Just some random news here, make of it what you will, because I’m done trying to convince the willfully blind they can see. Connect the dots, or don’t.
“Indeed, experts agree that no lifestyle adjustment can replace sustainable development.
Researchers have linked these and other extreme heat events around the world to man-made global warming, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. Shortening school days and staying indoors during peak hours are surface-level solutions which often come with their own hidden costs. Lourdes Tibig, climate science adviser for the Philippines-based Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, says that recent extreme heat underscores “the importance of incorporating climate change and resiliency into long-term development planning.”
On Geoengineering, most infamous Geoengineer, Dr. D. Keith:
“It’s not really a moral hazard, it’s more like free riding on our grandkids.”
New from Dr. David Keith:
“David Keith has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy for twenty-five years. He took first prize in Canada’s national physics prize exam, won MIT’s prize for excellence in experimental physics, and was one of TIME magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. Keith is Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and founder of Carbon Engineering, a company developing technology to capture CO2 from ambient air to make carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels. Best known for his work on the science, technology, and public policy of solar geoengineering, Keith led the development of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, a Harvard-wide interfaculty research initiative.”
Abstract Temperature-attributable mortality is a major risk of climate change. We analyze the capacity of solar geoengineering (SG) to reduce this risk and compare it to the impact of equivalent cooling from CO2 emissions reductions. We use the Forecast-Oriented Low Ocean Resolution model to simulate climate response to SG. Using empirical estimates of the historical relationship between temperature and mortality from Carleton et al. (2022), we project global and regional temperature-attributable mortality, find that SG reduces it globally, and provide evidence that this impact is larger than for equivalent cooling from emissions reductions. At a regional scale, SG moderates the risk in a majority of regions but not everywhere. Finally, we find that the benefits of reduced temperature-attributable mortality considerably outweigh the direct human mortality risk of sulfate aerosol injection. These findings are robust to a variety of alternative assumptions about socioeconomics, adaptation, and SG implementation.
“The nebulous nebula that is Congress cannot escape from a vast black hole of wasteful spending. The debt ceiling debacle demonstrated that lawmakers are light-years away from sustainable spending reforms. One problem is that agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), have had a veritable blank check to waste taxpayer dollars as they see fit. For example, NASA’s mission back to the moon has already been plagued by scheduling delays and cost overruns, and taxpayers will likely have to shell out $100 billion before another “small step” can happen. Policymakers must reassess mission priorities and blaze a better path forward before more taxpayer dollars are shuttled to NASA. According to a new audit by NASA’s Inspector General (IG), the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket slated to ferry astronauts to the moon is an astounding $6 billion over budget. NASA had originally thought that using some of its older technologies (e.g., Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs) would save the mission money and incorporated these savings into initial cost estimates. But, “the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated” and costs have skyrocketed out of control.”
St. Louis, one of many favored hotspots of experimentation and where I grew up. Like many ‘sacrifice zones’ I grew up hearing the propaganda: “If you don’t like the weather in Missouri, just wait 5 minutes.” This was common throughout many states of the Midwest, not just Missouri. The truth is, few alive today know truly natural weather. It’s been manipulated since before air travel even existed! If they can do it on a small scale in the 60s, they can do it regionally and beyond today.
Weird scenes inside the homestead! What have we to add to the big wide web of weird today? A couple of things only, along with some sad news and some happy snaps. Successes and failures, as usual. Trying to keep them all in stride, which with the wild flowers and a short country drive, isn’t too big a challenge at the moment.
Creepy visitor appearing everywhere after the rains
Best to get the crap out of the way first, I prefer. We’ve got seemingly severe blackberry failure and an established bee colony suddenly lost. I could write exhaustively on just those two, but since I’m already exhausted, I’ll keep it brief. And continue the relentless churning in my mind alone.
These photos and several more have seen the cyber rounds this week, let me assure you! And the cornucopia of responses we’ve received is rather astounding. Long story short—we’ve had some lovely rains, finally. But it sent our blackberries from thriving and gorgeous, to this brown, crispy-looking horror nearly overnight.
