Mikey Likes It!: Earth Day

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Earth Day

This Friday, April 22nd, is Earth Day. Let's start with a video for kids so we're all on the same page.

So that bring us up to speed and we did a little deeper. Here is some information about Earth Day:

Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

Let’s take a look at the last half-century of mobilization for action:

ORIGINS OF EARTH DAY

In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.

However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.

Earth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness, and putting environmental concerns on the front page.

The Environmental Protection Agency notes:

It may be hard to imagine that before 1970, a factory could spew black clouds of toxic smoke into the air or dump tons of toxic waste into a nearby stream, and that was perfectly legal. They could not be taken to court to stop it.

How was that possible? Because there was no EPA, no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act. There were no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect our environment.

Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen have an interesting column at COMMON DREAMS:

In a 1970 poster for the first Earth Day and a cartoon the following year, Walt Kelly's Pogo offered a hard truth about ecological crises: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

That doesn't mean there are no differences in individuals' contribution to those crises. Landowners, not agricultural workers who harvest crops, bear responsibility for chemical contamination of the soil. A fast-food restaurant cashier who has to drive to work and the CEO of an oil company cashing in on hydrocarbons are not equally culpable.

But how much are landowners' choices constrained by economic realities outside their control? If all the energy companies stopped producing fossil fuels in the coming decades, would consumers happily embrace a major down-powering and the accompanying lifestyle changes? Kelly's statement may have lacked nuance, but so do many of the environmentalists' platitudes that ignore the depth of change necessary in both economic institutions and people's expectations.

We assess people's choices and understand that those with a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and power are more of an enemy than the "us" who lack such status. Those judgments are necessary, but not sufficient to deal with the multiple cascading ecological crises we face. Whatever our individual contributions to an unsustainable society, collectively we have to embrace down-powering in a dramatically different world, like it or not.

We use "crises" deliberately, to focus not just on rapid climate disruption but soil erosion and degradation, chemical contamination, and a dramatic reduction in biodiversity. Climate change be the most compelling crisis, but all of these threats are a derivative of overshoot, of too many people consuming too much overall.

We know that consumption is wildly skewed. We can focus on the worst offenders in the top 1% or top 10%, and at times that can be an effective strategy for incremental change. We shouldn't hesitate to go after people who own yachts.

But the larger problem is the routine expectations of people in the developed world more generally. Even if resources were equitably distributed, the ecosphere cannot sustain 8 billion people indefinitely at anything like the current level of aggregate consumption. Politicians of all stripes love to champion the middle class, but middle-class living is unsustainable. Eliminating disparities is the first step. What comes next?

It's time to talk honestly about "fewer and less": fewer people consuming less energy and materials.

A lot to think about. Let's do another video, this one by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Press whores are so overwhelmed with their whoring duties that they can't even save their former precious while the political stalemate continues in Iraq.

In November, the US mid-term elections will be held. Traditionally, the hose controlling the White House loses seats in Congress during the midterms.

Joe Biden's polls8ter says, "The worst political environment for Democrats in my lifetime.""

AOC and the Fraud Squad can't rally because they've been exposed as worthless.

They tried to bring in Bar8ack Obama this month to help Joe. Even if the catty behavior between Joe and Barack hadn't taken place at that event, Barack couldn't have helped.

The press whoring just isn't working.

He was still in the White House when I pointed out that The Cult of St. Barack wouldn't be able to keep him afloat after he was out of the White House. No, people would begin to notice how he did nothing for him and how various 'media' outlets were really just Democratic Party organ who covered for Barrack and Barack's many failures inste8ad of holding him accountable.

He wa8s never held accountable. He was going to end veterans homelessness, remember? He didn't8. He was going to close the gulag at Guantanamo. He didn't He was going to pull all US troops out of Iraq -- he never did and he started sending more back in in the fall of 2012 -- as THE NEW YORK TIMES finally reported in September of that month, buried in a story on Syria. He then began sending more in in8 the second half of 2014 and they remain in Iraq today. "We want to end the War! And we want to end it now!" Remember him thundering that in his 2008 rallies? Remember his alleged superior judgment and how he used the Iraq War to bash Hillary Clinton?

He was really good a words, they just didn't mean anything.

