Tag Archives: Environment

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WILL 2020 BE THE YEAR OF THE BIG MELT OR THE BIG FRY.

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Evolution, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Purchasing Power., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Leaders, World Organisations.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

 

It looks like being both.

We are the first generation to know we’re destroying the world, and we could be the last that can do anything about it.

SO AS IF YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  

We need to recognize that everything we do, every step we take, every sentence we write, every word we speak—or don’t speak—counts. Nothing is trivial.

Take personal responsibility.

We need to use social media – this is one of the most effective ways to get brands to listen to you, so tell them that you want a change.

Why?

Because, unfortunately, the politicians who dominate the world stage are, depressingly, mostly cut from the old cloth, and the leadership challenges they face, are particularly complex and will require different skills — notably a clearer vision among leaders of organisation’s shared purpose.

Because the digital revolution is far from over the pace of change only seems to be quickening when in fact it is causing isolation. 

Because, we are allowing non-regulated large technology platforms to become too powerful, using their size to dominate markets and we are not paying enough attention to how the tools they create can be used for ill –  like device addictions, as we drown in notifications and false news feed posts.

Because there is an increasing imperative for all of us to respond to climate change.  Which will and is challenging our lives developing on a daily bases right in front of our eyes into our biggest need to act as one.

How can any of this be achieved? 

How will the changing political, economic and environmental landscapes shape the world?

Don’t get caught up in the how of things. Don’t wait for things to be right in order to begin.

Because in our age of tectonic geopolitical shifts, “alternative facts,” and conflicting narratives, our routine everyday life is losing sight of our true goals and aspirations.

Because with the rise of short-sighted populism we will solve nothing, other than feeding the great unwashed with short term gratification.

We need to write a piece of software that eliminated malware, viruses and all of that crap. 

We need to show our political leaders that they want to change, to understand our common humanity.

We need to try to put yourself into another person’s headspace and accept people for who they are and what their beliefs are.

We need to collaborate and push for policies that complement both sides of the political spectrum.

We need to make wasting our resources unacceptable in all aspects of our life.  Every product we buy has an environmental footprint and could end up in a landfill. The impact of plastic pollution on our oceans is becoming increasingly clear, having drastic impacts on marine life.

We need to be more conscious about what we buy, and where we buy it from. Living a less consumerist lifestyle can benefit you and our planet.

We need to use our purchasing power and make sure our money is going towards positive change.

We need to realize that what we eat contributes around a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for almost 60% of global biodiversity loss.

We need to be supporting eco-friendly products.

We need to try to waste as little food as possible, and compost the organic waste we can’t eat.

We need to make education free for all.  Start educating not for profit but for a better understanding of what is the common values of life.

We need to stop asking the world’s smartest scientists to find us more time and to reverse gravity’s effect on our lives.

We need to stop killing each other. Countries start wars and people die and more people are in poverty.

We need to create out of profit for profit sake a World Aid fund with perpetual funding. (See previous posts) A new nonprofit called Carbon Offsets to alleviate address Climate change and Poverty. 

We need to realize that all significant change throughout history has occurred not because of nations, armies, governments and certainly not committees. They happened as a result of the courage and commitment of individuals. Believe that you can and will make a difference. 

The genesis for change is awareness so I need to stop. 

This year will not only be another opportunity for the leading minds in media in all its forms to highlight consumption for consumption sake.

However, if they wanted to spread a message that helps us all they would ban advertising that promotes consumption for consumption sake/profit. 

Feel free to add your priorities. With rapid innovations in technology and open access to data its no longer “wait and see.” We need to stop the huge feeling of apathy. 

The coming year, let alone the next decade looks unpredictable.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S; WE CANNOT TRUST TECHNOLOGY TO COME TO THE RESCUE.

10 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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( A Crucial twenty-minute read)

Climate change is accelerating and we know that it is the world’s greatest collective action problem.

The global climate is probably the most complex of all complex systems to which humans belong.

It’s more than a quarter of a century since the leaders of the world, gathered in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, committed their countries to avoiding “dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system” by signing the UN convention on climate change.

Climate protesters prior to the COP23 talks in Bonn, Germany

We know we have to tackle climate change –as do the politicians.

We know that it’s rational for an individual country not to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, given most economies are heavily based on energy resources that emit them.

Yet, if all nations act that way — indeed, that’s what’s happening — most countries will eventually be worse off due to the cumulative impacts of all our emissions.

Put another way, what’s better for each individual country in isolation is actually worse for the planet as a whole. Conversely, what is worse for each individual country, overtime would be better for the planet.

Unlike other policies, climate change is cumulative.

We know that climate summits highlight the science, but achieve little or nothing-

The First World Climate Conference was held on 12–23 February 1979 in Geneva as was the second the third.