Not just a few bushes either, the entire row, a dozen bushes easy. It looks terrible. So we got a bit frantic and have been sending photos to Ison’s Nursery, where we got them. Also, to various friends and forums, where we’ve had answers to run the gamut: too dry, a virus, a fungus, a blight, Botryosphaeria canker, empty pocket syndrome, aphid damage, and then the kicker . . . This is totally normal development.
Wait, whaaat??
You mean to tell me these could be normally progressing blackberries and after many years of growing blackberries we just never noticed it before?!
Well that would certainly be a big and welcomed WOW! Yes please!
But unfortunately, I don’t think so. They look brown and shriveled beyond anything I’ve seen in any of the online photorama. And there’s no sign of aphids, and it’s not cane blight, and it’s certainly not too dry, although I totally understand that guess, since that’s exactly what it looks like.
And I do so appreciate all the speculation, seriously! It gets me thinking and exploring every time and I do so love all the effort and camaraderie inherit in it. Be wrong, it’s not the end of the world!
Of course, what I did so notice among the seeds of speculation was the one that was, unsurprisingly, totally missing. Toxic rain perhaps? Some other oddities in the atmosphere, perhaps? Not on anyone’s radar? Really?
No idea what’s happening in this photo with the blue dot-purple ring, I just snapped the shot with the tablet as soon as I saw the trail while busy in the garden.
On better themes . . .
I also took some lovely happy snaps of the wild flowers blooming along the road, which was so much more gorgeous than what I was able to capture here. But I tried, and that should count for something, no?
And on that note, this post will have a Part 2 to finish later, cause that’s all I can manage at the moment. More to follow, so much more!
Thanks for stopping by!
I leave with a song that motivates me when I really need it most. Hope it works for y’all too!
This post is inspired by Alison McDowell’s series, Letters from the Labyrinth.
Attention all Dandelions!
I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Czech Republic from 1994-1996, returning there in 1998-9 to teach at the Natural Sciences Faculty at Charles University in Prague.
I’ve written often about my experience and consider those years to have been formative on many levels, including that which defines my worldview to the present day.
While I have written often about those years, I have shared almost no criticism about my time there or the Peace Corps as an institution. I wrote a blog with other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers for several years, from which I was unceremoniously deplatformed as soon as I ventured into (unbeknownst to me at the time) the forbidden territory of ‘conspiracy theory’.
The Peace Corps was established in 1961 by John F. Kennedy. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
From Wiki: “On March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 that officially started the Peace Corps. Concerned with the growing tide of revolutionary sentiment in the Third World, Kennedy saw the Peace Corps as a means of countering the stereotype of the “Ugly American” and “Yankee imperialism,” especially in the emerging nations of post-colonial Africa and Asia.[28][29] Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to be the program’s first director. Shriver fleshed out the organization and his think tank outlined the organization’s goals and set the initial number of volunteers. The Peace Corps began recruiting in July 1962; Bob Hope recorded radio and television announcements hailing the program.”
Globalism, before it was cool.
The organization was in the Czech Republic for only seven years. From the Peace Corps’ ‘legacy booklet’:
“Through the work and contributions of Volunteers, the Peace Corps has emerged as a model of success for efforts to promote sustainable development at the grass-roots level. The Peace Corps, however, is much more than a development agency. Volunteers embody some of America’s most enduring values: optimism, freedom, and opportunity. Volunteers bring these values to communities around the world not to impose them on other people or cultures, but to build the bridges of friendship and understanding that are the foundation of peace among nations.”
A portion of Vaclav Havel’s parting statement to the Peace Corps: “The results of the Peace Corps’ work can be seen throughout the Republic. The Peace Corps assisted in establishing many new libraries, completed more than 100 ecological projects, and gave more than one thousand Czech entrepreneurs the opportunity to gain new business experience.” Prague, 1997
Ambassador Shirley Temple Black attended the official opening of the Peace Corps office in Prague in 1991.
Speaking of Temple-Black: According to Kounalakis, “Her personal and informal style worked well with the new government, made up of formerly imprisoned, hard laboring and human rights Charter 77-signing artists, musicians, actors and a playwright president named Vaclav Havel. Many of those new Czechoslovak political leaders admired their American colleague, President Ronald Reagan, an actor-politician like themselves who expressed in the clearest terms – and to the whole world – their deepest desire for freedom.”
