Problem is the mixed messages in the Old Testament, and then white male property-owners cherry-picking which ones to follow. They seized on "be fruitful and multiply", but generally ignore the charge to be stewards of this creation. The former charge is fine when the numbers are against you and you're trying to establish a theocratic empire. Not so much when you're the dominant religion on the planet. "Be fruitful and multiply" is also a great way to keep women off-balance so they can't form an organized base to demand the same rights white male property-owners enjoy. I know, I know -- politics and religion. But it's impossible to talk about things like this without pointing the finger at religio-political conservatism -- the belief and the actions that depend from it that white male property-owners should be able to do whatever they want, no other demographic matters, and thus those other demographics should be kept utterly subservient. Plus, blatantly ignoring *****' corollary charges that everyone should give away all their stuff and not be jerks to other people. If you have a negative knee-jerk reaction to what I said, don't pounce. You won't change my mind, and if you take a moment to step back and look, the facts all support what I say.
As long as short-term financial gain beats out long-term survivability, as long as "I got mine, screw the other guy" is the guiding philosophy, I don't expect much to change.
And
CessnaDriver, I know the science isn't all there yet. I know we're still working to understand what has happened, how, and why. But at the same time, it seems the biggest no-brainer that dumping hundreds of millions of tons of the two most powerful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year probably won't help matters, and equally probably will make anything that's going on worse. If we turn the existing model on it's head -- bottom up rather than top down, that fixes a lot of it. Local energy production, local fabrication, local waste reduction and recycling, local food production, etc. Drastically increase CNG-powered vehicles -- provide an incentive to trap and sequester the methane livestock give off, more easily done, I might add, on a non-factory-scale farm. We have the technology. It's proven and available -- in some cases for more than a century. It's implementation and political will (that latter still almost entirely in the hands -- directly or indirectly -- of white male property-owners) that have been lagging drastically.
I know humanity is adaptable and hardy and tenacious. I know we've proven we can live anywhere and everywhere on the planet. I know we have the technology and can develop more to get through just about anything... What is less certain is how many people will die in the process of getting there, and how much of civilization will survive. Unless we apply ourselves globally to the matter at hand with the same gusto we brought to beating the Russians to the moon, I'm pretty sure the weather will just keep getting more extreme, ecological migrations away from devastated areas will cause much strife, genocide, and war, diseases will get harder and harder to cure or eradicate, and the "haves" will all end up shot by the "have-nots".
I like to look at the Mad Max series, The Postman, and the 3262 A.D. segment of Babylon 5's "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" (when war had reduced Earth to a neo-medieval technology-less society with almost no remaining knowledge of their history) as a sort of "cautionary tale" of what could happen if politicians continue to misuse the power granted them by the people, and keep charging us for the cliff for their own short-term financial gain. And, believe it or not, this is the
short version of my rant.
--Jonah
