Meanwhile in the Gulf of Mexico
This is complete and utter bullshit.
If you ever voiced any concerns about the environment or wildlife in America, you’re always labeled a hippy or a bleeding heart or a nature nazi.
Sorry, folks, but this is what happens when you interrupt a natural habitat. There is absolutely no way to drill underneath the ocean floor for oil and expect there not to be huge impacts on everything around it.
There simply isn’t. For those of you who thought offshore drilling was a victimless situation, this is your wake up call.
The problem is that a lot of Americans want everything: They want the oil, they want to ‘drill, baby, drill,’ they want to maintain a life and culture where we’re dependent on this stuff but they want it to go smoothly with no disasters or mistakes.
And it’s simply impossible.
It’s fucking horrible that sea life is dying and birds are dying and the marshlands of the Gulf won’t be the same for a long, long time.
I volunteered for a non-profit organization for one and a half years who tried to spread (accurate) information about offshore drilling and the consequences and had doors slammed in my face just to get a signature for a petition and people wouldn’t even take the flyers I was handing out. And my first words were always, ‘I’m not asking for money, just a minute of your time.’
America has just created this absurd culture where nobody gives a shit about anything until it goes bad. And lots of things go bad because of risks and mistakes and things that cannot be avoided due to human error and/or mechanical failure.
So here I am, again, a fucking hippy, suggesting that America find alternative fuel sources. Not just for now, for the future as the current resources are depleted.
Someone suggested I was an idiot because I don’t support massive nuclear energy in the U.S. but this dolphin is the direct result of human error and mechanical failure.
Can you imagine the photos if there was human error and mechanical failure (which is always lurking) at a fucking nuclear plant in Louisiana?
Sorry. Just not worth it.
Every American has the opportunity every day to individually help curb energy use. You can’t always avoid driving a car but you can buy cars that use less gas. Five years ago, we were a nation of giant SUVs and nobody really saw anything wrong with that UNTIL gas prices shot up. And then it wasn’t, ‘we’re depleting our resources like mad,’ it was, ‘I can’t afford to drive to work!’
Think about your kids, their grandkids, our wildlife, our environment in a logical way: No matter what the consequences are, there’s nothing wrong with being mindful about the future and what kind of earth/country we’ll leave to the next generation. That’s not being a hippy, it’s being rational and realistic.
As it is with this situation, waiting for something bad to happen and then trying to fix it isn’t an option.
Help slow down our dependency on oil and coal.
Not preaching, just saying.
It just blows my mind that so few people seem to care until there’s a picture of a dead dolphin covered in oil.
By the time this is all over likely, this photo is going to seem fairly tame, I’m afraid.
Stop living life for what’s around the corner and start enjoying the walk down the street.
— Grant L. Miller
Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.
— Aldous Huxley
Confessions of a Tech Apostate →
President Obama says devices like Apple’s iPad are rotting our brains. He’s right.
…We’re updating our Facebook status and reading our news feeds and telling the whole world what we like and don’t like, because for some reason we imagine that the whole world actually cares. You know what we’re not doing? We’re not thinking. We’re processing. There’s a difference…
The philosophy of minimalism, as I see it, is having exactly what you need, when you need it, for as long as you need it. It’s not about just less, it’s about just right.
— Patrick Rhone
Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.
— Carl Sagan
Antisocial Networking? - NYTimes.com →
Experts are examining whether technology alters the nature of children’s friendships.
For even more perspective, see also related articles, Society is dead, we have retreated into the iWorld, and No Lie! Your Facebook Profile Is the Real You.
Psychogeography →
Defined in 1955, psychogeography is:“The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” [Or] “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities … just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape.”
Cogitare: Change your mind... →
Traditionally, changing opinions has not been seen quite positively: to be respected one should hold to his opinions, regardless of new evidence or circumstances, until the end. I write now with the aim of debunking that idea, at least in part, and showing that the ability to change your mind is also part of critical thinking…
Excellent argument.
Project Reason →
Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