The dissident playwright turned politician, President Vaclav Havel’s wife was also a famous actress. Olga Havlová – Wikipedia
Also from Wiki:
“Havel was born in Prague on 5 October 1936[8] into a wealthy family celebrated in Czechoslovakia for its entrepreneurial and cultural accomplishments. His grandfather, Vácslav Havel, a real estate developer, built a landmark entertainment complex on Prague’s Wenceslas Square. His father, Václav Maria Havel, was the real estate developer behind the suburban Barrandov Terraces, located on the highest point of Prague—next door to which his uncle, Miloš Havel, built one of the largest film studios in Europe.[9] Havel’s mother, Božena Vavrečková,[10] also came from an influential family; her father was a Czechoslovak ambassador and a well-known journalist.
“He was known for his essays, most particularly The Power of the Powerless (1978), in which he described a societal paradigm in which citizens were forced to “live within a lie” under the Communist regime.[19] In describing his role as a dissident, Havel wrote in 1979: “we never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less.”[20]
As far as Peace Corps assignments go, I was sometimes rightly chided as having ‘served’ in the “Paris of the Peace Corps.” I did not live in a village in a shack without running water, as is often the stereotype, and sometimes the reality.
I got lucky, very lucky in fact. I was assigned to a brand new school, with a private office, and lived in the vacated 2-bedroom flat of the school’s principal. It even had a private phone.
At the Ambassador’s Residence in Prague, feeling sophisticated. Champagne socialism, free-market capitalism? Who knew, who cared?!
A short time after arriving I was summoned to the state-of-the-art, just being organized, computer room. I had requested an e-mail address. The teacher running the show was excited, thrilled even, to have someone even remotely interested in his very claustrophobic cyber-world.
The enormous room was full of donated equipment, mostly used, monitors and hard-drives and equipment I didn’t recognize were stacked up on every inch of the floor and only he and a handful of others knew how to use it all, or even cared to use any of it.
And new shipments were coming in at a regular clip. He couldn’t keep up with all the offerings.
At the same time, the old Soviet materials were stacked up on the street twice a week to be hauled away by the trash crew. Huge stacks of newspapers, magazines, books, busts, badges, portraits that seemed bottomless in those early days.
“We just traded one Big Brother for another,” one teacher quipped.
I was thrilled to be there. I fully expected to find, as per the slogan, “The toughest job you’ll ever love.” Bring it on, I thought.
But, I was young and naive and idealistic and I didn’t understand bureaucracy. I was dumb enough to think I was supposed to be honest on the seemingly endless ‘ratings forms’ we were required to complete. Instead of spend five minutes giving five stars and glowing reports to any and all activities and instructors like most of my fellows, I actually thought about it, wrote what I thought needed improvement, made suggestions I thought would be helpful.
That got me labeled as a complainer almost immediately, I later learned.
One thing we weren’t supposed to complain about was the vaccine schedule. Even though some volunteers were insisting they were getting sick from it.
However, the Volunteer Handbook was unequivocal. “Also during Staging, you will be given immunizations that are required for overseas travel and for re-entry into the United States. Please do not obtain any immunization before going to Staging. If you are sensitive to any immunizing agents or medications, or have religious reservations concerning the taking of immunizations or medications, you should notify the Office of Medical Services before accepting an invitation to training.”
Other project missions had impressive corporate sponsors, like the English-language essay contest about women’s role in Czech society, organized by Fran Aun, currently a Public Relations professional with such current successes as the trans campaign:
You can pee next to me!
Fran Aun’s efforts in Prague got me noticed. Hmmm, yikes?
Me, so proud, sitting at the table in the middle for our celebratory cruise on the Vltava, because my students dominated the essay contest winning multiple corporate-sponsored prizes, including a new computer for my 1st place winner and a super fancy new copy machine for my school.
The Peace Corps is now hiring for a new position: Climate Financing Support Specialist.
My Report Card for the Agency, according to their own stated goals:
To help the people of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower, particularly in meeting the basic needs of those living in the poorest areas of such countries,
And to help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served
And a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people.
As for goal number one, I give a C-. I do not consider an essay questioning women’s role in modern society to be more in line with basic needs of the poorest children in orphanages.
As for goal number two, I give a B+. That is, considering the people who were actually served were not those needing to meet basic needs, but those with an American-loving entrepreneurial spirit, that seems ‘fair’, I guess.