Here is the list

Contents

1995:  Berlin, Germany

1996:  Geneva, Switzerland

1997: Kyoto, Japan

1998: Buenos Aires, Argentina

1999: Bonn, Germany

2000: The Hague, Netherlands

2001: Bonn, Germany

2001: Marrakech, Morocco

2002: New Delhi, India

2003: Milan, Italy

2004: Buenos Aires, Argentina

2005: Montreal, Canada

2006: Nairobi, Kenya

2007: Bali, Indonesia

2008: Poznań, Poland

2009: Copenhagen, Denmark

2010: Cancún, Mexico

2011: Durban, South Africa

2012: Doha, Qatar

2013: Warsaw, Poland

2014: Lima, Peru

2015: Paris, France

2016: Marrakech, Morocco

2017:  Bonn, Germany

2018: Katowice, Poland

2019: Bonn, Germany

2019: Madrid, Spain

A lot of talking while the ice melts, our lands burn, and our oceans rise and our Co2 emissions are traded on an Ecosystem Marketplace’s – Carbon offsetting- Cardon Cap and trade systems.

The longer we wait to address it, the bigger the problem it becomes and the harder it gets to solve, fueling a feedback loop that makes solutions ever more difficult.

Imagine getting taxed before you put that money into your fund and then not living long enough to reap the payoffs of your fund.

That’s happening with climate change, on a global scale.

However, we must realize that climate is a much broader, systemic problem that can not be tackled solely by making how important our everyday choices are.

We know that behind the energy and climate change hypocrisy is in all of us.

You’re a hypocrite for advocating on climate change while using fossil fuels.

Such arguments are shallow because virtually everyone depends on these fuels somehow.

Trying to make people feel guilty for their carbon-intensive activities doesn’t actually get them to change their behaviour.

Nobody wants to change unless they really, really have to.

We know that transforming endemic corporate behaviours that are devastating the planet requires whole industries to move together, and fast.

We need bold, industry-wide coalitions for change.

We need to bring industry leaders together to agree on reforms to the parts of the business that are irrelevant to customers but of grave importance for our environment.

However business cannot tackle climate change on its own and we don’t have time to wait for individual companies to each go on their own sustainability journeys.

We know that enacting policies today to cut greenhouse gas emissions won’t have a discernible impact on global warming for decades, if not centuries.

We know that investors are in effect expecting returns on assets in companies that eventually must be written off for the planet to be safe.

The private sector can either destroy the planet or replenish it.

We know what needs to be done.

This means that sustainable savings are the number one solution to climate change and the effects are larger than rooftop solar, solar farms, afforestation and electric vehicles combined.

To do this is laying down a clear challenge.

But unfortunately, not all carbon footprints are created equally.

This makes it a tough sell and begs the question to what degree people are willingly taking concrete steps to lower their lifestyle’s impact on climate change, or why people are not.

The why not, is because for most people it’s still intangible and not well understood even considered a Hoax because of Fake news’ or ‘inconvenient truth that there is no problem and hope that it disappears by itself.

The willingness is rhetoric like flight shaming which is near the top of the list of hypocrisy charges.

No press release can obscure the fact that time is not on our side.

We need to cap our carbon emissions now not in ten years.

Increasingly missing from this picture above is the support of governments that operate on 2- to 6-year election cycles.

Technology is bringing down the price of switching to green alternatives, not least renewable energy. So what is stopping governments from making these technologies available with affordable Green Grants to one and all Now?

With most countries more engrossed by their internal domestic political squabbles the reasons are political or financial, not scientific.

The science isn’t that difficult to explain but instead of explanations we are presented with statements of facts with an only simple explanation and no real substance, CO2 is like a blanket.

A Chinese man wears a mask to guard against air pollution in Beijing. Much of Eastern and Central China is regularly blanketed by a thick smog caused by coal power plants and industrial production, both of which fuel global warming and climate change, direct results of consumer culture.

Yet there is a troubling gap between the serious reality depicted by climate change science and the level of concern among all of us.

Worry and action are two different things.

Climate change is a direct consequence of the widespread, now globalized, mass production and consumption of goods, and of the material construction of our habitat that has accompanied it. Yet, despite this reality, production and construction continue unabated.

If we believed that a systemic response to climate change was an equally shared responsibility, was our responsibility, we would be responding to it.

Until we do that, we’re all climate change deniers.

( See Post – suggestion a World Aid commission of 0.05% )

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no right or wrong answers, just your insights.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: LET’S STOP THE BULLSHIT AND START GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT THE WORLD THAT WE ALL LIVE ON.

13 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Twenty-minute read)

The most recent UN Climate Change summit in New York saw a succession of national leaders standing on the podium saying they understood the gravity of the situation but then failing to announce concrete plans.

China made no new promises. The United States said nothing at all, with Germany promoting a new plan worth $60 billion over 10 years to speed a transition to clean power the European Union did not signal its intention to cut emissions faster.

In fact, a host of countries made only incremental promises. Most of the major economies fell “woefully short” of expectations.

Their lack of ambition stands in sharp contrast with the growing demand for action around the world.

Indeed the summit highlighted that the United Nations (which is our best effort to humans to come together for the good of all) is for all intensive purposes a gossip shop with no powers.

This is not the fault of the organisation because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.

Climate Change, however, represents a unique problem in as much that for the first time in human history, the human race is confronted with a problem that is not about human rights but our very existence as a species.

It is the defining issue of our time and now is the defining moment to do something about it.

Fortunately or unfortunately observations of the future are not available at this time.

