Monthly Archives: August 2021

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHEN ARE WE GOING TO RECOGNIZE THE ENORMOUS AND UNDENIABLE POWER THAT NATURE HAS OVER CIVILIZATION AND OVER ITS POLITICS ?

26 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Advertising, Advertising industry

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(Twelve-minute read) 

Scientists have not suggested that climate played any direct role in causing the current COVID-19 outbreak, but no matter how one looks at what is happing climate change is making outbreaks of disease more common and more dangerous which promises to amplify the harm and make even unrelated crises more painful.

You would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to recognize nature’s enormous and undeniable power over civilization and even over its politics, and we urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. 





You don’t have to be a scientist to know that the loss of biodiversity and encroachment by civilization will help new viruses jump to people and that we are still turning a blind eye to the fact that our behavior is driving this.

There are undeniably numerous reasons alone that may make the pandemic prologue for more far-reaching and disruptive changes to come. However, it is also clear that climate policy today is indivisible from efforts to prevent new infectious outbreaks. 

Slow action on climate has made dramatic warming and large-scale environmental changes inevitable. It is now up to the public and leaders to understand that it’s human behavior driving the rise in disease, just as it drives the climate crisis.

The current pandemic and climate change are both demonstrating this in real-time.

Today, hurricanes are larger and more intense than ever. Fires are spreading faster and further amid drought, their total size having doubled in recent years.

So what can be done to speed up the transformation of how we manage our world?

Promoting sustainability requires a total transformation of how we think, buy and use earth resources.

This transformation is now in its infancy.

The seeds of the values-based approaches ‘Ethical’ values such as trust, integrity, justice, and compassion are usually neglected in sustainability assessment.

The authorities tasked with responding to it will already be consumed by other emergencies, their capacity to provide even the most fundamental aid limited, their budgets gutted.


It is time that the Advertising industry step up to the challenge.

While seemingly benign advertising is one of the key drivers behind climate change by promoting excessive consumption.

Advertising is an excellent form of communication, capable of delivering a wealth of information to consumers on varying topics. It has become so powerful and so subtle that consumers accept most advertising content without question.

On the other hand, advertising to sell products is willing to sacrifice the health and welfare of the consumer, turning them into gluttons, and lowering the moral standards of our society. 

By their very nature Advertising, language, logic, and action force separation, discrimination, and choice.

Advertising creates excess “want” in a society that does not know the meaning of “need.”

Marketing in its various forms continues to grow through mobile, content marketing, social platforms, and new digital platforms. Now Worth $1.2 Trillion.  

Digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google AdWords have a glaring responsibility to introduce green-field technology that creates genuinely new opportunities for advertisers and marketers, not to mention consumers.

To assist in this transformation, we must start to legislate against advertisements that promote unsustainable consumption for the sake of short-term profit.

Media outlets should be legally required to remove any advertising that does not meet the values of sustainability.

The ability to motivate an entire group to strive toward a specific goal is a major part of what makes a good Advertisements.

                                               ————–

At the end of the day, the creation of new indexes and methodologies to measure human and economic development are needed, since they will provide us with a wider toolkit to analyze our main subject: economic sustainable growth.

Well-established measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should no be the key determinants of national policies and legislation.

GDP can remain as a complementary indicator to development, but it is not an adequate indicator when considered on its own.

 It represents the value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period within a country’s borders.

We know that in an economy, GDP is the monetary value of all final goods and services produced while it is totally removed from the damage it creates to our core values.

However, it fails to account for the multi-dimensional nature of development or the inherent shortcomings of capitalism, which tends to concentrate income and, thus, power.

If we continue to concentrate on GPD disasters that might have otherwise proved manageable will compound and amplify COVID’s effects until the hurt — measured in lives, livelihoods, and property damage — winds up worse than it might have been from anyone disaster alone.

Throwing money at a problem doesn’t work without core values determined from that starting point. One of the limitations of GDP is that it only addresses average income, failing to reflect how most people actually live or who benefits from economic growth.

                                        ———————–

What’s known as biodiversity is critical because the natural variety of plants and animals lends each species greater resiliency against threat and together offers a delicately balanced safety net for natural systems.

As diversity wanes, the balance is upset, and remaining species are both more vulnerable to human influences and, according to a landmark 2010 study in the journal Nature, more likely to pass along powerful pathogens.