As for goal number three, I give an unequivocal F. The only stories that are allowed are those demonstrating our relentless positivity and the plate-spinning and mask juggling and illusions of a thousand other cultures who apparently dream of becoming just like U.S.
What I actually learned in my service from the Czech people, and tried to bring back home to fulfill the 3rd goal was categorical rejected by the current day Peace Corps: suspicion of government, especially volunteering; the critical importance of life skills; self-reliance over government reliance; local aid over foreign aid; and in fact, a good dose of paranoia, which was rampant among the Czechs, and would be wisely adopted by the majority of U.S. in the present times.
The line between entrepreneurs, civil servants, and philanthropists was breached ages ago, and it seems like Americans might be the last to know.
Fellow RPCV TEFL Volunteer, Antonio Lopez, “While I was serving my term as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I was definitely aware that a large scale societal change was under way, and that I was taking part in it. I guess I felt that way because I was a teacher working with teenagers, people who are always in a process of change and seeing the world around them with fresh eyes.”
I’m not sure what to make of it, but I’m sharing this quickie just the same.
A gorgeous day of new life, new moves, and what feels like genuinely natural weather for a change.
First rose, first poppy, first lamb and the kittens come out to play. 🤗
Just a few minutes old and already knows the routine
And, I expect Geoengineering/weather modification has hit the popular charts, at last, yay!
I will admit I thought this very popular channel must be shills of some sort, because they seemed to be completely avoiding the obvious weather warfare for years now.
Be that as it may, they’ve been clueing in more and more lately, and now, I consider their cherry popped. It’s about time! I don’t know what to make of it exactly, but I do believe in the gaming world it means we’ve just leveled up.
I wish I knew how many people have questioned the existence of viruses. Certainly in the last few years that number has jumped significantly thanks to the work of ‘Team No Virus’ and the mountain range of material they have contributed to the debate.
Still, most folks have no idea there is a debate happening at all, unfortunately. I hope I’m wrong! But, even among anti-vaxxers I get the impression that the viral delusion has not yet crossed their radar in any serious way. I get the sense they’ve heard of it, but then dismissed it automatically, because the belief in the existence of deadly pathogenic viruses is so deeply engrained in our culture.
It is a belief so penetrating that folks have even stopped looking for any logic to support it.
“Our own Jake Wynn argues that it wasn’t until the death of President Garfield in 1881 that the American public and physicians began to turn toward germ theory. His slow and painful descent from an assassination attempt was well documented and publicized at the time. Americans read in their daily papers about the lingering and avoidable pain that Garfield suffered from infection. For more than two months the public got continuous updates about the President’s condition, and countervailing voices advocating antiseptic practices grew louder. Garfield, himself a veteran, was (in the words of Jake Wynn) the last victim of Civil War medicine.
The lessons for today are pretty clear, and thankfully the world’s medical community has learned from it. Two-thirds of all deaths in the Civil War came as a result of disease. Knowledge of germ theory now enables organizations like the World Health Organization, or WHO established in 1948, to prevent the hundreds of thousands of deaths from disease seen in the Civil War. Other entities like our own Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, works to prevent the spread of disease both at home and abroad by encouraging international learning and cooperation. The National Institute of Health shares scientific research from around the globe with our own American medical professionals. We here at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine are proud to facilitate this dialogue, and we look forward to continuing it with you when you visit.”
Pretty clear where they stand in this debate. Logical? Hardly. But, what about the other positions?
The popular freedom-loving crowd backs Team RFK, Jr. His take is that germ-theory is still the go-to theory because, well, basically because that’s what his fan club believes. Logic and real science be damned.