But we do however have scientific models with the best data available predicting the need for humans to act like one if we want future generations of our species to prevail.

Rowland said, ” What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if in the end were willing to do is to stand around and wait for them to come true.”

Thanks to technology we are now constantly aware of every fault and flaw of our humanity, combined with an inundation of doomsayers and narcissistic nihilists commanding our attention space

It is what is causing this constant feeling of a chaotic and insecure world that doesn’t actually exist.

It’s this feeling of insecurity and chaos that is igniting the platforms of divisive strong-men like Trump, Erdogan, and Putin.

It’s this feeling that has consumed the consciousness of millions of people and caused them to look at their country through the lens of popularism a fun-house of the mirror: exaggerating all that is wrong and minimizing all that is right.

We judge groups of people by their weakest and most deprived members. And to protect ourselves from the overreaching judgments of others, we consolidate into our own clans and tribes, we take refuge in our own precious identity politics and we buy more and more into a worldview that is disconnected from cold data and hard facts.

Because of this, we demonize each other.

The plain truth lies in our past historical model of our development to the present day which confirms that because of greed we are incapable of acting in the common good of all.

This is not just a world of shortages, but also of over-consumption. A great paradox is that 1,300 million tons of food is wasted every year, while almost 2000 million people suffer from hunger or malnutrition.

We all know that we need Fresh Air/Fresh Water/ Clean Energy/ and Food.

In order to keep ourselves tethered to reality as it is, not to reality how it feels the sooner we come to term that Climate Change has all the components to affect each and every one of them the better.

One only has to look to see that we are failing to match reality, rather than peaking, the level of emissions being released into the atmosphere are at an all-time high, triggering global weather hazards from heat waves to intense hurricanes and raging wildfires.

You might not think that humans were and are capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet but you can’t make this shit up we are all related: us, plants, animals, soil. Far left mob Extinction Rebellion plan to bring London to its knees

Extinction Rebellion a do-it-together movement has its core reasons for protests correct :

That government and other institutions must tell the truth and declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025 and must create and be led by the decisions of Citizens’ Assemblies on climate and ecological justice.

Their protests worldwide are causing a flood of negativity because  Capitalism is not ready to burn down the very structures on which the most successful civilizations in human history have been built.

They are promoting internet generated platform where apocalyptic beliefs are celebrated and spread, and moderation and reason is something that becomes too arduous and boring to stand.

There is no doubt that with our ever-increasing population, our human needs for various resources to sustain, maintain and increase our living standards have put a great strain on our planet and it’s ability to provide.

But the world isn’t worse. It’s just that we’re more aware of all of the bad things than ever before. By every objective measurement, it’s arguably the sanest and safest it’s been in recorded history.

What is new is smartphone the internet, and most importantly, social media. This is what’s new. This is what’s different. How we’re getting information, what information is reaching us, and most importantly, what information and views we are most rewarded for sharing.

Perhaps if Extinction Rebellion were to shift their focus to the attention economy, (outrageous news and information spread faster and further than any other form of information, dominating our daily attention) where people are rewarded for extremism they might have a greater effect.

There is only one way to tackle climate change and that is by making Profit for profit sake provide the financial assistance that is required to do so. ( see the previous post on – A world aid commission)

By applying a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all activities that generate profit for profit sake we would create a perpetual fund of billions that could seriously address the underlying reasons for climate change.

We could also through this fund give people the opportunity to get involved by issuing World Aid non-trading Bonds.

All everyone needed to do to succeed in life is work very hard, it is what we’ve all been sold and it is true but no it is not if you just take a few steps back and look at the bigger picture and the smallest of details.

Most of us are lucky to live in a world where wars are far less frequent than they were in the past, the trade-off does not make for good celebratory achievement, however.

I’m exhausted from all the stories of shootings and attacks and bombs and the constant stream of awful stuff that is happening out there. I, too, feel desensitized and dejected from the seemingly constant carnage raging across the planet.

Most of us wouldn’t be happy with living our lives on water rations, for the poor and developing world that is already the case.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S; IS THE NEW GREEN DEAL PRIMARILY A PETTY-BOURGEOIS ATTEMPT TO RESCUE CAPITALISM BY THE METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORMISTS UNDER THE CLOAK OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Climate Change., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Environment, European Union., Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Inequality, Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Purchasing Power., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., World Politics

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(Twenty-minute read) 

In politics, nothing happens by accident.

These days in the higher ethylene of the political world it seems you must be an accomplished liar and not a far-seeing planner to be successful.

With the advent of social media people’s day-to-day exposure to political discussion and disagreement has increased dramatically.

However what is worrying is that technology in the form of social media, the smartphone is continuing to create a contemporary problem that large sections of the public want ‘democracy’ but without the ‘politics.

As a result, were are seeing fake news driving populist politics that has no longterm objectives. 

There is nothing new about fake news it has been prevalent down the ages but the days when a lot of us believe that many of the major world events that are shaping our destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way are all but disappeared.

However, with the media making very little effort to explain political decisions, rather than just jumping on any perceived gaffe or conflict ‘democracy’ remains an incredibly positive notion. 

