Posted by Rampop II  10/10/2022 3:01 am | #1 |
We were bound to get a thread for this topic eventually. There's no shortage of data to be found for fueling climate catastrophe–related discussions. I've been hollering about climate change for 30 years and it's always felt like I was wasting my breath. Speaking of breath, here's what I know from the local square foot of Earth upon which I now stand:
This wildfire smoke inundating my city is once again intolerable, and it's stinking up my house. It's not as bad as our blinding apocalyptic hellscape of 2020, but it doesn't have to be. It may be a shallower level of hell, but it's hell nonetheless. There is no escape from this stuff. I'm writing this from inside my living room, running a HEPA air filter full blast and wearing a CPAP mask that I've modified into an attempt at a DIY respirator, and my home smells like the dwelling of a family of chain smokers.
This smoke doesn't just irritate my throat. It makes my skin break out in rashes and stings like a blanket of nettles. It makes me nauseated. My eyes burn, my head aches, I'm fatigued... plus the whole thing is goddamned depressing.
Every time this shit comes to town I'm seized with the impulse to flee. I don't mean thoughts of fleeing, I mean the primal instinct to flee. My body goes into a state of alarm. The ancestral rodent brain inside me knows instinctually that it's time to gtfo. In 2020 that same impulse had me half–crazed in a paint respirator, attempting to craft a DIY bed in the back of my Jeep for the purpose of "bugging out," to use the parlance of our times. Madness. That would be a long–ass drive to get free of this shit. Would have to cut across a couple of states, at least.
Our AQI has been shit all weekend, and not for the first time this summer. I was just looking at a smoke map of North America; I guess you guys are all in the clear? That may have sounded like a silly question once upon a time, given the distance, but not anymore. Did anybody get whiffs of those plumes from earlier in the summer?
This city (Seattle) used to be a paradise in summer. That started to change around 2017. Now Summer is unofficially Smoke Season. Ironic that Seattle has for decades been this eco–friendly progressive nature–loving hippie town.
It pisses me off. We can reasonably pin this on climate change, and we can reasonably assume the petrol companies that have known about fossil–fueled climate change and have been covering up the evidence since the late 1970s won't be held accountable for it. 
Last edited by Rampop II (10/10/2022 3:20 am)
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Posted by Rampop II 10/10/2022 3:51 pm | #2 |
If only we had raked the leaves.
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Posted by crumbsroom 10/10/2022 4:38 pm | #3 |
That sounds like an absolute nightmare.
As for the environment, I'm even more apathetic towards that than I am towards the political scene (and the obvious overlap of the two makes it all feel even more hopeless).
Ive never been happier to not have kids (which has always made me extremely happy, even without the end of the world)
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/10/2022 10:04 pm | #4 |
"We have watched, we have smelled, we have suffered through the smoke." - Jay Inslee
Pacific Coast Collaborative Cimate Agreement
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Posted by Rampop II 10/11/2022 1:00 am | #5 |
crumbsroom wrote:
Ive never been happier to not have kids (which has always made me extremely happy, even without the end of the world)
I'm with you on that one. Now if only my relatives and close friends hadn't gone and had a bunch of adorable kids I'd feel more at ease with the end of the world. My brother and sister live in that enviable alternate mental reality where climate change isn't a problem and the future is bright.
It must feel amazing.
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Posted by Rampop II 10/11/2022 1:01 am | #6 |
"We have watched, we have smelled, we have suffered through the smoke." - Jay Inslee
Pacific Coast Collaborative Cimate Agreement
I'm grateful for this, thank you. I'll take any fragment of good news I can get.
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Posted by crumbsroom 10/11/2022 1:39 am | #7 |
RAMPOP "Now if only my relatives and close friends hadn't gone and had a bunch of adorable kids I'd feel more at ease with the end of the world"
I suppose I have a couple of adorable kids in my life (peripherally) too. And it makes me feel terrible that I know with almost crystal clarity their future is probably hot garbage.
But at least my childlessness let's me not have to see some kid looking back at me every day. Looking for answers. Knowing that their world is doomed and they probably can't do anything about it. And that I was responsible for bringing them here.
