Category: climate change

Veganism, Climate and Election Seasoning

Ignorance and arrogance is a combination that echoes with brute force this very curious year. Unfortunately, both are proudly celebrated. Doubly unfortunate for the entire planet: the sad celebration of ignorance occurs in an election year.

climate-change-conference

The topic least considered is the topic most important, global warming or climate change? Your choice.

What actions would HRC or DJT  take on climate change? And answer came there none. It’s not a convenient time to…uh…next question please.

BTW, I am running on the Vegan ticket. For write-in ballots I suggest

Bill Ziegler (the one on billziegler1947.com). Readers are welcome to apply for cabinet positions in the event that I receive the most electoral votes.

Ironically, in 1912 the climate researcher Alfred Wegener proposed a theory of continental drift, positing that different large landmasses of the Earth almost fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. That they appeared to move. He was correct, but off by two orders of magnitude in the speed of plate movement. GPS tracks it automatically and continually now. 

Sadly a very influential paleontologist name George Gaylord Simpson vehemently fought against Wegener.

Prof. Dr. Alfred Wegener, ca. 1924-1930
Prof. Dr. Alfred Wegener, ca. 1924-1930

When I first began studies in Geography at the University of Cincinnati in 1965 (in the day of slide rules).Wegener was mentioned for his climate work, but the professors at that time roundly dismissed any realistic notion that the Americas ever met Eur-Africa. Tectonic plates. The thought had a romantic and fanciful value, but no evidence supported it.

In 1976 Exxon received the results of a study they launched on the global impact of increasing dependence upon fossil fuels. Exxon risked eventually losing claim to “We’re Number 1” (USAUSAUSA) on the Fortune 500. Ignoring evidence is an enormously profitable enterprise.

Addressing climate change could have begun 40 years ago. Veganism may be the only option available. It’s also great for your personal health. Just expounding.

Unfortunately (very unfortunately) a tectonic shift in political execution began in 1980.

There is great  symbolism in the release of hostages during Reagan’s inaugural address. Allow blame to flow to the Carter Administration, rigorously and self-righteously deny any hint of a deal in Nicaragua. Proceed with an order to remove Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof. The Project for the New American Century raised a toast to the death of the 70’s. I call it mourning in America.

 

Slave-level labor keeps inflation in check. Fill in the blank, Made in …..

Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger are both still alive, still active and still war criminals. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Meanwhile Jimmy Carter hopes that the Guinea Worm will die before he does. Google guinea + worm for details.

guinea-worm-carter

A question raised in January 2016 by the Party of the Grand Olds: Who will be our next Reagan? That month a friend of mine predicted the total collapse of the Republican Party. In the same month that friend asked my son about his estimation of the number of racists in the United States, he answered 35%. DJT’s hardcore.

January was already a WTF year by February. Lisa joins those explaining zombies in popular culture as a response to the impending doom dropped into their collective laps by preceding generations. As one of them. I can only agree.

iran-contra-bush-reagan-herbert

At least Jerry Rubin did not live to witness the folly of equating a growing wealth-management portfolio with a revolution. RIP stock portfolios.

Details at 11:00.

Thanks for reading.

Zoocide, Genocide & Passenger Pigeon Martha

This morning I tried to find the right word for the large-scale destruction of animals by humans and for humans. Universal rights ignores the innocent elephant in the room: animal rights.

whaaat

A couple centuries ago there were more passenger pigeons than there are chickens in the slaughter-house chain today. The last passenger pigeon (Martha by name) is preserved and on display at the Cincinnati Zoo, the final victim of zoocide. They were edible, guns were available. So were bison. Hey, mistakes are made. No, specious arguments are made.

100.years.ago.the.last.passenger.pigeon

When multi-trillion dollar production is at stake you direct attention to a splendid table (I cite the website because of its rather more conventional approach toward food). Comfortable and cozy, but too complicit for me as a vegan. Marginal movements like veganism irritate meat eaters. Just saying.