With the public no longer thinking about the world within the silos of government departments governments need to engage people in solutions rather than top-down ‘vote for us and we’ll provide the answers.

Younger people don’t just copy their parents’ tribal loyalties. Voting is more like shopping, with preferences changing on a quim of twitter on social media.  

Unfortunately, our present-day political system has not yet caught up, it offers limited choice. What happens in between elections is for all attentive purposes driven by the smartphone that are monitored by unregulated algorithms owned by you know who.

What is been ignored is that this digital space in all its diversity represents a huge opportunity with the power to engage people in new ways. Online participation in local decision-making is one possibility. This would involve citizens outside election time-.

So we need to understand all the ways people behave and respond in the digital space and set clear and realistic goals for what they hope to accomplish.

However, people are now becoming slow and slower to engage with the internet due to the lack of security/ privacy/and a source of truth.

Why?

Because Capitalism is spending billion on digital marketing each year, and for good reason. Digital media has enormous power to reach and influence people. Over 2 billion people—about one-third of the global population—now access the Internet.

We all know if we are to avoid extinction due to climate change which poses real risks to our collective future we need a green energy transformation.

The problem is that behind a veneer of objectivity, Capitalism as always sees an opportunity to make a profit – Carbon Credits for instance, with more and more consumerism products being promoted as good for the environment 

With all the political goodwill the transfer to low carbon emission can only be achieved by offering citizens a means to get involved other than protesting.

How can this be done?

We must allow people to exercise democratic control over their money, finance, working conditions and environment ie De-politicising decision-making by limiting capitalism’s worst failing- profit for profit sake.

To have authentic democracy!

Citizens must be afforded the opportunity to get involved not just politically, but financially by creating Green Energy European Bonds that cannot be traded.  

These bonds will allow citizens to regain control over unaccountable ‘technocrats’, complicit politicians and shadowy institutions.

They can be sold like lotto tickets. Forging a common agenda.

Emancipating citizens from all levels of government from bureaucratic and corporate power. Allowing direct investment into shared, green prosperity.

Politics has never been popular and never will be:

The more disengaged, the less likely that political parties will deliver. 

We’re able to measure things in a way that we’ve never been able to measure them before. So why not measure the wealth of a nation by the financial investment support it gets from its citizen’s. Rather than encompassing every possible thing that can go under the rubric of “green.

I suppose my goal here is to propose something vague enough that no one will object to it.

Have you wondered how you got to where you are today?

Greed.

Is technology taking control of our lives or our destiny?

Yes.  We’ve ditched reality.

The very data on which we measure the economy is disconnected from

the reality, with political leaders using high soaring” words “which often

imbibe emptiness.

Communication and leadership are key elements in elections these days

but you can’t sell a bad product, can you? 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S : IS 5 G GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD WE LIVE IN?

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Dehumanization., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Inequality, Medical, Modern day life., Reality., Robot citizenship., Sustaniability, Technology, The cloud., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Internet., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., War, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten-minute read)

 

Right now nobody knows for sure but it is going to radically upend many aspects of our lives, as it is a technological paradigm shift.

3G or 4G was just a trailer, and the movie is about to begin.This picture, posted on Twitter by Inga Sarda-Sorensen, shows dark storm clouds over the New York skyline

Why?

Because it is going to marry data collection and computation with billions of devices.

But there is a debate on the necessity for it, considering human physical and mental limitations.

It will become the underlying fabric of an entire ecosystem of fully connected intelligent sensors and devices, capable of overhauling economic and business policies, and further blurring geographical and cultural borders.

It will create a world populated by digital citizens in continual interaction with their surroundings, their peers and public services.

It will enable communications & computing power to come together creating a hyperconnected ‘Internet of everything’ world.

It will release the spectrum for mobile devices, bring about dramatic transformations in our daily lives.

It is going to change everything about everything else.

It will rock the world economy over the next decade as we haven’t yet

conceived that will be tied into the 5G network.

For example:

Your car will know your every move faster than your mind. Cars will be able to use 5G to talk to other cars and sensors built around cities, from street lamps to gas stations.

Think about your relationship between the smart city and an autonomous car.

Think about predictive care. It will enable advanced data transfer from wearables and sensors, facilitating remote clinical decisions and robotic surgery

Think about bring virtual reality into the classroom, allowing students to face real-life situations without real-life consequences.

Think about living in a world of always-on, always-sharing, cloud applications and services.

Think about it leading to seamless and ubiquitous information control.

It will potential to unlock trillions of revenue across a broad range of industries creating a different hidden economy with wireless consumption.

This revenue will be equivalent to total U.S. consumer spending in 2016, and more than the combined spending of China, Japan, France, Germany, and the U.K. This revenue also represents about 4.6 per cent of all global real output in 2035.

Another words countries without 5G will become less competitive globally, spreading inequality on a scale not seen before. This inequality leads to more than just differences in consumption and wealth distribution. It affects access to healthcare, education, nutrition, employment, financial and technological platforms; it exacerbates poverty, exclusion and violence.

By 2020, analysts estimate that there will be more than 20 billion installed IoT devices around the world, supporting 22 million jobs generating massive amounts of data.