The human spirit has consistently sought to transcend the material, biological, physiological, and technological limitations. but the present world problems won’t be solved by technology because no feasible technology will sufficiently decouple economic activity and environmental impact.

Take profit-seeking algorithms for example.

The urgency of the climate change crisis really can’t be overstated. Unless action is taken across all levels of society over the next decade, we’re looking at a near future of droughts, flooding, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

So here’s the existential crisis for adland:

The more effective it is at selling products to consumers, the worse the climate crisis gets.

THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY HAS A MORAL DUTY TO STOP EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION. TO STOP PROMOTING EAT MORE, BUY MORE, GAMBLE MORE. DIE SOONER. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT WILL BE IN THE END THE REAL COST OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?

22 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in Afghanistan, Taliban., The cost of war.

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(Ten-minute read) 

We all know that life at the best of times has always been a commodity.

However, in this desensitizing world of technology/and data that we have today, it is rapidly becoming a commodity for undisclosed profits, and even more so in wars.

Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

It is also easy to sit on the bench and criticize Americans for their reaction to 9/11  which changed the direction of peace to them, declaring a war on the axis of evil, but when the dust settles what is the real cost.

The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

To finance the Afghanistan war with no objective the United States borrowed heavily and will pay more than $600 billion in interest on those loans through 2023. The rest of the debt will take years to repay. 

All told the cost of nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan will of course amount to more than trillions and you don’t have to be a military expert to show there is little gained for it.

The final total is unknown, but experts project another trillion dollars in costs over the next 40 years as wounded and disabled veterans age and need more services.

13,447 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan. More than 150,000 U.S. soldiers are receiving disability payments as a result of serving in Iraq.

These numbers are staggering, repulsive, and immoral.

It is perfectly clear that America must always have an enemy–that is how the collective American minds works–and there must always be war, even when they can’t explain why they are going to war.

                             ——————————-

Was the money well spent?

After hundreds of thousands of deaths – has the so-called war on terror made the world a safer place?

NO. 

Yes, the fall of Kabul to the Taliban will mean less stability in the region, which will increase demand for “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions” as well as “unmanned systems, missiles, and satellite capabilities.”

That’s where the major contractors are primed for growth. 

The war in Afghanistan was a misguided morass in many ways and the Taliban victory is not military so much as political.

Analysts are now wringing their hands and explain that Afghan soldiers often were not paid and lacked supplies of food and ammunition.

The most striking feature of the Taliban seizure of power is that it took place with so little fighting. They were accustomed to calling in close American air support and felt bereft without it. 

The American way of dealing with a lost war is to withdraw its forces.

The Afghan way of dealing with it will be to change sides as quickly as possible. 

                                               ———-

The Taliban has now one important advantage in holding onto power.

For the moment, no foreign power or neighboring state looks likely to support an anti-Taliban resistance movement with arms and money.

The Taliban no longer need help from al-Qaeda or Isis and there is every reason why they should reject a renewed alliance if they want world recognition.  

The Taliban control the country.Taliban fighters ride on a vehicle. Thanks to American spending, Afghanistan has seen improvements in health and education — but they are scant compared with international norms. Much of that money was wasted on programs that were poorly conceived or riddled with corruption.

While it is true to say that American dollars went to build hospitals that treated no patients, to schools that taught no students. Most of the American spending on reconstruction has gone to a fund that supports the Afghan Army and police forces through equipment, training, and funding.

War-related spending has roughly doubled the size of Afghanistan’s economy since 2007. But it has not translated into a healthy economy. Despite billions of dollars to fight opium poppy cultivation. Afghanistan is the source of 80 percent of global illicit opium production.

Where does the Taliban get their financing from?

From outside the normal sources of revenue. 

Opium remains a source of Taliban income, along with taxation on almost every activity from farming to the slimmest business, to the tax big mining companies to keep their business running.

It would not surprise me if they place a tax on covid vaccines, and those wanting to leave.

A quarter or more of Afghans are presently unemployed.


                                                    ———-

Finally, let’s remind ourselves that the conflict in Afghanistan is not a war against occupation or an internal squabble.

