We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Western fires: Payback time?

Click here to access article by Tom Yulsman from The Daily Climate.

Scientific evidence strongly suggests that fire suppression during the past 100 years has masked the normal effects of warming temperatures on fire activity that have existed over the past 3000 years. It appears that fire suppression can no longer distort this relationship and the devastating fires we are now seeing. It is likely that we can expect worse fires in the future. 
Recent research...suggests these severe conflagrations could be a prelude. Climate stressors are putting increasing pressure on a "fire deficit" the West has accumulated over the past 100 years, say scientists who have compared today's burn rates with fire activity over thousands of years. As the West continues to warm, that debt will come due – possibly with interest – triggering fires that are fiercer and harder to contain....
From the Guardian read this piece entitled, "US wildfires are what global warming really looks like, scientists warn", and this by Bill McKibben entitled "While Colorado burns, Washington fiddles".

From Climate Central we learn that "Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Nearing Critical ‘Tipping Point’".

Meanwhile the transnational global capitalists continue with their addiction to growth. Capitalists look at the future only as far as the next quarter's profit and loss statement. This attitude among these sociopathic addicts is very well illustrated by this market analyst in his introduction to one of his articles about oil prices:
Just so you know, my interest in oil prices is not because I trade (I don’t), or that I care about global warming, tree-hugging, or America’s bill to buy oil, all I care about is the price; because that drives the value of companies and projects I’m involved in.
The only constructive means of averting disaster for all of us is to remove the system which requires growth and rewards the One Percent with their drugs of power and profit. Time is running out, if it hasn't already.