Cara, the HaintOps and mother of Lily the HaintGirl, has experienced a loss in her family. Tigger, her 13-year-old cat, had to be passed into eternity yesterday due to apparent liver failure. My deepest sympathy for her loss.
From Common Dreams comes this definitely uncheery report that there is no way to reverse the climactic changes we’re seeing now due to global warming. Seems that about 120 scientists from 11 countries have been working on a study for 20 years investigating the changes and the findings are not pretty. According to their findings, we can’t stop our bad behaviours fast enough.
Here’s a short quote from the article first printed in the Canadian Press:
One of the most surprising for David Barber, a sea ice specialist at the University of Manitoba, was the fact polar ice is melting at a rate of about 74,000 square kilometres each year - an area about the size of Lake Superior - and has been for the last 30 years.
“This is a very significant result, and it’s not some sort of trend that’s going to shift back the other way,” Barber said Tuesday.
Barber added there is increasing concern in the scientific community that there are factors actually speeding up the melt, but he cautions it’s too late to reverse the trend.
“The time to act actually was a few decades ago,” he said.
“We’re not going to be able to shift the economies of the planet to get off this fossil fuel addiction in a week, a year or a decade. But we have to start the process now to have some stability for future generations.”
So much for the Bush administration’s assertions that global warming can be dealt with by new technologies. File this one under the, “we should have noticed when the armadillos started moving north” category. Too bad. It was such a nice planet…
If you haven’t heard about it, HBO’s new documentary Dealing Dogs throws much needed light on the very ugly side of the dog business, puppy mills. If you’ve ever wondered if the puppy mills are really THAT bad, check out this film. I haven’t seen it but living in Missouri I’ve seen and heard of the evil incarnate that are those who cruelly breed dogs just to make money.
As I look at my “furkids,” I cannot even imagine how completely rotted away at the core those breeders featured in this film must be to treat dogs with such hatred and cruelty.
I hate to think what sort of lives await these “people.”
The world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiralling towards destruction, scientists said on Monday.
We’re down to it according to leading scientists. No more wishy-washy “maybes” according to the guys who know. For more information check out this article from Reuters on Truthout.
Synchronicity is all around us, isn’t it? Just this week I got an email from a reader on the East Coast who said that while she was reading Haint, the weather was much warmer than normal and the wind blew incessantly. She said it really set the tone for her reading of Haint. For those of you who’ve read it, you’ll recognize why.
In many ways our cultural evolution is really devolution. What does this say about where Haint’s world will be in a century or so?
Look at commerce for example. We’ve gone from cheering for the Jean Val Jeans (Les Miserables’ hero who redeems his life on part by proudly providing good jobs and lives working people in a French village) to cheering for corporate tycoons so far removed emotionally from the lives and welll-being of their employees that they might as well be living in different countries. You’re right, they ARE often living in different countries so let’s say different universes.
And really they ARE in different universes, aren’t they? The Ken Lays and Donald Trumps and Carly Fiorinos have no more feeling for the lives of everyday people making, oh say 34K as they do for Martians with three eyes and indescribable mouths. The language may be ostensibly the same but they sure can’t converse. Of course, the Trumps and Lays can send messages down to the Martians below but the Martians don’t seem to be able to send messages back up the chain, do they?
But back to evolution or devolution. When Victor Hugo’s hero redeems his life and character by spending it making better lives for the villagers, we all felt uplifted. When he was chased for an old “crime” we all felt betrayed by the supposed system of law. Why? Because we realized that Val Jean’s greater good moves him past the relatively puny crime.
Now, we cheer unbelievable egotistic posturing in business leaders who would just as soon throw their workers against each other in dog pit fights to the death as look at them. As long as their is an endless supply of workers to feed their egos and pockets and egos again, these “leaders” don’t care what happens. How so different than the fictional hero of a time that we suppose to be less ethical, less advanced than our own.
What does this say about us and our society that we applaud the cruel and grasping, instead of the caring and giving? Perhaps it says that we are not moving forward as we would think or hope. Perhaps it says that we should rethink the way we want the future to look. Hugo did, and saw a world where leadership was a trust, not an entitlement.
Perhaps in Haint’s world, we should see if that is true as well.
We’ve been awful gloomy here lately so here’s a bit of levity.
Thanks to Jeannette W. and Laurie Butler for passing these on.
New Dog Cross Breeds:
Collie + Lhasa Apso = Collapso, a dog that folds up for easy transport
Pointer + Setter = Poinsetter, a traditional Christmas pet
Great Pyrenees + Dachshund = Pyradachs, a puzzling breed
Pekingnese + Lhasa Apso = Peekasso, an abstract dog
Irish Water Spaniel + English Springer Spaniel = Irish Springer, a dog fresh and clean as a whistle
Labrador Retriever + Curly Coated Retriever = Lab Coat Retriever, the choice of research scientists
Newfoundland + Basset Hound = Newfound Asset Hound, a dog for financial advisors
Terrier + Bulldog = Terribull, a dog that makes awful mistakes
Bloodhound + Labrador = Blabador, a dog that barks incessantly
Malamute + Pointer = Moot Point, owned by… oh, well, it doesn`t matter anyway
Collie + Malamute = Commute, a dog that travels to work
Deerhound + Terrier = Derrier, a dog that`s true to the end
Bull Terrier + Shitzu = Oh, never mind …
If you like a lot of humor while considering the plight of future generations of humans and dogs (and all those other species too) check out the new animated clip from Defenders of Wildlife. Its funny and it has a good beat too. In our version of American Bandstand I think I’d give it a 5 out of 5. And you can dance to it too!