The deconstruction of the entire field of virology is in process. And I say good riddance, as it is a pseudoscience. I say this with confidence after reading and listening to now hundreds of hours of material provided by these researchers and available at our fingertips. I stand firmly with Team No Virus until the popularity contest is finally over and logic and reason win over half-truthers and opportunists.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Doctors’ statement:
“It seems obvious to us and, in fact, has been a guiding principle throughout our entire lives that a life based in freedom and integrity must have a solid, factual foundation. In other words, if the foundation is not based on the truth, as best we can see it, our entire lives are based on mistruths and are in danger of collapse at any moment. Imagine building a relationship, a family, a homestead based on love between two people when the reality is that, rather than love, there is distrust, suspicion and even ill will. Sooner or later, that life will collapse into ruins. This is the same with a financial system based on fiat currency, an agricultural system based on inattention to the health of the soil, or a medical system based on anti-scientific medical hypotheses. After careers of examining medical research and theories, and three years of intensive investigation into the question of whether particles or, perhaps better said, entities known as viruses actually exist, it is our clear conclusion that no such particle has ever been shown to exist, let alone cause any disease in plants, animals or people. For us, this conclusion stands as a clear fact. It is also clear that the dramatic events of the past three years, events that have devastated the lives of many people all over the world, are based on this very misconception that so-called pathogenic viruses exist. This misconception has been around for a very long time, and it has led to damaging public health measures, the most notorious being vaccines, which have themselves harmed and killed millions of animals and people during their long and sordid history. —This carnage needs to stop.”
The way I see it is, to look the other way now, because it’s inconvenient, or difficult, or unpopular is to spin our wheels on the pavement of evil.
“Over the past few years, this is exactly what happened to many of us. Powerful forces in society unilaterally decided that many of our highest priorities — feeding ourselves and our families, experiencing social connection, exercising, worshiping and connecting with nature — many of these things vital to our health and even survival — suddenly didn’t matter anymore. There was no negotiation. There was no attempt to figure out how we could all get what we wanted — creative solutions, like the Great Barrington Declaration, were sabotaged and vilified. We were simply told: your priorities are worth sacrificing. And all this over a virus that doesn’t even threaten most people’s lives.”
I understand it’s different for everyone. Not only that, but it’s different for any one individual in different times and at different stages in life.
What’s considered a high quality of life at age 19, differs greatly from one of 49. Or at least, we can hold out hope.
As one example, in the past I said I wouldn’t ever want livestock beyond chickens, for a couple reasons that seemed very significant to me at the time—I was scared of the responsibility of life and death for these precious creatures, and I didn’t want to feel ‘a prisoner’ here.
Now I am fully on board with the responsibility, and I can rarely whip up a desire to leave our wee compound. My notion of who is the actual prisoner has shifted significantly.
When I hear criticisms—and there are plenty—aimed at the growing number of homesteaders, survivalists, preppers, back-to-the-landers, I’m not bothered. They can slur us with their derogatory terms like Luddites, subsistence farmers, backwards, selfish, hoarder, bitter clinger, extremist, even, violent extremist.
They don’t know. How could they? I can forgive them their ignorance. For as long as I believe it to be genuine ignorance. Those who are genuinely ignorant are thankful when presented with an opportunity to learn.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States [that] has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” – ~Isaac Asimov
My definition of a high quality of life changed significantly over time, and I can hold out hope for them as well.
That is, until their powerless slurs become serious impediments. My choice of a quality lifestyle does not harm them in any way. However, their definition of one severely hampers mine which, over time, makes mine quite impossible.
And that really pisses me off.
Their quenchless thirst for cheap thrills and consumable crap and loot, plunder and pillage of all that’s precious to me is intolerable. More specifically, the tolerance of the majority for abuse of themselves, their environment, the future generations, is outrageous and inexcusable.
“The fecundity and flourishing diversity of the North American continent led the earliest European explorers to speak of this terrain as a primeval and unsettled wilderness—yet this continent had been continuously inhabited by human cultures for at least ten thousand years. That indigenous peoples can have gathered, hunted, fished, and settled these lands for such a tremendous span of time without severely degrading the continent’s wild integrity readily confounds the notion that humans are innately bound to ravage their earthly surroundings. In a few centuries of European settlement, however, much of the native abundance of this continet has been lost—its broad animal population decimated, its many-voiced forests over cut and its prairies overgrazed, its rich soils depleted, its tumbling clear waters now undrinkable.” (The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram, p. 94)
Unforgettably Unforgivable
While our personal definitions concerning quality of life is unique to the individual and may shift, even quite considerably, over a lifetime, there remain constants.
For example, I doubt there’s a significant number of folks whose idea of a high quality of life includes having their health, wealth or well-being routinely stolen from them.
