Comments by "LS O\x27Brien" (@lsobrien) on "Global Warming To Cause Permanent Great Depression (Times Two)" video.
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Walter Benjamin wrote, “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”. If we are to accept the common place categories, we have now reached a point where civilisation is stagnant or declining, while barbarism continues its exponential growth with every human brought into existence. Civilisation, of which factory farming is so central, makes everyone complicit.
But if that doesn’t move you, perhaps self interest will.
"We imagined ourselves isolated from the source of our existence. The fallout from this imaginative error is all around us: a quarter of the world’s mammals are threatened with imminent extinction; an acre and a half of rainforest is felled every second; 75% of the world’s fish stocks are on the verge of collapse; humanity consumes 25% more of the world’s natural ‘products’ than the Earth can replace — a figure predicted to rise to 80% by mid-century."
(The Dark Mountain Manifesto, Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine)
From the Scientific American,
"In 2014 pharmaceutical companies sold nearly 21 million pounds of medically important antibiotics for use in food animals, more than three times the amount sold for use in people. Stripped of the power of protective drugs, today’s pedestrian health nuisances — ear infections, cuts, bronchitis — will become tomorrow’s potential death sentences."
When, though, was the last time self-preservation could be described as a cardinal human value? Confronted with rising global temperatures today, political leaders either deny or pay lip service. Faced with an environmental disaster of their own making, in the 19th century the Easter Islanders went ahead and chopped down the last tree. All that has changed is the dresscode.
https://medium.com/@lukeob/what-have-you-got-77173fa82a58
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