We constantly, while Barack was in the White House would use Joni Mitchell's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" to describe Barack and his cult back when he was president.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh he said you think you're immune
Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies

Pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're just pretty lies?

The press whored for him constantly. See Ava and my "TV: The Myths" for some of his many broken promises. And I was right. The media whores couldn't devote all the attention they did to covering for him and lying for him when he was out of the White House. No.

They ahve othere politicians to whore for today. They still will rally around Barack and they did for that awful documentary. That's the reality. It was awful. NETFLIX knew they had a dog on their hand, i8t was a NETFLIX exec that provided us with the documentary ahead of time and told us that NETFLIX knew they'd wasted money. It debuted last week and never made it higher than number 3. It's dropped. QUEEN OF THE SOUTH, a USA network series, had its final season show up on NETFLIX and it performed better. WHITE HOT THE RISE & FALL OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH just started streaming on NETFLIX and already it's creating more excitement.

Barack never helped anyone but himself. By the time Michelle Obama's book came out, the bloom was off that rose. It did not meet the publisher's expectations despite a huge promotional push.

Barack's only accomplishment was overseeing the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. He was the hero of the 1%. 8And this was made clear as he worked to destroy a Chicago neighborhood by mposing his official library there, by yachting with David Geffen and limp noodle Bruce Springsteen. By getting millions from NETFLIX despite him never having produced a film or TV show.

His documentary was an embarrassment. But the press whores worked the p.r. material they were handed and went around, as the p.r. material did, comparing Barack to a man who has spent his lifetime -- and he's nearly 100 now -- covering environmental issues in films and TV shows. That was so insulting and outrageous and, no surprise, beyond the whores 8that lie never got traction.

He c9984an't save them. Bill can't save them -- he has to run from reporters these days to avoid facing the questions regarding Juanita and Monica. Hillary can't do press? She's seeing campaign aid after campaign aid pulled into an investigation on how the Russia myth was created by her campaign and paid for by her campaign and how aid how one person with her campaign after another lied to the US government.

In the Iraq that the US destroyed, the political stalemate continues. No president named since the October 10th elections, no prime minister-designate named. Six months and counting. QANTARA offers:

Iraq’s fragility and compounding problems are nothing new. The country has witnessed three devastating wars within three long decades, in addition to international sanctions, sectarian war and foreign influence. By the time Saddam Hussein’s statues were toppled, Iraq found itself in a devastating situation, in which bets were being made that Iraq would splinter into several countries based on sectarian and ethnic lines. Although Iraq defied these expectations, it remains a fragile state edging towards failure.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric who won 73 out of 325 seats in the recent election, is however promising major change. The young cleric wants to break away from the political tradition of forming a national unity government after each election where all parties representing Iraq’s sects, ethnicities, and religions share the spoils. This type of political arrangement is one of the main causes of corruption and social division.

Instead, al-Sadr wants to form a majority government that can begin implementing desperately needed reforms – beginning with controlling the unruly militias and fighting corruption. He also aims to curb foreign influence from countries like Iran and make sure Iraq remains neutral regarding divisive regional issues. But will he succeed?

Al-Sadr will face many challenges in his efforts to brighten Iraq’s future. Even if he can form a majority government, further change will be an uphill battle because reform in Iraq is a formidable task that requires tremendous effort. Furthermore, some aspects of reform might take decades.

The western press, doing the US State Dept's bidding, whored for Moqtada and declared him a kingmaker and other things. He's a cult leader who is responsible for the deaths of many Ir8aiqs as w8ell as many US troops. But in August8, he took the bribe from the US State Dept -- that was made with US tax dollars -- a8nd they began promoting him lilke crazy.

Well he had t8hree tries. Three times, he called for a vote in Parliament to elect his nominee for president.

Three times he failed.

He's now in the midst of a 40-day, self-imposed exile

His oppontents are stupid. There was some initial excitement that the coordinating framework would be able to put together a government.

Then they learned that their answer was to pimp the same person for prime minister and the same person for president. Moqtada had already installed the same person for another term as Speaker of Parliament. So if the three top positions in government weren't going to change, what was the point8 of those October elections?

It's a question the already disenchanted are asking even louder these days.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated: