Apocalyptia?

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."  

The Sign of the Four

At the beginning of this year, the media began reporting on the phenomenon of mass animal deaths that were occuring almost simultaneously all over the world.  Frightening to read, the articles and photos strongly resembled the tension building scenes from a typical Hollywood apocalyptic blockbuster - the scenes that occur right before the destruction of the planet unfolds on an epic scale. 

In countries all around the world hundreds to thousands of dead birds fell out of their skies, for no obvious reason.  Reports poured in daily of thousands to millions of dead fish washing up onto beaches in both hemispheres.  And there was more to come - mysterious livestock deaths would occur in the hundreds and whales dead of starvation would wash ashore in waters far from their natural habitat.  During the most bountiful season, inexplicably starving animals would attack humans as food and sharks would attack swimmers in unprecendented numbers.  This was bad.  Really bad.  And we weren't sitting in a comfortable cinema chair with popcorn in one hand and a Coke in the other, this was happening for real.

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Climate Change, Conspiracy Theories and Control ~ An Allegory

One man with a gun can control 100 without one.

~ Vladimir Lenin

Control needs one thing to exist.  Just one thing.  Fear.  Pointing the finger at a common enemy makes sense, and appeals to our earliest set of survival instincts.  First we must locate the thing that is "bad" or "wrong" according to our commonly accepted paradigms and then we must isolate it by fearing it or attempting to destroy it.  Or both.

But what happens when what we fear is no longer seen as the enemy but as part of the control mechanism?  And what has this subject to do with climate change? Please read on.

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Blood of the Innocent. The True Price of Climate Change.

"Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change." 

 Jonathan Safran Foer ~ Author of Eating Animals

I remember the first time I saw a truck full of livestock heading for the slaughterhouse.  I was a nine year old child, riding in the car with my parents on our way to visit relatives in Ontario, Canada.  Due to the traffic congestion, our car rode alongside the trailer for several minutes.  Those minutes were long enough for me to look into the eyes of the animals crammed in there like holocaust victims.  I saw the terror in their eyes, I saw that they were unable to move even a centimeter, one of the calves caught my eye for more than ten seconds and in that ten seconds that animal let me know everything I didn't want to know.  That animal was feeling its reality as hard as any human being ever could.  I shudder as I write this, because somehow I think it felt it even more than we could.  In the backseat, I began to cry.   Up in the front seat, locked into their own world of oblivion, my parents heard me and asked me what was wrong.  I told them to look at the trailer full of miserable creatures beside us, suffering in the subzero temperature, their terror radiating out of them like a neutron bomb.

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Double Standards and Denial

Today, as I was researching for my latest article about oceans and their relationship to global warming, I was listening to a BBC radio interview and the interviewee mentioned that he often liked to pose this question to climate scientists and eco warriors alike whenever he met them.  His question?

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Why Should Global Warming = No More Cold Winters? Because. That's Why.

This week I discovered that apparently I am retarded and if that wasn't enough I also have severe mental problems.  This according to someone whom I have never even met; who doesn't know I exist, but along with thousands of others I was still fair game for his armchair judgement.  Who was this person?  He is a blogger with a following of several hundred on Twitter who doesn't "believe" in man-made global warming (AGW).    I won't link to his blog because I prefer not to drive traffic to a blogger who speaks purely from a personal bias that directly contradicts tested scientific evidence on the subject he wrote about - in this case the current cold winters being proof that global warming is a hoax (see link at bottom of post for scientific explanation of negative Arctic oscilliation and the weakened polar vortex).  In comparison to other bloggers on the subject, he was relatively tame with his rant.  Some are virulent in their hate speak.  Some have the hallmarks of extremism.  To these "believers" of anti climate change if you subscribe to the possibility of AGW then you are automatically judged in the most derogatory terms.  Those of us who want to ask reasonable questions and look to the scientific community for answers are relegated to the realms of the simple; the unthinking; the gullible and the outright stupid.  That's a lot of insults from people I haven't even had a chance to express my views to. 

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SRES. Something You Might Want To Know About

As I journey up the steep learning curve of Climate Change, using the tools of rationality, logic and scientific fact to guide me, I become more and more uncomfortable with my findings.  Yesterday was a long day of research, hence the lack of posts online.  I managed to get a few Tweets posted but mainly I was learning, sorting my thoughts and contemplating where I was going to go next with my upcoming blogs. 

 

Before we start, allow me to review the modus operandi of Paradigm's Bend.  As I research I wish to share what I learn with others, so long as it falls under the header of being useful, relevant and enlightening information, whether I do so by posting other people's articles or by writing my own posts which I have researched and tested with critical questioning.  My constant view is that while the Internet and Media are both wonderful resources in and of themselves, they tend to come at a price. They grant vast knowledge and awareness, while at the same time with one or two misclicks, the promising path followed can rapidly confuse the seeker with poorly researched information that should be labelled as deceptive, misleading or even downright nonsense.  This blog focusses on distilling balanced, straight forward information and posting the best and clearest information gleaned from the Internet, science journals and government papers. 

 

Today's blog is a little like taking a step back.  I want to have a post on PB that benchmarks Climate Change in a realistic and measurable way.  In a way that impacts on humans personally.  Something that can be referred back to in future posts.  That is where SRES comes in.  Until recently I hadn't heard about SRES, it's not discussed much in the media but it should be.  In my humble opinion, this shouldn't be the fodder of only the policy makers, little kids should be taught this in school.  It should be ingrained into our lives and made part of our cultural consciousness.  Soon you will see why.

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