Ignorant We

Researchers have announced that the east Antarctic ice sheets are melting.  We already knew the west side was melting.  This new info doubles down:

A hundred years from now, humans may remember 2014 as the year that we first learned that we may have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica, and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise.

Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy — when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/16/the-melting-of-antarctica-was-already-really-bad-it-just-got-worse/

As I’ve written, ad nauseum, we are going to look amazingly selfish, ignorant and greedy to future generations, and rightly so.  The USA, the ‘wonderful’ consumerist empire, has contributed more to global warming than any other country.  And now China is taking over as the champion of economic ‘freedom’.  It’s an Orwellian joke.  Obscene wealth (1%) next to obscene poverty (80%) , this is called "freedom."  Global destruction is termed "development."  War is called the only way to peace.  Of course, the US leads the world in arms sales, and has been at war continuously since 2002.

We were told these wars would be over in a matter of months.  The patriotic citizenry doesn’t seem to care.  Lesson in political psychology:  consumer capitalism makes for easy mind control.
 

Although future generations will rightly blame all of us, the Republican Party of the Empire is the primary culprit.  They are in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Energy, and they use fear, racism and sexism to whip up their (primarily white) followers into a blind furor.  I don’t think it is a conscious mechanism.  The right wing has simply become obsessed with contradicting anything liberals (especially a black President) tries to say or do.

In fact, global warming is a liberal hoax.  Why?  Because right wing media outlets say so.

Meanwhile, a nuclear warhead could launch any day.  The geopolitical scene is endlessly volatile.  Once one missile flies, more will probably follow.  Silver lining:  the seas, prompted by global warming, will rise to cover the ugly wounds of nuclear war.  Nothing but tips of broken skyscrapers, sticking up out of the swollen brine, to remind future citizens of our ultimate stupidity.

But I think they’ll know.  And maybe, just maybe, they’ll realize that greedy selfish ignorant capitalism is not the way.

Owl