The Life Slant - Page 12

Teen Climate Activist Rallies The Children

*What happens when the world’s leaders fail to act as empathetic reasonable adults? The children of the Earth are rising to the occasion as sentinels for Nature and their future.

In August, a 15-year-old Swede named Greta Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school. That strike, Strike 4 Climate, has gone global. More than 20,000 students from 272 towns and cities in Australia, Belgium, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. have walked out of class. Keep Reading

Big Oil’s Deadly Atlantic Surveys

*Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) approved five permits, or, Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHC) for oil and gas seismic surveys along much of the Atlantic Seaboard.

It’s the first oil and gas exploration in the U.S. Atlantic in 30 years.  The approval, which requires a final consent from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, has hideous consequences for millions of sea creatures.

seismic surveys
Sonic explosions demolish cetacean eardrums, which result in internal bleeding that leads to a slow and very painful death. Image credit: Alan Walter/Reuters

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“You know what? Fuck It!” era of Politics

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*We are now in the “You know what? Fuck it!” era of politics. This is being exhibited during elections and referenda and by politicians themselves as throwing caution to the wind – or simply blurting out exactly what’s on their mind rather than fudging and waffling.

The YKWFI trend can be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint, and you might be delighted with certain manifestations of YKWFI while despairing at others. These moments are not necessarily limited to one end of the political spectrum.

Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump as US president are the two most obvious manifestations of YKWFI. This is not to insult those who voted leave or for Trump – indeed, for many people, to have the YKWFI moment in the privacy of the voting booth in either the EU referendum or the last US presidential election was not necessarily because of stupidity or paucity of intellect* or lack of serious thought and soul-searching before polling day. For many, the YKWFI moment was borne of desperation, of years of feeling neglected, of wanting change even if might seem unpalatable to others, of figuring their vote could lead to an outcome that was a risk worth taking.

Fuck It Politics

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Sneering at Climate Catastrophe

*According to famed conservationist E.O. Wilson, we have entered the Age of Eremocene, or, the age of loneliness. The whales have gone quiet. The mammals, the birds and the insects have vanished. 138 acres of ancient forests are felled every minute. The Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction is occurring as much as 10,000 times the rate of the previous five others.   Hideous.

Image credit: Jose Nino Heredia/Gulf News

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Science Fair: Next Generation Scientists

Science Fair

*National Geographic’s Science Fair, directed by Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster, is an uplifting and inspirational film on the world’s future scientists.

Today, science is everywhere and within everything in our Man-made culture. In fact each month, the average child in the industrialized developed world sends 3,000 texts.

Who amongst us (that are old enough) wasn’t intrigued by the science that enabled Man’s first step on the moon?”

When you enter a dark room and flip the light switch, or flush the toilet many times each day, that’s science and engineering at a rudimentary level. Yet, most of us could not exist without these old technologies. Never mind how inextricably attached everyone is to the internet.
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Best Friends Forever Animals, Camp Fire

*With 150,000 acres scorched and almost 12,000 homes in ruins, the touching animal stories from the Camp Fire in northern California, remind us of gratitude especially for the many intrepid animal rescuers.

Our pets are remarkable friends. Their unconditional love is indeed a treasure trove. Animals are unstinting companions. For some people, pets are their closest family members.

Hundreds of animal rescuers in both the north and the south of the state (which simultaneously experienced the Woolsey Fire) worked ceaselessly to help both domesticated and wild animals affected by the hellacious firestorms.

There are many heartwarming stories arising from California’s most devastating conflagration, the Camp Fire. Allow me to share just a few of them with you.

The incredible rescue of a masterpiece horse. Image credit: Facebook

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Every Minute 138 Acres Looted

*Nature is irrefutably exhibiting the unavoidable effects from extracting and combusting fossil fuels: Death. The latest shocking reminder is the record number of fatalities from last week’s northern California firestorms.

Extinction - California's Camp Fire
California’s Camp Fire was the deadliest firestorm in state history. As of November 16, 2018, there are 63 fatalities and 631 unaccounted people. Image credit: The Weather Channel

In the meantime, the Paris-based International Energy Agency recently projected that by 2025 the U.S. will produce half the global oil and gas from its water-poisoning fracking bonanza.

Here’s what we know: Burning fossil fuels has caused atmospheric oxygen to plummet. Keep Reading

Climate Crisis: California Burning Again

*250,000 Californians from the north and the south are currently evacuated from their communities. At least 48 people are dead with more than 7,000 structures in ruins. It’s five weeks before Christmas and once again firestorms are raging across the Golden State.

Six years of unrelenting drought in tandem with elevated (ocean and air) temperatures are most certainly a deadly combination.

Climate Crisis - California Tree Graveyards
Massive California tree graveyards are spread across 9 million acres. Image credit: readyforwildfire.org

Since 2010, more than 130 million mature trees have perished across the state. Water-starved coniferous trees communicate their plight to bark beetles. The insects deliver the coup de grâce.

