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Friday, June 23, 2006

Interesting listen

A couple of times a year, Mike Malloy of Air America Radio devotes 3 hours to accepting phone-calls only from young people, with the kids ranging from 13 to 17 years old. Out of the 20 or so that called in tonight, the kids' biggest issue revealed a concern over global warming. One kid also made the connection between Iraq and oil. Listening to these broadcasts always gives one hope for an optimistic future.

(I can always find the AAR broadcasts via a BitTorrent stream at a place like isohunt.com; especially if you don't want to pay for the podcast from the premium site.)

I remember my dad telling me of a graph that one of his co-workers had presented in front of a technical audience. It evidently showed perfect correlation and followed an absolutely straight line. Then my dad spoke up and pointed out that the guy had actually plotted X versus X. As I recall, my dad relished in the fact that everyone in the audience laughed at his oneupsmanship.

In a nutshell, this illustrates what BushCo does -- they plot X vs. X, tell everyone that everything has and will work out perfectly and all the gullible 'minionists snarf it up. Too bad for the right-wing that a lot of the kids still listen to their parents as well as discussers of reality, and so will hopefully prevent a complete dismantling of our environmental progress to date.

2 Comments:

Professor Blogger FHB said...

Hi.
I pop in now and then and I read what I can absorb and throw the rest away.
I have a question for you and it's a question that I've yet to find an answer for.
I believe that Peak Oil is an event on the horizon. I believe that "we" are destined to have to live in a far less energy intensive future. I don't know when that future will present itself, but all the same I tend to believe that it will happen.
The reprecussions need not be ugly, but I believe they will be. I believe they will be because, for the most part,along with our predeliction for blame, I think most people on the planet strive to belong to the middle class.
When I say middle class, I mean the Western version.
It's the version where, at least in most Western countries, there's at least one car in the garage, both parents work and the kids are destined for a life a little bit better than Mom and Dad.
So here's my question.
Would you like everyone on the planet to live as well as the least materialistic person you know?
I don't mean to single you out amongst the many blogs I frequent, but I like your voice and your reasoning seems sound and you've tended to keep the rhetoric to minimum. You seemingly have science on your side too.
When I hear the "progressive" voice in North America going on about "sharing the wealth"I hear such such a fundamentally flawed argument I all but close my ears to whatever else they're on about.
We devour too much it seems to me. And to contemplate a level of devouring that even our poorest friends know being spread around the world, well...
It can't be that way.
It can't happen.
The way of life "we" enjoy simply can't be exported at any price.
Because what is truly "non-negotiable" is the *way* we live our lives. It is inconceivable and delusional to continue on like this.
There are no more chairs at the table.
The chains of energy that support this way of life are finite in length. And I believe they will snap violently, not loosen gradually.

4:01 AM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

To paraphrase a famous line, I live a life of quiet desparation. Take what you can from that, as I don't engage in much doomsterism.

9:50 PM  

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