October 2007 archive

“An Urgent Call to Action”

1. James Kanter of the International Herald Tribune reports that the UN issues ‘final wake-up call’ on population and environment.

   The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage on the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.

   Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

   Covering the UNEP report, The Independent notes “Over the past 20 years, almost every index of the planet’s health has worsened. At the same time, personal wealth in the richest countries has grown by a third.” Achim Steiner, the executive director of UNEP, said:

   Without an accelerated effort to reform the way we collectively do business on planet Earth, we will shortly be in trouble if indeed we are not already. There have been enough wake-up calls… The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged – and the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay.

   The Guardian adds calls attention to the Lack of urgency by the world’s governments.

   Climate change is a global priority that demands political leadership, but there has been “a remarkable lack of urgency” in the response, which the report characterised as “woefully inadequate”.

   The report’s authors say its objective is “not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call to action”.

   It warns that tackling the problems may affect the vested interests of powerful groups, and that the environment must be moved to the core of decision-making.

   There is more coverage in an essay by Turkana posted earlier today. Yes, we’re likely preaching to the choir here, but this is important enough to repeat.

i like Magnifico’s idea of of make your own caption. for this, make your own daydream… so chit chat, don’t rec the pony, and do what you can to get the rest of the world to be excellent to each other, for good god’s sake.

This was the evening news from Armageddon…

After discovering a suspicious man in a brush area on the San Bernardino campus  of California State University, police attempted to detain a 27-year-old on suspicion of arson.
Following a chase, officers opened fire and killed him, police said.

“They thought there could be the possibility that he’s an arsonist,” Patterson said. The area “is in the path of the fire.”

Four charred bodies were found Thursday in an apparent migrant camp burned by one of the wildfires raging across southern California, authorities said Thursday.

As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy.

A news crew was taping a cabinet meeting at the White House as the president was giving a briefing on the California wildfires. The news crew taped Cheney as he appeared to be nodding off.

“There’s all kinds of time for historians to compare this response to that response,” Bush said during a tour of the state’s fire-ravaged communities.

“A lot of people are going to lose their homes today,” San Diego Fire Capt. Lisa Blake predicted earlier.

According to estimates, nearly 1 million southern Californians have been displaced in the biggest evacuation in state history as a result of at least 16 simultaneous wildfires. More than 350,000 houses have been evacuated.

People who need it can get help with “home reprayer – repair,” said the president, handing out the FEMA phone number and Web-site for victims of the wildfires.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger is right. These fires are going to go out… but there are still going to be needs and concerns,” Bush said. “We’re not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.”

These fires are going to go out, and hard work will remain, but I am not counting on Bush to set things right. After the jump, I will tell you what you can do right now to help the people hurt by this crisis.

– wherein the diarist cobbles together on a semi-regular basis a collection of seemingly random thoughts, no single one of which, taken by itself, may be worthy of your attention, dear reader(s?), but which, when presented en masse in a veritable mélange, a pastiche, as it were, of cerebral offal, might thus put to rest any niggling doubts that you may have had about whether the effort would be worth it. Or, to paraphrase someone, you should waste no time in reading this . . .

PAGING CAPT. OBVIOUS: I wonder why President Bush was in such a big hurry to get to the San Diego County photo op? I mean, it took him four days to land in New Orleans and screw up rescue efforts, right? Well, folks, the answer should be easy – it’s as simple as black and white – erm, I mean, blue and red (just zoom in on this map of the 2004 presidential vote by county; San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties are all the way down in the lower left-hand corner) . . .