Power grab on the Pacific Rim

You may want to click on the image below for a better view.

I sincerely hope you do, rather than linger here.

“The largest corporate power grab you’ve never heard of”

If you haven’t yet followed the link to add your voice to object to the rug being pulled from beneath our feet, the text you will see there is as follows:

To: Governments of Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the USA and Vietnam

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will massively boost corporate power at the expense of our climate and environment, human and workers’ rights, sovereignty and democracy. We strongly urge you to publish the text of the TPP as it stands now, reject proposals that would undermine your regulatory power and oppose this corporate power-grab.

Why is this important?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a highly secretive and expansive free trade agreement between the United States and twelve Pacific Rim countries, including Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia. Leaked text reveals that the TPP would empower corporations to directly sue governments in private and non-transparent trade tribunals over laws and policies that corporations allege reduce their profits.

Legislation designed to address climate change, curb fossil fuel expansion and reduce air pollution could all be subject to attack by corporations as a result of TPP. Additionally, the deal could criminalize internet use, undermine workers’ and human rights, manipulate copyright laws, restrict government regulation of food labeling and adversely impact subsidized healthcare.

The movement we are building locally, nationally and globally to move beyond fossil fuels and create a safe climate future is growing by the day and the fossil fuel industry is getting scared of the uncertainty ahead. The TPP is a symptom of this fear – a massive bid to overthrow any restrictions we might throw at them. But we can stop this. The might of our movement is greater than their money or manipulation.

Words of hope and optimism… wait, why are you still here?

