On 24/01/2015 12:50 PM, Tom Worthington wrote: > The Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and > Security appear to agree. They have advanced the hands of the > "Doomsday Clock" to 3 Minutes To Midnight". This is in response to > "... unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race resulting from > modernization of huge arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable > threats to the continued existence of humanity" ...
I saw this too. In terms of the climate change element, I thought it was ridiculous. I'd say the time is something more closer to 5 minutes *past* midnight, in that many cumulative non-linear positive feeback loops have already been set in motion since at least the 1980s that were locked in then and are having profound impact now (say, for example, exponential release of methane). Yet we power on as usual, still pretending the real problem is coming. And forget that, we still don't *act* even if we *do* pretend the problem is still imminent rather than long-been-proceeding. I guess a 40-something year time lag can make complacency easy (along with having an entire culture for company), but that's the point---we need to fucking do something. It means we all need to make sure that we will do whatever it takes to stop this culture from killing the planet, right now. Our dooms day clock for this is also 5 minutes past and the sooner we stop sitting around deliberating and actually get to work, the better. What can you do? Something, anything, as much as you can do using your skills and uniqueness. We need it all. And I'm not talking about on a personal level---because that's clearly insufficient and there are aren't any personal solutions to social problems. (No amount of greenwashing or personal consumer choices can get us out of this mess or change this culture.) I'm talking about all of us here taking what we know about this---and clearly many of you know the problems well on an academic level---to stop this culture from killing the planet. Do as much as you can. We need it all. Badly. And we---of all people---have this responsiblity because we know the problem, which means we should act. And the last to this is, the real difference is not so much what you do, but a difference between those people who do something and those people who do nothing. Which one are you? -- PostScript A possibly helpful starting point for interest: http://thoughtmaybe.com/earth-at-risk/ Tagline: /"Earth at Risk/ documents the first conference of the same name convened in 2011 by featured thinkers and activists who are willing to ask the hardest questions about the seriousness of the situation facing life on the planet today. Each speaker presents an impassioned critique of the dominant culture, together building an unassailable case that we need to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor, and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. Each offers their ideas on what can be done to build a real resistance movement—one that can actually match the scale of the problem. To fight back and win. Literally, the whole world is at stake." _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
