(I don' care'f I do die do die do die do ... Johnny Cash.) Up, Down. Ides
Contents: David Suzuki & Jeff Rubin, Oratory List, All vs Honey Bees, and Here's for the Pope ... uh?.
Contents: David Suzuki & Jeff Rubin, Oratory List, All vs Honey Bees, and Here's for the Pope ... uh?.
Coming into focus (perhaps). So the Musak® from our Neil is the same, almost in focus: Hey Hey, My My with Crazy Horse in 1991 & this year in Australia, 2013; & Johnny.
Luckily I have kids, some of whom still talk to me; a constitution which has survived considerable abuse; and an abiding willingness to laugh at it all (including myself) - accidents of birth and temperament for which I am humbly grateful.
Can't be posting on the Ides of March without a tip to Julius Caesar (from Act I scene 2):
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.
Luckily I have kids, some of whom still talk to me; a constitution which has survived considerable abuse; and an abiding willingness to laugh at it all (including myself) - accidents of birth and temperament for which I am humbly grateful.
Can't be posting on the Ides of March without a tip to Julius Caesar (from Act I scene 2):
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.
There's a lot of good straight talk in this: David Suzuki & Jeff Rubin at University of Western Ontario in October 2012 (45 minutes). If you just want the protein: they speak for 20 minutes each, Jeff Rubin begins at 4:30, David Suzuki at 24:30; followed by a Question & Answer session (45 minutes).This short clip from the Q&A is where the focus came from: "We need to get down on the ground and actually meet living human beings and engage ourselves in discussion." Yes. Easier said than done but, yes.
But as I consider the audience these men are addressing in the light of the remarks by Gwynne Dyer (below) a light begins to dawn. It is too late to even bother trying to reach the bourgeois burghers and their good wives because the problem is now in the hands of the great unwashed - the under-educated in the West (including the shaken but still smug union members) and the huge numbers in China, India & Africa whose dearest wish is to grow up and somehow (any how) become just like them.
Someone I know, a climate scientist, gets on a plane to go south because the lengthening days in March have inspired him and he wants the warm sun, not when it comes to him, but right now! (Many in my family do the same.) And CO2 be damned!
Some revealing moments in the gnocchi from Keith Marnoch, the host, Director of Media at UWO, who says things like "entertaining and interesting," and "we're hoping for a really good show," and "we hope that you enjoyed yourself." He might have said, "Maybe now you'll get your fricken thumbs out!"An American pundit (who apparently believes in miracles) writes: "But surely we would all feel better about the future if the full creative power of American capitalism were unleashed on the climate problem." Oh really?!
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Severn Suzuki: UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, June 1992.
Lula da Silva: COP15 Part 1 & Part 2 in Copenhagen, December 2009.
Ian Fry: COP15 in Copenhagen representing Tuvalu, December 2009.
Noam Chomsky: How Climate Change Became a Liberal Hoax, early 2010.
Gwynne Dyer: Hot Hungry and Hostile: The Geopolitics of a Warming World (skip to 'Keynote Address') at the BC Power Smart Forum, October 2011.
Anjali Appadurai: COP17 in Durban, December 2011.
Dennis Meadows: Perspectives on the Limits of Growth during the Smithsonian Institution symposium, March 2012.
Jim Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change with TED, March 2012.
José Mujica: president of Uruguay Rio+20 in Rio de Janeiro, June 2012.
Tim Jackson: Green Growth, Fairytale or Strategy? at Technische Universität / University of Technology in Berlin, December 2012.
Naderev Sano: COP18 in Doha representing the Phillipines, December 2012.
I don't know if any of this does any good at all; and no way of knowing. No surprise anymore though that none of them speak to me eh?
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So reports of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) touch me deeply (as it were). The latest political evilness of sacrificing the bees to expedient economics by Owen Paterson is here in The Guardian: Owen Paterson set to scupper EU plans to ban pesticides.
This Wikipedia paragraph includes the phrase "sub-nanogram toxicity". A nanogram is not very much - one billionth of a gram. I can hardly grasp the notions of parts per million (ppm) & parts per bellion (ppb) - they escape my imagination. A while ago I mentioned a study (abstract here) showing that less than 5 ppb of bisphenol A (BPA) in the water more-or-less stops reproduction among brown trout. To make a comparison I (awkwardly) convert "sub-nanogram toxicity" into something less than 1 ppm by body weight (100 milligrams for a slightly above average honey bee worker apparently).
These are infinitesimally small amounts! The purveyors of this neonicotinoid poison should be prevented. That they are not - and that anyone sells or uses it at all, knowing what it does ... leaves me speechless.
Of course, making such infantile montages marks me as a yahoo ... so ...
I sent out one more email suggesting an action to follow up on Suzuki's remarks (short clip here): sandwich boards in Dundas Square saying 'Ask Me." ... And had a response: at least two ready to go out together and more taking an interest.
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But within a few hours it became too confusing, overwhelming. I was terrified to see them again, freaked; did not want to be myself anymore; cut my hair, shaved off the moustache & goatee and pulled out.
That's it I guess.
Be well.
Irritation at Daylight Savings Time lingers on (usually for months). Send the meddling bureaucrats responsible for it home! Fire every last one of 'em!
Ah! The problem with the keyboard is the built-in mousepad thingy. Too complicated to figgure out how to disable it in Windows7 so - duct-tape & cardboard have stopped the sucker and I am the happier for that. :-)
Down.
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