Say no to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

On the fragility of life

~~~

Planet Earth is 4,600 million years old.

If we condense this inconceivable time-span into an understandable concept, we can liken Earth to a person of 46 years of age. Nothing is known about the first seven years of this person’s life, and whilst only scattered information exists about the middle span, we know that only at the age of 42 did the Earth begin to flower.

Dinosaurs and the great reptiles did not appear until one year ago, when the planet was 45. Mammals arrived only eight months ago; in the middle of last week man-like apes evolved into ape-like men, and at the weekend the last ice age enveloped the Earth.

Modern man has been around for four hours.

During the last hour, Man discovered agriculture.

The industrial revolution began a minute ago. During those sixty seconds of biological time, Modern Man has made a rubbish tip of Paradise…

The text above is from the poster on the wall in front of me, entitled ‘Against All Odds’. The words are by Greenpeace, London (hat tip to ‘Pray For A Better World‘ for saving me the trouble of transcribing it!).

On this timescale, each human lifespan is a mere 18 seconds.

I feel like an incredibly old mayfly. Fifty-four ‘hundred million’ years old this coming Saturday — and yet, from another point of view, I have only a few more seconds left. Welcome to The Total Perspective Vortex.

I haven’t tried very hard — life’s too short! — to determine when ‘Against All Odds’ was first published. Some time prior to 1991 is the best I can manage by googling. Since these words were penned, the acceleration hasn’t eased up; in the story so far there’s one thing that doesn’t even get a mention — probably because it was just a fledgling at that point.

That thing is: the Internet.

• When I was born, there were perhaps just a few dozen computers on the planet (and each of those was the size of a room and yet also nowhere near as capable as this machine I’m using at this moment).
• As a teenager, I blew all my pocket money savings on a Sinclair Cambridge calculator. This was a valuable lesson in not being an early technology adopter, because the Sinclair Cambridge Scientific was released just a few short weeks later — and it cost less, too! I also spent a lot of my hard-earned cash on vinyl (such as the one shown in the video above). At the time, I never realised that ‘records’ would become obsolete so very, very quickly…
• Also at this time, I was becoming concerned by what I was hearing about the short expected lifespan of fossil fuels as an energy source for civilisation (‘about 30 years’ is what I remember. I strongly suspect that the voice in my head telling me “it’s a trap” was distracted by dint of a Jedi mind-trick). Oooh, shiny!
• On the way out of my teens, I used a Commodore PET computer at work. I was (briefly) sales administrator for the company’s line of computer games for the PET, on cassette tape — one of the first ever such roles, in an industry that’s now worth many billions world-wide. I should’a stuck with that one!
• In my early twenties, I bought a ZX Spectrum computer, and played games on it until the wee hours. (Rebelstar Raiders, anyone?) And then I bought an Amstrad PCW. And then I bought a Commodore Amiga.
• As I turned 30, I was studying for my bachelor’s degree in computer science. And I bought my first PC. It was based on a 486DX-33 CPU, with a massive 100Mb (yes, not a typo) hard disk drive. It cost me just over £2000 (!)
• At about this time, someone at Greenpeace penned a piece called ‘Against All Odds’ (see above). Also at this time, the Internet began to leak out from its specialist beginnings into the wider world.
• As my life began (at 40 — or so they say), I was surprised to find that I had started up, from scratch, a business making and selling these new-fangled ‘website’ things… and, among other things, trying to persuade people — who didn’t believe me — that FAX technology was obsolete.
• At 50, the problem that hadn’t gone away began to raise its ugly head again…

Anyone born in the last fifteen years probably feels in their gut that the Internet has ‘always been around’, in the same way that I felt as though electric light was ‘perfectly natural’ when I were a lad. I strongly suspect that the term ‘pre-Internet’ to such folk has much the same feeling as does ‘gas-light’ to me.

The aurora borealis from Tromsø, Norway, on 09Jan2014. Credit: Harald Albrigtsen, Photographer

Meanwhile, back on planet Eaarth, just as we are becoming ever-increasingly reliant upon technowidgetry, our sun is behaving very strangely. It’s preparing to flip its magnetic poles, which happens once every 11 years or so; it’s not something that has ever troubled us humans before — but then we have never before been as dependent as we now are on electronic gadgets.

Solar scientists suspect that we may be in for some exceptionally strong space weather in the coming months — and fragile electrical (and electronic) systems are prone to serious disruption by solar flares.

Recently, the sun has gone exceptionally quiet. Is this the calm before the storm?

If we don’t start asking ourselves some questions about what we’re doing, and considering whether we need more adhesive ducks, we may (not) live to regret it. Accidents happen: and I have a bad feeling that we’re sleepwalking into a big one.

For now: back to the records…

Time to paint the town red?

Monty Python’s Life of Brian scene 9: Brian Learns to Conjugate.

I love the way Brian narrowly avoids heading off to an earlier crucifixion than the plot calls for because he initially gives what turns out to be the right answer (‘domum’) but for the wrong reason.

HT to Big M who seemed to think that this was a reasonable response to my recent list of decrees. I find myself oddly unable to disagree

If I ruled the world

Many thanks for their invaluable feedback in development of this bloggling to my dear friend Pat, Dwight Towers from Dwight Towers, Wendy from The Igloo, Martin from Mum’s Womb (Not a Box), Martin from Lack of Environment, Jenn of That’s a Jenn Story — and special thanks to Paul Handover from Learning from Dogs for persuading me that I needed some form of introduction to this piece.

* cough *