With access to this kind of information, industries of all kinds will be able to reach new levels of efficiency as they add products, services, and capabilities.

It will mean that a surgeon may not need to be in the same room as a patient in the future. A surgeon could use a VR headset and special glove to control a robot arm that would perform an actual operation in another location.

With haptic feedback, you’ll be able to transmit the tactile sensation of experience, enhancing the sights and sounds of a video experience.

It will make drone warfare affordable and drone defence essential.

It will make consumption and production distant and broad concepts that are somehow unattached from us.

So what can we, as consumers, do, instead of feeling powerless and distraught?

We must ensure that 5G respect nature, and the interconnectedness of everything that matters for humanity.

An unofficial trade war is already afoot in the tech industry due to the imminent rise of 5G technology.

But it will not happen overnight. Think in terms of a decade or more for it to fully unfold.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. HUMANITY MUST NOW COME FIRST.

16 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Dehumanization., Democracy, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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( Seventeen-minute read)

The world has been so depleted and is being so depleted even at this moment, that the future sustenance and stability for humanity is now imperilled.

Your future and your destiny will not be determined within the next decades. It will be determined now.

It will be determined by humanity’s wisdom or by its ignorance.

The future and fate of humanity will be decided in the years to come, and it will be determined by how humanity responds to the great change that is coming over the horizon in the form of climate change to the world.

No religion nor religious institution as it stands today can prepare humanity for the complexities of life in the universe or what humanity must know to preserve human freedom and sovereignty within this world.

It is what humanity must do to prepare both collectively and individually for climate change and our collective inability to regulate AI.

But because humanity as a whole is dull and ignorant, self-absorbed and unresponsive to a changing world we are still writing ourselves out of the script.

Our universities for years have taught classical/neoclassic/neoliberal economics; like these theories are unmovable divine pillars of reality.

Therefore, while most people see we need a more reasonable and democratic version of our current extreme capitalism, the dominant discourse insists the story not be changed at all. The dominant political narrative of our times is that we must live as individuals crushed between market and state. The relationship between the individual and the state boils down to a zero-sum game where everyone one eventually looses. The state is a pure and simple force.

With the effects of climate change (to come) people are waking up to the deception, let’s hope we can do right, because on all fronts of civilization as we know it time is running out.

We have political failure everywhere leading to the malfunctioning of our altruistic nature.

There is a disconnect between mass (commercial) media, even political science and common sense or popular wisdom.

Sounds to cynical?

Let me oil up my bow.

Present-day political failures are at heart of our problems.

Why?

Because there is a failure of imagination when it comes to the societal structure we evolved to live in and that our brains are still programmed for.

Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

These new organizations are actually not creating a dream environment of maximum social cooperation.

They are instead removing people’s needs to fulfilling each other’s needs!

Gnawing away our collective and individual identity our senses of belonging to a community for the sake of profit.

We need politics of belonging, but the trouble is, it requires a moral, ethical and educated populations which we don’t have and are now with AI are more than likely than ever never going to have.

As we rely on more and more Algorithms to make decisions without a discussion of facts and morals, against a background of pure data narrative can lead society to dark places.

We are unaware of what I call honest pricing that shows the cost of profit for profit sake to the environment.

If we were to charge fees proportional to harmful impacts on the environment, we would create a monetary representation of the value of natural resources.A Brazilian protester stands before gunfire during protests against corruption and police brutality.

So overcoming the material world would be the first step to a sustainable world-shifting us into a new reality.

We are left with the ever-present questions.

Do we give a toss and if so what can be done about it?

What roles do religion and our deepest beliefs play in contemporary life?

What lifestyles are we adopting in an increasingly technological world?

What is the balance of power–and the balance of trade?

What is the pattern of war and peace?

What are the issues facing local and regional communities, and what issues must we confront on a global scale?

What do we remember about our collective past, and how do we see the future?

Have the great issues that preoccupied people since the beginning of time taken new, distinctive forms after more than a hundred years of the fastest technological and cultural change in the history of the planet?

What challenges remain intractable?

What emerging solutions seem to offer the greatest promise?

Social media is full of video on the state of the world.

The need for clear-headed prioritisation of resources to tackle real, not imagined problems.

Despite that long record of success, agricultural production is stressed by floods, deforestation, drought, urbanization (land-devouring cities), and a growing appetite for resource-intensive meat.

More than 150 million people worldwide are at risk from rising sea levels and extreme storms that cause coastal flooding.

In the past 50 years, thanks to education and technology, more than 2 billion people joined the middle class, swelling the human footprint of nearly 50 per cent. At the same time, millions of acres of cropland have been devoured by population growth.

Today more than 6 billion people live in cities—about 70 per cent of the world’s population, roughly double the proportion of a half-century ago.

The Arctic may hold 22 per cent of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and natural gas resources. Melting ice is liberating immense oil and natural gas reserves.

Although mounting worldwide energy demand continues to stress the environment, it has powered large-scale development of renewable energy.

Artificial intelligence will soon dominate the Earth—it could take decades, it could take millennia. At that point, AI will also take control of the Earths process. Refashioning the planet in ways that are optimal for synthetic life but quite possibly deadly for us.

