Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Listen To a Glacier, Forecast a Flood

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

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Listen To a Glacier, Forecast a Flood

Click here to access article by John Upton from Climate Central.

Scientists recently analyzed data that was collected using seismometers during two summer months at a Swiss Alps glacier in 2007. They discovered potentially revelatory harmonic properties of ice quakes, which are minor rumbles produced when cracks in the ice are reshaped by water flowing through them. The ice quakes cause a glacier to hum in a way that’s normally imperceptible to humans. But you can listen to a sped-up version of the glacier’s amplified atonal aria here: [this is supplied in the article]

If this doesn't "grab" you, another article from the same website should. It's about the extreme weather, another symptom of climate destabilization, that is now occurring in areas east of the Rocky Mountains in the US. This is an inevitable result of the burning of fossil fuels required by the growth imperative of capitalism.