How a Civilization Dies

Our civilization is coming to an end, sooner than later. It won’t end with a war, or a disease, or a flood, but rather with an abandonment of reason and hope. The Harper Conservatives will be reviled in the history books (if there are history books). Why? Greed.

There’s no other logical reason for the Conservatives’ stance on ignoring the imminent threat of climate change. It’s not personally impacting the lives of Conservative MPs in ways they comprehend, so they put it at such a low priority that making money is more urgent to them all. It’s a bloody disgrace, to themselves, and to our country.

Regina sunset

Nations and species are literally going to be wiped off the Earth because of their greed. And they won’t even allow the politicians who do care about those people and animals to debate it in the House of Commons, despite their supposedly firm grip on any vote that takes place inside Parliament. Cowards!

When Minister Kent was confronted the other day about his government’s secret plan to remove Canada from the Kyoto agreement (which does not even go far enough according to more recent scientific understanding), he refused to comment on being found out. He sputtered that it wasn’t time to announce it yet, obviously confused about what to say now that his evil plot had been revealed ahead of schedule.

To avoid runaway global warming, all the 192 parties of the UNFCC and all 191 parties to the Kyoto Protocol, have agreed that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced dramatically to avoid global average temperature exceeding a 2 degree Celsius rise above the average global temperature at the time of the Industrial Revolution. We are already approaching one degree C above those levels. For those who think the global average temperature of 1-2 degree rise sounds trivial, it is worth noting that to melt the last ice age took a warming of only 4-5 degrees C. Two degrees C is huge. Many scientists believe that 2 degrees C is far too high. Probabilities of avoiding runaway global warming at 2 degrees C may be on the order of 50-50.

That is why in Cancun at COP16 it was accepted that nations should consider efforts to more deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid exceeding 1.5 degrees. Low-lying island states have adopted the rallying call “1.5 to stay alive.”

The best scientific advice suggests that in order to avoid exceeding 2 degrees C it is imperative that the rise in global emissions be arrested by 2015. In fairness, it must be noted that some respected scientists believe that exceeding 2 degrees C is now inevitable.

What May writes is not in dispute by scientists. Greedy politicians who are too eager to tell you that you can have everything you’re used to without consequences damning us to an unlivable Earth, are lying to you. The Conservatives are lying to you. Quite literally the future of the world hangs in the balance, and the forces of darkness are winning.

207 responses to “How a Civilization Dies

  1. Once “Saskboy” becomes a “Saskman” perhaps his certainty over the catastrophic end of life as we know it will will change. Perhaps…

    • I doubt it. When Saskboy grows up, he will just be “Saskqueer” figuring out how to heat his home with fairy farts instead of oil and gas.

  2. Chew on this Saskboy….
    A genuine inconvenient truth…….

    chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/japanese-satellites-say-3rd-world-owes-co2-reparations-to-the-west/

  3. This is hilarious! Thanks for the laugh this morning. Cheers.

    Perhaps you might want to start questioning the major heads in the global community who are flinging the global warming/climate change garbage around, and ask them why they live lives far more luxurious and have far larger carbon footprints than the average person. Actions speak louder than words Sasknut. Lying and hypocrisy are not virtues.

  4. Great Read, hilarious – I have no clue if Saskboy is serious or not and I don’t care.

    This is pure leftie comedy gold at its best – 22 Minutes couldn’t have come up with better material and they get paid (BTW – doesn’t getting paid make a leftie a hypocrite??, anyways I digress).

    Good job Saskboy, you’ve certainly brightened my day!

    Signed
    Someone who conspires to kill your civilisation!!

  5. I see the Craigslist Cons are out in full force. No substantive retorts – just insults and childish taunts. I hope they enjoy their $1.50 payday.

  6. U of Saskatoon Dept of Ag’s latest online mag has an article on adapting to climate change in agriculture. Monsanto must see a potential market.

