Monday, November 14th 2022
Yet, the war goes on. However, I believe the general feeling, if it’s not absolute specific knowledge, is that the entire special military operation might have been the greatest mistake the Russians have made since wasting all of the money of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Some people never learn.
Zelinsk giving thanks to Europe in English.
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It’s not even 2:00 a.m. yet and I’m not even close to sleeping. I got a couple hours in before but then for some reason my eyes popped open. It might be the cold. I don’t really think it’s that cold and I don’t feel that uncomfortable. I’m just not sleeping and that’s the way the world is. I can’t think of any specifics.
Actually, the fact that we are in mid-november and I still have not started religiously building fires everyday and it struck me as strange. A few years ago, the new climate of 52° north latitude came into sharp focus. We had a winter where there was absolutely no snow until well after New years. It became noticeable even 10 years ago that it was no longer possible to have normal winter parties around New Year’s. Traditional snow and ice related games for the kids had been there since the Soviet Union. They would put up some boards and spray water until there was a small ice rink, a huge natural fir tree would go up in the center of Lenin square, the children would sled down the slope in back of the statue and there would even be ramps and other things for people to slide and skate on. But then it was just over.
There was one New Year’s where the weather was so ridiculously cold and wind so violent that no one thought it fun or nice to be out. And then suddenly, there was just no more snow.
I started rebuilding the bridge over the river a couple of years ago and immediately they stopped the flow of the river which bloomed with algae. After this, it was noticeable that the river wouldn’t even freeze anymore. There was no more ice fishing except for a week or two. That really wasn’t so bad because all the fishermen agreed that there weren’t that many fish left in the river.
I am about 25 km away from town and generally speaking, it’s colder out here than where all the cars are congregated. The greenhouse effect has always been understood in all Civic centers. The accumulation of carbon emissions tends to warm up the place. It would be usual to be several degrees colder and to have the seasons, especially the cold seasons come earlier and linger longer. But it’s mid November and we still haven’t had winter start yet.
A little earlier, I started thinking about this and decided to ask what the story was globally about 2022. I spent quite a bit of time in the middle of the summer dealing with what was really a very strange sort of heat. It felt a little bit like when I rode a bicycle across the United States. I often stopped and worked odd jobs to finance the trip and one time I ended up working for a wood company in Louisiana. I remember the feeling of the heat in the deep South during that time. It was a painful heat. Not just warm or uncomfortably warm or humid warm, but a painful feeling of being out in the direct sun. It felt a little bit like that this year, especially in August when everything went Brown and all of my hopes of collecting rainwater went down the tubes with the groundwater. There was just no water this year and it never rained when it was supposed to.
It’s been raining solidly for 6 weeks now and everything is green. I pulled down all of my water retention gear. Next year, some of those barrels will go to making liquid fertilizer for the garden and some will make for an outdoor shower. But if you would have told me I would still be planting bushes in mid-november, I would have said you were crazy.
A little earlier today, I asked Google about the status of global warming for 2022. I asked what the global temperature was and these are some of the blurbs from the query.
Data from key monitoring stations show atmospheric levels of the three gasses continue to increase in 2022. Temperature: The global average temperature in 2022 is estimated to be about 1.15 [1.02 to 1.28] °C above the 1850-1900 average. 2015 to 2022 are likely to be the eight warmest years on record.
How long before global warming is irreversible?
This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.
Is it already too late for climate change?
Global average temperatures have risen and weather extremes have already seen an uptick, so the short answer to whether it’s too late to stop climate change is: yes.Nov 4, 2022
When I started this writing project 3 years ago, I really wasn’t thinking about what was the most important thing in the world or what sorts of issues humanity was facing as my subject matter. I was and have always been an ecologist. I don’t need to repeat my pedigree as a lifetime bicyclist or how many decades ago I threw away my last car. I have always known that we are a dirty species and the damage we cause to the planet by our activities and our demand for constant economic growth, whatever the hell that means. But it never occurred to me how violent conservative thinking actually is until I started being publicly vocal about my thoughts. People seemed to enjoy being confrontative towards me. It was as if they were defending their right to destroy things.
