CON21
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Nickolay Lamm Jefferson Memorial under 25 feet of water French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius just announced, in Paris, a “legally binding agreement”
[See the full post at: CON21]Offended, Raul? Not a bit. I say, it’s about damned time!
You are exactly correct, and the primary reason I’ve been watching the CON21 is to ascertain any new tricks the sociopaths and their thugs will be using to shut down any effective or genuine debate. All one need do, to know what CON21 is about, is to look at the corporate logos spread throughout like wallpaper, and the armed thugs who work on those corporations’ behalf to make sure the bleeding hearts don’t get too close or too noisy.
I have been an activist for years, and most of my friends are similarly activists, and we have protested local, state and national/international criminal stupidity for a long time. But many of us are very well aware that the intent of such protests cannot be to achieve “reform” or to alter the behavior of the sociopaths. All you accomplish by appealing to the criminals to change their ways is to legitimize their positions of power and authority.
As of June 01, 2015, we have “438 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 379 GW are in operation and 67 plants with an installed capacity of 65 GW are in 16 countries under construction.” https://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm If humans had any chance to continue on this planet, along with all our four-legged, winged and finned friends, we should have begun the process of decommissioning those plants twenty years ago. But we didn’t, and as this collapse rolls forward, we won’t, and we won’t be able to, as the debt implosion curtails transportation, mining and manufacturing, as petroleum disappears, as our scientists and engineers fly to the four winds with their families or die or are imprisoned, they will all go critical, and that will be that.
The ONLY thing individuals can do, for all of us, is to resist, fight, and break the machine everywhere we can. Protesting is (usually) not resisting, and it is (usually) not fighting. It is demonstrating who is on top, and who is not.
I understand your hesitation, your concern your readership might be offended. I run into that all the time among activists. Sometimes this allows me to educate them, and sometimes I just need to sympathize with them and let them believe they are making a difference.
Ultimately, it will all be in vain, but it is the moral thing to do: Break the machine.
Think before you post your opinions.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism-definition
Definitions of Terrorism in the U.S. Code
“Domestic terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.“It’s going to cost many trillions of dollars to replace even a halfway substantial part of our fossil energy use with renewables, and we already don’t have that kind of money today.”
That implies that enough money would be able to buy the fossil energy needed to make the renewable infrastructure necessary for the transition (as it always has in these pre-Peak Fossils times). But the timing of Peak Fossils is very close, if not here already, and the ability to buy more fossil energy to make wind turbines and solar panels (over and above everything else that we need it for) has passed. We could make a start on the transition, if it weren’t for the problems you so clearly describe, but it is energetically impossible to complete the transition. At some point in the future fossil energy will be in such short supply that even the wisest of politicians would have to make a decision between making more solar panels and keeping the lights on, the TVs working, and the internet running.
Industrial civilisation will collapse when that point is reached, if not before.
Very well said. Thank you!
I agree with all of your points.
Are you aware that you are making many of the points Guy McPherson has made over the years at Nature Bats Last.
@Stone Lodge
What we as individuals can do for a brief moment in time is to learn to grow vegetables, and maybe get a little place with a propane tank, well and some solar panels. Get a diesel tank and some pink diesel for a small tractor and people of like mind with good backs.
Well, it’s likely too late for anything but digging and planting the garden. It takes a few years to actually work that out.Ilargi and Friends,
There is actually a purpose to the Congress of Parties 21 meeting, and it is to agree to the narrative, the terms that will be used as the world proceeds through the collapse modeled in The Limits To Growth in 1972.
It was a good model, the “standard run” and we have not been able to deviate from it as a species. The “You are here” line on the projection of trends in time is set at 2011 in the graph at this link. https://www.ecoglobe.ch/scenarios/e/adx0.htm
Scroll down a few. It’s big. Go forward 4 years. That is the downturn of food-per-capita, services-per-capita, and industrial-output, also known as “global economy” or “Gross Planetary Product”.
Now, scroll down this page a little to the graph of Gross Planetary Product.
https://www.voxeu.org/article/shrinking-planetary-gdp
It peaked in 2014 and is on the downturn. It is exactly the same graph and every political player in Paris knows it well.