    • omygod. i love that car commercial. it captures the whole dopey derange thing perfectly. i laugh every time.

      saskboys rant was amusing but the pelosi car is a winner!
      now someone should change saskboy’s diaper…

  7. If global temperature is valid scientific premise, and if it can be measured accurately, and if the accuracy of comparisons to ancient tree ring data and ice cores is to within less than a tenth of a degree for global averages, and if a difference of 290 kelvin vs 290.7 kelvin makes any difference at all, and if we know what the true temperature of the earth is supposed to be, and if all the adjustments in raw data and corrections for putting a monitor beside an air conditioner or over asphalt are appropriate, and if the publication of scientific studies is shown to be unbiased, and if the peer review process in climate change research is not grossly corrupted, and if a trace gas vital to plant life is actually associated with temperature change and if this is a causal relation, and if man is responsible for a significant proportion of the CO2 production, and if starving in the dark is better than living our lifestyle, then I will definitely start taking this crap seriously.

  8. Great post.

    As for the commentators a few points:
    Climate change does actually exist. Science makes this case pretty clear and if you don’t beleive in science then please feel free to give up on all it has given us such as safe food, water, medicine, computers, the internet. Go get some animal skins as clothes two rocks to bang together to make tools and move to the woods. Seven Billion People on the planet engaged in industry is going to have an effect on climate. We are cutting down the forests that filter the CO2 from the air so even though it is required for plants to live too much of a good thing kills you.

    Does it not make sense to try to avoid the possible end of our planet if we can? This seems logical to me. If we stablize the current situation and end climate change we may save the human race. It’s not real and we still reduce energy consumption, another win as the energy supply is limited well expect for wind and solar that should last a long time. If we do nothing and it’s real the end of civilization, this seems like a bad outcome.

    Oil is a finite resource that is used to make a lot of our modern world. Medicine, plastic, computers etc. We have this fantastic limited resource that can build our entire civilization and we are burning it to move around. Ya that’s really smart. If we stop using oil as an energy product we would still need it to do everything else and we have other energy options. If you haven’t noticed it’s always kinda windy and the sun seems to shine a whole lot. If we go to green energy sources we can still sell the oil to everyone else, first rule of drug dealing never use your own product.

    As for the structure of your comments
    If you are going to engage in name calling such as commie I suggest you actually learn something about communism. Marx was an economist and his critique of the structure of capitalism is pretty good. His suggestions as too how society should work less ideal. It drives me crazy when iggnorant people from any part of the political spectrum start spewing idiotic things about communism. It doesn’t mean what the pot heads or right wing nut jobs think it means.

    Calling anyone who isn’t right wing a lefty or commie would be the same as calling anyone right of center a Nazi. Are you a Nazi? Would you like to called a Nazi? Do you like to dress up as a Nazi and group masterbate while watching Stephen Harper political ads? If you don’t then stop auto replying with McCarthyism.

    While I am on the subject of name calling is Gay really the best insult? Two types of gay sterotypes exist in mainstream media the enfeminate male and the ones who work out all the time put on fetish gear and beat each other for fun. Do you really want to insult the second group? People who enjoy giving and receiving pain? Are you man enough to be tied up and beaten for pleasure?

    The point here is that these ignorant uninformed anti anything that isn’t Neo-con sterotypical comments are idiotic. Our political process has now come down to uninformed voters not paying attention to the political process or debates that are happening. Think, research, try to understand the other side then type. This isn’t a football game where winner takes all this is a country, a society and an entire planet we are playing with. The stakes are way to high to not become a little informed and try to work through it together.

    • “the same as calling anyone right of center a Nazi.”

      You mean left of center a Nazi. The term Nazi was the common short form name of National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus). The Nazis were left of center.

      cheers

  9. Actually, Saskboy, the validity of your entire premise depends on how one defines “civilization.”

    If, like myself, you believe civilization is the product of civilized conditions (where “to civilize” is a verb meaning “to bring out of a savage state”)

    • I think what Sakboy is saying is the Harper conservatives will cause the end of human global civilization by not providing enough hope to some people in Saskatchewan. I think that’s it.

      Am I right?