I would ask you, Dear Reader, to imagine, if you will, that I have been declared King of our poor beleaguered planet. Laughable, isn’t it? Yes… no, it’s fine, don’t worry: I won’t have you subjected to the comfy chair for your impertinence. Not yet, anyway.

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

As King of Planet Eaarth, I hereby decree:

1. The ten current wealthiest folk on the planet shall smilingly donate one half of their total wealth into the Planetary Fund for Justice (PFJ^[§]). (Reasoning: the wealth inequity obscenity.)
   1. When the PFJ needs more money: goto (1).
2. The PFJ shall be used primarily for the following purposes:
   1. To provide facilities to soften the blow for anyone affected, directly or indirectly, by these decrees, including, where appropriate:
      1. counselling
      2. skills retraining
      3. rehousing/ relocation
   2. To educate the citizens of the planet in the realities facing us all, to wit:
      1. global human population explosion
      2. global resource depletion
      3. global anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD)
   3. To begin the task of eradicating injustice from our planet and bring real meaning to the term ‘human rights’ — for all humans; not just the lucky few selected by random chance according to their place of birth.
3. The felling of any mature, healthy tree, anywhere, shall henceforth be a capital offence. Offenders’ corpses shall be ground up and used for tree food.
4. If it should ever happen that Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) in any year is determined to occur later in the year than the previous year’s EOD, a global day of rejoicing shall be proclaimed on that day.
5. Henceforth, ecocide is declared to be the Fifth Crime Against Peace.
6. Any rights held by corporations that suggest they are ‘persons’ are rescinded forthwith. The law governing corporations shall be amended such that no corporation in future can be accused of having psychopathic tendencies (see for instance: The Corporation.)
7. Long-term flood planning shall begin:
   1. All construction on flood plains shall cease forthwith.
   2. The practise of insuring structures on flood plains shall cease forthwith.
8. All professional news media shall abide by the following until further notice:
   1. Fully one half of all publications shall be devoted to the task of publicising the realities of the current crises.
   2. All television programming shall alternate their normal scheduling with educational broadcasts of equal time.
   3. The lecture ‘Arithmetic, Population and Energy‘ shall be shown daily on every channel in the land.
9. All those wishing to stand for public office must first demonstrate that they understand why Dr Albert A. Bartlett said “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
10. All those using the term ‘economic growth’ with a straight face shall be mercilessly pilloried for each offence. (Reasoning: Limits to Growth.)
    1. Persistent offenders shall be placed in stocks in high-traffic (pedestrian) areas for a period commensurate with their unwillingness to face reality.
    2. Passers-by will be offered free rotten fruit.
11. Anyone implementing rules in the name of ‘government’ shall be subject to summary dismissal where their actions fly in the face of scientific evidence — in such situations any back pay owed, and all pension rights accrued, shall be redirected to the PFJ.
12. ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) shall henceforth be a valid vote option in any democratic election process. If a vote for NOTA succeeds:
    1. The two runners-up shall form an interim coalition government whose primary task is mandated to determine:
       1. the reasons for a majority of the electorate to be dissatisfied with the candidate choices offered them
       2. what the candidates need to change about themselves to become more appealing to the electorate
       3. whether any changes need to be made to the electoral system to make NOTA a less likely result
    2. Further elections shall continue at the rate of no less than once every year until this pestilential flaw in the democratic process has been eradicated.
13. Because it is vitally important to reduce our carbon emissions, all energy generation from fossil fuels shall cease as soon as possible:
    1. Any and all subsidies to fossil fuel industries shall cease forthwith.
    2. Any and all profits generated by these industries shall be paid to the PFJ.
    3. The price charged for energy derived from fossil fuels shall increase by 14% every year (ie these prices shall double every five years).
14. The murder lottery known as ‘nuclear power’ shall be phased out:
    1. ‘Agreement WHA 12.40′ is rescinded forthwith. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shall no longer have the power to muzzle the World Health Organization (WHO) in the field of ionizing radiation.
    2. Work on all development of nuclear power stations on ground below six metres above sea level shall cease forthwith.
    3. Planning to decommission all existing nuclear power stations on such ground shall begin forthwith. As the true costs of these decommissions become clear, this shall be used to inform the people as to the true cost of what was once billed as ‘energy too cheap to meter’.
    4. Studies shall be undertaken to determine whether six metres is an adequate safety margin to prevent such facilities being inundated by rising seas (or tsunamis) during their anticipated lifetimes.
15. Those who become members of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) shall be entitled to enjoy an income tax rebate of 10% in every year during which they continue membership.
16. Judges shall be encouraged to hand out Judicial Penny Fine (JPF^[℮]) sentences.
    1. A JPF is one penny on the day of sentencing.
    2. Thereafter, the fine doubles for every day it remains unpaid.
    3. Should a recipient of a JPF be unable to pay the fine, he or she shall be required to watch ‘Arithmetic, Population and Energy‘ once a day for the rest of his or her natural life, or until the end of all life on Eaarth (whichever comes first).

^[§] About the PFJ^[¿]: Those lurkers who are fans of Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ may be excused for misinterpreting the abbreviations ‘PFJ’ and ‘JPF’. My original name for the ‘Planetary Fund for Justice’ was ‘Planetary Rescue Fund’, but once I abbreviated that and saw that a small change could inject a little humour, I simply couldn’t resist…