Again, COP21 served to agree on the language, framework and excuses that global ruling and financial elites will use going forward into financial collapse and species (us) die-off, without having to tell the truth, which would just be way too much for us to bear.
It is like Bretton Woods that way. I’m sure there were lots of side deals done, too.
What our rulers are really good at is not what needs to be done for the good of the most people and most living things. The powers they have are powers of destruction, and the threats of destruction to coerce.
Look for more destruction of countries that are near the brink, and more weakening of democracies by flows of desperate refugees, and especially more divide and conquer.
(Grow vegetables. How’s it goin’ with the Greeks beta-testing this new global economy?)I strongly agree with you John. There are better technologies than propane though, and I’d suggest people look into them. The oil drum reburner wood stove is an interesting one wherein the fire burns sideways and the smoke (unconverted energy) is released in the drum reburner. It’s rather easy to make and the exhaust is smoke free and nearly room temperature. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to grow propane where you are, but I’ll bet there’s some form of combustible fuel that you can access.
It seems prudent for individuals to get off the grid while we have a system supplying the desired technologies. One can be off-grid sans solar electric, but power is sure nice to have. The same can be said for LED lighting, cast iron cookware, dimensional lumber… all processed commodities. I’ve heard many suggesting this is a good time to save cash, but I prefer to have something tangible; prices and buying power don’t matter if you have what you need.
And FWIW, movement toward sustainable lifestyles can mean great improvements in our environmental footprints. That’s real progress people can make now. I think it makes more sense than protesting.
CON 21 is spot on the mark Illargi.
Color me a cynic; COP21 was a dog and pony show; a feel good event.
Hell, why only lower a half degree? How about 1°c instead of 2°c? They can SAY whatever they want.
My bet is that the “system” has more than 2.5°c already in the “pipeline”.Two of my favorite quotes;
Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynFind out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
Frederick DouglassThe Enouranois group from Greece screened the following video at one of two anti-climate-manipulation workshops approved by COP21.
In Paris anti-climate-manipulation activists were on the margin of the margins, but this is not true of the Istanbul Security Conference held in parallel (and in competition?) with COP21, where anti-climate-manipulation activists were present as invited speakers. The international media buried this alternative conference to the French COP21.
Those who spoke out against climate modification in Istanbul included the Saudi Princess Basmah Bint Saud bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
There is other evidence of differentiations emerging between the national interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia and that of the US
Repost of the comment above, this time with active links:
The Enouranois group from Greece screened the following video at one of two anti-climate-manipulation workshops approved by COP21.
https://enouranois.eu/?p=1124In Paris anti-climate-manipulation activists were on the margin of the margins, but this is not true of the Istanbul Security Conference held in parallel (and in competition?) with COP21, where anti-climate-manipulation activists were present as invited speakers. The international media buried this alternative conference to the French COP21.
Those who spoke out against climate modification in Istanbul included the Saudi Princess Basmah Bint Saud bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2015/12/12/saudi-princess-speaks-out-against-chemtrails-and-geoengineering/There is other evidence of differentiations emerging between the national interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia and that of the US
https://nsnbc.me/2015/12/12/saudi-prince-alwaleed-calls-trump-a-disgrace-should-quit-us-presidential-race/CON21 – very few here in NorCal, think “our leaders” like Gov.Jerry Brown will really move to cut fossil fuel use by 90% or even 10%. Course, the economic crash will do some of that.
Protest – an interesting word. What I prefer, is calling our actions – Rallies.
On Nov 21 in Northern CA, we had a Climate Mobilization (of about 2000) and included as broad a range of climate and social justice groups as we could pull together. For me and most of my companions it was NOT a Protest, but a statement of who we are and a time to get to know each other as we go forward into Business as Usual for our corporate owned governments. http://www.norcalclimatemob.net
Last time we had a rally was for the COP 20 last Sept. That was a time of US nation wide marches. And yes, many see what we do as protest, but in reality it is developing a United Front of Climate and Social Justice groups. I’m seeing our continuing NorCal Climate Mob, as being a start of a network to bring together, Social Justice, Climate and Sustainable Living groups. I’m hoping to help produce a Festival of Alternatives, for us to continue our networking. This is all local grassroots people, NGOs only came in slowly to sponsor it.
