concerns me. When I was in Honduras floods and excessive rains had a huge impact on bean crops and the cost of beans in the market nearly doubled for the year. These problems will effect the poorest people first, obviously and unfortunately, but no one can escape from food scarcity if climate and weather conditions are the cause behind them.
Drought and lack of water, clean, safe, drinking water is another thing that we can’t escape. Regardless of water regulations, companies are dumping chemicals into water systems constantly. Mining companies in Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, China. . .those are ones I know for a fact, it’s happening lots of other places too. Mining companies, who have the go ahead from governments do their mining out of the way of western, journalistic eyes as much as possible and assassinate or intimidate locals who are making too much of a fuss because their drinking water is giving them arsenic poisoning. In Nigeria, Shell has been destroying the homes and livelihoods of people living in the delta region for decades. They keep spilling oil, contaminating water, killing vegetation, with impunity because corporations, politicians and the fuel price are always more important than human lives. In each case, the bottom line is always more important than human lives. Especially if those humans are poor and can’t afford good lawyers.
I don’t have any doubt that climate change is happening and I don’t have any doubt that we are the cause. Our own stupidity is the cause. We’ve set up a system that is determined to make money by exploiting resources and people as if they are infinite when we live in a finite world. The people making the most money from this won’t change their practices because REAL SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS are not profitable for them and mean that we would have to depend on one another, which is exactly what our system has determined to be evil. Not to mention that we are divided on and suspicious about so many different issues that we can’t even talk to our own neighbours without breaking into a cold sweat.
Logically, if we are continuously pumping carbon into the air (from stores of carbon that have been buried underground in the form of oil) at faster and faster rates, there is going to be SOME effect, even if you disregard everything else. Trees and plants that eat the CO2 have been desecrated and destroyed to make room for more profitable residential areas, cash crops, the development of mines to extract one thing or another. Pumping CO2 back into the ground and burying it also buries oxygen which I’m not sure is very productive. But even if you want to take the “we-have-no-idea-because-it’s-too-big-and-we-can’t-trust-anyone-to-tell-us-the-truth” approach, it can’t be denied that everything is utterly interconnected. That is the basic underlying rule of our life on earth that really can’t be disputed. Everything we do, has an effect. The earth is round (surprise!), what we do to the earth doesn’t just disappear, it sticks around and effects everyone sooner or later.
I don’t think it’s useful to question and confuse people to make them inactive and apathetic to issues happening in the world regardless of your politics or viewpoints. What I’ve said above are really happening. I’m not trying to get rich quick, I really don’t have an agenda besides survival. I’m hopeful that we can overcome our differences, stop our greediness and selfishness and start taking action before we all regret that we didn’t.
2 comments:
That makes a lot of sense. I can se why it was removed.
It seems that "real dialogue" is also not encouraged. . .:)
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