^{[¿] [℮]} Not to be confused with The PFJ. Nor the grumpy JPF (splitters).

Time to do business

To: Poop John the First of the Church of the Holy Shitters
From: A. Defaecator

Your Holiness,

You may recall that I petitioned you some weeks ago for permission to reproduce your August newsletter, which had been the cause of some welcome belly laughs. At that time, Your Highly Esteemed Posterior most graciously acceded to my request, and I have been sorely remiss in failing to furnish my end.

When I came to attempt to transplant the doings, the material in question appeared to have been defaced. I suspected the cause to be the execrable malaise known as ‘linkrot‘. Perhaps this is in the nature of things; entropy always wins.

Happily, though, through perseverance (and a lucky — nay, divinely inspired — click), I eventually located a good copy. Regrettably, all my efforts to faithfully reproduce The Droppings of Your Magnificence have come to naught. While the fault is all mine, I still want to point an accusatory finger in the direction of that insidious scourge, featuritis. Had I a gaggle of scribes and a taskmaster’s whip, I might, given time, do better. In the meantime, all I can offer is the humble link above, and a simple transcription below that lacks the pungent impact of the art of your Holiness.

I remain, Sir,
unfit to wipe your arse,

A. Defaecator, Esq.

P.S. I have yet to get myself a bum gun, though I must do this.

---

The Holy Shitters News, August, 2013 – Vol. 6

If we really want to straighten out all this crap we really need to think about shit.

A secular environmental religion, scientifically based, with a focus on the psychology of it all. Our ego is the culprit when it comes to dealing with climate change. We cannot save the planet. We can only save ourselves. Our current egotistical self-perception makes that prospect a dubious one at best. Meekness, humility and a realization that our shit does stink, guides us on our path to true sustainable living and climate equilibrium.

Musings from Poop John the First

There is a new religion emerging.  It is not like religions of the past.  It does not require faith.  It does not purport to put man above the animal world.  It does not require the supernatural.  It does not promise life everlasting.  It does not require one to look up but requires one to look down.

This is the religion of the Church of the Holy Shitters.  Our religion is not a passing fad or a form of cynicism or satire.  Our whole belief system is of a consistent pattern that promises an advanced lower reasoning, more human community and a new and liberated individual.  Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring relationship of each of us to ourselves, to other living creatures and to nature.  Our religion makes sense as a holistic and consistent philosophy.  It is both necessary and desirable.

The practices and beliefs of our religion must be seen against a background of what has gone before.  It must be seen in light of the betrayal and disconnect of other religions in dealing with modern life.  It must be seen in light of the Corporate State and the way in which the State dominates, exploits, and ultimately destroys both nature and humans.  Its sanity and rationality must be measured against the insanity of existing “reason”.  Its beliefs must be seen from the perspective that humans have lost control of the machinery of their society, and only new values, a new way of thinking and a new culture can restore control.

Our religion is a movement to bring our thinking, our society, and our lives in harmony with the revolution of technology and science that has already taken place.  It demands of us a new mind—a lower transcendent reason–able to plug our species into its rightful place in nature.  It demands that each of us assume a new responsibility for nature and all its living creatures.  It promises a life that is more liberated, healthier and more beautiful than anything mankind has known if we only have the courage and the meekness to seize that life.

Meditation of the Month

There is a gun with which to play
It represents the Holy Shitters’ way.

Do your business and then take aim
If you’re not clean you only have yourself to blame.

We wash our cars and take our showers
Yet we go around with dirty assholes for hours.

Use the bum gun every day
Use it after to blow your shit away.

Wiping your butt is not the way
Cause it leaves things dirty for most of the day.

Amushits

Other religions wear relics from religious figures or medals of saints around their necks.  We believe they convey the wrong message. We instead prefer to wear amushits made from the dung of various animals.

Featured Amushit of the Month
Bullshit: Worn to inhibit untrue statements from coming out of the person’s mouth.  It also serves to shield the wearer from the lies of others.

Upcoming Church Holidays
Celebrated on the First Thursday of the Month
August:  Hot Air Awareness Day – A day to remind ourselves of the problems associated with climate change and how important our religion is to solving them.

The Holy Shitters Ten Commandments

Our 5th of 10

If thou hast nothing constructive to say then don’t say shit.

Recent Posts

China present and Taiwan Past

Sometimes you come across an article and your reaction is to say “Holy Shit!” That was the reaction I had reading this. It brought back memories and the daunting challenges we face in confronting the global environmental crisis we call climate change. Going from the present to the past I am encouraged and ready to shit in my pants …

Taking the Piss out of You!

As Poop John the First I am called on to look at things from an ass-forward, bottoms up, waste-end first perspective. Consequently, I tend to see things a little differently than most people and reach some different conclusions as a result.

---

Homo fatuus brutus in the age of stupid

I woke up this morning…

[ cue blues riff ]

Rain. Grey clouds outside.

“Good,” thought I, “it’s nice to see wintry weather in England for a change, instead of these perpetual California blue clear skies.”