It is a four-decade-long conflict driven by regional rivalries, exacerbated by competing ideologies and intensified by the rise of a brand of violent extremism that led to the tragic 9/11 attacks almost 20 years ago.

At least a worse government is better than no government.

If Afghanistan is forgotten again, disastrous consequences undoubtedly await.

If conditions are allowed to disintegrate because of the ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other divisions Afghanistan will plunge into civil war. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: IF WE CONTINUE IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS WE ARE NOW, THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE UNPREDICATABLE/ DISASTOROUS AND CONFLICT RIDDEN.

20 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Genetic engineering, Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Speed of technology., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Uncategorized, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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( Seven-minute read) 

We all know that we must shift the direction of the way we live life on Earth.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case and hence, social conflict and civil unrest seem inevitable.

We all know that what is needed is a coordinated global response and bipartisan domestic response not just to the current pandemic but also to tackle climate change.

As Schwab writes: “The new technology age if shaped responsively and responsibly, could catalyze a new cultural renaissance that will enable us to feel part of something much larger than ourselves – a truly global civilization.


Yes, we are in a fourth industrial-technological revolution with regulators guilty of sleeping by allowing AI to develop financial weapons of mass destruction turning the world into a digitalized market for the sake of short-term profit.

Today, 43% of the world’s population is connected to the internet, mostly in developed countries.

Each time you run a Google search, scan your passport, make an online purchase, or tweet, you are leaving a data trail behind that can be analyzed and monetized. Computers are already making decisions based on this information.

In less than 10 years computer processors are expected to reach the processing power of the human brain.  Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor.

Think of apps that track how much you eat, sleep, and exercise, and being able to ask a doctor a question by simply tapping it into your smartphone.

In the future, will it ever be possible to be offline anymore?

So are the technologies that surround us tools that we can identify, grasp and consciously use to improve our lives? Or are they more than that: powerful objects and enablers that influence our perception of the world, change our behavior, and affect what it means to be human?

It is therefore worthwhile taking some time to consider exactly what kind of shifts we are experiencing and how we might, collectively and individually, ensure that it creates benefits for the many, rather than the few.

                                 ———————————

At the heart of discussions around emerging technologies, there is a critical and central question: what do we want these technologies to deliver for us?

The fourth Industrial revolution is widely taken to be the shift from our reliance on animals, human effort, and biomass as primary sources of energy to the use of fossil fuels and the mechanical power this enabled.

It however can also be described as the advent of “cyber-physical systems” involving entirely new capabilities for people and machines.

It represents entirely new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even our human bodies -. examples include genome editing, new forms of machine intelligence, breakthrough materials, and approaches to governance that rely on cryptographic methods such as the blockchain. It’s just not very evenly distributed.

More people in the world have access to a mobile phone than basic sanitation.

The complexity of these technologies and their emergent nature makes many aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution feel unfamiliar and, to many, threatening.

Indeed, it is certain that the governments know this, but instead of helping the poor they are making it harder for them to survive and it is certain that sooner or later when the bubble burst, there will be few survivors.

Added to this is the humungous amounts of money governments are borrowed to keep the government running in the absence of real economic growth.

Since the financial crash and before interest rates were kept at near-zero levels for most of the decade in the run-up to the crisis with the West governments encouraging speculation and risk-taking.

                             _________________________

Currently, there are three big areas of concern: Inequality, Security, and Identity.

Inequality.

62 individuals controlled more assets than the poorer 3.6 billion people combined, half the world’s population.

Unequal societies tend to be more violent, have higher numbers of people in prison, experience greater levels of mental illness, and have lower life expectancies and lower levels of trust.

An important potential driver of increased inequality is our reliance on digital markets – increase unemployment.

Security.

The combination of the digital world with emerging technologies is creating new “battlespaces”, expanding access to lethal technologies and making it harder to govern and negotiate among states to ensure peace.

The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution also offer expanded capabilities for waging war which is increasingly accessible to both state and non-state actors, such as drones, autonomous weapons, nanomaterials, biological and biochemical weapons, wearable devices, and distributed energy sources

It’s not a question of if non-state actors will use some form of neuroscientific techniques or technologies, but when, and which ones they’ll use. 

Identity, voice, and community.

Already, digital media is increasingly becoming the primary driver of our individual and collective framing of society and community, connecting people to individuals and groups in new ways, fostering friendships, and creating new interest groups. Furthermore, such connections transcend many traditional boundaries of interaction.