Yet, we are living in a society where that is exactly what happens and few will lift even a pinkie finger to change it. Few can be bothered even to wag their tongue for one-half minute at the proper authorities for leading them to exactly that wretched level of life: A life fully resigned to blindly accepting the experts and authorities who routinely betray them.
Invariably at some point these folks become so numerous and so delusional and so negatively impactful, that one simply must turn their back on them, for one’s own sanity and the well-being of an entire culture.
I hear far too often how ‘good’ people are just trying to get by and they are powerless against the system and they mean well and on and on and on. Here’s what I sincerely think when I hear these constant excuses: “You don’t know what ‘good’ means!”
If the majority of folks were good, we would not be in this mess!
To not be evil, to not be actively committing evil acts, does not make someone good. It makes one not evil, that is all. There’s a big, long, wide gap between not evil, and good.
Contrary to popular opinion, harmless does not equal good!
This becomes even more apparent in a society where a tiny class of untouchable elites consider themselves to be beyond good and evil.
To be good in such a system requires something of you. It’s not your automatic birthright.
You cannot be serving such a system— one that maintains itself by destroying the health, wealth, well-being and environment of the vast majority in order to serve your own self-interest or that of your corrupted masters—- and still call yourself good.
As the interpretation of reality by the power structure, ideology is always subordinated ultimately to the interests of the structure. Therefore, it has a natural tendency to disengage itself from reality, to create a world of appearances, to become ritual.
Vaclav Havel — The Power of the Powerless
And you can’t call your friends, family, government, society ‘good’ if serving the corrupt system is still what they are doing.
Well, we are having some of the best weather we’ve had in ages. As much as I’m enjoying it, I know the Geoengineering/Weather Modification/Weather Warfare wages on worldwide.
So, the updates.
The United Nations wants to regulate Geoengineering, suddenly, as they continue to pretend it hasn’t been going on for decades.
According to one new report:
“Up to 40% of Americans believe this theory to be ‘‘some- what true’’, which has influenced social attitudes about climate policy, and geoengineering.(25) On climate change, there is growing evidence of a ‘‘spillover’’ effect that leverages local conflict/contro- versies to cascade controversies in order to shift a policy agenda deliberately(28–30), similar to conventional agenda-setting. In this paper, we expand on the conceptual application of the ‘‘spillover effect’’ to evaluate conspiracy theories across geopolitical boundaries and their agenda-setting impact on public emotions and online toxicity perceptions of SG research. This paper is distinct from previous studies critiquing SG governance challenges and their associated controversies related to climate action, on which there is already a rich literature,(3,4,6,7,16,25,31–33) including social media mining-based SG conspiracy analysis.25 One apparent gap in Tingley and Wagner’s (25) study is that the authors had a narrow focus on the ‘‘chemtrails’’ conspiracy theory in their searches for data collection. Therefore, they could not measure any spillover effect from other conspiracy theories in geoengineering debates. This study uses digital data from social media to capture cross-sectional variation in public emotions.”
What is the concern of this study? Hate speech on Twitter concerning Chemtrails conspiracy theory. Lots of “fucks” are being given, quite literally.
I’m so glad to hear that, I didn’t realize how many actually know and care! In combination with the spectacular weather here, I’m feeling downright hopeful.
INTRODUCTION “As the calls for climate action intensify, (1,2) climate engineering technologies, in particular solar radiation management (SRM), have received increasing attention, and public controversy has ensued. SRM includes technologies such as space-based shields, stratospheric aerosols, cirrus cloud thinning, marine cloud brightening, and increasing surface albedo.3–5 While the broader conception of geoengineering may also include greenhouse gas removal options (such as large-scale afforestation or direct air capture and storage), most geoengineering debates focus on ‘‘solar geoengineering (SG)’’, often referred to as solar radiation management or solar radiation modification (SRM).”
I was also happy to see Corbet Report continuing some coverage on the topic in their latest New World Next Week program, instead of following suit of the vast majority of ‘alt’ media in talking about one chemical spill rather than the incessant chemical dispersions in our skies on a regular basis.
From the best essay I’ve read all month (not James Corbett, but I was reminded of his excellent vid on the topic, so I used that image).
