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QotD: Save the Earth OR ELSE
Nov. 24th, 2017 11:21 am A day will come in your lifetime
when the Earth, your mother,
will beg you, with tears running,
to save her.
Ho, if you fail to help her,
you and all people will die like dogs.
Remember this.
when the Earth, your mother,
will beg you, with tears running,
to save her.
Ho, if you fail to help her,
you and all people will die like dogs.
Remember this.
~~Hollow Horn (Lakota), 1929,
as recounted in Black Hills, White Justice:
The Sioux Nation versus the United States,
1775 to the Present (1991)
The First Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the foragers, was followed by the Second Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the farmers, and gives us an important perspetive on the Third Wave Extinction, which industrial activity is causing today. Don't believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving th emost plant and animmal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.
--Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 2015, p74.
--Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 2015, p74.
Mercury Retrograde Messing Up Your Life
Sep. 13th, 2016 09:00 amThe current retrograde is supposed to last until September 22. It's a long one. Lots of people think that this planetary phenomenon is the reason that things haven't been going their way. You're not supposed to make any major decisions or stick your neck out during a retrograde. Why? Superstition, in a word.
Most people who believe this bunk don't understand what the mercury retrograde really is. They think it's something serious, when it is really just an optical illusion in the sky. Mercury appears to be going backwards because of our perspective from here on earth, and the relative movements of the other planets. For a sky-watcher, it's interesting. For the superstitious person, it's momentous. Like zodiac signs in astrology, it guides their choices and gives meaning to events.
People who embrace "new age" spirituality are the most likely to believe in the negative effects of a mercury retrograde. They also tend to believe in karma and reincarnation. These beliefs are indicative of the overall ignorance of our populace. People think that because they have shed institutionalized religion that their new superstition must be better. Too many people seek explanations for what they experience, and then latch onto them without further consideration.
How is reincarnation any more plausible than heaven and hell? Are we capable of living with "I don't know" as our answer? Is intellectual laziness really our future?
Most people who believe this bunk don't understand what the mercury retrograde really is. They think it's something serious, when it is really just an optical illusion in the sky. Mercury appears to be going backwards because of our perspective from here on earth, and the relative movements of the other planets. For a sky-watcher, it's interesting. For the superstitious person, it's momentous. Like zodiac signs in astrology, it guides their choices and gives meaning to events.
People who embrace "new age" spirituality are the most likely to believe in the negative effects of a mercury retrograde. They also tend to believe in karma and reincarnation. These beliefs are indicative of the overall ignorance of our populace. People think that because they have shed institutionalized religion that their new superstition must be better. Too many people seek explanations for what they experience, and then latch onto them without further consideration.
How is reincarnation any more plausible than heaven and hell? Are we capable of living with "I don't know" as our answer? Is intellectual laziness really our future?
QotD: Exxon Knew but Funded Deniers
Jul. 10th, 2015 09:55 amThis is an order of magnitude greater moral offense...because what is at stake is the fate of the planet, humanity, and the future of civilization, not to be melodramatic.
—Alyssa Bernstein, ethics expert at Ohio U, comparing Exxon's funding deniers (despite knowing about climate change since the 80's) to the tobacco industry denying the link between smoking and cancer.
—Alyssa Bernstein, ethics expert at Ohio U, comparing Exxon's funding deniers (despite knowing about climate change since the 80's) to the tobacco industry denying the link between smoking and cancer.
It's simple. All we have to do is let Ebola decimate the human population.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/04/doctor_doom_eric_pianka_receiv002118.html
We are not the only or most important species, but we think we are.
Somehow it helps me to keep the big picture in mind. We live, then we die. Our species rises to dominance, then fades. The planet goes on. The Universe goes on.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/04/doctor_doom_eric_pianka_receiv002118.html
We are not the only or most important species, but we think we are.
Somehow it helps me to keep the big picture in mind. We live, then we die. Our species rises to dominance, then fades. The planet goes on. The Universe goes on.
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QotD: Do Something
Jun. 27th, 2014 07:44 pmAnything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.
--Carl Sagan
--Carl Sagan
QotD: Come Alive
Jun. 25th, 2014 11:16 amDon't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.
~Howard Thurman
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.
~Howard Thurman
Why Dirt Helps Wounds Heal
Jan. 8th, 2014 10:36 amIn the field, some practitioners will pack an open wound with black soil to help it heal. You can get black peat that is used for this purpose and others. It is not pasteurized or sterilized in any way; it is full of living organisms. After the battle of Shiloh in the US civil war, soldiers whose wounds glowed in the dark had better survival. The organism (Photorhabdus luminescens) that was growing in their wounds came from the guts of nematodes living in the soil. Presumably this organism outcompeted the pathogenic ones. This kind of antibiotic mechanism cannot be ignored when antibiotic drugs are increasing ineffective.
( More about the biology, and the source, behind cut. )
( More about the biology, and the source, behind cut. )
QotD: Archaic Values
Nov. 5th, 2013 09:52 amI hold the most archaic values on earth; the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
--Gary Snyder
--Gary Snyder
QotD: Life
Feb. 4th, 2013 03:55 pmThe same stream of life
that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
― Rabindranath Tagore
that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
― Rabindranath Tagore
Fascinating Dance
Jan. 6th, 2012 01:04 pmI know nothing of it and just watched it for the first time. This is the Kokoro dance. Not safe for work due to nudity, however, it is nonsexual. ( Cut for suggestive image on youtube window. )
The Zombie Economy
Jun. 9th, 2011 12:52 pmHere's the text of a speech given by Richard Heinberg (the peak oil guy) to a set of college grads about entering the world as it exists today----on the downslope of the production curve. His words are oriented at helping them get past the denial that grips their parents, and "make the best of it".
... if you apply the critical thinking skills that you’ve learned here at WPI to an examination of the relevant data, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion as has been reached by the overwhelming majority of scientists who have studied all of these questions in great depth. Indeed, the scientific community is nearly unanimous in assessing that the Earth is warming, and that the only credible explanation for this is rising levels of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. That kind of consensus is hard to achieve among scientists except in situations where a conclusion is overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
... if you apply the critical thinking skills that you’ve learned here at WPI to an examination of the relevant data, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion as has been reached by the overwhelming majority of scientists who have studied all of these questions in great depth. Indeed, the scientific community is nearly unanimous in assessing that the Earth is warming, and that the only credible explanation for this is rising levels of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. That kind of consensus is hard to achieve among scientists except in situations where a conclusion is overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
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Writer's Block: The name game
Feb. 1st, 2011 08:34 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
My username is simply something descriptive that I came up with after my first several username choices were not available. I didn't even google it first, to know that it was SO already done. But I don't care. I am still reporting here live on earth, so it works. I have no other name I'd adopt now, liveonearth has a life of its own.
My username is simply something descriptive that I came up with after my first several username choices were not available. I didn't even google it first, to know that it was SO already done. But I don't care. I am still reporting here live on earth, so it works. I have no other name I'd adopt now, liveonearth has a life of its own.