You can’t help but wonder where it will lead. It’s a very dodgy future.

It may be true that the cosmos started with the Big Bang, some 14 billion years ago, but it took an awfully long time for the consequences of the Big Bang to settle down.

To have an optimistic view is the only one worth having.Our world relies on vast global networks.

So may you recognize that you as an individual must make these decisions and not simply rely upon others to make them for you.

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

 

THE BEADY ASK’S. WILL THE FORTHCOMING UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CONFERENCE TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by in Climate Change., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

In one sense, as no one knows the future, no one or any organisation is able, to tell the truth about climate change.

There is not a politician on earth who wants to tell his or her constituents the truth when it comes to Climate Change so we’ve probably already blown our chance to avoid substantial suffering, but we can somewhat reduce the even worse suffering that awaits our grandchildren.

However, the truth is that the evidence for rapid climate change is now more than compelling:

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass

Unfortunately, are we not able as a species to confront the facts?

Humans are subject to intense status quo bias.

Especially on the conservative end of the psychological spectrum — which is the direction all humans move when they feel frightened or under threat — there is a powerful craving for the message that things are, basically, okay, that the system is working like it’s supposed to, that the current state of affairs is the best available, or close enough.

No matter how we look at it the truth is, that on our current trajectory, in the absence of substantial new climate policy, current warming is heading for up to 4°C and may be higher by the end of the century.

On any clear reading of the available evidence, no one or any country wants to financially foot the economic cost of reducing emissions. 

We are headed for disaster — slowly, yes, but surely with the outcome determined not by us but by earth itself. 

We are now facing a situation in which limiting temperature even to either 2/ 3°C requires heroic policy and technology changes, not to mention trillions and trillions in investment.

Capitalism might be “decoupling ” carbon emissions but whether we like it or not the worrying implication is that emissions will be much higher than expected even if climate action continues and is ramped up.

It is true to say that over the course of the Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, the climate has changed a lot. This is true. But the rapid warming we’re seeing now can’t be explained by natural cycles of warming and cooling. This much faster warming corresponds with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which have been increasing since the industrial revolution.

Let’s be clear, CO2 itself does not cause problems. It’s part of the natural global ecosystem.

We’re already seeing the devastating effects of climate change on global food supplies, increasing migration, conflict, disease and global instability, and this will only get worse if we don’t act now.

It threatens the future of the planet that we depend on for our survival and we’re the last generation that can do something about it.

The fact that everyone involved has to dance around the obvious truth, at risk of losing their status and influence will once again be displayed at the forthcoming UN conference.

But that’s where we’re headed.

It will take enormous effort just to avoid that fate and we’re running out of time; we’ve only got five or 10 years to turn things around, but we can do it, if we just not only put our minds to agreeing a 0.05% world aid commission on all activities that produce profit for profit sake. ( See previous posts) 

The problem is, while carbon capture is getting less, as more and more forests are either cut down or burned across the world, largely to produce our food or palm oil or cosmetics etc,  Governments are still backing dirty fossil fuels. 

The technology and systems we need to move to 100% renewable energy by 2045 and use our planet’s resources sustainably are already available. 

What’s now needed is for political and business leaders to take bold and urgent action towards using these solutions to address the climate crisis and restore nature.

Given what we know about human beings, path dependence, and political dysfunction we will not be able to suck thousands of megatons of carbon out of the atmosphere, so humanity can go net negative by 2100. 

Capitalism is already turning climate change into a product.

Before its too late – there is no way that the world will come to any agreement unless there is an equitable distribution of the costs. 

Capitalism profit contributed to it so let it do it again but in reverse.

This is the brutal logic of climate change.

Even if we emit a bunch more carbon in the short term.  “deployment of large-scale bioenergy faces biophysical, technical and social challenges will cause massive social unrest.  

No branch of science, certainly not climatology, can tell us what the humans of 2050 are capable of. We are all, on that score, making educated guesses, and a knowledge of history, politics, and economics will be just as important to that judgment as any knowledge of the physical sciences. 

We can watch footage of Trump calling climate change “a hoax … a money-making industry” and not be left winded by such staggering ignorance or astonishing deceit, though it is, more likely, more bleakly, a catastrophic combination of the two.

The evidence that climate change is a serious problem that we must contend with now, is overwhelming on its own. There is no need to overstate the evidence, particularly when it feeds a paralyzing narrative of doom and hopelessness.

No one wants to pays but we will all pay in one way or the other. 

All human comments appreciated

. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: ARE WE LOOKING NOT JUST AT THE BEGINS OF A FAILED STATE BUT THE FINAL DEATH THROBS OF A EMPIRE

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Environment, European Commission., European Union., Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, The essence of our humanity., The new year 2109, The Obvious., The Queen., The state of the World., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

The British Empire was the largest in history existing from the sixteenth century into the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, it squandered all that it acquired on a victorian class system.

Queen Elizabeth II

It killed with famine, sword and fire more people than Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Hitler or Stalin.

In the defence of its imperial interests, it precipitated in two World Wars.

Now it is presiding with “Mad cow disease” it’s very own self-destruction.