Of course, I am aware that they were using me mostly as a political tool for their own self-satisfaction. There were no verbal debates as to the relative truth. Everyone is aware of the thought of global warming. People know it exists but it’s usually muddled up in conservative double speak about how things are not understandable or measurable. When I mentioned the change around New Year’s or tried to explain the cause of the algae blooms in the river, people just went back to the same argument that there was no such thing as real information and all theories were moot. Fake news exists and therefore all information is bullshit. Clever propaganda for a country preparing for war.
But this leads to an interesting thought. Is the entire War nothing but a smokescreen to cover up for damage caused by the fossil fuel business? Is this just a giant example of conservative snow blowing designed to create money exactly for the industries that do the most ecological damage? Is the entire Ukrainian War nothing but a cover-up to prevent the world from working together to stop global warming?
It’s been a long-standing tradition in America for the conservative party to engage in war as a way of hiding their failures or even causation of societal problems within the US. It seems that the Democratic party tries to do the best to build up a functioning infrastructure that allows people a decent life and then the conservatives come along and create racial problems and start wars in order to fund the military industrial complex.
In other words, in a country absolutely not known for their original thinking, it does seem that they are taking their cues directly from the American conservative playbook.
Well, let’s ask and see what happens. Is the Russian Ukrainian War a smoke screen to hide global warming?
Of course the answer is yes. Of course the answer is yes. Just click the link and look for yourself. I am almost never the only one who thinks this way.
Yet, the war goes on.
My friends in the North cover climate issues. The Arctic is a really good place to pay attention to global warming because the failing ice cap and rising temperatures are even miserable at the poles. I found this article yesterday at the Barents Observer
EU agrees on end-date for combustion-engines vehicles
There is no room for new sales of petrol, gas, or diesel-powered cars in Europe after 2035, as the European Union has reached an agreement to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
An agreement is reached by the European Parliament and the European Council only allowing for zero-emission cars and vans as of 2035. The historic agreement includes a 55% reduction of CO2 emission for new cars and 50% for new vans by 2030 compared to 2021 levels.
Last year, 14,3 million new cars were sold in Europe. Of these, 1,2 million were all-electric vehicles. By 2035, 100% of all new vans and cars have to be zero-emission, the EU target states.
My thinking is that it’s a little late. Obviously, the pushback against the Russians seems to be a stimulus to moving things along but they should have done this years and years ago. You can’t get people to stop slavery and you can’t get them to put away money in favor of the survival of the species. This has been nothing new for the world and they were talking about this stuff even from the beginning of the industrial revolution.
I found a book called A Utopia of Usurers by GK Chesterton and it was written all the way back in 1917. We know that there was a great push to socialism during this time. Jack London was very publicly a socialist in his views about the difference between living one’s life as an exploited worker versus living one’s own life self-sufficiently. And you can’t run away from the influence of Marx, Engles and Tolstoy and the fact that this was exactly at the time of the Russian revolution. But the prose itself is direct and uncompromised and though flowery, still holds up.
The fairy tales we were all taught did not, like the history we were all taught, consist entirely of lies. Parts of the tale of “Puss in Boots” or “Jack and the Beanstalk” may strike the realistic eye as a little unlikely and out of the common way, so to speak; but they contain some very solid and very practical truths. For instance, it may be noted that both in “Puss in Boots” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” if I remember aright, the ogre was not only an ogre but also a magician. And it will generally be found that in all such popular narratives, the king, if he is a wicked king, is generally also a wizard.
