This roller coaster is speeding up. Usually it doesn't work that way because we are always losing energy. You have to burn a lot to keep going faster. Alas, the waste heat goes somewhere...
Enjoyed the video very powerful. As you know I write about issues of climate change and for the most part I believe we are really in the soup now on terms of 'fixing' the pending ravages of climate change. But evolution has its cycles and being aware of what needs to happen and what needs to be nurtured and kept is an awareness that Aboriginal people held sacred.
Glad to see you back and writing in the Substack world. Notes haven't affected me I guess as I don't see them unless I go looking for them. And at this point I'm not interested in looking for them. lol
I love this essay, Mark! Brilliantly written and distilled, I love the clock analogies which are really visual, and the list of THT qualities feel right on! I'm short-term pessimistic but long-term optimistic on climate change: we can't fix it, but we can mitigate and recover with strong enough will and innovation (combined). We need to stop doing what got us here, and start doing other things instead!
I think it's too late to reverse climate change - it's happening right now. The black flies came out about three weeks early and are pretty much done at this point - they generally are out by mid May and gone by mid June. Yeah, I know, who cares, they're evil, bloodsucking insects, but the thing is, a lot of other critters, especially birds, depend on them for food... and they're already gone, so that means the black fly eaters are scrambling for something else to eat. Mother Nature doesn't have Grub Hub. And that's just one species - I've noticed a lot of plants and animals struggling after our abnormally hot and cold winter and a spring of fluctuating drought and flood, combined with temps in the 80's followed shortly by the first May killing frost in my admittedly limited memory.
Does that mean I think we should just give up? No, absolutely not. Even if we can't bring the earth back to where it was before the human arsonists took over, we can maybe, hopefully, stall the change out long enough for the earth to adapt. But I believe that, no matter what, we will lose a lot - a lot of plants and other critters will have to pay for our sins. At the very least, we will probably be forced into giving up the relatively cushy lifestyle to which most of us have become accustomed...
With or without us, the earth will survive. I think that the only way we'll get to be around another 300,000 years is if we learn to live within our means - if we insist on eating or burning up everything in sight, the earth will probably end up going on without us.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Notes, Mark. One thing I've noticed is that anyone can "Restack" anyone's post or a comment. I think it might be easy to click some of these options without fully meaning to interact with Notes.
Also, your observations about the feed being filled reminded me of something someone once told me about restaurants in tourist areas, that they need to have a certain capacity of people inside in order to attract more customers. If it's too empty, people are wary of coming in. I wonder if filling the feed if Substack's way of making a place feel invitingly busy. Like, "Hey, there's stuff going on here you might want to be part of!"
Love this piece. I’m “other” in your survey because I believe in the gray area. Yes, the climate is changing, no it is not a crisis.
Enjoyed the video very powerful. As you know I write about issues of climate change and for the most part I believe we are really in the soup now on terms of 'fixing' the pending ravages of climate change. But evolution has its cycles and being aware of what needs to happen and what needs to be nurtured and kept is an awareness that Aboriginal people held sacred.
Glad to see you back and writing in the Substack world. Notes haven't affected me I guess as I don't see them unless I go looking for them. And at this point I'm not interested in looking for them. lol
I love thinking that I am basically mostly cauliflower. That really puts things in perspective.
I love this essay, Mark! Brilliantly written and distilled, I love the clock analogies which are really visual, and the list of THT qualities feel right on! I'm short-term pessimistic but long-term optimistic on climate change: we can't fix it, but we can mitigate and recover with strong enough will and innovation (combined). We need to stop doing what got us here, and start doing other things instead!
I think it's too late to reverse climate change - it's happening right now. The black flies came out about three weeks early and are pretty much done at this point - they generally are out by mid May and gone by mid June. Yeah, I know, who cares, they're evil, bloodsucking insects, but the thing is, a lot of other critters, especially birds, depend on them for food... and they're already gone, so that means the black fly eaters are scrambling for something else to eat. Mother Nature doesn't have Grub Hub. And that's just one species - I've noticed a lot of plants and animals struggling after our abnormally hot and cold winter and a spring of fluctuating drought and flood, combined with temps in the 80's followed shortly by the first May killing frost in my admittedly limited memory.
Does that mean I think we should just give up? No, absolutely not. Even if we can't bring the earth back to where it was before the human arsonists took over, we can maybe, hopefully, stall the change out long enough for the earth to adapt. But I believe that, no matter what, we will lose a lot - a lot of plants and other critters will have to pay for our sins. At the very least, we will probably be forced into giving up the relatively cushy lifestyle to which most of us have become accustomed...
With or without us, the earth will survive. I think that the only way we'll get to be around another 300,000 years is if we learn to live within our means - if we insist on eating or burning up everything in sight, the earth will probably end up going on without us.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Notes, Mark. One thing I've noticed is that anyone can "Restack" anyone's post or a comment. I think it might be easy to click some of these options without fully meaning to interact with Notes.
Also, your observations about the feed being filled reminded me of something someone once told me about restaurants in tourist areas, that they need to have a certain capacity of people inside in order to attract more customers. If it's too empty, people are wary of coming in. I wonder if filling the feed if Substack's way of making a place feel invitingly busy. Like, "Hey, there's stuff going on here you might want to be part of!"