Unfortunately, expanded connectivity does not necessarily lead to expanded or more diverse worldviews.

Emerging technologies, particularly in the biological realm, are also raising new questions about what it means to be human.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the first where the tools of technology can become literally embedded within us and even purposefully change who we are at the level of our genetic makeup.

The very reason why people are residents in taking the covid jab.

Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University, stated that cooperation is “the only thing that will redeem mankind”.

If we have the courage to take collective responsibility for the changes underway and the ability to work together to raise awareness and shape new narratives, we can embark on restructuring our economic, social, and political systems to take full advantage of emerging technologies.

This can only be achieved through the ideology of.  Live and let live. 


In 1969 a man stood on the moon. 

The U.S. Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its Birth.

This means that for 222 out of 239 years – or 93% of the time – America has been at war. The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

It’s no wonder that the world is Fucked up. 

One only has to look at the current withdrawal from Afghanistan to see the benefits of War.  

This has important implications for how policymakers ought to treat future wars that are inevitable as the world struggles to feed its present direction of economic growth at whatever cost. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS FORWARD TO THE COP OUT / COP26 SUMMIT.

15 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change., Cop26.

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(Nine-minute read) 


Carbon Dioxide emissions are at a higher level in the atmosphere than at any point in the last 4m years AND THE MESSAGE COULD NOT BE CLEARER.

LEADERS MUST ACT NOW OR GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE ONES WHO THREW AWAY OUR LAST-DITCH CHANCE.

If they fail to act the future will be changed beyond anything that the coronavirus pandemic has brought about.

So far what we see from world leaders are hot air promises that are totally inadequate and worthless without the trillions in investment and you can rest assured as the world returns to economic growth it will by using fossil fuels.

90% of the emissions will be in the next few decades, will come from emerging economies.

So let’s look at Cop26 or as I like to call it Cop-out 26.

Further change is now inevitable.

“Securing a brighter future for our children and future generations requires countries to take urgent action at home and abroad to turn the tide on climate change. It is with ambition, courage, and collaboration as we approach the crucial COP26 summit in the UK that we can seize this moment together, so we can recover cleaner, rebuild greener and restore our planet.”

PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

If you believe this just look at his country which is hosting the Cob Out / Cop 26 summit. It has cut its aid to the poorest countries, the only country to do so. 

It is the decisions we make today that really matter. 

Right now our species is undermining and destabilizing the very foundations that are necessary for life on earth to thrive.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconcile our economies with the natural world yet none of this will be enough.

What we say yes to. What we say no to and where we choose to invest our human and financial capital right now and not in years to come.

We know that the most vulnerable are at the greatest risk from climate change and that they have done the least to cause it. Action to address this and build resilience is needed now before more people lose their lives or livelihoods.

TO ACHIEVE ANY CLIMATE GOALS, EVERY COMPANY, EVERY FINANCIAL FIRM, EVERY BANK, INSURER, AND INVESTOR WILL NEED TO CHANGE. 

What are we talking about?  

At 2 degrees of global warming, there would be widespread and severe impacts on people and nature. A third of the world’s population would be regularly exposed
to severe heat, leading to health problems and more heat-related deaths.

At 1.5°C, the impacts would be serious, but less severe.

Now with three more months to go until COP26 we will see a lot of Hot Air

This decade is decisive. 

We need to turn ambition into actions of mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, and implementation.

Why?

Because the climate crisis has become critical. Greta-Thunberg-addresses-a-march

When you read stories about fires in the Amazon and Australia, ice melting in the Antarctic and Arctic, sea temperatures rising, and plastic destroying wildlife in the oceans, the scale of the problem can sometimes make the idea of dealing with it feel hopeless.

There is a general feeling that the future is so uncertain and it’s extremely hard to live with.

Unfortunately, most people although aware of the concept of Climate Change are in denial about the catastrophic reality. The issue is not about climate science but about everything else.

The world does not move together. It never has.

A 1.5%c  goal is a political choice, not a scientific discovery. 

Unless there is a political, economic, social-cultural, and moral makeover of the human world, only a bottom-up social mass movement will bring needed changes.

So what is COP26 all about?

