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The Forum > General Discussion > Climate change: the third option

Climate change: the third option

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The "climate change" debate has now polarized into two opposing camps. Public discussion focuses solely on their disputes and ignores the real issues. There is no doubt that human activity is a seminal cause of recent changes in natural ecosystems, including weather patterns. However, these changes result from pollution of the biosphere, environmental degradation, and habitat destruction, which in turn derive from Mankind's unsustainable exploitation of the environment. Our addiction to material wealth and mass consumerism is not only obsessive, but increasingly unsatisfying; we are destroying our planet in pursuit of dystopia.

The obvious solution is to change our lifestyles, our ambitions, our industrial processes and our economic systems. Instead, climate change advocates insist that taxes, levies, and "emissions trading schemes" are the only viable and acceptable solutions. This is clearly nonsense, and is trumpeted as part of a globalization program in which money is the dominant tool for enforcing compliance. The consequences of this over-riding agenda impact every field of human activity, and impose and unending program of social "reforms" and "restructuring" that arouse increasing civil unrest.

There is obviously an unrecognized "third option" in the climate change debate whose adherents can be named "climate change repudiators". This group views the present debate as a deliberately engineered distraction from the real issues of environmental degradation that can only be addressed by abandoning the corporate globalization agenda. Practical and effective solutions must be based on sustainable self-sufficiency planned and implemented regionally and locally, rather than by an elite global plutocracy dedicated ruthlessly to ever-increasing wealth, power, and self-indulgence. For a detailed presentation of this topic - "Climate change: the third option" - please visit:

http://52midnight.com
Posted by Beelzebub, Tuesday, 26 July 2011 10:20:19 AM
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Beelzebub:>> Practical and effective solutions must be based on sustainable self-sufficiency planned and implemented regionally and locally, rather than by an elite global plutocracy dedicated ruthlessly to ever-increasing wealth, power, and self-indulgence.<<

Well said you little devil. You have to sit back and laugh and laugh and laugh at the Greens chasing the consumer while the master pollutes with abandon. Greens (not Rachel Carson’s greens) are possibly the most gullible acolytes to come around since Hitler’s Germany.

Listen, regurgitate, and don't inspect, is the Green mantra.
Posted by sonofgloin, Tuesday, 26 July 2011 7:48:01 PM
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change our lifestyle?
can you think that is all we need to do.
WE can not even get some to separate rubbish and recycle.
It will take hip pocket diplomacy to fix this, if it costs not to we will do it.
Posted by Belly, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 6:08:12 AM
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if it costs not to we will do it.
Belly,
you're of course spot-on there. This is where my insistence on National Service comes into play. We need (desperately) a change in mentality. Why ? Because there are a lot of people out there who don't really have to put in much effort for the plenty money they get & they can afford to pay more and, as a consequence won't change their behaviour. I can't help think that a tax rather than a change of view of the situation will not change anything. On the contrary. I think of it like this, if people pay more tax then they'll have less money to spend which in turn will make them look at cheaper, imported options, both goods & labour. Unless we focus on getting back some discipline we'll not divert from the course we're on presently.
I'd start with teachers having to do one year National Service before being let into a class room. Apprentices do one year in NS before commencing their career. I guarantee that we'd see an improvement in our society within 2-3 years. The first positive sign will come from the economy. Have young people do physical labour for a few months & the obesity dilemma will recede. So will pollution.
Healthier people with a sense of responsibility will snowball into a cleaner environment.
Posted by individual, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 7:04:44 AM
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> We need (desperately) a change in mentality. .. getting back some discipline ..

Exactly so, individual. We of the older generations kicked up about the often mindless disciplines we endured as children, as children always do; but now that the socially destructive consequences of lack of discipline - and especially of self-discipline - are becoming ever more apparent, many are arguing as do you. A good case can be made for this decline being deliberately engineered by the Global Power Elite. Self-indulgent spoilt brats are far easier to manipulate than are the self-disciplined and self-reliant. Think of the number of TV ads that "lovingly" persuade you to hand over responsibility for this and that to their "expert" attention, or the number of "caring" social commentators who insist that no-one should ever suffer inconvenience or hardship. There is a consistent underlying mentality that claims the moral high ground whilst undermining self-reliance amongst the public, especially the youth.

> I'd start with teachers having to do one year National Service before being let into a class room.

Now there's an interesting suggestion. However, you'd first have to take the whip to Australia's pseudo-military establishment. Oz has been a US protectorate since the Second World War, which we lost (socially, not militarily) to the Americans. Just ask any of the old fellows who came home from the war to find their wives and girlfriends in bed with GIs. None of our frontline military assets can be deployed in a war zone; the assets are unservicable and their operators incompetent. See:

http://52midnight.com/files/l-Fitzgibbon.html

> Have young people do physical labour for a few months & the obesity dilemma will recede. So will pollution. Healthier people with a sense of responsibility will snowball into a cleaner environment.