Now there is a very vital human truth enshrined in this. Bad government, like good government, is a spiritual thing. Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales. And so it is with the modern tyrant, the great employer. The sight of a millionaire is seldom, in the ordinary sense, an enchanting sight: nevertheless, he is in his way an enchanter. As they say in the gushing articles about him in the magazines, he is a fascinating personality. So is a snake. At least he is fascinating to rabbits; and so is the millionaire to the rabbit-witted sort of people that ladies and gentlemen have allowed themselves to become. He does, in a manner, cast a spell, such as that which imprisoned princes and princesses under the shapes of falcons or stags. He has truly turned men into sheep, as Circe turned them into swine.
Or in other words, it seems that we’ve done nothing over the course of the last 100 years but allow industrialists and the politicians in their pockets to blow as much snow as possible to cover up crimes against humanity. It isn’t that global warming is anything new. It isn’t that the causes are unknown. It is simply that unrestrained capitalism has never allowed rational thought to get in the way of the exploitation of resources, natural, human and otherwise.
What I’m trying to say is that there needs to be some genuine drastic and large scale change that needs to occur. We have to do a genuine reshaping of mankind and create another way of life for human beings. What has occurred in our quest for modernity and new technologies is that we have completely lost sight of the fact that we’re just a bunch of neurotic animals clawing at each other trying to get enough food to eat. Actually, it’s not even about food but social acceptance and prestige that lead us to an unsustainable and destructive way of life. And we absolutely are showing no signs of slowing down or even pausing. In fact even the reason to slow down and pause is never allowed in the public discussion. Nobody wants people to stop and think and come to some conclusions about what is the truth and what is not. Nobody wants to relinquish the control that they have because nobody wants to stop the flow of money. Or perhaps it’s not even a matter of choice anymore and it’s a matter of addiction already. There is no conscious thought and everything and everybody are going to hell simply for the desire for impulse purchases.
There was another article on the front page of the Barents Observer.
As military collapse looms, Murmansk church leader says ‘End of Time’ is near
During his visit to the garrison of Russia’s Arctic Brigade in Alakurtti, the ultra-conservative Metropolitan Mitrofan of Murmansk underlined that Russian warriors now are fighting against the “Prince of Darkness” and warned against apocalypse.
“It is all being decided now. And from our prayers depends the fate of the whole world. The Lord decides the way it suits him, from what is happening on earth. Is there any point to continue history? Or is it time to bring fire and sulphur to earth and let everything burn?”
The sermon delivered by the Orthodox Church leader must rather have stirred great chill among the locals that had attended mass in Alakurtti, the small military town located near the border to Finland. Mitrofan, who is known for his extreme, hard-line and fundamentalist views, made clear to the churchgoers in Alakurtti that the war against Ukraine is leading to catastrophe. Not only for Russian aggressors and the country’s dictator in Moscow. But for the whole world.
“Today, the moment of truth is coming; will the history of mankind be continued? Or will it end? This is the question that we now are deciding, both on the battleground and in our hearts,” the prelate said. The sermon was held as Russian forces experience new defeats on the battlegrounds in Ukraine, and as the country’s Armed Forces announced a retreat from Kherson.
Where do we go from here? How do you stop a self-destructive Juggernaut like this? How do you bring common sense to a world that has been force-fed gibberish for more than a century or even for more than several millennia? How do you get people to stop?
I think the answer is pretty simple. You just stop doing the things that are damaging and let the world heal itself. This I have noticed in myself and my own body and my own mind. If you just stop damaging yourself, you heal. You get better. Sometimes the damage is irreparable. Sometimes the damage is fatal. But as long as you’re alive, the genuine truth is that all you have to do is stop hurting yourself and you will heal.
I mean, if God is nature and I believe this is the truth and we are made in the image of God, this means as natural beings, just as we heal so can the Earth itself. True, we might have gunked things up so badly that it will take a thousand years for our sins to be washed away. However, they say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Just because we won’t be here to see it specifically, hopefully someone will. Probably they will curse us for the shit that we have left behind as an inheritance. Probably they will be ashamed of us for our stupidity and greed. Probably history will not look kindly on us. But at least we could repent at the end. Perhaps we could come to our senses and at least do something for our children.
Me? I guess we are still planting trees. We are going to plant more. I don’t know if I’m going to try and acquire more land. I don’t know why my neighbors didn’t sell me their property, they don’t use it. But I would just plant more trees there. I guess we could just start planting trees and let the forests come back. Maybe we can leave the animals alone.
Anyway, here is another nice video about rebuilding groundwater from Andrew Millison
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Christopher hitchens on how faith is not a virtue.
Amen.
Speaking of faith, it seems that Belarusian faith in the brotherhood and support of Russia doesn’t really stand up to individual moments of confrontation. This following report talks about how Belarusians sent to aid the Russian special military operation in Ukraine are being abused. Additionally, our neighbors to the west and the North seem to find the country and its people even more repugnant than usual. Perhaps we would have been better off telling Russia that we just don’t really want or need their help. Perhaps we would have been better off being independent and taking care of ourselves.
I say we. I’ve been here 20 years. Don’t read anything more into it.
I’ve talked about the issue of self-sufficiency to people. I always get shot down. People do not believe in Independence in any way here. I’m not sure whether it’s fear-based or just a complete disbelief in the competence of the people here.
I got a tiny nugget of wisdom while writing the text of a screenplay one time. I was talking with a girl who now lives in the United States by the way. We were dealing with a moment where one character, a model dealing with the end of her career insults a photographer she has just walked out on. But it was the response to the insult that had the wisdom.
AGENT: Послушай меня внимательно. На сегодняшний день нет другой работы. По крайней мере не с ним.(Listen to me carefully. As of today, I can’t guarantee any other job! At least not with him.)
NADIA: Он пизда. (He is a cunt!)
AGENT: Все становятся пиздой когда они связываются с ним. (They are all cunts if that’s what you make of them.)
Indeed, we are all worthless if that’s all you allow us to be. If you have no other way of dealing with your people other than to beat us for our incompetence, of course we have nothing but incompetence to offer.
But perhaps if left alone, we might do a very good job of taking care of ourselves. And perhaps if we were not obligated to pay the debts of our leadership, both material and idealistic, we might be quite rich making use of our own natural resources for our own use. Perhaps even establishing our own laws for making use or better of preserving our resources. Who knows, we might even be that peaceful Nation that we sing about given the chance.
***
What is the truth about the Russian occupation and departure of Kherson?
This is a combination of having heartstrings pulled and the pragmatic understanding that the Ukrainian war is being used by the weapons industry and the military to learn more about warfare. The only thing we are not learning is the waste of materials, both human and otherwise, and the misery that it causes. Now, there are lots of new tricks that have been tried out in the Ukrainian theater and this is giving hope to weapon sellers and military people. The only word I have for this is sick. Nevertheless, the video is worth looking at.
The people who remained in the city now face the task of rebuilding. The following video talks about some of the specifics in the rebuilding effort. And for what it is worth, it seems that Donalt Trump’s wall is finally being built along the border of Ukraine and Belarus.
I don’t know why they keep doing it. Although, I understand what Mr. Holton is saying about there being people who look forward to war and combat as some kind of adventure or an item to check off on their bucket list. I understand that there are people who live for this.
I don’t. I don’t relish the thought of being in pain or causing harm to others. I do not dream of the opportunity to do murder or to fire guns. I don’t dream of violence and I can’t help thinking that it is better to treat such people educationally than to give them opportunities to feed this sort of thinking. Truthfully, I think we have enough murderers already. I do not understand why they need their time. Better to breed them out generally or at least allow them to play their murder games in an isolated place where there is no opportunity to harm civilians.
I think I talked about this before. It would all make a great television show. People who don’t really want this sort of danger but find a thrill from living vicariously through others can watch and people inspired by this and who want to participate will be allowed. Eventually, God willing, they will all remove each other from the gene pool and the remaining population might be able to enjoy their lives a little more knowing that the world is no longer populated thusly. I say we start today.
