We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Extreme Weather Will Be the New Normal

Click here to access a 2:29m video from Bloomberg Business News.

While viewing a local TV network news report this morning, the news-person prefaced her report with a message very similar to this. She said something like we were "transitioning" into a new normal climate. 

Yes folks, I guess it's now official--we are merely experiencing "the new normal", not the beginning stages of catastrophic climate destabilization. So, there is nothing we need to do to prevent it. We, especially corporations and Wall Street, can only prepare for the occasional storms by protecting property. (sarcasm) 

The reality is that the ruling capitalist class are so addicted to the drugs of wealth and power which the system delivers to them that they refuse to alter their behavior; instead they engage in all kinds of fantasies. This pattern is familiar to spouses and families of alcoholics.
Chloe Demrovsky, executive director at the Disaster Recovery Institute International, and John Odermatt, managing director of Citi's Office of Emergency Management & Fraud Surveillance, discuss the global cost of natural disasters with Bloomberg's Trish Regan on "Street Smart."