Yep, you're right on track.
Posted by Beelzebub, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 7:35:01 AM
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Beelzebub,

I agree with you more or less and am myself consciously thumbing my nose at consumerism. Indeed I've rediscovered real quality of life in living actively and creatively, rather than consuming passively. My consumption overall is extremely modest by western standards and I'm the happier for it.
I think the real problem that confronts us is that humans are relatively short lived, and by the time we wake up to our demeaned consumptive lifestyles, we're well into the second half of our lives. Many never wake up. If we lived for say a thousand years, I'm certain that the vast majority would reject passive consumption of commodified life experience, in its myriad forms.
It's only a minority that gets sufficiently disenchanted with the gruel of consumerism that it rebels against it, nowhere near enough to compromise the functional system of dependence and patronage that both demeans what life could be and degrades the planet in the process.
So I don't believe those who refuse to play the game are anywhere near sufficient in numbers to precipitate change, though there's great quality of life to be rediscovered by those who can break the spell.
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 7:46:25 AM
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> I think the real problem that confronts us is that humans are relatively short lived, and by the time we wake up
to our demeaned consumptive lifestyles, we're well into the second half of our lives. Many never wake up.

Ah, now nere you touch on one my favourite topics. Alas, it's too braod and complex to discuss here, but your comments parallel the warnings in every true spiritual tradition throughout history. There are two dominant viewpoints here. Those who have contact with the psychic (i.e. emotional and intellectual) and spiritual (i.e. atemporal) aspects of their own consciousness understand the necessity of transcending the mundane and ephemeral. Those who lack this defining human experience are inevitably obsessed with mere material wealth and pleasure; corporate types all fall into this category, in spite of many claiming such spiritual insights as are offered by Sun Tzu.

> If we lived for say a thousand years, I'm certain that the vast majority would reject passive consumption of commodified life experience, in its myriad forms.

Again, there is fascinating and well-corroborated evidence that this can be more than mere speculation, but we are not yet on that path.

> So I don't believe those who refuse to play the game are anywhere near sufficient in numbers to precipitate change, though there's great quality of life to be rediscovered by those who can break the spell.

Yes, we're in a minority and may have no alternative but to "go down fighting". From the perspective of spiritual development, this may be inevitable, necessary, and, strangely, beneficial. Consider the Japanese discipline of seppuku ("hari-kari") - when banned by the US occupation after the war, most moral, intelligent Japanese greatly bemoaned this mistake, since it was their main bulwark against corruption within the ruling class. If the spiritual is real in one's life, death is but another intermission.
Posted by Beelzebub, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 8:08:26 AM
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Oh dear. Another one.

>>A good case can be made for this decline being deliberately engineered by the Global Power Elite.<<

I know that I am wasting my breath here, but just take a moment to consider that statement in the light of the rest of your thesis, Beelzebub.

>>The obvious solution is to change our lifestyles, our ambitions, our industrial processes and our economic systems.<<

This would seem to be a call to the individual to, somehow, take action.

But if the circumstances of our existence are being controlled by this mysterious, invisible, unnamed, all-powerful Global Power Elite, how are we ever going to be in a position to effect those changes on a global scale?

Historically, this would be a call to the citizenry to revolution. Aux barricades, citoyens, and all that.

But if you cannot identify the enemy, who will you rebel against? Just waffling on about some kind of "third option" is just self-indulgent twaddle, and we have had quite enough of that already.

The very best you can achieve, as illustrated by the other posts here, is to get the old fogeys onto their traditional hobby-horse, "bring back National Service, it's discipline that we need here. Discipline!"

Sad.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 8:38:12 AM
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Pericles,
Ok, let's call it a National Social Service then to help the less understanding to understand. Stop thinking military, that's too old-fashioned. We're experiencing the evidence of that not working now. Anything to stop young people becoming like our present middle-aged. We can no longer support so many hangers-on. btw. how much are you prepared to work & pay for to support somebody else ?
I'm paying far too much. I think 25 % tax of what we earn should be more than enough & probably is sufficient to get Australia back on track.
Posted by individual, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 9:02:23 AM
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> But if the circumstances of our existence are being controlled by this mysterious, invisible, unnamed, all-powerful Global Power Elite .. if you cannot identify the enemy, who will you rebel against?