In fact, across western North America this is a pattern that’s all too familiar: 30 billion mature dead trees. Instead of removing CO2 and giving off oxygen, gigantic tree graveyards are decomposing and contributing to the overburdened and overheated atmosphere.

No trees. No life.

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Ransacking Russia’s Ancient Forests

*Each year, Man steals $400 billion of wild animals and ancient forests from Nature. In fact, 15 percent, or, 1.14 billion people, rise each morning to kill the planet. Much of this rapacious looting is controlled by organized crime.

Since 1970, 60% of wildlife on land is gone and it’s far worse under the sea, according to the 2018 Living Planet Report from the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF). Insect populations, too, have crashed. 250 billion metric tons annually of deadly Man-made chemicals along with the accelerated ocean heat from combustion of fossil fuels have taken a hideous toll on all earth-bound life.

Beyond toxic chemicals and unrelenting heat, destruction of habitat is also accelerating globally. For example, 104 football fields a minute of ancient forests are razed, 24/7/365.

The most perfect flying rivers and CO2 warehouses, the planet’s terrestrial climate stabilizers, are under siege like never before.

No ancient forests. No animals. No insects. No freshwater. No life.

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Chinese Dolphinariums Fattening Organized Crime

*Since 2014, more than 872 of our brethren, the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) have been captured and enslaved in Chinese dolphinariums, or, amusement aquariums. It’s a horrid industry that pays millions in cash to Japanese and Russian mafia to supply live cetaceans.

Already there are 244 Chinese dolphinariums with Haichang Ocean Park, Guangzhou R & F Properties, Dalian Shengya and Chimelong Group driving rapid expansion of this inhumane industry. 36 new Chinese cetacean prisons are scheduled to open between 2019-2021.

This insatiable lust for more dolphins is stoking the monstrous drive-hunts that are taking place at this very moment off the shores of Taiji, Japan. Every morning, my colleagues at Sea Shepherd, the Dolphin Project and others awaken to bear witness to the cold-blooded and diabolical slaying and capturing of dolphins and porpoises.

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Nature’s High-Tech Flying Mammals

*Bats are extraordinary pollinators and insect-eating creatures. These admirable masterpieces are the unsung heroes of the night sky. The last week of October is known as Bat Week. It’s a time to celebrate these beauties and to recognize their plight.

Bats have inhabited the planet for 50 million years. There are approximately 1,300 bat species worldwide, including 47 in the U.S. and 18 kinds in Canada.

Bats - long-nosed bat
The diminutive Mexican lesser long-nosed bat is a vital pollinator of the giant saguaro cacti and the agaves (used to make tequila). Each year, they migrate from Mexico to the U.S. following the “nectar trail.” Image credit: National Parks Service

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PRO-LIFE/PRO-CHOICE DECISION

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pro life pro choice decision

*Stealth marketing and masked political statements have made Roe v. Wade/Abortion a veiled issue in most elections. The pro-life, pro-choice debate never happened because of the distraction of money. Sure, there has been talking, yapping, yelling, arguing, but no debate.

Before reading any further, from one to 10 rate these factors according to values. Keep Reading

Ancient Forests Key to Bees’ Survival

Ancient Forests Key to Bees' Survival

*The world’s remaining ancient forests are breathtaking “flying rivers.” They move water on almost inconceivably large scales. The ancient forests are also vital medicine chests for the bees.

The oceans are the main drivers of climate, yet new information reveals just how critical ancient forests are at creating climate and influencing it across a continent and around the globe. When ancient forests are razed, all hell breaks loose halfway around the world.

Bees - Amazon rainforest clouds
The Amazon rainforest clouds are vital for reflecting incoming solar radiation to space and keeping the jungle habitable. Image credit: Quanta Magazine

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Nature’s 2018 Vivid Canvas

*As 2018 draws to a close our hot, overcrowded ravaged planet is bellowing a lucid S.O.S. distress code. It’s painfully obvious yet conveniently dismissed by the world leaders and the international bankers.

The latest United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report forewarns of pending extreme heat, drought, firestorms, floods, loss of coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest as well as food insecurity unless immediate actions are undertaken. Keep Reading

Bloodthirsty Annihilation of Wolves

*Wolves are doctors of the land. Today, in America these doctors are being decimated at an accelerated rate.

This is a heartbreaking bloodbath.  What man does to the wolves, he does to himself.

No wolves. No forests. No life.

Wolves - Howl of the wolf
The howl of the wolf is the call of Nature. Image credit: Jeff Vanuga

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Losing Your Mind, Fossil Fuel Smog

*Today, most of civilization exists within congested smoggy cities. Fossil fuel air pollution, including filthy diesel fumes loaded with fine particles of nitric oxide and nitrogen oxide, are quickly crippling, dogs, bees and man.

