December 28, 2014

A hint to newbies from a relative newbie re a "DU reality"

It makes no sense to talk about a "DU reality"
as if there is one, or two, or five voices here.

there are how many posters here?
20,000?

After posting here for a while, I recognize certain posters who will always have something worthwhile to say - whether I agree or not -
and some who will always say something that is a fart in the wind.
As fast as I put the latter on "ignore" there is a new member who is equally insipid.

There's always going to be idiots, some days seems like nothing but idiots.
Because anyone can join, anyone can post.

but then there are people who will make you think, and make you reassess your position, and make you laugh, and make you feel like you have made a friend.

The cutting the wheat from the chaff never ends.

that's life at DU.
Not for the faint of heart.

sometimes it becomes onerous, and like many here, when it does, I leave. We all have that choice.

Ultimately these are black marks on a page which mean nothing in the real world.
that is the most important point to keep in mind imo.

enjoy.

December 22, 2014

Life in Beijing: "rehearsal for life on an inhospitable planet"

It’s as if the 21-million-strong population of the Chinese capital is engaged in a mass city-wide rehearsal for life on an inhospitable planet. Only it’s not a rehearsal: the poisonous atmosphere is already here.

Beijing’s air quality has long been a cause of concern, but the effects of its extreme levels of pollution on daily life can now be seen in physical changes to the architecture of the city. Buildings and spaces are being reconfigured and daily routines modified to allow normal life to go on beneath the toxic shroud.

On bad days, bike lanes are completely deserted, as people stay at home or retreat to the conditioned environments of hermetically-sealed malls.

The average 18-year-old Beijinger will spend as much as 40% of their remaining years in ill-health – potentially suffering from cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory disease. Breaking the usual government silence on the issue, China’s former health minister, Chen Zhu, spoke out in January to reveal that between 350,000 and 500,000 people die prematurely each year here as a result of air pollution.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/inside-beijings-airpocalypse-%E2%80%93-a-city-made-almost-uninhabitable-by-pollution/ar-BBgSu6f?ocid=HPCDHP

December 14, 2014

Study: Religious children are less able to distinguish fantasy from reality

This explains a lot about our country.

"By relating seemingly impossible religious events achieved through divine intervention (eg, Jesus transforming water into wine) to fictional narratives, religious children would more heavily rely on religion to justify their false categorisations," writes Shadee Ashtari for the Huffington Post.

"Religion blurs the lines between fact and fiction. You only hope kids exposed to it figure it out soon enough," he writes for Patheos.

In a provocative fashion, Mehta says that the study could be viewed as "evidence for those who believe religious indoctrination is a form of mental child abuse."

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28537149

June 26, 2014

Sustainability is destroying the Earth

"Green jobs. Green products. The sustainable economy. No. There’s no such thing. The whole of the global economy is unsustainable. The economy runs on the destruction of the natural world. The Earth is treated as nothing but fuel for economic growth. They call it natural resources. And a few people choosing to remove themselves from this economy makes no difference. For as long as this economy exists, there will be no sustainability.

For as long as any of these structures exist: electricity, mains water, global economy, industrial agriculture – there can be no sustainability. To achieve true sustainability, these structures need to be dismantled.

What’s more important to you – to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for a little longer, or the continuation of life on Earth, for the natural communities who remain, and for future generations?
...
I know what I want. I want to live in a world that is becoming ever more alive. A world regenerating from the destruction, where every year there are more fish, birds, trees and diversity than the year before. A world where I can breathe the air, drink from the rivers and eat from the land. A world where humans live in community with all of life.

Industrial technology is not sustainable. The global economy is not sustainable. Valuing the Earth only as a resource for humans to exploit is not sustainable. Civilization is not sustainable. If civilization collapsed today, it would still be 400 years before human existence on the planet becomes truly sustainable. So if it’s genuine sustainability you want, then dismantle civilization today, and keep working at regenerating the Earth for 400 years. This is about how long it’s taken to create the destructive structures we live within today, so of course it will take at least that long to replace these structures with alternatives that benefit all of life on Earth, not just the wealthy minority. It won’t happen instantly, but that’s no reason not to start."

http://deepgreenresistancenewyork.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/sustainability-is-destroying-the-earth/

June 3, 2014

"The Impossibility of Growth Demands a New Economic System"

by George Monibot:

Economic growth is an artefact of the use of fossil fuels. Before large amounts of coal were extracted, every upswing in industrial production would be met with a downswing in agricultural production, as the charcoal or horse power required by industry reduced the land available for growing food. Every prior industrial revolution collapsed, as growth could not be sustained(3). But coal broke this cycle and enabled – for a few hundred years – the phenomenon we now call sustained growth.

It was neither capitalism nor communism that made possible the progress and the pathologies (total war, the unprecedented concentration of global wealth, planetary destruction) of the modern age. It was coal, followed by oil and gas. The meta-trend, the mother narrative, is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere subplots. Now, as the most accessible reserves have been exhausted, we must ransack the hidden corners of the planet to sustain our impossible proposition.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/28-0