"Cynical" doesn't quite cover it

[ciroccoj]

Gosh, I am ever so glad I've never bought in to those totally hysterical doomsday screechings of OMG if we don't do something about global warming the North Pole might be almost melted in summertime within 50 years and OMGWTFF what will we DO THEN?!! There could be hotter and longer and dryer droughts! And increased forest fires!! And stronger hurricanes and storms!!! Within our kids' lifetimes!!!

Arctic Ice Cap could be gone in summer by 2012, says NASA

Of course, this is NASA saying all of this, so really, what do they know. Buncha hippie faux-scientists and mouthpieces of the granola establishment.



There's this post I've written and rewritten in my head so many times in the last few months/years with every other news report. But I can't write it, it makes me too ill. Basically it's a explanation of why I'm no longer so proud to be Canadian. I'm pretty miserably ashamed of my country and my countrymen and women and my leaders. I can't think of us as the good guys any more.

I think history will judge us with the same baffled disbelief that we currently judge the people who came to the Americas and slaughtered millions in order to enrich their home lands; the people of Easter Island, who blindly destroyed their own ecosystem and their culture in the quest for bigger and grander statues; the slave traders who brought humans to be brutally used and discarded for their cheap labour. The disbelief of How the hell could you be so blind, how could you not see the harm you were doing, how could the pursuit of things make you so blind to the destruction and suffering you were causing to others - or even to yourself and your children?

How could you not see that? And when you did see, how could you not care?

Yeah I'll have to stop there. It's too fucking depressing.

Comments

[daf9.livejournal.com]

I think part of the apparent indifference is that the world has been going to hell in a handbasket from one thing or another since civilization began. People become desensitized.

Take global warming for example. Is it a problem? Probably - but it isn't clear how much of a problem it is (as all predictions are based on imperfect models) or what the best thing to do about it is short of killing off 90% of the human population.

[daf9.livejournal.com]

just like it isn't clear exactly how big a detriment to health is caused by smoking. Does that mean we shouldn't get into a tizzy and tell people to stop smoking until we absolutely know for sure that it's bad for them? Or can we say "We're not 100% sure exactly how bad it is, but all indications point to Really, Really Bad. So, um, stop. Now."

Smoking is a good example. It is clear that smoking is bad for some people; it is equally clear that smoking isn't bad for everyone. Obviously smoking increases the incidence of emphysema and lung cancer in populations but not everyone who smokes will develop either of these problems. In fact the majority of smokers won't. So we should be honest about that and not make it sound like everyone who ever takes a drag on a cigarette is going to end up dying of lung disease. Overstating the problem just makes a lot of people believe there is no problem.

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

That's...that's in FIVE YEARS. OH MY GOD.

it's a explanation of why I'm no longer so proud to be Canadian. I'm pretty miserably ashamed of my country and my countrymen and women and my leaders

::sigh:: Life in modern-day North America: realizing that we are the Evil Empire.