Distract-ocracy

28% of Americans, a record high, tell the Pew Research poll that they are disgusted by both major political parties. It’s not hard to imagine why; the system is distracted by impeachment and other inside the Beltway issues while bread and butter problems that affect ordinary people get ignored by the political class.

We Came, We Dithered, We Died

“We believe that the damage done to the ocean in the last 20 years is somewhere between 30 per cent and 50 per cent, which is a frightening figure. And this damage carries on at very high speed—to the Indian Ocean, to the Red Sea, to the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic…Everywhere around the world the coral reefs are disappearing at a very great rate, to such an extent we are not sure we will see anything like what we know now.”

Jacques Cousteau wrote these words in 1971, for an New York Times op-ed titled “Our Oceans Are Dying.”

No one listened.

No one cared.

No one did anything. So now, as Cousteau warned us would happen, our oceans are finished.

More than 90% of coral reefs on Earth will be dead in the next 25 years. What if we did…something? No. Reef extinction is irreversible, even if we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases right this second.

96% of all ocean life, fish big and small and everything that swims, will be gone as well. There’s nothing we can do to save them.

The cause is obvious and well-known: rapid and extreme global warming caused by humans, pollution and overhunting. We don’t have to look far to see that the ocean is boiling: at this writing, water temperatures off the Florida Keys have reached 97°. Caribbean waters are normally 82° all year around. The surprise isn’t that 96% of the ocean life is doomed, it’s that 4% may not be.

It will be soon.

Ironically, all this heat is about to start a new Ice Age. A new study concludes that there is a 95% chance that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of ocean currents including the Gulf Stream that carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic will collapse between 2025 and 2095 because it is being blocked by cold water dumped into the northern part of the ocean from melting glaciers and ice caps. Without the AMOC, as soon as two years from now and no later than 70, Europe will be buried under sheets of ice, like in the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Bummer. I liked Europe.

Several years ago, flying west from Istanbul to New York, my plane’s pilot announced that he and his colleagues could see that the Gulf Stream was breaking down—and had been for some time. As a result, we’d arrive earlier than scheduled. He explained why this was scary. He urged us to write our Congressmen. I wonder if anyone on board did. I didn’t. What would have been the point? Congress doesn’t care or help or act.

In a natural-disaster movie like “2012” or “Armageddon,” the world’s political and business leaders gather in a blue-lit situation room chock full of computer screens displaying cool infographics, some in business attire, others in exotic garb, all wearing somber holy-crap expressions as the camera pans around. Someone, either the U.N. Secretary General or the U.S. President (these are American movies), calls on nations to drop everything, set aside their differences and dedicate all their resources and attention to the existential crisis of climate change, the worst threat—by far—that humanity has ever faced.

Because this is a film, where politicians are sometimes evil but never total idiots, everyone nods in agreement, rolls up their sleeves and gets to work to save humanity’s ass.

(In the European version of this film, we all die in the end after waging a valiant and noble struggle.)

Actual politics, however, are not as logical or commonsensical as movies. Young people like the activist Greta Thunberg are, quite reasonably, appalled at the mess they’ve inherited thanks to decades of dithering: “Pretty much nothing has been done since the global emissions of CO2 has not reduced,” Thunberg told a 2020 climate conference. “[I]f you see it from that aspect, what has concretely been done, if you see it from a bigger perspective, basically nothing.”

I ask my smart friends why we’re so stupid. “It’s all about money,” they usually say, more or less. “Business and rich individuals profit from the current system.” But that doesn’t make sense. There’ll be no economy if we’re all dead. You can’t enjoy your wealth if you’re dead. Being dead, all of us as a result of environmental catastrophe, is a distinct possibility—for our grandchildren, our children, even for precious Us.

And yet—my smart friends are right. Capitalist idiots are so moronically capitalist that they’d rather be rich and dead than middle class and alive. The rest of us, the non- and anti-capitalist people who neither benefit from ecocide nor approve of it, are letting the greedy lunatics take us with them. We are, precisely because we believed Jacques Cousteau and did nothing to act or to react or to resist, even dumber than they are.

Darwin wins again.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

Conspiracy? In This Mess of a Country?

Members of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe that a cabal of Satan-worshiping blood-drinking elites control politics and the media. Are they seeing a more organized world than we are?

Nice Idea, but How Does It Help Climate Change?

The COP27 climate change conference was supposed to come up with concrete solutions to global warming. Instead, developing nations shook down wealthy nations for compensation on the basis that the countries that contribute to climate change should pay for the damage to the developing world. All well and good, but how does this reverse climate change?

As If We Had All the Answers

Western athletes attending the World Cup in Qatar are trying to send critical political messages to the local authorities. It might seem cute but it’s also rude. If you can’t stand the politics of another country, it might be best not to visit.

DMZ America Podcast #76: Another Shooting, Misinterpreting the Midterms, Should Greta Thunberg Offer Solutions?