Last edited by crumbsroom (10/11/2022 1:40 am)
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Posted by Rampop II 10/14/2022 9:06 pm | #8 |
These little Van Gogh vandals. “Which is more important? Saving art or saving the planet?”Uh, why’s it gotta be either/or?These little fuckers are gonna do more harm to the climate movement, and to environmentalism in general, than good. Rupert Murdoch’s army is gonna have a field day with this little early Christmas present.
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/14/2022 9:13 pm | #9 |
These little Van Gogh vandals. “Which is more important? Saving art or saving the planet?”Uh, why’s it gotta be either/or?These little fuckers are gonna do more harm to the climate movement, and to environmentalism in general, than good. Rupert Murdoch’s army is gonna have a field day with this little early Christmas present.
Yeah, I got really upset about this today. The fuck did Van Gogh ever do against the planet? What's the carbon footprint on vegetable pigment? Do these dumb bitches think that "oil painting" is some kind of fossil fuel? Fucking cunts.
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Posted by Rampop II 10/14/2022 10:44 pm | #10 |
"What use is art when we face the collapse of civil society?"
Um, of great use, perhaps???
"...if they want to live in a world where humans are around to appreciate art."
So, Art is only useful for hanging on a wall? To be "appreciated?"
Maybe they need to go and learn what use art is, in any context.
Why did Pinochet's goons break Victor Jara's hands?
Why does Picasso's Guernica tell me more about the horror of war than a thousand history books?
Why did it take Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to catalyze the establishment of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?
Why do I bother? Drink, horsey! Drink!
Sigh... Taxi!
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Posted by crumbsroom 10/14/2022 11:53 pm | #11 |
Yet another example of how sick stupid humanity is. These people can't even do fucking environmentalism right.
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/15/2022 12:05 am | #12 |
Can't we just throw tomato soup on the rich like civilized people? Don't stain the art. Revolution 101.
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Posted by Rock 10/15/2022 12:48 am | #13 |
I will say I'm pretty glad how negative the reaction has been from what I've seen. I think there's a really annoying tendency (on both the left and the right) to not really police or moderate the method by which more extreme (read: stupid) wings attempt to push their messages, which ends up doing more to harm the cause they're supposed to be in favour of. So seeing people on the left calling out these halfwits for a stunt that A) failed because they're a bunch of halfwits who couldn't plan their vandalism correctly and B) if it succeeded would have been an asshole move that still wouldn't actually meaningfully push their message forward, has been a bit satisfying.
I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
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Posted by Rampop II 10/15/2022 3:16 am | #14 |
I will say I'm pretty glad how negative the reaction has been from what I've seen. I think there's a really annoying tendency (on both the left and the right) to not really police or moderate the method by which more extreme (read: stupid) wings attempt to push their messages, which ends up doing more to harm the cause they're supposed to be in favour of. So seeing people on the left calling out these halfwits for a stunt that A) failed because they're a bunch of halfwits who couldn't plan their vandalism correctly and B) if it succeeded would have been an asshole move that still wouldn't actually meaningfully push their message forward, has been a bit satisfying.
Yeah I read in one article that the universal condemnation was a rare moment of unity across the ideological spectrum. 
Who says we can't all get along!
And the worrrrrllld sannnng in onnnnnnne voiccccce
Last edited by Rampop II (10/15/2022 3:18 am)
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/15/2022 1:30 pm | #15 |
Looks like there's a rumor to the effect that this stunt was intended to make climate activists look stupid, which is based on the fact that the Just Stop Oil group is largely funded by a Getty heiress, of the famous oil-fortune family.
To the extent that is accurate, this isn't the first instance that I've seen in an increasing trend on the left to demean the concept of capital-A "Art" as being some kind of superfluous bourgeois indulgence. Which is disheartening given that I've always taken for granted that the more liberal sentiments tend to place greater value in cultural appreciation than conservatives (remember when they wanted to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts?). But in the last few years, I've seen a number of examples of younger leftists shitting on the notion of art as meaningful, purposeful engagement, and playing this zero-sum game that it somehow takes away energy and attention from the real-life matters, and this recent display just sums all of that up. Never mind that these bitches could have used that soup to, I dunno, feed some motherfuckers. Why can't these folks figure out how to go out and slash some tires on some F-150s instead? Do they need a goddamn map? Do I have to do everyone's job for them?
