tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post3539159303983037408..comments2024-03-28T15:34:01.401-04:00Comments on Politics and its Discontents: Prognosis: GrimLornehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-81723435334525392122014-05-23T12:35:43.023-04:002014-05-23T12:35:43.023-04:00Your comments incisively illustrate the terrible s...Your comments incisively illustrate the terrible situation we have gotten ourselves into, Mound. Paralysis by our so-called leaders, coupled with the short-shortsightedness of our greed-driven corporate overlords, offer little hope for our future. A revolt by the people seems unlikely, given that humanity seems cursed with an inability to contemplate its own demise. Where once politics offered a means of progress, now it functions only to maintain the status quo. I see little prospect for things improving.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-48952618801552102822014-05-23T11:40:32.460-04:002014-05-23T11:40:32.460-04:00When I read something like this I often get that f...When I read something like this I often get that feeling I experienced as a child in reading Nevil Shute's "On the Beach." Why does it fall to people like Kevin Farmer to plead for action in a letter to the editor? Why is this challenge, that threatens us like no other in the history of Canada, not being trumpeted daily on the floor of the House of Commons and in a half dozen committee rooms on Parliament Hill? Harper is plainly of the dark side but why have the Liberals and New Democrats so abandoned the nation and our people? <br /><br />Lorne, I think the motto for the Anthropocene should be "Here and Now" for unless it's here and now it doesn't matter. That consigns us to a tail chase in climate change, one in which we're falling behind ever faster. <br /><br />Even if we focused on adaptation, the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to be invested in new and upgraded infrastructure - reservoirs, floodways, rail systems, bridge and roadway repair and reinforcement - at least we'd be doing something good for the country. Instead our government is focused on building dilbit pipelines, a here and now effort if there ever was one.<br /><br />I read today about the failure of this year's wheat crop in much of America's drought-stricken grainbelt states. With a major El Nino expected by mid-summer, Australia may also be in for a major crop failure. Australia's record heatwaves of last year were during an ENSO-neutral period. China and India are water stressed this year. I guess that could leave Canada and Russia. <br /><br />We keep hyping the notion of a big climate deal in 2015 but the industrial and energy policies of the big emitters suggest a serious schizophrenia that may, yet again, undermine meaningful action, this time perhaps for good.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.com