Numerous studies are now documenting how natural soundscapes are changing, being disrupted and falling silent. A 2021 study in the journal Nature of 200,000 sites across North America and Europe found “pervasive loss of acoustic diversity and intensity of soundscapes across both continents over the past 25 years, driven by changes in species richness and abundance.” There’s an app for that.
Silent Spring Has Arrived
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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In the 1960s, it was the Animal Liberation Front, which was so successful they were labeled terrorists.
Thirty years later, the Earth Liberation Front took the same basic approach and was also labeled a terrorist organization.
Thirty years after that? The entire movement has devolved into a sick joke. Trustfund performers babble poorly argued, poorly presented, poorly reasoned statements while hurling cans of soup onto protective barriers — minor inconveniences that damage nothing.
Don’t forget to vote for Joe Biden, who signed off on the Willow project. Don’t forget to continue supporting and consuming the mainstream media (who still haven’t gotten the Exxon Valdez story right). Don’t forget to piss away several hours a day on social media.
I actually am beginning to look forward to the end of everything. I suspect the birds will fare much better than we will.
Will the app “Reminiscences of the Human Species” be available while there is still someone to download it?
No. All apps won’t be available for download anymore.
Not because there will not be anyone left alive -most unfortunately for the planet-, but because the Internet and all cellular networks will have disappeared, to the great grief of all surviving morons.
The world of “The Matrix” enfolds us one step at a time….I live in a rural area where we used to regularly see deer, raccoons, possums, turkeys, snakes, and a host of birds. Haven’t seen or heard from many of them in years. The insects have diminished, too–wasps and spiders, once common, are now rare. The good news is, the flies no longer infest my compost pile with maggots. The bad news is, the birds that ate the flies aren’t around because there’s nothing for them to eat. Annoying as they were, I miss the flies and their offspring.
As a side note to my previous -still being moderated as of this writing:
In 1962, good old Rachel’s environmental concerns -although very important- had already been transcended in a much more important book, The Limits to Growth, which should truly be taken as The Bible by everyone blogging on actual climate drift and energy issues.
But it’s slightly harder (euphemism) to draw an opportunistic cartoon about such matters since they require some (another euphemism) preliminary work in understanding the underlying scientific concepts.
And even if that were in Rall’s reach, none of his “bobos in paradise fellows” -amongst which two are his blog’s sidekicks- could ever appreciate it.
Unfortunately, WE are the “future generations” they were talking about in 1962 and our future looks rather (euphemism) bleaker.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
Bob Dylan – It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Brother Martin’s comment tracks something John D. MacDonald wrote in one of the Travis McGee stories. McGee is being strangled by a maniac and hears, as he starts to black out, the cry of a mockingbird, and the sound is so meaningful to him (he muses on how that area used to be filled with birds, gorging on all the fat bugs, but then the pesticides came and killed the bugs, so the birds disappeared, and now the world was losing birds and growing monsters like the one trying to strangle him) that it gives him the strength to break free.
Anyway, in one of McGee’s other adventures, which was written in something like 1983, he muses on the computers on display at Radio Shack (yeah, Radio Shack), monologing that the new machines will be bigger than Franklin’s kite, bigger than the wheel.
The thing that lamed “The Limits to Growth” was what McGee said. Almost no one could realize how fundamentally the computer — the high-speed, durable, reliable, interconnected computer — would alter the planet as a production facility. Climate and energy have been mitigated as crises by the computer. Without the high-speed miracle of barcodes, automation, AI, etc., etc., there is literally not a single possible way to move as many goods and materials as efficiently as we currently do.
But now? Climate and energy are now catching up. The oceans have absorbed huge quantities of carbon dioxide. So much so that soon, clams won’t be able to form shells anymore; the ocean will be too acidic for it. Climate? Wait til the tundra in Siberia melts. We’ll have a methane dump into the atmosphere unlike anything we’ve encountered so far. Energy? All those electric cars Biden’s waving in our faces so he can get reelected? The grid’ll crash trying to supply enough power. And wait for how many people will, literally, cook to death in their crummy slum-partments because the cities are urban heat sinks and lethal once the ACs fail.
The Club of Rome had it right. Their only mistake was their calculations were off by a little. If Israel and the Middle East have a limited A-bomb exchange, that might cool the planet, which could give us time to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re in, and, again, the Club’s calculations will be off. But we’ve already passed the last exit and are hurtling toward the toll booth at 50 mph. Just about the only chance we have is that someone in the car is somehow able to throw the exact fare into the basket from about 50 feet away before we hit the orange barrier arm.
Yep, Alex, the imposition of the matrix and the breakdown of the technology that would enable it are running neck-and-neck. My money, as it were, is on breakdown, though I doubt I’ll survive long enough to collect if I’m right. 🙂 These computers we love so much, and that make this complex world possible, may be the stuff of legend n a hundred years, presuming there’s anybody around to tell legends. That will be one of the main forms of entertainment that remains.
Ted,
Thank you for releasing my somehow disparaging comments in such a timely manner. For once 🙂
We might not be from the same culture, or on the same wavelength, or in the same league, or whatever …, but let’s hope we are looking for the same safe harbour.
Respects.