Earthly Revolution

Around the world, the young are enthusiastically embracing the the flood of electronic devices that enables instant gratification of demand for entertainment, communication with friends and many other services, including on-line shopping and banking. The rush of information is overwhelming for many, especially the elderly. It makes them feel impotent. Many of the young would like the satisfaction of doing something useful with the information handling capabilities and skills they have acquired. Something that they boast about to friends and even their parents! They would like to be like the celebrities they see on TV.

Some of the smart ones are anticipating the explosive growth of the Earthly Revolution. They want to be in the van guard. So they are using the internet to gain understanding of what is really happening. They know politicians adopt only policies that will improve their chances of re-election. They know businesses will do anything to increase their profits. They know the media are out to boost their audience. They know that even the universities have courses educating students into how to make money by marketing goods that will be thrown away to make way for the latest. But they also know there are forums on the internet that provide understanding put forward by the unbiased specialists in the range of fields governing what is actually happening in the operation of our civilization. They do not proffer the hype distortions that abound in the mainstream media.

Moreover, these smart youngsters also know that there are scientists knowledgeable in their fields who have been describing what has been actually happening. Climatologists are just one example.They have copious amounts of evidence of what is happening to sea ice, the marine ecosystem, icebergs, glaciers and xxxx.Anthropologists have described how the societies of many civilizations have collapsed for a vaiety of political, economic, social and ecological reasons. They know the current industrialized civilization is heading down that intractable path.

These youngsters want to address the challenge  of making the best possible use of the remaining natural resources. They want to slow down the devastation of the environment and the extinction of flora and fauna. They want to be proud of making a contribution that their grandchildren will be able to boast about.

The jobs mix: good and bad

People want jobs to earn money to pay for their needs and wants while putting a little aside for retirement. Businesses provide jobs to make and sell their useful and useless products and services to the workers while making profits that will ensure a pleasant retirement. Governments promote economic growth policies that encourage the creation of jobs without taking into account the true value of many of the job categories.

Let us rate the value to society and the environment of a range of job categories. Governments, economists, businesses and the media do not take into account what jobs do to the environment but we will because we are realists and they are illusionists. We will list the categories in our perceived order of value. So most people will need to go towards the bottom of the list to find the category that seems to indicate what they do for a living. That will encourage them to think and maybe they will becomes realists rather than pragmatists.

Here we go:

1. providing understanding of the damge the operation of the systems of civilization are irrevocably doing to the natural life support system
2. providing the young, aged and disadvantaged in society with aid, care and compassion
3. teaching and lecturing on how to use sound information to develop useful physical and mental skills
4. providing knowledge on how to manage biodiversity to limit the harm being done by human-introduced measures, including irrigation for farming 
5. teaching and lecturing on how society can manage a sustainable life style using a minimum of natural resources
6. providing essential health, policing, information,organizational, management, banking, housing, food, energy and  water supply, sanitation, maintenance, transportation services together with recreational and remedial facilities.
7. promoting beneficial physical and mental activities, including participation in sport, playing musical instruments, having stimulating hobbies and enjoying social groups
8. being an engineer who specializes in the maintenance and prolonging the effective operational life of all forms of infrastructure, including land, sea and air vehicles together with roads, tunnels and bridges.
9. promoting devices to save on using energy on the pretext that will help to stop climate change
10. farming using fertilizers, pesticides and machinery
11. teaching and lecturing on how to achieve a high material standard of living
12. driving trucks through cities loaded with containers 
13. mining irreplaceable natural resources
14. mining coal, oil and natural gas for export to make money for foreign and local investors 
15. promoting, marketing and selling stuff that sales-addicted people do not really want
16. contributing to the design and construction of high rise buildings that will be dependent on the continuing availability of services during their lifetime

Many of the jobs at the bottom of the list will vanish down the black sink hole as realism takes over from the delusion that society has had for in recent times.

climate change bombshell

Climate change has hit the headlines again with the release of the latest IPCC report. Many prominent people, including the Prime Minister of Australia, voice their skepticism of the findings of the report. They do not believe that human activities could have had such a major impact. That is because they are so selective in their views and arguments. They have only to open their eyes to see what cities, skyscrapers, roads, airports, grids and numerous other items of infrastructure  have already done to the environment. The contribution to climate change is just one of the deleterious impacts of this growth and operation of infrastructure. But they will not do that because being realistic is not on their agenda. They mindlessly promote economic growth and to hell with the consequences.

Numerous scientists have devoted their careers to obtaining evidence on what is happening to various aspects of the climate, the associated response of flora and fauna and the impact on terrestrial and marine eco systems. Ironically, many organisms, such as beetles, are doing a better job of adapting to the changing climate than people! Scientists (unlike politicians) subject their findings to s systematic peer group review and this tends to make them conservative.

This has had the unfortunate effect of reducing the pressure on society to implement measures that will ameliorate the impact of the irreversible climate change (by reducing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels) and others that will help society to adapt to increasing storms, more floods and droughts together with rising sea levels.

However, there are bodies of concerned and knowledgeable people who are not so constrained in providing insight into the stark physical realities that will inevitably have to be faced. Arctic News provides insight into just one of these climate change bombshells , the Arctic Methane Monster. This is providing a valuable service, a wake up call. But will the powerful in society hear it above the rustle of dollars?