This one comes from a ‘new to me’ writer on Substack called ‘The Upheaval’:
“The most obvious answer is that ridicule undermines authority. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is inherently destabilizing to brittle, illegitimate, undeserving authority. Hence why, as Milan Kundera put it in The Joke, “No great movement designed to change the world can bear sarcasm or mockery, because they are a rust that corrodes everything it touches.”
Me: Milan Kundera was my favorite writer for years and I’ve read most of his works, some of it multiple times. I find it extraordinary that despite his popularity among New York intelligentsia, that same circle has not understood its deeper implications, clearly, otherwise they would’ve seen right through the corporate-fascist institutions they are still supporting even now.
“The answer strikes to a much deeper insight: genuine humor is utterly reliant on its connection with the truth. As any good comic could explain, the best jokes play off the gap between expectation and reality; or between propriety (social pretense) and reality; or on irony, the gap between words and their real meaning; and so on – in all cases the most effective humor functions through revelation.”
“Nor perhaps why, pearls firmly in hand, a 2021 EU report literally titled “It’s Not Funny Anymore” warned breathlessly that, by “blurring the lines between mischief and potentially radicalising messaging,” the “transgressive humour” of online “meme culture” threatens to expose people to such amorphous “far-right” and “extremist” notions as “anti-elite arrogance and condescension,” or jokes making fun of those who “do not question the information that comes from mainstream press and politics.” And why, decrying that “humour has been weaponised as a form of resistance against a political culture that is supposedly curtailing free speech,” it called for increased global efforts to “monitor” and “quarantine” such humor in partnership with tech companies and “progressive communities.”
Me: Indeed. Just try to find funny political memes on a basic Google search today. Hardly a laugh to be found.
“But humor’s intimate relationship with the truth also explains why the authoritarian is typically incapable of it. If the punchline of a joke is not the revelation of the real but simply the reiteration of the lie, no genuine laughter – of the kind that seems to well up unbidden from deep within the listener – can be produced. Hence why most mainstream comedy has long since replaced laughter with “clapter,” why the left can’t meme, and why the EU report bemoaned the fact that “attempting to counter extremist humour with a form of alternative humour has proven very difficult.”
Me: As much as I agree and appreciate this entire essay and hope ya’ll will go read it, I also need to add that seed of doubt, because it’s there.
A question for y’all: Does humor also serve the tyrannical system by normalizing its crimes and diffusing the hostility of the masses? After all, back in the day it was the ‘court jesters’ who performed at the behest of the rulers. It is part of the ‘bread and circus’.
And so far, it has proven to be completely ineffectual at curbing the influence of the unelected elite whose power has only increased despite all the best efforts of George Carlin, among precious few others.
It may make us feel better, but does it really have any chance of changing the game? Because, if it did, wouldn’t it have worked by now? Is humor just the new ‘Opium of the masses’? After all, the ‘Emperor With No Clothes’ remains the Emperor.
Just another few pieces of evidence to add to the already vast mountain range of nonsense we are expected to swallow on a daily basis.
3 short-bits follow, plus a bonus. Each is ignoring, or side-stepping the most contentious and necessary topics while exploiting the low-hanging fruit, that of course being the most fruitful recipe of our times.
The Geoengineering question, bypassed in the typical trifecta fashion: Avoid, Smear, Redirect. If that doesn’t work, pretend it’s new and revolutionary. Or, pretend it’s old and therefor safe and reasonable. If all else fails, feign ignorance. Not necessarily in that order.
Here our host lets him get away with it, so typical! (For shame, he instantly dropped in my initial estimation by multiple degrees.) So, in their non-summation Geoengineering is all about Bill Gates covering up the sun, and certainly not about a century of global military industrial complex scheming.
Furthermore, it’s right up there in the Crazy Zone with the Virus-Deniers and Flat Earth theory!
This ‘rabbit hole’ is so old to me now, all that’s left of deep inquiry here is the pondering: Do they really buy their own bullshit? (34:33 minute mark for the Geoengineering ‘question’). This is what’s posing as ‘alternative journalism’ these days. Effective ‘ambush journalism’ has been inverted into staged theater, then morphed into public relations. Not a single toe-to-toe to be expected. It’s like listening to a well-choreographed two-step. I’d prefer watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, at least they occasionally ventured into new territory, still choreographed of course, but for the sake of their well-seasoned audience, a welcome escape from the repetition. Professor Steven Starr on Geopolitics and Empire: We Are Already in WWIII
2. Next we have a Geoengineering documentary, supposedly out in 2008 (that I somehow never heard of? Seems unlikely.) Full of goose-stepping oddness and fear-mongering, narrated by a digital voice, then the famous Alan Watt, and various other voice-overs.