  10. Actually, Saskboy, the validity of your entire premise depends on how one defines “civilization.”

    If, like myself, you believe civilization is the product of civilized conditions (where “to civilize” is a verb meaning ”to bring out of a savage state” as per the standard dictionary definiton, and “civilized” is a related adjective), then civilizations are more likely to die as the result of anti-progress greentards who oppose economic development and are hell bent on moving humanity back to the primitive conditions of a pre-industrial culture.

    If, however, you define civilzation as “a group of humans scraping by for survival without the productive means to rise beyond a basic subsistence economy,” then I would definitely agree this form of “civilization” is threatened by the existence of private enterprise and human greed (which is, like it or not, a defining characteristic of humanity and being human).

    Luckily for us, most of you “progressive” enviro-clowns are so concerned with unsustainable overpopulation that you are doing your part to save the world by not reproducing or replacing yourselves. If you care to look up the meaning of unsustainable some time, I’m fairly confident you will see that your worldview more closely fits the definition than does mine due to the fact that your values will mostly die off with you and your fellow true-believers. Failing the natural extinction of your backwards values, perhaps there will be continued support in the future for the green agenda to regulate industry and private enterprise out of existence (which may not be be your personal objective, but will be the ultimate result of the policies you espouse). Unfortunately, you will find many of us knuckle-dragging regressive neo-con individualists have a fairly strong sense of property rights, gun rights, and other freedoms and that we will be more than willing to assert them if our basic liberties are ever seriously infringed upon.

    Keep that in mind next time you promote policies that will strip others of their rights and force them to live by your stupid greenpeace-inspired values, because in the highly unlikely and undesirable event that push comes to shove and it really does become a “war of civilizations” you will be hard pressed to find a natural and eco-friendly method of fabricating body armor.

  11. Saskboy, your point is a rant, not an argument. Also, you need to read the actual predictions of the ‘respected AGW scientists’. They do not predict the end of society or of our species. You appear stupid when you overstate your case in such a way. Also, it would appear that you have little in the way of actual facts at your disposal and instead rely on ‘concensus’ and polemic. Just sayin’

    • Little in the way of facts? Saskboy has 97% of climate scientists who back up his claims, thats a fact. He also has the Hockey Stick graph, thats a fact. He also has the unasailable Nobel winning totally unbiased scientific organization called the IPCC, thats a fact. I mean, like whoa.

      With facts like that, how could anyone go wrong?

  12. Wow there’s a lot of pissed people over what you have to say. I would like to tell you that I am worried about climate change. But I’m going to ask you do you produce more green energy then you consume. I’m going to guess that you don’t have any type of resources or even an idea about how you could do that. I’m going to tell you now that I would love to stop the people of these world from fucking up this planet as much as you. Unfortunately the truth is if you are not living a life of zero emission zero pollution. You can’t say shit. More importantly if you can’t find solutions to these problem’s on a small personal level don’t expect our government to have all the answers. I know that changes need to be made. Things are moving in a slow slow positive direction. Laws and rules are the slowest way to make change. People are going to fight it every step of the way. The fastest way is to come up with a cheaper alternative. The world and its people are all living on borrowed money. Nothing will change until its better for the pocket book. I don’t like it ether. But don’t expect our government to do anything but look at the bottom line in the finances and buying vote. I’m just glad we live in this great country even if we got these problems, it could be a lot worse. Keep doing what you can to reduce your lot print on this plant and I will do mine. And when you can plant a tree.

    • “Unfortunately the truth is if you are not living a life of zero emission zero pollution. You can’t say shit. ”

      That’s abit over the top. Anyone can say what they want.

      Its so easy to get to zero emissions, look at Al Gore. Ever notice how Al Gore has no wind or solar panels on any of his mansions? Gore is ultra rich and can fly in private jets, live in multiple mansions and be driven in enormous SUVs. He can afford anything he wants yet he does not invest in wind or solar for his mansions. But his carbon footprint is still lower than yours. He simply buys the carbon offsets he needs to reduce his gross carbon gluttony and achieves a zero carbon foot print. You can drive hybrids, put solar panels on your roof, erect windmills, eat tofu and Gore will still have a lower carbon footprint than you. He simply buys enough carbon offsets so that he becomes carbon neutral, might cost him a couple of hundred bucks a year, that’s all. Which would you do, spend $20 in carbon credits or $500,000 for solar panels? Exactly. Gore is no fool. He does not spend thousands needlessly on inefficient green equipment. He knows solar panels and wind turbines are for suckers. By buying carbon offsets saskboy can be like Al.

  13. I thought this was a good post. Evidently it was linked to by ugly KKKate and they all think it’s stupid.

    Which makes me feel that I was right to approve of it.

    • Unfortunately there are a great many people (everyone) who ‘feel’ good if information they want to hear is shared with them. Fortunately you also used the word ‘thought’ first, suggesting that you used information (other than feelings) to come to a conclusion about the threat of pollution, then felt good that I understand it too. These Small Dead Animals are sure a buzz-kill though with their blind belief that anything they feel overrides the facts. They even resort to supporting thieves and professional liars whose jobs are to make them feel good about pollution.

      As a kid it seemed fictional that people could be so eager to be so unethical. Greed does terrible things to people – they’re willing to steal their childrens’ future and brag about it even.

      • You may not have believed it as a kid, and you still may not believe it as an infantile douchebag adult, but humans are, always have been, and always will be self-interested by nature.

        Self-interest defines us as humans. It is a motivating factor for much (but not all) of our behavior, and it is hard-wired into our biological coding. It is why capitalism beat communism. It is why Al Gore charges a fee for his speaking engagements. And it is why intelligent, ambitious, and driven individuals will wipe the floor with whiny little bitches like yourself any day of the week in head-to-head competition – be it in the marketplace or otherwise.

        Moreover, please stop confusing “greed” with “self-interest.” Greed is excessive desire beyond what one has earned or worked for. The fact that I do not want to live in a fucking cave without lights or heat – and that I am willing to bust my ass to rise above basic survival – does not make me greedy. I happen to like cars and the convenient transportation they afford me. I also like computers, cell phones, airplanes, steak, off-season produce, plastic, and any number of other modern innovations which have provided me with an ever-improving quality of life since the day I was born. No one is saying you have to like any of these things; if you want to establish a carbon-neutral commune or go back to a more “natural” lifestyle based only on your basic needs, no one is stopping you. But please stop trying to force the rest of us to conform to your bullshit values; whether you are advocating for forced standardization of cellphone chargers or demanding that oil production be cut back, your views all revolve around restricting the freedoms and choices of others and compelling them to follow rules decreed by a self-appointed enlightened class (to which you happen to claim membership).

        The sky is not falling, chicken little. But claiming that it is certainly provides an excellent excuse for wannabe dictators to tell everyone else how they should live, doesn’t it?

        Go fuck yourself.

      • Thanks for stopping by to provide a fine example of an ignorant asshole, RM.

        You confuse self interest with greed. It is not in any human’s self interest to end the existence of countless lifeforms, but that’s what you argue is the greedy right of individuals. If you aren’t free to leave abusive, and uneducated comments on thoughtful discussions regarding the purpose of life, then you’re being controlled? You think humans limiting your pollution is limiting to your freedom? Try not having half of the animal species alive today. Try living with millions of people fleeing their flooded homeland, and willing to kill you if you don’t give up a piece of yours.

        Go educate yourself, you selfish jerk. And grow some empathy too while you’re taking your head out of the sand.

      • So only environmental activists qualify as educated now? What a joke.

        Newsflash, dickwad. Just because someone disagrees with you and calls you out on some of your more outrageous claims, doesn’t mean they are uneducated. Sure, many of your opponents may lack the academic pedigree associated with an undergrad degree from the University of Regina (the Harvard of Saskatchewan for those in the know), but surely educated obtained from other less-prestigious institutions still counts. Look at it this way: I don’t claim you are uneducated, I merely claim you have shitty values which are antithetical to progress and that you possess extremely poor insight into human nature. And yes, I also think you have a fetish with limiting the rights and freedoms of others. Perhaps you should stop and think about the realistic implications of applying your ideology to the world around you: Should everyone have to ride around on a bicycle just because you do? Who determines how much carbon each person is entitled to produce, and who will enforce this? And if I want to make a cellular phone with my own proprietary charging port, who the fuck are you to tell me otherwise?