Locally we are continuing pressure on Oakland to not allow a huge bulk coal hub at the old Oakland Army base. If large numbers of public comments to the city council are not enough, protest and direct actions will come next. If large enough crowds show up to pressure for No Coal or for other social justice issues like police murders, then we can push changes. With a united front, better council members can be re-elected or elected.
What I have wondered is why other parts of the US and no National orgs called for a unified approach. So it turns out that our March and Rally were the largest in the US, and was largely ignored by the main stream media.
@ Ishkabibble
(what does FWIW mean?)
“And FWIW, movement toward sustainable lifestyles can mean great improvements in our environmental footprints. That’s real progress people can make now. I think it makes more sense than protesting.”
– Not protesting but Joining Together to make a statement.FWIW = For What Its Worth
I’m not sure the statement is heard. If anything, I suspect as Ilargi has suggested; TPTB use the protest to show there is public concern, but they don’t elaborate on what that concern is. The media can spin public involvement any way they like. They can find a moron in the crowd and suggest that individual is representative of the whole. They can plant someone to say what they want and suggest instead that the plant represents the group. In short, the message is unlikely to get to the masses.
The first step is affecting our own lives. Have each of us, as individuals, done what it is within our power to personally do? Do we repurpose instead of recycle, when possible? Do we dehydrate, freeze or can any excess from our refrigerators, or do we let it go to waste? Do we compost what we cannot save, or simply toss it into another bag destined to become landfill? Do we cut our thermostats a degree or a few, donning a sweater instead of burning up fuel we don’t need? There are so many changes we can make in our lifestyles, and these are things that DO make a difference. A group of excessoholics debating our energy consumption is absurd, I will agree. But we can’t change them before we change ourselves. And if we can change ourselves, and then influence others, we’ll have accomplished much more than attending Con21 could ever do.
I understand the cynicism and I agree that real changes in our impact on the environment won’t come from “leaders” who, at the end of the day, represent the industry causing the destruction of our natural inheritance, more than they represent us.
Yet and still, its so easy to knock down that their is a growing awareness that action must be taken and now. So why can’t this blog be more of a catalyst for change than continuing to permeate cynicism that any change is possible. What happened to this blog featuring examples of sustainability? what happened to more information about how each of us can live our lives more in accord with nature. I recall that’s what Stoneleigh said Automatic Earth would be more of rather than the “keyboard activism” that it has become. Can we have more of what CAN be done rather than what isn’t working?
Thanks Ishkabibble.
No keyboard activism (or not alone, anyway) but digging soil, studying, nurturing a food garden, learning and repeating season after season, is what I’m doing and advising. It’s the correct transitional move for most of us, and will bring about transformative changes in our beings, as we do what is in our “better nature”.If the Debt-Money Monopolist financed establishment is pushing an agenda, push all your chips in and bet “smoke and mirrors.”
Nearly everything those instraspecific, genocidal parasites do fits into the following JP Morgan equation…
“Every [Debt-Money Monopolist] man has two reasons for doing something: The good reason and the real reason.”
For those who might a bit tired… if the good reason was the real reason, you wouldn’t need a second real reason… so the good reason is… “smoke and mirrors” to cover the for the real reason.@ Ishkabibble
Must be a younger crowd here; nobodies even blinked at your moniker.
Brings back fond memories, it does. A lot of historic culture there…
Cheers“Younger crowd” means you don’t remember somebody who went away before most Americans had access to a TV? (1951) Born in 1958, I’m not so “younger”…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ish_KabibbleIlargi,
I agree with most of this except the implication that a human life is more important than climate change. CC is just one aspect of the broader environmental destruction that humans are responsible for. Such destruction is already taking many lives, and not just human ones. It will take many more as the sixth extinction continues. In that sense CC is far more important than human life; all life needs a habitable planet.
COP 21 won’t save us, nor will protests but environmental degradation is easily the most important predicament we have.
This is well worth a listen;
https://thisishell.com/interviews/878-roy-scranton
Roy wrote a book; Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization
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