One of the hardest facts to grasp about climate change is this: 

No matter what we do it’s almost certain to get worse.  Any action we take now is going to take decades to have any effect.

Why?

This is not the hottest summer on record it is going to be the coldest as the global average temperatures are projected to keep rising.

Unlike the current Covid pandemic there is no flatting the curve OF CLIMATE CHANGE  any time soon. 

The shock factor of this week’s UN IPCC report is already wearing off. 

The population is just one of many issues in the global discussion about climate change, but it is going to become a major problem.

Population issues certainly are an important dimension of how society will unfold, how society will be able to cope with this crisis over the course of this century.

With half of American’s have to migrate and god forbid China the world’s most populous country ( the largest emitter of carbon) has to do also.

There’s no one thing that’s going to do it.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. CAN WE ADAPT TO LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

12 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Cop26., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., Humanity., Inequality, Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten -minute read) 

It’s time to cut out the bullshit and get a grip when it comes to climate change.

The effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are now irreversible on the timescale of human lifetimes.

So the key question is, what will our emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants be in the years to come?

The simple reason for this is that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy just how much greenhouse gases are going to be released in the next few centuries, and just how much this is going to affect the climate.

Electrical Cars, Solar Panels, Wind turbines, and technology might all help reductions in carbon emissions but they are all products.  They all use the earth’s finite resources to produce profit for companies that created the world of Profit for Profit’s sake that has to lead us down the slippery path to climate change.  

In my opinion, any new normal ( which is going to be far from normal ) has to hold fossil burning industries accountable or nationalizing them till we reach a point where sustainable energy generates higher financial returns than coal and oil. 

 The harsh reality of climate change is now playing out in real-time before our very eyes, with some of the negative changes already locked into the climate system, while global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not moving fast enough to avoid irreversible damage to the planet.

Any solutions are going to take years to have any effect so we need to adapt: or, in other words, get used to the realities of this new, heated-up, wet, violent, world.  

We all know that the climate challenges we are facing on the planet transcend national boundaries.

At present we being told that’s, it’s not too late to stop the forthcoming climate changes totally making our planet unlivable if we move to clean energy. 

However clean energy is only one part of the challenge because the inequalities in the world demand a fundamental overhaul of existing social, political, and economic norms.

It is this new perception that needs to be contagious so it is adopted globally.

The shocking truth is that climate change has only just begun.

In other words, whatever the mitigation efforts of future civilizations, climate change is here to stay.  Regardless of future emission trends, the CO2 footprint from our brief passage on Earth is going to remain in the climate system and impact the well-being of all terrestrial life forms for what could almost be considered an eternity.

In the last year, we are seeing with the current Covid pandemic that we live in a world where HARMONIZATION of any actions is impossible.  

We will witness this in the forthcoming Cop-out / Cop26 summit. 

The above perception is highly unlikely to happen.

Why?

Because the climate change problems will probably worsen before — or indeed if — it gets better, no one wants to bear costs of change that will fall on  – the poor.

Long before this ever happens, humanity must prepare itself for an inland retreat and a constant battle against rising seawater that will continue for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. 

We are incredibly adaptable, but at the psychological level, there’s going to be tremendous disruption among families, societies, nations, etc. when change occurs.

Anything that helps an organism survives in its environment is an adaptation.

Adaptation is an acknowledgment that this.

Some of that change is a given, but not all of it.

For example:

Loss of traditions, habitat, and cultural heritage, and the distress that comes with moving away from the land where your ancestors are buried, where you’ve lived all your life.  Not to mention the extinction of species, animals and plants, and coral reefs, and all kinds of living things, those we depend on and those with which we simply share ecosystems.

None of the solutions so far even begin to address the possibility of an impending mental health crisis due to the upheaval associated with managed retreat and other forms of climate migration.

How do you convince a community that their home will not be habitable?

How do you make room for rural refugees to live in a crowded city?

Climate mitigation is hard, and we are running out of time to do it, but I would argue that adaptation in its absence will actually be a million times harder.

Without substantial cuts to our collective carbon imprint, many more lives will be lost trying to adapt to a changing environment, and countless more will be made meaningfully worse.

Why wouldn’t we do what we can to avoid that?

The long course of human evolution shows that climate disruption, which is what we’re going through right now and in the foreseeable future, is associated with the demise of ways of life.