Here is the oddest sentence of the entire 4-hour All-Over-The-Place Everything-Soup Concoction: 03:40:53 “HG Wells talked about the new freemasonry of the air. Policing the skies.” Wait, Whaa?!
And seriously, a 4-hour documentary, who watches those? Exactly.
3. And, never fear, the institutions will continue doing their institutionalizing!
Science™ brought to you by . . .
The modern day worshipping of the imperialist, industrialist and technocrat alike. It’s the current New World Religion.
And, yippie, Arizona State University, my Alma Mater, continues to lead the way, now color me proud! (Don’t miss the sarcasm dripping in computer-augmented Magenta at this point!)
According to their provost and Executive Vice President, Nancy Gonzales of Miami, Arizona, rural folk should not be scorned or pitied, because they can still blossom from their abject poverty working in the mines in order to serve the Corporate State at ever higher levels. So won’t their kinfolk be proud!
“Although many people focus on the disadvantages of a rural upbringing, we didn’t see it that way. Miami was a place where parents sacrificed and families supported one another to lift up the next generation.”
According to their propaganda that well-educated, well-meaning next generation is going to solve all the global desert metropolises’ water worries with more awesome tech solutions.
Confoolery at its finest! Keep climbing that ladder kids!
For our bonus, here’s a rare journalist to whom I still give the benefit of the doubt. Beginning the interview they discuss the new rain water technology that’s just hit the NY stock exchange. I think she honestly doesn’t know (yet) just how deep and long this rabbit hole goes. I look forward to more from her on the topic as she tries to dig though it. And more power to her!
Better get your umbrellas, drought prep and insurance updates, folks!
Our skies in the days leading up to the latest ‘rain event’. We get the perception of rain, mostly, but rarely a real rain, unless it’s a flooding deluge.
It REALLY fools most folks! Because it’s overcast and drizzling for days, so the yards and gardens get squishy. But it’s not a lot of rain, 3 inches of rain over 3 days ‘feels’ like a lot of rain. A rain gauge will prove it, but most folks don’t have those. Not to mention that from one county to the next it is often drastically different in amounts. So, they complain about all the rain, while our ponds and creeks are still very low to empty.
They can’t even give it a break at night!
Technology continues to leap forward in the expansion of ‘climate remediation’ systems. I suspect one of these days they won’t even need to blanket the skies in chemicals anymore and folks will be tickled pink that the Uber-wealthy and corporations can change the weather on a dime and blame the birds, or the cows, or the SUVs.
“The “Clear Sky Manager New Generation” climate safety system uses the synergy of a growing pool of the most efficient and proven weather management technologies, and also develops new promising technologies that will allow more effectively to carry out the weather management. Currently, “Clear Sky Manager New Generation” uses the synergy of 2 of the most efficient, safest, recognized by the WMO, technologies: The technology of unipolar electrical ionization of the lower atmosphere using stationary, mobile and air-mobile ion generators (ILAP type ionizers). Cloud seeding technology using environmentally friendly reagents, as well as an innovative cloud seeding method based on the unique biological ability of new prospective reagents to “cause” rain.”
While they work on perfecting that, we have the fallout of the last decades of weather experimentation to deal with, but hey, what’s a little Alzheimer’s for the greater good?
Aluminum Snow: Lab Test Confirmed
“Aluminum nanoparticle fallout from climate engineering operations are building up in our snow, soils and runoff waters, the levels are far beyond alarming. Lab test results of snow from the side of Northern California’s Mt. Shasta are a truly shocking example. Testing samples from this formerly pristine water source have revealed levels of aluminum that are so astronomically high that the meltwater can only be considered completely contaminated.”
“China’s Mindblowing Weather Modification, Geoengineering and ELF Transmitter Projects” An oldie but goodie from ClimateViewer for those fixated on the ‘China balloon’ in the news:
