It's because of the already extant overburden of Carbon Dioxide (402 ppm), Methane (1830 ppb), Nitrous Oxide, Ozone, etc. We now are at a global warming of 0.92 C since the 1880s -- 0.76 C since 1950 and 0.80 C since 1750, the dawn of industrialization! And already we are having Global Weirding in the weather!
The driving force behind all this -- and controlling the governments -- are the top 0.1%, particularly those who profit from fossil fuels extraction, prime example being the Koch Brothers. And why this driving force? It's as Dmitry Orlov said, it's due to Moneybag Logic:
This logic says that having more money is always good, having less money is always bad, and that therefore everyone should do everything possible to make sure that there is always more money. If that requires turning the Earth into a polluted, radioactive, lifeless desert, so be it.So here's a subthread I've taken from RobertScribbler's blog article World In Hot Water: Screaming Sea Surface Temperatures Push Globe To Hottest June Yet, and am reblogging it here.
May this begin a discussion.
Raymond DeBrane / July 22, 2014
I think the Koch Brothers and other oil and coal billionaires will have to bargain with the military and pay them huge amounts of cash to secure a place in underground shelters such as DUMBS. I strongly suspect that when TSHTF, those rich guys will be tossed out as human garbage when money becomes worthless and there’s nothing more to be gained by the military by giving them food, water, shelter, etc. Since the military is well armed, I’m fairly sure that the military will shoot them down without care or remorse to save the resources they would consume to use for more deserving people. It will be a just end for them all.
Andy (in San Diego) / July 23, 2014
The military can now legally operate on domestic soil. Cdn + US govt and military signed an agreement a couple of years ago such that they can operate on each others soil during unrest. All the Kochs (and ilk) need to do is own those that tell the military what to do. They have this covered. Greedy yes, and also quite smart.
robertscribbler / July 23, 2014
Clever, but not smart. Smart people don’t invest in fossil fuels and suppress the alternatives. The Kochs are two clever chaps who’ve long since lost limbic brain functionality.
robertscribbler / July 23, 2014
I’d also call them monstrous ignoramuses and lump them in with the villainous personas of our age. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to what’s smart.
In any case, I seriously doubt the Kochs will be able to leverage special military protection, especially when it’s completely obvious to military planners that they’re fighting for the wrong side.
robertscribbler / July 23, 2014
To this point, you may want to read the book — Soft Apocalypse.
At some point, the military becomes saturated with problems and loses broader functioning. We have 10,000 people fighting fires on the west coast right now. Two brigades worth just to fight fires. How will it look in twenty years? What happens when you’re dealing with mass migration, probably violent unrest, states bordering on collapse, people rioting because their seaside homes were destroyed and there’s no insurance or disaster relief money left, people starving because the Kochs pushed them off food stamps, food riots because the crops failed and people like the Kochs pushed them off food stamps. Who are the people in the military going to sympathize with? The Kochs? You end up with that level of corruption and the whole system collapses pretty quick.
I’m thinking the Kochs have their oxes gored long before that point.
Raymond DeBrane / July 23, 2014
to Robert,
I believe, even now, politicians know they are working for the wrong side. Ditto conservative media personalities. As long as the Kochs and other billionaires keep the money flowing to them, they will continue to shill for the wrong side. I think they and the military will take all the money they can get from those guys until things get so out of hand that the banks and the government, and the populace are crippled by financial and environmental collapse, massive gasoline shortages, people out of work that can’t pay for the gas that is available, and not able to pay for food at the grocery store, if it is still available. Then and only then will the Kochs and their ilk become excess baggage, expendable.
If you expect the people in general to come for the Kochs and their ilk, half the country won’t because they are hopelessly brainwashed by conservative media types to be for the policies of the Kochs, and to hate and despise billionaire George Soros, who is fighting the Kochs. Most people I’ve talked to never even heard of the Kochs, and they have no idea of the big picture of what those billionaires are up to and how bad a state the world is in right now because of climate change. Add to that that even people in this blog think that Prof Guy McPherson is wrong about NTE beginning around 2030, and you have people thinking that that can’t happen. It’s too soon. Everybody please Google John Mercer and read about his 1978 prediction about if we keep burning fossil fuels, we will melt the glaciers. As I mentioned previously, he took a lot of flack from his colleagues,, but modern scientists have found him to be a profit.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
robertscribbler / July 23, 2014
Corrupt political systems fail, media systems based on propaganda fail, and, in the end, people come after the Kochs. Absolutely.
In any case, I’m not so cynical as to believe that the Kochs own the system or that the situation is quite so altogether dark. Do the conservatives own the system? They’ve been more and more marginalized despite massive sums of money expended. They wouldn’t work so hard to suppress the vote if elections didn’t matter.
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