Bcc: FYI
rkm website: http://cyberjournal.org
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re-2/ climate & carbon
Rex Green wrote:
Richard,Okay, I took a little more time to find where the graphs are located. Wikipedia page with 3 graphs, 450,000 years and 5 million years:Page with graph of more current history of temperatures, since start of current interglacial period:Hope this gets you enough information.Rex Green
Thanks Rex. A handy reference, and only slightly polluted by exaggerated hockey sticks.
rkm
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John Whiting wrote:
Richard — I’m certain from long familiarity that you’re not a front for the carbon industry but, in the light of your recent postings on climate change, I’d be hard pressed to prove it.We need to know who funds these thinktank lobbyistsThe battle for democracy is becoming a fight against backroom billionaires seeking to shape politics to suit their own interestsGeorge Monbiotguardian.co.uk, Monday 20 February 2012 20.30 GMT
I see that you think very much in terms of factionalism, and who is on whose side. Facts and evidence are secondary. If someone on the bad side says something, it must be false. If someone on the good side says something, it must be true. The arguments presented in my paper have no relevance. Since the conclusions aren’t politically correct, the paper must be wrong, and possibly propagandistic. There’s no need to study the argument.
The thing that really gets me is this issue about funding. It is global warming alarmism that gets all the funding. Not just for research, but for all the propaganda messages in documentaries, news broadcasts, editorial pages, and so on. It’s a major, global, propaganda-campaign / psy-op. Articles like the one in the Guardian are a central part of that psy-op, aimed at discrediting those who try to expose the fraud.
rkm
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re/ climate & memes
Ian Crilly wrote:
I completely agree with you on Thrive. A man from the Proctor & Gamble family who has had an epiphany? Nah I can’t see it. Lots of oneness in the feel of that movie. I am also suspicious of the idea of the solutions on offer.I like the idea of a movie/docu-movie. What about a discussion movie. RKM in discussion. An global overview, global elite discussion, global banking discussion, then a move to possible solutions, IMHO I believe the solutions start with communities, it may be a starting point of a discussion which might open a door for many?What say you?
I don’t think a film about abstractions and ideas would be very useful. I think we want something more along the lines of How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, a documentary about people discovering empowerment, and working creatively together to solve their problems. But it has to be in a context the audience can identify with, in North America or Europe somewhere. Rather than talking about the importance of community, we’d want to show a community coming together, including the problems that arise in the process, and showing the shift in the culture as it emerges.
People learn what’s possible for themselves by seeing other people doing things, people they can identify with.
rkm
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Catherine Austin Fitts wrote:
Richard:I have known Foster Gamble and his wife Kimberly since 2006 and consider them good friends. Thrive is a very sincere attempt at defining problems and solutions. If you look at the drain of the black budget and the technology it is funding, it is essential to look at these issues although trying to ascertain the truth is challenging. But UFOS and crop circles are real, and if my estimates of the black budget are reasonable, a lot of money is being harvested to finance them or dealing with them or both. So these issues must be dealt with, no matter how messy they are.Truth will emerge from a widespread conversation. Thrive was meant to contribute to that conversation, just as you do.Hope that helps,Catherine Austin Fitts
I’ve been looking at the Thrive website. We now have not just the film, we have a Thrive Movement. The website is full of pages giving ‘solutions’ and ‘strategies’ for the various problems of the world. The basic philosophy behind Thrive’s vision is libertarianism and unregulated markets. Everything privatized, and the government’s only role is to manage the money supply. It’s vulture capitalism all over again, only Thrive looks at it though rose colored glasses and imagines it would be different.
I don’t see the Thrive Movement leading to any kind of useful conversation. It will attract a lot of libertarian followers, and followers who happened to be fascinated by the film, but I can’t see the comment threads (if that be conversation) going outside the boundaries of thinking established by the website.
As regards its strategy, let’s look at the ‘governance solutions strategies’ page. It sets out three stages of transformation.:
Stage 1: Reform the election system and redirect government priorities
Stage 2: Limit Government
Stage 3: Set Up Systems for Voluntary Cooperation
In the spirit of conversation, I would suggest that these stages are in the wrong order.
People have been fighting for election reform for a very long time, and for more sensible government priorities. And what we are seeing instead is increasingly rigged elections and increasingly reckless government priorities. This is a losing battle, a consumer of activist fodder.
And asking the government to limit itself? The attempt to limit government power was made boldly when the Constitution was adopted. And ever since then those limits have been diligently and systematically eroded, until today we have neither a Bill of Rights, nor the separation of powers, nor the limitation on federal powers. Another losing battle.
With all respect, I must say this is not a strategy; it is a wish list, unless I’m missing something. Stage 3 is where you really want to get to. Stages 1 and 2 are wishes, which if granted would make Stage 3 easy. Beggars would ride.
If systems for voluntary cooperation are where you want to end up, then I suggest building those systems is where you need to begin. Only a people unified can take on the tasks of Stage 1 and Stage 2. Not unified by a charismatic leader or ideology, but unified by their systems of voluntary cooperation. The ends are the means.
Occupy talks about the 99%. They are right, in that the overwhelming majority of us are now brought together by the economic crisis, and by the realization that the system is floundering, that governments are unable to deal with the crisis. This creates a political opportunity: creating a movement that builds on this ‘coming together’ and this ‘realization’, and begins building the infrastructures of ‘voluntary cooperation’, or what I prefer to call ‘voluntary collaboration’.
rkm
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From: Peggy ConroyDate: 21 February 2012 14:48:12 GMTTo: “Richard Moore” <•••@••.•••>Subject: from Worldwatch-economics 21st century
Richard,How do you square w/this short summary of a way to the future?How to implement, is the big thing you seem to be working on?Sincerely,Peggy ConroyWest Chazy, NYThe Worldwatch Institute, Washington D.C., lists the following steps as necessary for the transition to sustainability: 1) Stabilizing population; 2) Shifting to renewable energy; 3) Increasing energy efficiency; 4) Recycling resources; 5) Reforestation and 6) Soil Conservation. All of these steps are labor-intensive; and thus, wholehearted governmental commitment to the transition to sustainability can help to solve the problem of unemployment.
We are approaching the moment in history where industrial growth will no longer be possible. If no changes have been made in our economic system when this happens, we will be faced with massive unemployment. Three changes are needed to prevent this:
1. Labor must be moved to tasks related to ecological sustainability. These include development of renewable energy, reforestation, soil and water conservation, replacement of private transportation by public transport, and agricultural development. Health and family planning services must also be made available to all.
2. Opportunities for employment must be shared among those in need of work, even if this means reducing the number of hours that each person works each week and simultaneously reducing the use of luxury goods, unnecessary travel, and all forms of conspicuous consumption. It will be necessary for governments to introduce laws reducing the length of the working week, thus ensuring that opportunities for employment are shared equally.
3. The world’s fractional reserve banking system urgently needs to be reformed. An index system could be introduced to regulate the amount of money in circulation in such a way as to stabilize the average price of a list of necessary household items, such as flour, milk and eggs. National banks would either print more money or else re-absorb it according to the value of the index.
To carry out these reforms will require the dedicated and courageous efforts of civil society – the 99 percent. If we leave things in the hands of the politicians, bankers and corporations, we will continue on the road to ruin, following in the footsteps of Greece. Perhaps we should remember the words that Shelly wrote in response to the Peterloo Massacre:
“Rise like lions after slumbersIn unvanquishable numbers.Shake your chains to Earth like dew,Which in sleep had fallen on you.You are many; they are few.”
This article is a propaganda piece, defining for its readers the meaning of ‘politically correct’ when it comes to sustainability. It begins with ‘stabilizing population’, a euphemism for systematically reducing population in the third world, so that more of their resources can be stolen. It talks about ‘increasing energy efficiency’, a euphemism for maintaining unsustainable infrastructures, and working only toward marginal efficiencies.
The article also tells us what to expect, as the New World Order continues to consolidate its control. It tells us to expect perpetual austerity, when it talks about the need for job sharing, and eliminating all forms of ‘conspicuous consumption’. It tells us to expect to be confined locally, when it talks about eliminating ‘unnecessary travel’. It tells to expect micro-management of society, when it talks about government regulating your work week.
The article also includes a few things that might be no-brainer good ideas, but that’s just fluff around the doublespeak message above.
And then it talks about the “dedicated and courageous efforts of civil society – the 99 percent”, and not leaving things in the hands of politicians. What is all that supposed to mean? I guess it brings up images of mass demonstrations or huge Occupy sites or something along those lines. But what it really translates into, if you observe people who read these kinds of things, is a determination to spread the politically-correct word, and to ridicule anyone who disagrees.
rkm
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