As difficult as it may be, there is a vast scale of loss associated with climate change that one has to try to comprehend and accept in order to understand the urgency of the situation.

THE NEED FOR HARMONIZATION to anticipate the actual and expected effects of climate change and take appropriate action to prevent or minimize the impacts.

How will we feel when the air inside feels tinny and canned when all of this feels like our future?

The two main responses so far to climate change are Mitigation and Adaptation – they must go hand in hand. 

Adaptation can be planned in advance but it must go beyond just development to include the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions.

Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG emissions.  So we will need a menu of solutions: changes to diets; food waste reduction; improvements in agricultural efficiency; and technologies that make low-carbon food alternatives scalable and affordable.

Methane warms the world twenty times faster than carbon.

Junk-food chains, including KFC and Pizza Hut, McDonald’s have spread around the world.

Take McDonald’s. 

  • It has about 28,000 restaurants worldwide, opening around 2,000 new ones each year

The food industry spends billions a year in advertising and promotion to persuade people to eat more food.

In short, then, this is another example of wasted wealth, wasted capital, wasted labor, and wasted resources.Climate Change What Happens after 2100

On top of all this while the earth warms up it has the capability of releasing 1.5 trillion tons of organic carbon twice as much as Earths, atmosphere currently holds.

The planet is the ultimate ‘global commons’. It belongs to neither a particular individual nor a particular nation. Nor does it belong to a single generation such as us, our children, or our grandchildren.

Instead, it belongs to all living creatures both alive now and in the future. Just as all of humanity is connected ‘horizontally’ across the globe, so too are all past and future life forms bound ‘vertically’ in a continual unfolding of the story of life.

So when you buy something, you buy something that lasts; you buy it because you really need it and want to take care of it. It is none other than this consideration for future human beings and other life forms that should form the yardstick by which we set our mitigation targets — not merely what is politically and economically feasible for the industrialized world today.

Yet the political and economic institutions of our civilization are fixated on enjoying the present and unable to account for the consequences of our actions on tomorrow.

Corporations and governments are forever borrowing from the future in order to improve the present.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. OUR WORLD IS ON FIRE IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

08 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Communication., Cop26., CORONA VIRUS., Environment, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Natural World Disasters, OLYMPICS GAMES., Post-Covid-19, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Five-minute read) 

While we watched a postponed Olympics game unfold in Japan with barely one in 10 Japanese wanting it to happen, a pandemic is exposing gaps with graphic honesty in a  world that has long been overdue for systemic reform of its economic, social, and technological structures.

All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking; all need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks.

Beyond the obvious short-term impacts of climate change and Covid (such as loss of life, a profound hit to economic and social activity), both are casting a long shadow into the future. 

If we remain passive and ununited to the emerging risks, we may lose a historical opportunity to shape the new normal that we want, rather than the one we would be left with.

At the moment the economic risks dominate perceptions, with a prolonged global recession a top concern.

However, if either Covid-19 or Climate change eclipses sustainability on the public agenda where are we then.

What we will be left with are critical non-economic risks concerning the sustainability of life on earth and all that live on it.

On the environmental front, even with an expected 8% drop in global emissions for this year, the world would still miss the 1.5°C targets to avoid a planetary catastrophe.

If we are to truly recover from the pandemic and its impacts, then it will not be about putting things back together to how they were –we are in the midst of a historic event that will change many aspects of our world.

The long-term societal impacts of both, such as an exacerbation of inequality and changes in consumer behaviors, the nature of work, and the role of technology – both at work and at home – will change our way of life forever, for us as individuals, as a workforce, and as a society.

We were unprepared for Covid that was predictable. We are not preparing for Climate change that will create substantial societal consequences for the long term, now being felt by people worldwide. 

There is one thing for certain our attitudes towards traveling, commuting, and consumption will change employment prospects.

So what lessons can we distill, that can feed into your own future scenario, resilience, and business continuity planning?

Profit for profit’s sake will have to be regulated.

No longer can businesses plunder the earth for finite resources to produce worthless short-term material satisfaction. We know that we will have to build back better and address deep systemic vulnerabilities that have been allowed to develop over the last decades.

  • Left unchecked, there is a real risk that inequalities and social deprivation will increase

Therefore, the challenge to return to the ‘new normal’ is as much a psychological as an economic choice.

