Long Sunday

Of fire and ice; speaking of the end is good

Some distinct and recent possibilities deserving of dignity:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, grouping 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, is also set to say that oceans will keep rising for more than 1,000 years even if governments stabilize greenhouse gas emissions [my emphasis].

To refrain from the mere alarmist hyperbole, note also:

The Gulf Stream bringing warm waters to the North Atlantic could slow, although a shutdown is highly unlikely, it says.

This is encouraging, as it would be hard for 'Europe' to oppose US-welfared corporate monarchs from under several feet of ice.  The related Boston Review article by Kerry Emanuel, meanwhile (via woods lot), is quite informative. 

Although, I'm personally a little disappointed that it neglects to mention either John Muir (for whom walking months on end upon glaciers in Alaska with wool blanket and a hunk of cheese was terrific fun), nor the distinct possibility that the gulf stream (also one of my heroes) may shut down (we don't really know) as it previously did, were Greenland to continue with its exponential melting (as all signs indicate it will, and inevitably it will, for at least half a century).

Kerry's leaf analogy is striking.  It may be accurate to say, "Prediction beyond a certain time is impossible," but surely there is still ample room for informed speculative thinking about the future (without which, one should certainly argue, there is no future – by very definition – at all).  Again, the mere realization of the fact of a forty-year delay is profoundly world-shattering.  Recall what Chad Harbach wrote recently:

It takes forty years or more for the climate to react to the carbon dioxide and methane we emit.  This means that the disasters that have already happened during the warmest decade in civilized history (severe droughts in the Sahel region of Africa, Western Australia, and Iberia; deadly flooding in Mumbai; hurricane seasons of unprecedented length, strength, and damage; extinction of many species; runaway glacial melt; deadly heat waves; hundreds of thousands of deaths all told) are not due to our current rates of consumption, but rather the delayed consequences of fuels burned and forests clear-cut decades ago, long before the invention of the Hummer.  If we ceased all emissions immediately, global temperatures would continue to rise until around 2050.  &nbep;  This long lag is the feature that makes global warming so dangerous.  Yes, this is how we would destroy ourselves – not by punching red buttons in an apocalyptic fit, but by appropriating to ourselves just a little too much comfort, a little too much time.  Like Oedipus, we've been warned.  Like Oedipus, we flout the warning and we'll act surprised, even outraged, when we find out what we've done.

Well I'm no scientist, and if these facts are in any way inaccurate, then I'm all ears.  In any case though, one thing is crystal clear:

calculus: a plea

My formal study of Mathematics, such as it was, ended at the age of thirteen. Even before then, however, it had been rather discontinuous: it was decided in the final year of primary school that Maths wasn't a priority, so for a whole year of school I took no classes in the subject. And then at thirteen, I gave up Maths along with all other Sciences.

Since then, my relationship with Maths has been distant. I hold no disdain for the discipline; it is simply that we have grown apart.

On the whole, I feel I have managed OK without Maths, with the exception of some tricky moments when it comes to calculating tips, taxes, or grades. But we get by, Maths and I, each in our own separate ways.

There are times, however, when I wish I knew more...

Unfortunately, an indictment is not a Revolutionary Paradigm Shift

" Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit. Their success therefore necessitates the partial relinquishment of one set of institutions in favor of another, and in the interim, society is not fully governed by institutions at all. Initially it is crisis alone that attenuates the role of political institutions as we have already seen it attenuate the role of paradigms. In increasing numbers individuals become increasingly estranged from political life and behave more and more eccentrically within it. Then, as the crisis deepens, many of these individuals commit themselves to some concrete proposal for the reconstruction of society in a new institutional framework. At that point the society is divided into competing camps or parties, one seeking to defend the old institutional constellation, the others seeking to institute some new one. And, once that polarization has occurred, political recourse fails. Because they differ about the institutional matrix within which political change is to be achieved and evaluated, because they acknowledge no supra-institutional framework for the adjudication of revolutionary difference, the parties to a revolutionary conflict must finally resort to the techniques of mass persuasion, often including force. Though revolutions have had a vital role in the evolution of political institutions, that role depends upon their being partially extra-political or extra-institutional events."

Causing Cancer: It's the Military-Industrial, Stupid

In a comment to this post, mvp Alain writes: 

Or the social justice and peace movements of the 60's presented an opportunity for genuine realignment but failed in the face of a massive counter-reaction of the establishment. The contemporary celebration of their failure is perhaps a symptom of that loss?

I think it's safe to say that the true extent of this counter-reaction or conservative backlash, from the criminal "justice" system/prison boom to the military-industrial complex to the semi-covert militarization of space...has yet to be fully appreciated, and most likely will not be for some time yet.  Once again, Christian Parenti has made a start.  But there is an environmental component to this story that the rhetorical fog of permanent "war" threatens to obscure.

Namely, that perhaps the fallout from World War II represents not a moral so much as an environmental paradigm shift.   

Polluting as we go, the chances of getting some form of cancer are now 1-in-2 for men, and 1-in-3 for women. 

But no need to worry about pollution, no need to worry about building up resistances to antibiotics in the water, or rapidly deteriorating immune systems on an unprecedented global scale.  The pink ribbons are here to stay.  Breast Cancer Awareness Month was founded by Imperial Chemical (which retains the rights to veto all material), so we're not about to hear any talk of organochlorines from them, only perennial scolding of women to "eat better, get more exercise, and lose weight."  It's all a problem of diet, you see.  Not to mention that treating cancer is something of a business these days.  It's a racket, some might say.  Corporations save money polluting at will, then chanting "early detection is the best protection" and then treating you with all sorts of expensive chemicals, many of which in turn are known to cause other forms of cancer as "side effects".  Nothing at all to do with military-industrial environment priorities, this racket.  I mean, as the would-be President with *the best* environmental record in the Senate recently so eloquently and so very forcefully argued during the debates...no wait.

nb.  But then I'm not saying anything here really that Jim Hightower wasn't already saying back in 1998. More here.

We should really have a category called "military-industrial and surveillance"

William Davies has an extraordinary, timely article at the fantastic Open Democracy website:  The age of surveillance:  a new "dotcom boom"?  (thanks be, once again, to wood s lot).  Myself, I have nothing daringly neutral or witty to say about it.  But maybe I'll think of something later.  Read the whole thing; there are funny comments about "bedfellows."  Here's an excerpt:

The most important lesson that marketers and futurologists can learn about new technologies is not to extrapolate too far from the “early adopters”. Be it cars, telephones, televisions or computers, the long-term implications of new tools are never apparent at the outset, but only emerge once they have become ubiquitous across society.

(By the way, I'm personally very pleased that this blog does not have a category called, "Culture War."  And *not* because I deny that such a term exists.  Being careful about the words one chooses to dignify, such as through uncareful repetition is, "in my book", by no means an unimportant task.  Nay, duty.) 

$4 a gallon

Like a cartoon character still running windmills, oblivious on air, suspended before the fall, “America...is over,” or so claims a recent article penned by Michael Ventura (via).  I suggest you read the entire thing, but here are some of the meatiest parts: