The earth, as it looked from here, 21.Oct.08:
India was preparing to launch its first unmanned space ship to the moon early Wednesday, part of an effort to assert its power in space and claim some of the business opportunities out there.I watched a little of SNL Saturday, with Sarah Palin appearing which I only overheard being occupied with chores, and Josh Brolin, star of "W", presenting. His opening monologue was a steady flow of insults and cheap jokes at the President's expense. This is very useful catharsis to the real architects of the Bush Administration's criminal activities. Because it makes getting rid of him the single most important thing, whereas undoing the damage he's done - to the world, to the country, and to people's hearts - is the single most important thing.
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On Sept. 25, the Global Carbon Project, made of a group of scientists reporting on greenhouse gas emissions annually, released a report saying that carbon emissions rose in 2007, and that such emissions are growing at four times the rate in this decade than they were in the 1990s.
Pep Canadell, the group’s executive director, said that India will likely overtake Russia as the world’s largest emitter of toxic gases
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Released last month, the scientific findings of the Global Carbon Project show that, in 2007, over half the world's emissions came from high-growth developing economies led by China and India, and that this share is rising because emissions from developed economies are growing less fast.
The project's Australia-based executive director, Pep Canadell, said China alone accounted for 60 percent of emissions growth last year. This was due to China's heavy reliance on coal for generating electricity and oil for transport fuels.
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Despite the increasing international sense of urgency, the growth rate of emissions continued to speed up, bringing the atmospheric CO2 concentration to 383 parts per million (ppm) in 2007.
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"The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation."
James Hansen
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The pollution leader was China, followed by the United States, which past data show is the leader in emissions per person in carbon dioxide output. And while several developed countries slightly cut their CO2 output in 2007, the U.S. churned out more.
Still, it was large increases in China, India and other developing countries that spurred the growth of carbon dioxide pollution to a record high of 8.47 billion tonnes of carbon.
Figures released by science agencies in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia show that China's added emissions accounted for more than half of the worldwide increase. China passed the United States as the No. 1 carbon dioxide polluter in 2006.
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The latest figures on the global carbon budget to be released in Washington and Paris today[26.Sep.08] indicate a four-fold increase in growth rate of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions since 2000.
CSIRO
Oliver Stone was in the audience and stood up and said something, then sat down again.
In the relatively few minutes I did watch the show there were two bizarrely mediocre skits, that didn't feature Palin, and at least four commercials for different cars - 28 mpg! - as well as one for a video game that involved fast skillful driving.
My mind being as it is, I keep seeing the human occupancy of the car as a mutually parasitic inhabitation. Symbiotic. Soft physically incapable organism inside armored but mentally incapable organism.
That I think is an elemental piece of the issue of climate change, and possibly more importantly, human evolution.
Something reptilian, Miltonic, gloating, in those gleaming commercials.
The seduction of the brand-new car is more intensely felt now, especially by young males, than any other. Even sex, who with or if, is often determined by the car's status, which bestows as much as it reflects the owner's status.
Cars are central now to the human presence on earth, central to human identity, though this is never acknowledged outside the marketplace, and then only by inference from the energy constantly devoted there to selling them.
It's a presence and an identity actually made less human by that strange steel mutation, and which appears to be headed into a very long absence because of it.