Anyway, artists are not the enemy. It's a sad day when this is up for dispute.
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Posted by crumbsroom 10/15/2022 2:22 pm | #16 |
Looks like there's a rumor to the effect that this stunt was intended to make climate activists look stupid, which is based on the fact that the Just Stop Oil group is largely funded by a Getty heiress, of the famous oil-fortune family.
To the extent that is accurate, this isn't the first instance that I've seen in an increasing trend on the left to demean the concept of capital-A "Art" as being some kind of superfluous bourgeois indulgence. Which is disheartening given that I've always taken for granted that the more liberal sentiments tend to place greater value in cultural appreciation than conservatives (remember when they wanted to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts?). But in the last few years, I've seen a number of examples of younger leftists shitting on the notion of art as meaningful, purposeful engagement, and playing this zero-sum game that it somehow takes away energy and attention from the real-life matters, and this recent display just sums all of that up. Never mind that these bitches could have used that soup to, I dunno, feed some motherfuckers. Why can't these folks figure out how to go out and slash some tires on some F-150s instead? Do they need a goddamn map? Do I have to do everyone's job for them?
Anyway, artists are not the enemy. It's a sad day when this is up for dispute.
The more people subscribe to inflexible dogmas (political, religious, cultural, whatever), the less and less value they are going to place on art, which should be and is a poison to shut minds.
People being completely unable or unwilling to think outside of their own emotional reality is going to be the death of us all. Art and discussion (often mitigated by art) is the only way out. And because so many people don't want a way out of ascribing to the established rules of whatever dogshit they believe full-throttle, they are going to keep belittling art. No matter what side of the fence they are on politically.
The right has always been garbage on these matters. The left is doing its damnedest to catch up though. It's one area where Bill Maher is correct, that this is why so many comediens are turning their withering eyes towards 'the woke'. Because they are freuently ridiculous and often without logic, and usually selfish narciccistic prigs at heart. And so they deserve to be lambasted.
But because Bill Maher is wrong about everything else, even every other elements of his much despised political correctness, it was nice to see him sputter like an unimformed bitch when NDT called him out on his dumb anti vaccine/anti-lockdown shit. He just melts down when he's around someone who is clearly so much smarter than he is.
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/15/2022 4:04 pm | #17 |
Of course the website Jezebel is on board with these climate activists. Her critique hinges more on the the lack of dramatics in how they glued themselves to the artwork. And it doesn't surprise me that someone who isn't too bothered by the desecration of art claims to be a child of art teacher parents. It's the Alex P. Keaton Syndrome. It reminds me of those kids who took piano lessons who paradoxically only learned how to hate music. Hipsters always hate where they came from.
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/15/2022 4:13 pm | #18 |
It was great to see Douglas Rushkoff again. His books - like Cyberia, Media Virus, Coercion - were essential reading in the 90s. He's still been publishing since then, and has a new book out called Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, about how they intend to survive and leave the impending apocalypse to the rest of us poors.
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Posted by crumbsroom 10/15/2022 5:10 pm | #19 |
It was great to see Douglas Rushkoff again. His books - like Cyberia, Media Virus, Coercion - were essential reading in the 90s. He's still been publishing since then, and has a new book out called Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, about how they intend to survive and leave the impending apocalypse to the rest of us poors.
Considering the root of the average billionaires accumulation of wealth is to feel superior to everyone else, I guess they have a bleak future ahead of them if they are all going to escape to Mars together. Everyone is going to have equally flash lunar rovers. How are you supposed to convince yourself you aren't an empty shell piece of garbage human if you don't have poor people to match yourself against.
Personally I can't see just the fact they out-survived the rest of the world being terribly satisfying for these fucks. The joy of that will leave them shortly after blast off I'm sure.
And fuck Jezebel.
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Posted by Jinnistan 10/15/2022 5:25 pm | #20 |
Personally I can't see just the fact they out-survived the rest of the world being terribly satisfying for these fucks. The joy of that will leave them shortly after blast off I'm sure.