I haven’t heard about pink slime lately, the stuff that nano technology makes available. Let us capture each molecule and direct it to a consumer. Hey, don’t mention pink slime in polite company. We are nice people.

The enormity of sentient suffering is as great as the consumer demand for the ultimate insatiable decadence. There are no articles on animal trafficking via slaughter house in the NYT Magazine this week.

animal.trafficking

Climate change may just be the only thing that jolts homo sapiens to attention. We are a species intelligent enough to discover the existence of six extermination events in the history of the planet, but arrogant enough to shrug at the prospect of another.

How comparable are extinction events? Even the possibility of an errant asteroid does not direct attention to preventive measures. We’re too busy feeding military, prison and industrial-slaughter=complex obsessions.

By the way, vegan diets are healthy, inexpensive and planet-friendly. But as trolls are ever ready to counter: they are cruel to plants. Specious arguments never end.

Recommended website: Crows Head Soup

Thanks for reading.

Crows Head Soup & Vegan Anarchist

I recently discovered Crows Head Soup, a site for the perplexed among us who do not view fellow sentients as simply human resources. What happens when every molecule of flesh and bone is exploited at a mega scale? Does it even rate a half-hearted shrug?

crows-head-soup-original-recipe

Poetry strums and strikes here, it’s what poetry does.

Crows Head is a site gracious enough to allow rants that dare question the horror of the status quo. The Vegan Anarchist is a related site that is quite new, it appears on FB: a shorter vegan venue.

vegan.anarchist

This evening I read one of many pieces here that pierces the heart. It encapsulates the reality of daily existence in the confines of Butchertown, an historic town near Louisville. Some thoughts:

Visiting any supermarket in the country suggests the enormity of this flesh industry and the banality of its volume. How many tons today? How rapidly are the store shelves emptied? How many shelved products contain factory extermination camp content?
Twice as many chickens on earth as people. I won’t do the math here, but more than one in every pot by rough estimate.
Yes, man’s inhumanity to man sadly exceeds the ability to imagine, but fatalities among homo sapiens does not run into the multiple tens of billions per year of fellow sentients today.

bison.skulls.1870s
Bison skulls on the fruited plain

 

 

 

Remain humane, and thanks for reading.

Tolstoy, Schumacher, Climate Change & Veganism

Personal integrity requires living ethically. Climate change threatens the livability of this planet for countless species. Veganism is not Shmeeganism.

knee.deep.in.the.big.muddy

Pete Seeger let us know where we stand politically! I call it a metaphor for this election year and a perspective from the Smothers Brothers Show in 1967. I had a Pat Paulsen bumper sticker on my ’63 Corvair in 1968.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy! 

And the big fool says to push on!

Veganism is still a minority constituent of the body politic. But it’s good idea to stand on the side of truth.

Throwing a snowball on the Senate floor is as helpful for understanding the significance of two (2) Celsius degrees as an answer from genesis by ken ham.

Meanwhile Steve Inskeep throws softballs on NPR. Disclosure: Inskeep has been in my craw since replacing the inimitable Bob Edwards on Morning Edition. Just saying.

Celebrating ignorance and arrogance is exceptionally American. Global economies based on the trillion-dollar solutions of fossil-fuels, slave-labor, misogyny, ultra high-tech weapon systems and private prisons drive critical thinkers into exile. Intentionally.

Gross is our domestic product. Strength is our ignorance.

I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.

Leo Tolstoy had his pulse on humanity. Select anything he wrote and discover splendid presence and prescience, including veganism and anarchism. Quotes

leotolstoy

The Long Failure of Western Arms

  • Tolstoy: Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (1886)

Yes. If it’s a good idea Tolstoy wrote about it from 1828 to 1910. He stopped writing by dint of death: a century plus six years.  

E.F. Schumacher offered the planet some important advice in 1973, roundly and soundly dismissed at the time, but I sense a resurgence, at least a spirit of hope.

From Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative, a perspective on E.F.

2016efschumacher3

Thanks for reading.