The timing and speed of the economic recovery, dependent as it is on solving the health crisis, is likely to exacerbate inequality, mental health problems, and lack of societal cohesion. It is also likely to widen the wealth gap between young and old and pose significant educational and employment challenges that risk a second lost generation.

A golden rule of politics is that the timing of a decision is almost as important as the decision itself.

“Timing is everything”, but it is also the element that is hardest to get right.

Of course, we need to focused on the climate, sustainability, and on societal risks, such as inequality, mental health, the lack of social cohesion and inclusion. If we do not do this, then the gaps in inequality – especially financial – are likely to remain and increase destroying all efforts of a green economy, a sustainable economy, or any other form of the economy whether it is socially driven or ever man for himself.   

We are already seeing record levels of unemployment due to lockdown measures, to control transmission and are re-learned hard lessons, particularly that social deprivation determines health outcomes.

So it is time for preparation, for a world of shocks which is likely urging to ramp up economic activity, regardless of impact, to recover at any cost.

Much depends on what governments, societies, and businesses will do next. This should be a long-term change in attitude in the historic public vs private debate.

I urge you to take the time to weigh the potential risks and benefits based on your situation before making a decision you could regret for the rest of your life.

We must draw on all our strengths to build back a better world.

 It’s time for all avenues of communication to be taking the lead.

The New Normal is knocking at the door and the door is already open.

Change is simple and it’s not easy.

Step 1: Do you want to change?

Step 2: Do you know how to change?

Step 3: Are you willing to give a change time?

Anyone who has ever changed has gone through the process. We need all three steps, and if we miss one, we get none.

The new normal in the end will look like we want it to look.

The life you thought was boring, is the life you’re hoping to get back to right now.”

Ultimately, public health is a political choice. A choice we are now confronted with, and one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

 Hopefully, hold on to that sense of shared humanity. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: HERE IS AN ACTION THAT COP26 CAN DO.

06 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Cop26., Olympic circus., OLYMPICS GAMES.

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  ( One minute read)  We in a world that needs action on climate change, not promises in ten years twenty years. So here is an action that all countries can contribute to tomorrow. It will not only save billions of tons of co2 emissions but billions that can be put to use in the future to promote sustainability. It’s time to stop the Olympic circus by permanently holding the games in Greece it’s home. Delegates from over two hundred regions are presently participating in this year’s Olympics in Tokyo with 205 teams, to be precise.  Over the course of the next three years, each country represented and any new participants contribute a million to build the necessary facilities in Greece. At the moment billions are being pumped into winning medals worth 400 Euros.   Greece repays these countries over the games held in the future from the ticket sales, television rights.  This action is sticking out like a sore thumb. All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

   

THE BEADY EYES; OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE COP26 SUMMIT GLASGOW 2021.

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change.

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          WE CAN’T CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY BY AN ACT OF WILL.

02/08/2021.  

Dear Cop26 Delegate,

As you know the sheer importance of what is happing at the end of this inflationary period on Earth is going to define all of our futures.

Whether the forthcoming COP26 Summit results are brilliant or terrible if we are not found in harmony with the earth, is likely to make our age, a mythic one, to our distant or future descendants.

Our distant and future ancestors are what everyone on earth shares.

From this perspective.

No human goal today is more pressing than the search for sustainable prosperity.

But it must encompass all other purposes, including peace, justice, health, science, economic development, spiritual pursuits.  Without them, all others will prove transient and illusory.

You will be attending a sobering up BY CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT that will hopefully show the scale of our problems and produce Actions that all in sundry can participate in.

You as a delegate must develop imagery that will bridge the incomprehensible gap between the forces of nature responsible for the very existence.

We are living today at a turning point for our species.

We can all be drowning in yelling about our differences, trying to control matters by fiat, or we can close our mouths and listen and try to follow some common sense.

This is a very special time that will never come again.

This summit is not the place, to blow your own trumpet, make worthless promises, but rather to agree on transparent actions on a global scale.

We all know that we need energy. 

We all know that the production of energy must go green. Not in twenty years, not in ten years but right now.

So why not agree to the following.

Government non-repayable grants.

Enable every home to install solar panels and insulation.

We only have one Earth.



Yours Faithfully

The Beady Eye.