        Finally, you vastly overstate the coming environmental “catastrophe” which makes you sound like a complete toolshed – somewhat akin to a religious zealot predicting that the apocalypse is upon us. I’m not sure how you ended up living in a real-life disaster movie, but I suspect it involved watching “The Day After Tomorrow” one too many times and may require intensive therapy to overcome. Animals will survive, humanity will not perish, and no displaced masses will come trying to kill me for my home any time in the near future.

        … And if they do, I guess my AR and CZ-858 will come in handy for more than just recreation. Either way, you are an alarmist douchebag with an unwarranted sense of intellectual superiority based on your adherance to environmental extremism; you may think you are clever now, but I’ll bet my Finance degree against your shitty IT certificate that you won’t feel so smart in 20 years’ time when your predictions don’t pan out.

        Get off David Suzuki’s dick.

      • Perhaps I was too hard on you earlier. I really do bear no ill will toward you despite your vile temper. You will hopefully at some point, reexamine how you seek to keep the carefree lifestyle you’re apparently out to defend, because you’re doing it wrong by attacking people like me who are actually concerned with the state having too much control in areas it need not. See my writing about Wikileaks or Occupy Regina, for instance.

        Here’s what I hear you say though:

        “My degree and guns are better than yours. Look at me, I’m a better predictor of the future than you are, and I can swear like a million times better than you too.

        And I like having umpteen incompatible electronic devices because it gives me an excuse to buy more shit, and feel FREE of government co-ordination at the same time.

        I hope you’re right, just so we can both live in a terrible world and I’ll get to shoot starving refugees that are here thanks to my willingness to not change. And no animals will go extinct because of my actions, because everyone knows that animals which are debited on the left side of a balance sheet show up as a credit on the right, I learned that in Finance.

        I hate popular scientists and those who get inspired by them, but would gladly share my man love with those worthy, such as Stephen Harper or Charleston Heston (God rest his soul).”

      • My degree and guns actually are better than yours. True story.

        Of course you overstate the extent to which I even care about our respective educational backgrounds. The degree was only mentioned in passing because you were unable to fathom the concept that someone could be both educated and in disagreement with you at the same time. In truth, education does not always imply intelligence (as you so handily provide an example of) and academic degrees on their own have little to no bearing on the issue at hand.

        The guns, on the other hand, were mentioned because inside every environmental extremist is a little Stalin or Mao eager to tell everyone else how to live and willing to sacrifice a few living humans for the greater good at the drop of a hat. Although I doubt your movement possess the wherewithal to ever truly affect any changes, you should know that your shit won’t fly even if you do manage to attain some nominal form of power. In any event, you will first have to find a better method for obtaining group consensus than wiggling your fingers before you can seriously entertain the notion of saving the world from the big bad industrialists.

        It should also be noted that I personally prefer BlackBerries and their standardized micro-USB chargers (which also fit my Kindle and my External HDs) over iPhones, iPads, and the likes. I actually think most of Apple’s products are overpriced crap that is packaged in a shiny exterior to appeal to idiots. But I don’t begrudge Apple the right to design, produce, and market any design they like or the freedom of others to buy Apple products if they so choose. Whether or not someone wants an Apple iPhone and the associated proprietary charging cable is his or her decision to make and none of your damn business. This is not simply about some psychological illusion of “feeling” free from compulsion… If we don’t even have the freedom to create or purchase products as we wish without the government stepping in to coordinate and standardize everything that is subjectively deemed wasteful, then we are well on the road to serfdom.