Then I went to watch ‘The Age of Stupid‘ once again. It mentions (in connection with ‘C&C’, a term that, by now, ought to be ubiquitous — and yet I’m buggered if I can recall what it actually stands for*) that our global emissions need to peak before 2015 (“in seven years’ time” when that clip was filmed, 2008) to avoid reaching the internationally ‘agreed’ (sic) absolute upper limit of 2°C global warming above pre-industrial times.

Yes: not a typo. Things have moved on since The Age of Stupid was put together. We’re now talking about the very next time we next ‘celebrate’ (sic) ‘happy (sic) new year’.

Then I switched back to ‘normal’ (sic) programming. Flipped past Pri’Minister’s Question Time in Parliament (as usual: what point listening to a bunch of egotistical self-congratulatory growthmaniac airheads?) — then flicked back to it, Just In Case they were actually saying something important. Needless to say, they weren’t. They were going on and on interminably about jobs and growth and ‘the recovery’ amid lots of raucous ‘hear, hear’s like a flock of nesting seagulls.

Then I looked out the window again. Ah! Blue sky, back again. The only ‘cloud’ in sight: a contrail from a high-flying passenger plane, full of hopeful people who believe that they’re going somewhere.

In an earlier life (say, fifteen years ago) I would have felt good, this morning.

* Is there any point in continuing to care? ‘Democracy’ suggests not: the will of the people is perfectly clear.

[edit 22Jan2014]
Since there are far many more ways to interpret the abbreviation ‘C&C’ than there are to interpret, say, ‘IPCC’; just on the off-chance you’re wondering, Dear Reader, the ‘C&C’ I’m waffling on about above is ‘contraction and convergence‘.
[/edit]

The right to choose

By a devious route that is an idiosyncrasy — emphasis on the crazy — of this innerwebz thingy I stumbled upon the following video for the first time, just now. In respect for the memory of my dear friend, I had no choice but to drop everything and create this blog post.

Apologies for the copy-paste below from my earlier post, but I would like to include these links here but don’t have much energy for a ‘proper’ composition just now:

… the Canadian organisation Dying with Dignity. There are similar organisations across the world lobbying for a change in the way that our society handles end of life issues (a google search led me to a related UK organisation, Dignity in Dying …

Until we meet again.

Once upon a dream

There once
was just
this little bard
who dreamt of
being great.

A tale begins.

Words
on an
empty
slate

Advent’rous soul,
explorer, he
set foot
upon
the path.

The way
unclear;
could not
see far
sought wisdom
from a muse.

Before too long
the sirens’ song
(a call not
to refuse)
led him
astray
and
with no clues
into a realm
of lose.

This maze
is vast:
somewhere within
the Egress lies in coils.
Her twists and turns
this way and that
his every move
she foils.

“I must
win through!”
he gasps, with
fading
breath.

“Win
through
you shall!”
comes the
riposte
“– to
certain
death.”

Confusion
haunts
our hero’s face
as ever
onward
does he race.

Dream on,
brave soul,
his captor
taunts
for there
is no escape:
the endless depths
of death’s abyss
at the last
your hope
shall rape.

Though
every mortal
fears to leave
this vale of tears,
though each
may reach
and strive;
the resolution
of this quest
is death:

for none
shall leave
alive.

…

There once
was just
this little bard
who dreamt of
being great.

But little he
did know then
this was not to be
his fate.

Each time he
thought he
had arrived, he
turned around
and then:

Dumbfounded,
found
they’d
gone and moved
the goalposts
once again.

Game over,
little bard:
dream on.

Continue?
Y/N

The scientists are wrong

I think that the above is a pretty good indication that now is the perfect time to declare A Large Crisis.

In fact, if you’ve got a moment, it’s a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, twenty-four-hour porterage, and an enormous sign on the roof saying ‘This Is a Large Crisis’.

A lack of adhesive ducks

There is this truly wonderful scene in The Big Bang Theory in which Penny slips in the bathtub and dislocates her shoulder. In Sheldon’s universe, the reason for this is perfectly clear: he cannot slip in the tub in his own apartment just across the hall, since that tub features a handful of cheap sticky plastic widgets that eliminate the risk. And so, when, at the hospital to which he has driven Penny (quite rightly under protest, since were this ‘real life’ and not a sitcom he would not be allowed behind the wheel of any motorised vehicle), the form he is given asks Sheldon (though of course it doesn’t, not really) “how did the accident occur?” he quite naturally answers, “lack of adhesive ducks”.

Here, let me show you:

… oh, that’s right, I can’t: not in the way I’ve become accustomed to doing. It would seem that I’m currently only able to offer you a simple hyperlink.

An artist would be probably be unconsolably heartsick upon returning from a vacation to discover that, during his absence, every one of his canvasses had been attacked by voracious moths leaving his work riddled with holes the size of despair.

I can’t say that I’m feeling quite that bad about the fact that I return from some time away to discover that, for some reason which I have yet to fathom, none of the YouTube links in my blog are currently working. Not for me, at least: I fully appreciate that they may be perfectly fine, for you — WYSINWOG: what you see is not what others get (on the innerwebz). My preliminary digging has suggested that the problem may be just at my end (if you’ll pardon the expression). If you are being affected in the same way as me, I would apologise (if I believed that the fault were mine), and would assure you that normal service will resume as soon as possible.

Nevertheless, I view this as another in a long line of tedious system failures. When an increasingly complex system (upon which we’ve come to rely and believe to be ‘normal’) fails in one or more of its increasingly fragile linkages, things simply fall apart. From where I sit, at least, it’s illustrative of the kind of thing we can look forward to more of in the future as the triple whammy of climate change, overpopulation and peak fossoil wends its weary way out of the future towards us.

Oh, by the way: happy Earth Overshoot Day.