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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Missouri, USA
Posts: 4,814
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► Earth’s Biosphere Under Siege
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Some Lowlights Of 2018:
The global elite ... continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy [and] climate and [proliferating] environmental destruction, [as well as] the refugee crisis, among many other violent impacts, in pursuit of greater elite power, profit and privilege.
International organizations ... and national governments used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems around the world to serve the global elite by defending [their] interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations audacious enough to challenge elite power, profit and privilege.
$1.7 trillion USD was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other life forms, and to destroy the biosphere.
... so out-of-control is this spending that the United States has now spent $21 TRILLION on its military in the past 20 years, for which it cannot even account! ... $1 TRILLION each year ... above the official U.S. national budget for killing is "lost."
War and other military violence continued to rage across the planet, wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa ... three quarters of the entire Yemeni population, 22 MILLION [people, are] dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance to survive.
Not content with the nature and extent of the military violence [that] they are inflicting already, during 2018, [the] elites continued to plan how to do it more effectively in [the] future, with research and development of artificial intelligence [being] just one manifestation of this. An “arms race in AI” is now underway, with the U.S., China, Russia and other nations [including Britain, Israel and South Korea] seeking to gain a critical advantage in the weaponization of artificial intelligence and robotics, so that artificial intelligence will [eventually] be applied to every aspect of warfare, from logistics and surveillance, to target identification and battle management.
The United States government unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which limits the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
Another significant proportion of global private financial wealth [conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total $21 - 32 TRILLION USD] has been invested, virtually tax-free, through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 offshore tax havens ... A big share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other things that count as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshore structures, where it is impossible to identify the owners.
Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. Their business is fraud and grand theft. Tax haven locations offer more than [just] tax avoidance; almost anything goes ... [including] bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software and endless other lawless practices.
The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence [in a myriad of ways] in their pursuit of endless profit, at the expense of living beings [human and otherwise] and Earth’s biosphere, by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products, [including] nuclear weapons, nuclear power, junk food, pharmaceutical drugs, synthetic poisons and GMOs. These corporations include ... weapons manufacturers, major banks and their industry groups, ... the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agro-chemical giants, pharmaceutical corporations, bio-technology corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations.
More than a BILLION people continued to live under occupation, dictatorship or threat of genocidal assault.
36,500,000 human beings were starved to death.
18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars ...
8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery, executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped, bred to be sold as a "cash crop" for sexual violation, to produce child pornography and snuff movies, ritually tortured and murdered, as well as raped by dogs ...
HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals ... to lives of sexual slavery, forced labor or ... child soldiers.
Well over 100,000 people in China ... were subjected to forced organ removal for [black market trading].
15,750,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 68,500,000 people, more [than] half of whom are children, and 10,000,000 of whom are stateless, who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. 1 person in the world is forcibly displaced every 2 seconds.
MILLIONS of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, "natural" disasters, internal conflict, poverty, or as a result of elite-driven national economic policy. The last time a global survey was attempted [by the U.N. in 2005], an estimated 100 MILLION people were homeless, worldwide. As many as 1.6 BILLION people lack adequate housing ...
73,000 species of life on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of insects, including vital pollinators such as bees, now between 75% and 90%, depending on the species.
Separately from global species extinctions, Earth continued to experience a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services [which are] vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation,” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event. Moreover, local population extinctions are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.
Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 BILLION USD in 2018, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware / unconcerned consumers in the West.
16,000,000 acres of pristine rainforest were destroyed, with more than 40,000 tropical tree species now threatened with extinction.
Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents and organic pollutants were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste.
The TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan discharged 109,000 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean, killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms, and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of [the] ocean.
Human use of fossil fuels ... released 10 BILLION metric tons of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere, a 2.7% increase over 2017. As a measure of their concern, elite-controlled governments and corporations around the world are currently planning or have under construction 1,380 new coal plants ... in 59 countries.
90 BILLION land animals and 60 BILLION marine animals were killed for human consumption. More than 100 MILLON animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the U.S. alone, and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports.
... 40 MILLION animals were killed for their fur. Approximately 30 MILLION of these animals were raised on fur farms and killed. Aabout 10 MILLION wild animals were trapped and killed, and HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of seals were killed for their fur.
Farming of animals for human consumption released 7,100,000,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane [which was 44% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions], 29% as Nitrous Oxide [which was 53% of anthropogenic N2O emissions] and 27% as Carbon Dioxide [which was 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions].
Human use of fossil fuels and farming of animals released 3.2 MILLION metric tons of [CO2 equivalent] nitrous oxide into Earth’s atmosphere.
As a result of previous greenhouse gas emissions and the consequent rise of about 1 degree celsius in the global temperature, causing the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates, an incalculable quantity of methane was uncontrollably released into the atmosphere during 2018 ...
Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate. [The Earth lost] 219 BILLION tons of ice in 2018, at a rate that has accelerated three-fold in the last 5 years.
An incalculable amount of agricultural poisons, fossil fuels and other wastes was discharged into the ocean, adversely impacting life at all ocean depths ... generating ocean "dead zones" [regions that have too little oxygen to support marine organism].
At least 8 MILLION metric tons of plastic, of which 236,000 tons were micro-plastics, was discharged into the ocean.
Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. These contaminants included bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems, hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites [of which there are 20,000+ in the U.S. alone], leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners, pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens, radioactive waste from nuclear tests, and the chemical contamination caused by [fracking] in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used.
The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering, spraying TENS of MILLIONS of tons of highly toxic metals and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather, in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengneering is systematically destroying Earth’s ozone layer, which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface, as well as adversely altering Earth’s weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere.
As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world.
Despite the belief that we have "the right to privacy," privacy [in any sense of the word] was ongoingly eroded in 2018, and is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet [the owner of Google]. [Collectively], Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, AirBnB, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter and Angry Birds have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to and who we see ... is [all] recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value. Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the U.S. government, the U.S. military, the CIA and major U.S. weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximize profits for shareholders, and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite.
The right to free speech was ongoingly eroded in 2018.
Believing that we know better than evolution, humans created the first gene-edited baby in 2018.
An incalculable amount of junk was added to the 100 TRILLION items of junk already in Space.
Incalculable amounts of antibiotic waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms were released into Earth’s biosphere.
Ongoing violence against children ... ensured that more people will grow up accepting [and quite powerless to challenge] our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.
The corporate media, education and entertainment industries continued to distract us from reality, ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament and their own role in it, let alone what they can do to respond powerfully.
While the above list of the setbacks humanity and the Earth suffered in 2018 is very incomplete, it still provides clear evidence that humanity is rapidly entering a dystopian future ... The good news is that, at the current rate, this dystopian world will be short-lived, as humans drive themselves over the edge of extinction.
... were there any gains made against this onslaught?
Of course, it goes without saying that the global elite, international organizations, governments, corporations and other elite agents continued to live in delusion / denial, endlessly blocking any initiative requiring serious action that would cut into corporate profits, or arguing over tangential issues of insignificant consequence to humanity’s future.
In short, I could find no record of official efforts during the year to plan for the development and implementation of a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace, but perhaps I missed it.
Separately from this, there have been some minor activist gains. For example, some western banks and insurance companies are no longer financially supporting the expansion of the western weapons ... and ... coal industry, some rainforest groups have managed to save portions of Earth’s rainforest heritage and activist groups continue to work on a variety of issues, sometimes making modest gains.
In essence, however, as you probably realize, many of the issues above are not even being tackled and, even when they are, activist efforts have been hampered by inadequate analysis of the forces driving conflicts and problems, limited vision [particularly unambitious aims such as those in relation to ending war and the climate catastrophe], unsophisticated strategy [necessary to have profound impact against a deeply entrenched, highly organized and well-resourced opponent, with the endless lobbying of elite institutions, such as governments and corporations, despite this effort simply absorbing and dissipating our dissent, as is intended – as Mark Twain once noted: "If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it."], and failure to make the difficult decisions to promote necessary solutions that are unpopular.
Fundamentally, these difficult decisions include the vital need to campaign for the human population, particularly in the West, to substantially reduce their consumption – by 80% – involving both energy and resources of every kind, as the central feature of any strategy to curtail destruction of the environment and climate, to undermine capitalism and to eliminate the primary driver of war: violent resource acquisition from Middle Eastern and developing nations, for the production of consumer goods and services for western consumers.
While we live in the delusion that we can simply substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels and nuclear power [or believe such delusions that a 1.5 degree Celsius increase above the pre-industrial temperature is acceptable or that we have an end-of-century timeframe to solve the climate crisis], we ignore the fundamental reality that Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts, as a result of our endless extraction of its natural resources, such as fresh water, minerals, timber and, again, fossil fuels, for consumer production and the provision of services that go well beyond energy.
In short, for example, we will not save the world’s rainforests because we switch to renewable energy. We must reduce demand for the consumer products that require rainforest inputs. We must stop mining the Earth for minerals that end up in our mobile phones, computers, vehicles, ships and aircraft, by not using the products and services [which] these minerals make possible. We must stop eating meat and other animal products. And so the list goes on.
Forecasting 2019:
In many ways, it is painful to forecast what will happen in 2019, mainly because of the absurd simplicity of doing so. It will be another year when vital opportunities will be lost, when so much is at stake.
Given the insanity of the global elite ... which will continue to drive the dynamics [which produce] the lowlights mentioned above with the active complicity of their agents in governments and corporations, coupled with a human population that is largely terrified, self-hating and powerless, to resist ... it is a straightforward task to forecast what will happen in 2019.
So, unless you play your part, 2019 and the few years thereafter, will simply be increasingly worse versions of 2018, and it will all be over by 2026.
Responding Powerfully:
If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multi-faceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited to consider joining those participating in "The Flame Tree Project To Save Life On Earth," which outlines a simple plan for you to systematically reduce your consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind [water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic, etc.], while dramatically expanding your individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental and climate concerns are effectively addressed.
If you are also interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to systematically address one of the issues identified above, you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same ...
To reiterate: capitalism, war and destruction of the environment and climate are outcomes of our dysfunctional parenting of children which distorts their intellectual and emotional capacities, destroys their conscience and courage and actively teaches them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied.... In summary: if we do not rapidly, systematically and substantially reduce our consumption in several key areas and radically alter our parenting model, while resisting elite violence strategically on several fronts, [homo sapiens] will enter Earth’s fossil record within a few years. Given the fear, self-hatred and powerlessness that paralyses most humans, your choices in these regards are even more vital than you realize.
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01-04-2019, 06:46 AM
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