Too bad that Al Gore is fat.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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What? Mitt Romney and Bain Capital and taxes and stuff. We won already. Who gives a shit about the temperature and the weather and sea levels and whatever? Can’t you learn to enjoy winning? We won. Game over. Have a nice plate of nachos or something.
Is there anything more pointless than going onto someone’s blog and telling them “Don’t write about that; you have to write about this other thing?”
As it turns out, there is; going onto someone’s blog when they are writing about the thing you want them to write about, and whining because they have also written about other things, as well.
My post wasn’t addressed to Booman, you dolt, it was addressed to criticism I received for making this exact same point just days ago.
I know you have an obsession with proving yourself superior to everyone who’s ever disagreed with you, but you really ought to take a little extra time to figure out the situation before rolling out your tired old smug dick act. It might play better that way.
You didn’t “make this exact same point.” You dolt.
You whined like a fan belt because BooMan was writing about the election instead of writing a global warming post – as if writing about the election, and feeling good that Mitt Romney is going to lose – is somehow incompatible with concern about global warming. You dolt.
You can keep bitching and moaning all you want about what a terrible person I am.
Meanwhile, I’m going to point out that the sum total of your comments on this thread this issue that YOU, YOURSELF complain receives too little attention is to reference an old pie fight, and then insult someone who noted that you had done nothing but reference an old pie fight.
You’re so awesome.
I made the exact same point made in the article that this thread links to. You can stomp and cry and whine and scream otherwise, but that’s an essential fact.
Booman wrote a blurb about feeling good that something positive was happening in the President’s election prospects, and he asked a very straight-forward question as to whether the rest of us were feeling positive again after a period of comparative darkness. And I responded by saying that I can’t get my mind off the oppressive darkness that faces us in regard to climate change and mass pollution and what I perceive to be most likely a problem that we can no longer solve. I’m sorry. The best news in the world for the President’s re-election bid has no bearings on the problems that I worry most about. And I said so. And I got blowback for it. But my response was perfectly in line to Booman’s question: Is it just me, or do I feel chipper today? And I answered, no, I don’t. And I did so without attacking anyone else in this forum or elsewhere.
And lo, here comes Joe from Lowell to tell me I’m “whining like a fan belt” for answering a question honestly, and without impugning anyone else’s self or opinions. You dick.
You’re not a terrible person, but you have a serious personality problem. You’re capable of good thought and valuable commentary, but you have this fatal flaw in that sooner or later you have to turn everything into a personal attack on someone. You’re a bully. You’re a cheap thug. You have some brains, but essentially, you’re a prick. You follow people around and harass and harangue them and act the smug bastard at all times, and you wonder why some people with some self-esteem occasionally strike back.
Here’s the deal: I have never attacked you, nor anyone else here in this forum, not once, ever. I have only ever reacted in self defense. If you have an honest argument with any point I make here, you can make your argument civilly and respectfully. But I’m not taking shit from you. You like to dish it out, I’ve witnessed it time and time and time again all over this forum. Maybe other people are willing to put up with it, but I’m not. You come to me with your bullying tactics and I’m going to send you home with a bloody nose every time, because I fucking hate bullies.
You’re the exact opposite of awesome. You’re a prick.
Now get off my lawn.
“Even if such a campaign is possible, however, we may have waited too long to start it. To make a real difference – to keep us under a temperature increase of two degrees – you’d need to change carbon pricing in Washington, and then use that victory to leverage similar shifts around the world.”
MAY have waited too long to start it? Mr. Rolling Stone writer, that ship sailed more than 20 years ago.
We are well into the “game over” spiral. Wait til the food shortages hit this winter. You are gonna see some STEEP prices in the produce and meat aisles. Farmers are running out of hay.
We’re so thoroughly fucked. Anyone who thinks we can turn this around is insane.
In Michigan they’re expected to lose 80 or 90 percent of the fruit crop. In southern IL they’re talking as much as a 50 percent decline in corn and soy yields. Prices of fresh fruit and vegetables are already rocketing up, and frozen, canned, and processed are sure to follow. The farmers markets around here are pathetic compared to other years — canaries in the coal mine.
Still, the warming/change is not a steady thing. We’ll have some sporadic chances for a reprieve. Will the relatively minor hardships in the near future be enough to teach a lesson? Or will human civilization just merrily march over the cliff? That’s the scary question, and given our collective common sense so far, the odds are not in our favor. “The stupid, it burns” has become a literal physical reality.
If correct:
That means that people are too stupid ever to survive without some power elites telling them what to do. If so, human beings were less well adapted to earth than ants.
not too stupid, too disorganized.
my dad thinks the only way we make the changes we need to make -politicially, environmentally, etc- is through a dictatorship.
which will also never happen. Well, not in any benevolent way.
Or we are too organized on one side, where a de facto dictatorship of money has been allowed all the power to inflict their will on the truly critical questions. Which for the rest of us, pretty much means stupid. What’s more stupid than destroying your own life support system so you can keep buying SUVs and thousand dollar haircuts for a while longer?
And not smart enough recognize who profits when the hoi polloi are disorganized? Hell, not even smart enough to say no to fighting in the wars of old men.
You don’t think ants have power elites telling them what to do?
You don’t think young ants fight wars for old ants?
Marie, we are SO as smart as ants! Totally!
And yet…every additional year in which we continue to do nothing (at least, not on the macro scale that’s needed) will add to the acceleration and severity of the catastrophe, causing untold additional misery and needless death. Just because we’re already badly fucked is no excuse for failing to act.
That can’t be said too often or strongly. Some evangelical conservative types, confronted with the undeniable (to anyone with an IQ over 40) reality of what’s happening, are already transitioning directly from “global warming doesn’t exist” to “oh well, it’s too late to do anything.” We’ll see more of it, I’m sure. Fuck. That.
This is a subset of a larger principle, currently central to our fucked-up political system: Never say things can’t get worse. Worse is always up for the challenge.
I would never say things can’t get worse.
Rather, my claim wrt our man-made climate change disaster: it is too late to make things better, which is pretty much the conclusion of the article anyway.
back in the early 1990s, I worked for Greenpeace. At the time they were citing climate scientists who said we had until 2001 to figure out what to do, or we’d hit the tipping point. Well it’s ten years past that and here we are.
It’s very sad what we’ve done to ourselves.
As usual, pessimist Kevin Drum nails why we are doomed without a scientific miracle, which maybe unlikely.
To me, it seems every aspect of human nature as demonstrated throughout history is encouraging us to destroy ourselves here.
ugh … what a thought
questions:
Answers:
Sorry about the popcorn this year…
Don’t worry. The Congress will pass additional emergency funds in the farm bill to compensate for those global warming losses.
Wait…What?…Boehner is not taking the farm bill to the floor until after the harvest, uh, the election!