Any discussion with Pericles is largely a waste of time. Not only does he insist on redefining common English words to suit his personal interpretation of them, he never bothers with basic research. For those who may not know who are the GPE, a.k.a. the Global Dominance Group, a list of current members of the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations provides the key names. Like any large organization, their membership changes over time, but the following will provide background material and a list of names:

http://52midnight.com/files/a-The_Bilderbergers.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/phillips02092006.html
http://52midnight.com/files/a-A_chronological_history_of_the_New_World_Order.html

> Just waffling on about some kind of "third option" is just self-indulgent twaddle

My third option is specifically defined in the article referenced, but of course you wouldn't bother reading that.
Posted by Beelzebub, Wednesday, 27 July 2011 3:40:00 PM
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http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dear-julia-you-have-it-right-on-your-carbon-tax-20110730-1i5cc.html
Shadow Minister will say its the lefty Fairfax media.
Col will refuse to admit it comes from the party of his Dear Margret, or that she believed in man made climate change.
Individual will scream blah!
SOG may launch into me, along with others.
But just what is happening in Australian Politics?
Abbott says yes/no/maybe/never!/true/not true/ support Turnbull/no I do not!
poor fella my country!
Posted by Belly, Sunday, 31 July 2011 3:31:32 AM
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> But just what is happening in Australian Politics?

Well, the agenda of Corporate Globalization is proceeding apace,

http://www.progress.org/global01.htm

as it has since Alexander Downer insisted that ".. it is good for all Australians, the region, and the world ... Whether people fear globalization or not, they cannot escape it":

http://52midnight.com/files/a-Foreign_ownership_in_Australia.html

You are experiencing the benefits and consequences promised by your former Foreign Minister, and I'm sure you're suitably grateful. Now that all major Australian assets are owned and controlled by foreign corporates and bankers, a "mopping up" operation is taking place to acquire the assets of private citizens. The best way to do this is via inflation. Reduce the real value of money, increase mortgage rates and property taxes, and make home ownership unaffordable. The banks will end up owning all housing, as is now happening in the US, and Oz will become a nation of tenants, forever indebted to the banks. At the same time, with jobs moving to regions with the lowest labour costs, Oz wages will need to come down to "internationally competitive rates" - that is, just above the poverty line. The best way to create the necessary inflation is with a "tax on everything", of which the proposed "carbon tax" is a marvellous implementation.

There's no mystery about any of this - it's been going on for years, and widely reported in the alternative media. Of course, the corporate-controlled mainstream media dismisses such reports as "conspiracy theories", and most Ozns are stupid enough to believe that things like the Global Financial Crisis are "accidents" rather than covertly planned events - i.e. actual conspiracies.

Julia Gillard, like almost all Oz pollies, does what she's told by her bosses; see this if you want to know who your real government is:

http://52midnight.com/files/a-Naming_names_-_the_New_World_Government.html

> poor fella my country!

At the risk of repeating myself, such statements are quite wrong. It's NOT your country, it belongs to the TNCs and the international banks. You really should try to understand this, difficult as it may be.
Posted by Beelzebub, Sunday, 31 July 2011 9:24:19 AM
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@ Individual,
my understanding is that this is a tax that is mainly directed at the top 500 companies that pollute, to get them to change their energy policies. Anyone household under $150k is not going to really pay any extra once their tax returns are submitted.

I personally think that this problem is so big that asking individuals to fix it is just crazy. We can't and we won't. What, are we all going to leave our homes and go live in teepees?

No, this requires major government reforms to how we plan our cities. Modern, comfortable, trendy, desirable New Urbanism and Ecocities can produce cities that move people and goods, not cars. They are human scaled, not car scaled. They are built to be satisfying and diverse and only use 10% or 20% of the land of suburbia, yet every family will have easy access to the local parks and playgrounds and mothers can just walk their babies to playgroups within a 5 minute pram walk.

It saves on embodied energy in tunnels and cables and pipes and drains and telephony and concrete and bitumen, and returns the local suburban wasteland to parks and forests and agriculture and dairy farming. If we rezone suburbs now, they could be largely rebuilt through natural attrition and retrofitting over the next 20 to 30 years.

Then there's GenIV nukes coming that will eat waste and run the world for 500 years on just today's waste. We need governments to rezone suburbia and allow nukes. Then we'll restore the local environment and have abundant clean electricity as we do so.

Lastly, re: global governance issues: this is why I'm a fan of global Federation. We need global legislative reform to help manage the global corporate elites. We need a global DEMOCRACY rather than dirty diplomatic deals done behind closed doors.
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/reform-world/
Posted by Eclipse Now, Monday, 1 August 2011 7:21:42 AM
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