Happy Thanksgiving! Ted Rall and Scott Stantis, two of the finest editorial cartoonists in all the land, dig deep into the ongoing rash of mass shootings in America. Is there any cause for hope? They demystify the meaning of the midterms and debate whether an activist has a larger obligation than just pointing out a problem. Should they also offer solutions? 

 

Sometimes What a Van Gogh Needs Is a Splash of Tomato Soup

Anti-oil environmentalists pour tomato soup on van Gogh 'Sunflowers'  painting | Fox News

            From The Washington Post: “Just after 11 a.m. on Friday morning, two young climate protesters entered a room in the National Gallery in London containing one of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings: ‘Sunflowers.’ They opened two cans of Heinz tomato soup, flung them on the painting, then glued their hands to the wall.”

            Phoebe Plummer of the Just Stop Oil movement, 21, shouted: “What is worth more, art or life?” She continued: “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet?”

            If you didn’t follow this story, you can easily imagine the response of many liberals: this action was stupid. Vincent Van Gogh had nothing to do with global warming. It’s counterproductive. It’s going to turn off people against the environmental movement. Liberals, who claim to care deeply about climate change, similarly deplored the group’s disruption of traffic and sporting events.

            “They sure know how to get attention. And while their passion is admirable, their tactics are repugnant,” said Mother Jones magazine editor Michael Mechanic. “All you did was anger the very people you’re trying to appeal to,” tweeted American comic book artist Jamal Igle. “Attacking Van Gogh’s Sunflowers—one of the world’s most loved paintings—will not gain public support, which is what is needed for real change,” said art historian Ruth Millington.

            It is largely forgotten that Van Gogh was a populist and a Marxist. Odds are, he would have approved of this attempt to raise awareness of the climate crisis.

            There was no damage to the painting, which was protected by a sheet of glass. The incident nevertheless reminded me of the discussion over the 2001 dynamiting of the giant Buddha statues at Bamian, Afghanistan, which prompted global outrage. The Taliban government, which had previously protected the statues, reversed course when a Swedish delegation along with UNESCO traveled to Afghanistan and offered money to buy and preserve the 1400-year-old sandstone relics at a time that the country was reeling under the weight of Western sanctions. Meanwhile, requests for medical and food assistance for living, breathing flesh-and-blood human beings fell on deaf ears.

            Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, an adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar explained, “[Our] scholars told them that instead of spending money on statues, why didn’t they help our children who are dying of malnutrition? They rejected that, saying, ‘This money is only for statues.’” Incensed, the Taliban decided to blow up the Buddhas to express their outrage. “If money is going to statues while children are dying of malnutrition next door, then that makes it harmful, and we destroy it,” Rahmatullah said.

            I wouldn’t have detonated the charge to blow up those statues. I’m too much of a history geek. But I saw Rahmatullah’s point. Sometimes the world needs a slap across its face to force it to pay attention.

            My first reaction to the Just Stop Oil action was: what good is a painting that no one will be around to see in 50 years?

            Then—and that’s where I am now—I thought, good for them. Radically mitigating climate change should be humanity’s top priority. 69% of all animals on earth died between 1970 and 2018. Since 1900, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish species have died 72 times faster than “normal.” Droughts are severe. Storms are getting more violent. This isn’t an emergency. It’s THE emergency.

            But international organizations aren’t doing anything, because the politicians who belong to them prioritize profits over the planet. Capitalism rules, so the politicians aren’t doing anything. (Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030, as Biden promises, is so not going to happen that it’s hardly worth mentioning.) Citizens don’t understand how awful the situation is, or they feel alone in their understanding, so they’re aren’t doing anything.

We aren’t engaged in sustained protest. We aren’t rioting. We aren’t overthrowing our do-nothing governments. We aren’t even voting against politicians who aren’t doing anything. Here in the United States, only the Green Party cares about climate change—and their votes amount to a rounding error. And the media hardly ever talks about it.

            Truly, it’s the ultimate madness. The house is on fire, flames all around, and we’re not even calling 911, much less reaching for a bucket of water. We are all going to die, or if we’re old our children will, yet we remain oblivious, passive, resigned, disconnected, alienated, stupid—for no reason. 99.9% of humanity does not own energy stocks and we’re all willing to die for the tiny minority who do.

            So what if the Just Stop Oil activists bum out art lovers? If your blood boils over what they did more than it does over what they’re talking about, you’re too dumb to be won over in the first place. Complacency kills; outrage fights complacency.

            Pardon the young people who kinda-sort-of desecrate Van Goghs. For they may or may not know what they’re doing but they certainly know what’s important. If we’re all going to die for no good reason, some of us have the right to go out screaming.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

 

Every Day Is Fundraising Time

After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court, President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats were heavily criticized for their response, which boils down to pleas to vote for Democrats and fundraising. They were surprised because this has always been their typical response to such events.

Nothing to Worry about

Humanity seems absolutely determined not to do anything about the climate change crisis or the environment. But think about the bright side: rising oceans will resolve all sorts of issues that we actually pay attention to.

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