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Soon There’ll Be No Sand Left…

2023 Sets Record for Highest Global Fossil Fuel Emissions

I wonder just how many of the eight billion humans presently on the planet are as sick to death as I am of the people in charge? Isn’t it time we did something about it? Why, I ask myself, even in so-called democracies do we go on voting the turds of humanity into power over us?

Do we, as I suspect, still suffer subconsciously from the master/serf syndrome? Are we scared to point out the failings of some toffee-nosed politician just because they came from Oxford University, or Harvard? Are we really so dumb that we’d as soon have a lump of human faeces like Putin or Orban or Lukashenko controlling our lives, than decent democratic governments run by people who actually put normal, ordinary folk before the Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s and other billionaire business scumbags of this world?

Not content with their private jets and huge luxury yachts, these parasites of the planet are now coming for our homes and our very lives. They don’t just ignore the climate emergency, but actively work to perpetuate it. It’s not just the fossil fuel companies, though they’ve been the true culprits since the 1970’s. Their own scientists told them they’d end up making the earth uninhabitable, by way of the amount of C02 that their fossil fuels were pumping into the atmosphere. It’s all the other big international companies as well who support the fossil fuel industry, as without it they’s have to adapt to wind or solar power.

Perhaps equally to blame are the computing giants. The amount of energy required to run the huge data clouds, support Gmail and other enormous databases, is colossal. With the advent of AI technology, matters have become disastrously worse, as John Naughton of the Guardian makes clear:

“…AI requires staggering amounts of computing power. And since computers require electricity, and the necessary GPUs (graphics processing units) run very hot (and therefore need cooling), the technology consumes electricity at a colossal rate. Which, in turn, means CO2 emissions on a large scale – about which the industry is extraordinarily coy, while simultaneously boasting about using offsets and other wheezes to mime carbon neutrality.

The implication is stark: the realisation of the industry’s dream of “AI everywhere” (as Google’s boss once put it) would bring about a world dependent on a technology that is not only flaky but also has a formidable – and growing – environmental footprint. Shouldn’t we be paying more attention to this?”

Indeed we should, but we’re not. Why not?

Are we still so imbued with the inferiority complex of the master/serf relationship that we continue to bury our heads in the proverbial sand and just hope for the best? Meanwhile the parasites with the power continue to destroy our home and our environment.

Sea levels have already risen by 101mm (4 inches) since 1993, and 21-24 cms (8-9 inches) since the start of the industrial revolution (1880).  It will continue to rise at an ever more alarming rate.

Before long there’ll be no sand left in which to bury our heads.

 

Homo influentia, A Subspecies Of Homo sapiens

 

We have a new species of human being. The latest evolution of Homo sapiens. There are many of them and they’re well spread around social media. Their new name is ‘Homo influentia’. To many younger people they’ll simply be known as “Influencers.”

What is this new subspecies that has used the internet as its breeding ground? What are its aims and aspirations?

Put simply, they want to take over the world. In that sense they’re not too different from Homo sapiens. Bad traits persist within species. They capture as many converts as they can. “Followers,” as they’re known hang on their every word and do exactly what their “Influencer,” tells them to do.

Most of these pseudo-messiahs are just hellbent on making money. Those who can rack up sufficient followers are well paid. Chinese manufacturers of cheap, “wear once, throw away” clothing,  or other items,  are happy to pay large sums to ‘Influencers’ displaying these things and selling them through their Facebook, Tiktok, or Instagram pages.

Although exact figures are hard to come by it’s suggested that a top “Influencer,” can coin in over a million dollars for just one post. Those at the top have in excess of half a billion followers.

Most “Influencers,” are not in that league. Anyone who can establish a large number of followers can use the power of social media to influence those who, like sheep,  rush to their every word, however valuable or worthless those words tend to be.

Linkedin is pushing more and more companies to use ‘Influencers’ to sell their products. Is this advertising gone mad?

Can it be a good thing for an estimated 64 million plus ‘Homo influentia’ worldwide to control the thoughts and ideas of billions of us Homo sapiens? While a very few of them are actually of use in the world by giving out sane and sensible thoughts to their followers, the vast majority of the 64 million plus are only interested in personal enrichment, and/or pushing extreme political ideals.