At stake are fundamental ideas about British sovereignty and whether in a

a progressively globalized world in which some claimed that the individual

the nation-state was becoming unviable with the can sovereignty in its

existing forms remain intact.

Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, referred to the year as the royal family’s “annus horribilis.”

SHE WAS WRONG.

Why?

Because along came a five-year austerity plan aimed at reducing the country’s massive deficit, which had been fueled by bank bailouts and stimulus spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and resultant recession which resulted in 52 per cent of voters opting to leave the EU, (making the United Kingdom the first country to ever do so)

Manufactured by Magie Thatcher who turned the market into replacing society as the model of state governance. 

Not surprising as worldwide political culture has in fact transformed from one based on class to a new sort of populist, demotic politics, shaped at least as much by the mass media, especially the popular press, as by the politicians.

A sort of firestorm has broken out not just in Brazil but all over the world.

Why?

Because the relationship between public culture and consumer capitalism, while the very Earth itself is struggling with climate change has been close, in many ways the one constantly trying to outguess the other.

This game of one-upmanship, marked by ironic knowingness, has been labelled “postmodern, Brexit or Donal Trump trade wars”.

It points to the growing understanding of the relative nature of truth, itself a reaction against the prevailing supposedly “modern” certainties of the 20th century (reason, freedom, humanity, and truth itself), which indeed have often had and are having appalling outcomes.

However, it is a sign of the times that these antifundamentalist currents, themselves critical of much of Western culture, emerged at much the same time as new fundamentalisms emerged in the forms of American neoconservatism and certain strains of radical Islam. The ferment of intellectual and cultural changes involved are inextricable from the massive changes underway in the transition to the novel forms of society made possible by new information technologies.

What the Smartphone and Social Media have and are doing since the 1960s onward for Africa are also unravelling England and the EU with the perception of poor economic performance and calls for the modernization of not just for British society and the British economy but the EU and the world at large.

Both England and the European Union need to reform.

Optimism only carries you so far.

History rhymes rather than repeats are what is required.

A society where elites are widely loathed, where the political parties are polarized by demographic echoes is on the brink of collapse.

Why?

Now as then — much more now than then, in fact — there is a pervasive mistrust of institutions, a sense that governments are rotting from the head down.

The abject failure of rulers in improving human values has resulted in a downgrading of human to sub-human levels with a race to expect dishonest money is the net result of the ultimate degradation of society.

How do you trick someone into giving you something they have?

First, you offer them something worthless, while convincing them that actually much better than what they have. Second, you convince them that what they do have is worthless.

This is a typical approach used by both con artists and governments.

These huge scams are just diversions from the ultimate crime Climate change.

Our survival instinct has to quickly override our conditioned naiveté and passivity that has been bred into us. We are not just threatened as countries but as species at the same time.

A twitter/ facebook driven world will be a world of shallow values- unravelling our societies.

The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is disappearing at a staggering pace and its not just the melting of ice.

The question now is.

Do we follow the trodden path where we only find all the grass eaten?

Creativity and imagination are what is needed as we are not getting across the problems of probability.

How we discuss and what we discuss is vital.

We must know the facts. We need a world brain bus.

Who is more likely to embrace the marginalized, to work for the disenfranchised?

Who will work for those of all backgrounds, all races and ethnicities, all religions, sexual preferences, gender identities?

Who will work to promote respect and equality for all people in the World?

Who sends a message that I want our children to believe in?

The rich and the poor, the entitled and the marginalized—they all make up the threads that a country needs to weave a unified society. When not include we weaken the material that fabricates our entire fabric of the world.

There has never been such a thing as an empire only a company called East India Company merchants. The British Empire did not exist in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, England was part of other empires: 

The British Empire was a commercial, not a military or political one.

Originally, holding an empire was about power. Throughout history, kings and queens have invaded territories in order to gain strength and power. With colonies, a country gains space, a larger army, more trade markets and the chance to make money out of whatever resources are on offer in them.

The formation of the empire was thus an unorganized process based on piecemeal acquisition, sometimes with the British government being the least willing partner in the enterprise.

An ‘Empire’ is a group of countries ruled over by a single monarch or ruling power. An empire doesn’t need an ’emperor’. The British Empire comprised of Britain, the ‘mother country’, and the colonies, countries ruled to some degree by and from Britain.

(British Empire, a worldwide system of dependencies—colonies, protectorates, and other territories—that over a span of some three centuries was brought under the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain and the administration of the British government.)

To this day Britain’s ‘cultural imperialism’, suggesting that it was based on nationalism and racist scorn for other people.

With a handshake and the commitment “On the word of an Englishman,”
Captain James Cook claimed it for the British crown.In the century 1815–1914, 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people were added to the British Empire. By the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, Britain was the ‘Mother Country’ of a worldwide empire which covered a fifth of the land in the world, and Britannia ‘ruled the waves’.

Sorry but Empires have benefited no one nor will any future trade deals that are not attached to sustainability do anything to resolve Climate change.

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THE BEADY EYE: LOOK AT THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FLIP FLOP TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Environment

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(Ten-minute read)

There is more to them than first appears.