About two decades ago in Mexico City, my colleagues began investigating an increasing number of howling frightened dogs that grew disoriented and incapable of recognizing their owners.

They examined the dog’s brains and found them coated with the protein amyloid beta, or, plaque, linked with Alzheimer’s disease. The dogs, they concluded after further experiments, had lost their minds from breathing the exhaust fumes of fossil fuel combustion.

Fossil Fuel Pollution - Bees
Bees pollinate most of the 80,000 species of trees on Earth. Image credit: Reese Halter

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Fossil Fuels Poisoning Children

*In 2018, we learned the ubiquitous extent of fossil fuel poisons. It is now so egregious that before a human fetus is even born, it’s toxic from fossil fuel pollution.

In April, the Health Effects Institute yearly State of the Global Air revealed that 95 percent of all humans, or, 7.2 billion people, are non-stop inhaling putrid fossil fuel air above the World Health Organization’s “safe level.”

Fossil Fuels - New Delhi pollution
Half of New Delhi’s 4.4 million schoolchildren have permanently stunted lung development from breathing fossil fuel pollution. Image credit: VOA News

Also in April, a research team led by the University of Montana found that 99.5 percent of 203 autopsies from Mexico City, ages ranging from 11 months to 40 years old, possessed the telltales of Alzheimer’s disease in their brainstems from breathing poisonous fossil fuel air. The scientists concluded that those children and young adults also faced an elevated risk of suicide.

Children in cities are at risk of losing their minds from breathing air, their birthright. Hideous.

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Constitutional Confrontation – Kaepernick’s Protest

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Colin Kaepernick

*All men are created equal, and Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people to assemble peaceably, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  These parts of the Constitution appears to trouble many Americans.

We respond to our emotions sometimes more quickly than others. It is hard to do the right thing when you we not know what the right thing is. We do not want to impose on others what we do not wish for ourselves as universal law of the Golden Rule.

We learn to stand for the National Anthem from custom, not law. The formal standard has been; stand, remove hats and place your right hand over your heart. As eyes or television cameras scroll the coinurts or stadiums, persons are talking, holding their drinks, and wearing hats. Such lack of attention causes heartburn to the point of almost saying, “Hey Butthole, respect the flag, respect the anthem, respect those that fought for America. Take off your hat; aren’t you American?

The question answers itself. The buttholes may be visitors, not American. Colin Kaepernick, a black football player, is now accused of being un-American. With little attention to our Constitution, what has taken issue is the interpretation of those that have fought for our flag and respect for our national anthem.

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Salish Sea Orcas SOS

Salish Sea Orcas

*Another dead wolf, J50, of the Salish Sea, the third one in 2018. The Pacific Northwest’s picturesque sea is being lambasted by a man-made accelerated climate crisis, hideous poisons and the man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction, which has shifted into overdrive.

Salish Sea Map
foo Photo credit: Crag Law Center

The Salish Sea is a global hotspot for acidification, a glaring symptom of burning more subsidized climate-destroying fossil fuels. As the sea absorbs more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels it’s rapidly deforming shellfish and coral reefs because acid melts calcium carbonate the backbone of both shells and reefs. The Salish Sea web of life is quickly unravelling.

At the top of the Salish Sea food chain, the critically endangered pods (J,K,L) of Southern Resident orcas are wasting away. The past 18 months have been horrendous.”

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9/11 ROSEMARY PLUS ONE

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September 11th

*The terrorist actions of 9/11/2001 are chronic and ever-present. We share a common duty to honor and remember those suffering through unimaginable death. Deeply distressing is that the hallowed annual readings throughout cities in America of victims have missing names and the count of souls has not come to an end.

This year’s Police Memorial Ceremony at the nation’s capital in May, chilled attendants from the announcement of the 2017 deceased local, state and federal officers fallen ill from toxic exposure at Ground Zero while saving lives, retrieving bodies, and securing evidence or vestiges; evidence our environment relates to our health.

Much like Hurricane Maria’s first reported 64 deaths in Puerto Rico to the number of 2,975, twenty-three New York City Police officers died at the World Trade Center on September 11, but in the last 17 years, 156 have perished from noxious illnesses. From the 343 firefighters that died on 9/11, there have been 182 more deaths reported. The FBI registers 15 additional FBI Agents that have died related to 9/11. The count at the Pentagon needs adjustment.

Pentagon September 11th memorial
Pentagon September 11th memorial

Rosa Maria (Rosemary) Chapa at age 64 had talked to her husband JJ about retirement yet like any other Tuesday, went to work at the Pentagon. Her office had recently moved to the renovated west side of the first floor, Office of the Comptroller for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda took her highly spirited, giving and determined life with 183 other souls, 59 were aboard American Airlines flight 77.

She left behind her husband, five children and her dog Lucky.

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