I am reminded yet again that we are living in Orwellian America by an article in today’s New York TImes . Instead of alerting Americans to the very real consequences our actions have on future generations, the administration is working to silence the warnings. Don’t worry about solutions they seem to say. Just don’t talk about them and no one will know.
Here’s the article in total:
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. “They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,” he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. “That’s not the way we operate here at NASA,” Mr. Acosta said. “We promote openness and we speak with the facts.”
He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. “This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming,” he said. “It’s about coordination.”
Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.
“Communicating with the public seems to be essential,” he said, “because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic.”
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.
In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA’s mission statement includes the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.”
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Dr. Hansen’s supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official “order or pressure to say shut Jim up.” But Dr. Einaudi added, “That doesn’t mean I like this kind of pressure being applied.”
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth “a different planet.”
The administration’s policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be “dire consequences” if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.
Mr. Acosta said the calls and meetings with Goddard press officers were not to introduce restrictions, but to review existing rules. He said Dr. Hansen had continued to speak frequently with the news media.
But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. “the most liberal” media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was “to make the president look good” and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch’s priority.
But she added: “I’m a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That’s not our job. That’s not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal.”
Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.
Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch’s supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.
Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: “Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don’t have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?”
Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy’s statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.
“He’s not trying to create a war over this,” said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen’s deputy at Goddard, “but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public.”
Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy’s office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.
In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation’s leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen’s scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.
“He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world,” Dr. Cicerone said. “I’ve heard Hansen speak many times and I’ve read many of his papers, starting in the late 70’s. Every single time, in writing or when I’ve heard him speak, he’s always clear that he’s speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it’s been.”
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Where scientists’ points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.
One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department. For years, Dr. Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.
In an e-mail exchange on Friday, Dr. Goklany said that in the Clinton administration he was shifted to nonclimate-related work, but added that he had never had to stop his outside writing, as long as he identified the views as his own.
“One reason why I still continue to do the extracurricular stuff,” he wrote, “is because one doesn’t have to get clearance for what I plan on saying or writing.”
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
Am I writing science fiction or a snapshot of our actual future? Most of teh time I think its the former, until I read things like this article. Then I have to wonder.
I write science fiction but THIS stuff scares me!
This just out in an article from our noble journalists at TruthOut, the same government which is pushing legislative tort reform (read that cutting liabilities to large corporations) now wants to allow some of those large corporations (large pharma and chemical in particular) to, ahem, test their bug killers on pregnant women and children.
Where’s the Queen of Hearts? Which way out of THIS looking glass?
That’s right, the companies who already make a lot of money want to use unborn babies as test subjects! Where’s the Pro-Life movement when you need them? Seems that dosing the next generation with bug spray just to find out the deleterious effects seems rather odd at best. I mean, haven’t there been decades of evidence that bug sprays designed to take out smaller creatures by stopping their nervous systems isn’t too good for developing humans? No big discoveries here.
What is very interesting that the same people who want to “loosen up” those controls on human testing also want to “tighten up” the reins on average people who get harmed by large corporations like, oh well, the drug and chemical companies. Might be something there but I couldn’t say for sure. All the same, you might want to connect the dots.
Did you know that we actually help trophy hunters kill animals by giving them tax breaks? I didn’t but the Care2 and The Humane Society of America folks did. Seems that our brave but bloated hunters (you know, the same ones who think its fun to shoot live animals via webcams in Texas) just can’t seem to afford their little vice so a whole cottage industry has grown up advising them on how to make their hunting less expensive or even free by calling it “charity” and getting tax breaks. Amazing!
It seems that if these “hunters” claim they are shooting a couple of extra animals for museums they canw rite off their expenses. Needless to say someone HAD to write a book. SO those guys are not only making money off dead animals, they’ve encouraging others to kill MORE animals to enable them to kill the ones they wanted to kill in the first place.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am NOT a vegetarian and I am NOT absolutely positively anti-hunting in all cases. What I am is outraged that some sick souls would have taken the video game to the next level — killing live beings. Its one thing to hunt pheasant in person, a completely different thing to shoot a water buffalo via a camera attached to a rifle a thousand miles away from where you sit ensconced in your comfy recliner with your Cheetos! Talk about dehumanization! talk about disconnection from the real event! How do these guys get blooded? Via FedEx?!?!!?
But back to the issue at hand. I’m even more outraged that our tax dollars would support this lazy, inhumane treatment of animals. Here’s what Care2 had to say in a recent email:
“The blatent corruption is evident even in canned hunt ads; many operators use slogans like “Hunt For Free,” “Hunting in a Tight Money Economy,” and “7 Secrets of Tax Deductible Hunting.” Can you believe they are actually advertising the taxpayer-financed killing of helplessly enclosed animals? “
Amen!!!!
If you want to find out more check out ThePetitionSite, HSUS or Care2. All have ways to protest this stupendously stupid way to add to the national deficit via theft of tax funds.