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It’s 9:00 and I’m going to close up shop here today. Today was a bit of a non day. I did not do very much work. I didn’t do much cleaning up or invent much of anything. My leg is still killing me from being helpful and trying to appear normal on Sunday. I just came back from a quick walk outside and I needed to take crutches with me to get that done. Don’t think this is being anything dramatic. I’m still waiting for some medical attention. I will get it one of these days. There won’t be a party when I do but I will get the help I need one of these days. I might have to get a bit nasty and make some noise and complaints. But I’ll get there. With winter coming, I better get there because I would rather not be completely stuck and just cannot even walk.
I had my first English lesson today with Tanya’s daughter and it was rather nice. Honeymoon lessons are always wonderful. Everyone has great energy and Hope and this English thing is the new boy on the block. It’s amazing. Everybody wants to shine brightly. Most of the lesson was some basic stuff but it had educational value. I have been experimenting with minimalism lately. I know my message back and forth and sometimes I like to see how quickly and easily I can get some concepts over the table. Today I found an opportunity to introduce basic grammar as a tool of understanding. We won’t actually know if it works for another week or two and we really won’t know the extent of our success until we get to the end of the honeymoon. That’ll be about the end of the month and that’s exactly how much time I promised for the lessons.
I don’t want to sound cynical but it is simply a matter of being a professional. I’m not talking about my behaving in a particular manner. This is not about style but rather substance. I am simply saying that I know my game up and down and right and left so I am saying things I’ve said a hundred times or a thousand times and I am seeing things also that I have seen too many times.
Probably the biggest thing is that the temperature is now dropping. We are in the single digits now and it has definitely been cold today. I ate too much because of it. It was nervous eating. There is no doubt in my mind where this nervousness is coming from. There was nothing I could do about it except be nervous. It also had to do with not really sleeping very well last night.
The point is that I ate too damn much today. I had a sensible oil-free breakfast but I wasn’t strong enough to overcome the urge to chase it with some carbs. I made some bread today that was really good but I just didn’t need that much food. Later in the day and absolutely not hungry, I ate some more bread with tea and then enjoyed another pot of tea while cracking some of our walnuts. They are absolutely dry and crackly and sweet and delicious and she just can’t stop eating them once you get started. As a consequence of all of this my belly is absolutely full and I am about ready to fall down from the sheer bloat. I feel like a whale. Tomorrow is fasting.
However, though I would not consider it to be a bright spot because none of it was very good news, one thing I am really pleased about is the writing here. I don’t really believe that I planned this but I feel I am getting to a point of finality here in this last week. I feel like I am saying things differently than I have through the course of the year, that it’s a bit more universal and complete and a bit less anecdotal. I don’t feel like I’m working with snippets of information but rather looking at a whole. I really don’t know if I’m bringing that out or not but this is at least what it feels like. I feel as though I have finally made my point.
Not that it means anything great. Unfortunately, there’s no real positive gain in the radical environmentalist gig. We are not praised for heroism and we absolutely do not control the media sufficiently enough to see the results. All we get is as much fight as we want. The selfish opposition is in power and they control all the media and all the resources and they have only a desire to keep their power and to enjoy the trappings of it. You cannot reason with drug addicts and fascists and nobody’s ever made a living by arguing with drug addicted fascists.
This does not mean that I’m in this for the check. I’m not. I’m not really in it for any personal gain except perhaps some satisfaction from seeing a positive result from my work. I am a teacher after all. I know I’ve come from a life where I’ve had several professions. I’ve had several personas as well I guess and certainly several living situations. Incarnations is another way to say this. But in the end, the last two decades have been about teaching and there is no genuine reward for a teacher except to see that you have done good work with your students. If they have a better and wider life, this is really the only payment we get. Perpetual parents in this way.
I am definitely proud of the influence I’ve had on people. Like all teachers, I’ve had my hits and misses. I’ve had my victories and my failures. I tell you though, I sure would like it if this particular class I’ve been teaching for 3 years made a difference somewhere. It would be great to know that I imparted some knowledge or changed things. Not for me though, just for you.
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