Each day, consumers purchase cheaply made flip-flops, and each day these flip-flops are thrown away — discarded in a landfill or dumped in the ocean. It’s a classic case of wasteful manufacturing.

The flip-flop and sandal industry have not been immune to the calamity of overproduction.

Millions of discarded flip flops posing a huge hazard to ocean life

The average lifespan of a flip flop is two years.

Tons of them are washing up on coast all over the world.

  Each year, tons of flip flops wash up on the East African coast, including Kenyan beaches like the one pictured, posing a risk to plant and animal life.

According to one estimate by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the seas by weight. Flip flops contribute approximately 90 tons a year.

Before they reach the ocean they’re already a problem polluting freshwater ending up in landfills with no hope of biodegrading.

We don’t actually know how much rubbish there is in our oceans. But we know that most of it is plastic and that much of this is not visible to the naked eye.

It’s microplastic, which comes from emissions from our treatment plants or from larger pieces of plastic that have been decomposed by the sunlight or ground into smaller pieces by wave action. These minuscule particles, less than five millimetres in size, can be eaten by plankton, which is eaten by fish.

Produced from plastic foam that contains DDT, PCBs and flame retardants they’re upcycled and travel thousands of kilometres absorbing environmental toxins which they transfer to the island shores.

Three billion petroleum-based flip-flops are produced annually, eventually ending up as non-biodegradable trash.

It may be a while before this technology finds its way to three billion people’s feet.

22 billion water bottles are thrown away every year.

The history of flip-flops can be said to be quite long.

Ancient Egyptian murals on tombs and temples show flip-flops were worn around 4,000 B.C.

As early as thousands of years ago, humans used animal skins or all available materials to wrap them around the soles of the feet.

They come in all disguises – “jandals” “thongs” “plakkies”  “zories” “clam diggers” “slippers” “crocs” “zori”.

Billions of them are made every year, often in small factories in China. Flip-flop sales rise with the world population. As one billion people globally still walk barefoot, they are the first step into the world of shoes across the global south.

They also tell stories of how globalisation actually works on the ground.

Garbage is not just inert discarded material, but an active agent in making the future.

We live in an energy-based world. Fossil fuels are burned to produce electricity, which powers the factory in which the plastic is made. Plastic is very important for the economy to grow because in today world it is used in each and every place from cars till rockets.

Take a flip flob for example.

The flip flop is one of globalisation’s darker stories connecting smugglers, disposable workers, garbage pickers and the poorest of consumers.

Their story begins in the hydrocarbon economy – in the oilfields of the Middle East. From crude oil are made into little plastic pellets. The plastic pellets are bought by millions of small and medium-sized flip-flop factories throughout the world in production clusters where labour is cheap.

Like all products, they have a massive carbon footprint in setting up its Manufacture – materials- energy -etc.

Bought online they probably started there life in China transported either by air or sea – Package – reflown and then driven to the buyer.

We humans need to think about how we manage our rubbish. It’s not only about people on the other side of the earth, but it’s also about ourselves.

We need to stop buying unrecyclable items.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: THE WORLD IS FUNDAMENTALLY FAILING TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE.

18 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Five-minute read)

Why is this?

Because we have not yet grasped the enormity of what is happing.

Why?

Because there are so many dimensions to the climate problem – natural science, social science, policy etc.

It’s all jolly well to say that human-induced climate change is widely regarded as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – moral challenges of the 21st century. Not merely does it raise numerous ethical issues, but many of these are profoundly difficult and take us to the limits of our moral imagination.

Moreover, the ethical dilemmas posed by climate change arise at multiple levels – for citizens, scientists, policymakers, organisations, companies, nation-states and the international community – and traverse many different areas of moral inquiry.

If we go on ignoring climate change there will be a social collapse not because the world is getting warmer but because we will be unable to feed ourselves.

There might well be a growing realisation by the public that the weather is changing but in the scientific community, there is a growing realisation that we are rapidly approaching if not already reaching tipping point.

The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased.

If existing feedbacks change because the climate changes, or if new feedbacks like permafrost or methane hydrates become relevant, 2C rise will not be the bottom of the range. Add in the extra warming arising from the loss of ice and you have temperatures rises away above.An activist showing the Extinction Rebellion logo

You don’t have to be a climate scientist to agree that these anomalies are a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming is exceedingly small.

It is not possible to continue with unstainable capitalist profit which is destroying itself by ignoring science.

Here are the questions yet to be answered.

What is the nature and extent of our responsibilities to future generations?

What is the value of individual species and ecosystems, and how should we value the possible extinction of millions of species?

How should we make decisions in the face of uncertainty, including the possibility of catastrophic and irreversible damage to our planet?

What criteria should be used to determine the appropriate targets for the
stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere?

Who should pay for the inevitable costs of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to what extent, if at all, should those who suffer the negative impacts of climate change be compensated?

How should the international community respond if certain sovereign states block effective global action or refuse to contribute fairly to the collective effort?

The above are also the reasons that we will be unable to act as one.

Capitalism unsustainable policies for profit ensure this. No one wants to bear the cost.

So there is only one solution to make a profit for profit sake pay.

A world aid commission of 0.05% on all profit. ( See previous posts)

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