The Covid denial scandal is one example. Research has revealed that a mere twelve “Homo influentia,” were responsible for spreading the myths about Covid and the dangers of vaccination. Yet they caused numerous unnecessary deaths. Many parents refused to have themselves or their children vaccinated after reading false accounts of the dangers on social media.

The internet was supposed to bring people together. Now, this new breed of human being, known as Homo influentia, is doing it’s utmost to separate Homo sapiens into many different tribes.  Each is ready to take up arms against the others, if necessary.  Followers are certain in their own minds that their ‘Great Influentia’ is the fount of all wisdom in the world today. They rush to spread ‘His Gospel’ to all who will listen.

Where have we heard all this before? Two thousand plus years ago? So long as Homo sapiens refuse to use their huge brains to think for themselves, we will continue to rush to wherever any pseudo-messiah stands up and tells us what to believe.

Baaaaa!

 

1946: A Birth, A Marriage And A Motor Car

I’m not one given to reminiscing. Life goes forward, not backward. I suppose it was reading of the sad death of Roselynn Carter, US President Jimmy Carter’s wife. He’s been in hospice care for some time and his wife only joined him there two days before she passed away at the age of 96.  It was a long life, yet however old one is it’s never quite long enough, if one isn’t in serious pain or distress.

It wasn’t her long life that set me reminiscing, or the ex-president’s at 99 years of age. No, it was reading that they were married in 1946. That’s a date burned into my memory. It would be, it’s the year I was born. I had a sister five years older than me and when we were old enough to have an inkling of such things, we would giggle together that she was the last thing our Dad did before he went off to World War II, and I was the first thing he did when he returned. Then she’d nudge me and giggle, “I wonder if he took his boots off first!” Still embraced in at least the partial innocence of childhood we thought it the funniest thing.

Looking back now over seventy-seven years, it’s just amazing how the world has changed. There’s no sense of time or distance. Events of  a long time ago can be brought into focus as though they only occurred yesterday.

There were very few cars back then. My parents were the first in our road to own one. I have a vivid recollection of the day it happened. The sales area wasn’t the plush sort of polished floor palace where one buys a car these days. It was a piece of wasteland on a slight hill and the sales office was a corrugated iron shack, not very pretty but surprisingly strong as we were to discover.

After the initial test drive my parents decided this was the vehicle for them. It was an Austin 10, meaning 10 horse power, quite small but with huge running boards on each side.

1936 Austin 10.

It wasn’t new, probably well pre-war. My parents could not have afforded a new car.

Once the decision was taken to purchase the salesman invited my parents to sign all the documents in the sales office. My father parked the car on the slight slope and my sister and I, who had occupied the back seat during all the goings on, were told to stay put and behave ourselves while the paperwork was completed.

Once the adults were gone we both chatted and giggled at the thought of actually owning one these cherished horseless carriages. My sister started to show off her rather scant knowledge of the vehicle’s various equipment, pointing to the steering wheel, and then the gear lever.

At the age of five years I was not going to be outdone by a mere female when it came to mechanical matters, so leaping up from my seat I reached forward between the front seats for the handbrake. It was a very long, upright device with a silver lever attachment at the top that needed to be pushed forward before the brake could be released. In my enthusiasm not to be outdone by a girl, even if she was five years older, I was halfway through announcing, “And that’s the hand….brake,” while realising my forward momentum had caused me to hit the silver lever rather harder than I had anticipated.

There was a loud, “Click,” followed by a low rumble as tyres gathered momentum. With horror we realised the vehicle was moving down the slope and gathering speed, and heading directly towards the sales office.

Corrugated iron is noisy stuff when disturbed, and it took a violent dislike to being assaulted by a motor car. With hindsight, the old Austin was probably moving at no more than walking pace when it made contact with the front of the sales office. The resulting cacophony of those metal sheets was still sufficient to send mother, father, and salesman rushing outside, ears no doubt still ringing. They soon learned it was not an earthquake that had caused the pandemonium of rattling and noise.

As no actual damage was done to either office or vehicle, recriminations were remarkably few, though on the journey home in the Austin 10 there were lectures from father on the dangers of touching anything within the driving compartment of an automobile.

Frankly, I just couldn’t wait to get behind the steering wheel.

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