        And by the way, I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I do not subscribe to your ridiculous beliefs regarding the coming environmental apocalypse. Accordingly, I do not intend to ever shoot any of your non-existent climate refugees who first were hypothetically out to kill me and now are hypothetically helpless and starving. Of course, people like you are actually cheering for such an eventuality unless the rest of us submit to your demands and accept a benevolent dictatorship of greenpeace and sierra club ass hats. Such is your ideology, and that is why people are increasingly writing off your movement as a bunch of exaggerating clowns who are more after power than anything else.

        In the end, you are quite simply loser with an authority fetish (and apparently homophobic to boot… I wonder how your progressive buddies would react to your negative comments about “man love”). Although I don’t doubt your personal commitment to environmentalism, the whole green thing is more about finding a cause and providing cover for the drastic measures you support. In a different era you would have been a communist fighting “inequality” and demanding we all sacrifice for the greater good of society, or maybe a clergy member promoting unquestioning religious devotion and preaching that we obey the church or face eternal damnation. Either way, you’re a dickhead.

        And by the way, debits and credits are accounting terms. While it’s great that you’ve taken an intro to accounting class somewhere along the way, finance is an entirely different field dealing with managing money, making investments, and creating value in the future. I’m sure all business jargon sounds the same to you, but it would be wise to know what you are talking about before opening your mouth next time. That and shaving once in a while might actually convince others to take you seriously for once.

      • RM,
        There’s nothing negative or homophobic in suggesting you’d enjoy physically loving a powerful man. You are after all the first person in this argument to bring up dicks and guns, so for all I know you’re interested in those sorts of people.

        And you might want to come up with a better strategy at proving your intelligence than saying you don’t like my beard. I don’t think you’ll really convince people that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I have facial hair, but what do I know?… I have a beard after all.

      • Let’s recap the discussion so far:

        You write an absurd post predicting the end of civilization as we know it, and bizarrely attribute this imminent apocalypse to the fact that Canada’s elected Conservative government is not adopting the policy platform of the unpopular and insignificant Green Party. You also claim that anyone who disagrees with you is greedy, evil, and uneducated. I thoroughly deconstruct your shitty arguments in several lengthy and cogent replies which point out the gaping errors in your logic, albeit peppered with gratuitous ad hominem attacks. While my responses to you are far from polite, they address the points you bring up and offer a more sensible and rational take on the issues of politics, economics and the environment. At the end of my final post, I make a one-line joke that people might take you more seriously if you shaved once in a while; from this single comment, you manage to deduce that my entire argument against you is that you have a beard while disregarding everything else that has been said thus far.

        Unbelievable. You’re like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail who refuses to stand aside even after being soundly beaten and having your ass handed to you. I realize that only so much can be expected from a dipshit who thinks that his crappy degree from the University of Regina makes him smarter than everyone else, but you truly set a new standard for sheer idiocy and lack of common sense. I don’t even have anything left from you to refute from you, as your last post was bullshit and didn’t say anything of substance whatsoever. To clarify, however, the fact that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and the fact that you may or may not have a beard are two completely separate issues. The former occurs because you are a clueless half-wit with an extreme overconfidence in your own intelligence and a strong desire for everyone else to live the same shitty lifestyle you do; the latter occurs because you are a dirty hippy with poor hygiene and no compelling reason to look presentable from day-to-day.

        While there really isn’t much else to say to one another, I will conclude by offering an olive branch of sorts: I may be willing to accept your position that humans are causing irreparable damage to the environment if we can agree to start a program of population control beginning with losers like you and your Occupy buddies. Failing that, we will have to agree to disagree. You can go on writing your shitty blog and complaining about how humans are ruining the world, and humanity will continue improving its collective quality of life through the pursuit of individual self-interest. You can complain about it until you’re blue in the face, but in the end you and your movement can’t do shit to stop it and that’s just the way it is.

        Take care, and enjoy biking to work in the freezing cold this winter like a fucking idiot :)

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  15. Wow Saskboy, you sure hit a nerve with this climate change post. Perhaps you should do more of them, then you’ll be making the big bucks baby!

    Oh I don’t mean to suggest that this blog is about making money, its about the children.. yea, save the children… save the future.. sniff…

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