Don’t you know that Gen-X and Gen-Y are just SOooo last millennium….
Tonight, while driving to the grocery store, on Public Radio ( a corporation) was a presentation by Mark Hertsgaard. He’s got a book to hawk. In it, he defines “Generation Hot”. That’s anyone born after that date when Hansen testified in Congress (you remember, when they picked the hottest time of the year and then sabotaged the air conditioning…) to proselytize “Global Warming”.
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780618826124-0?&PID=25450
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:A fresh take on climate change by a renowned journalist driven to protect his daughter, your kids, and the next generation wholl (sic) inherit the problem For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard has investigated global warming for outlets including the New Yorker, NPR, Time, Vanity Fair, and The Nation. But the full truth did not hit home until he became a father and, soon thereafter, learned that climate change had already arrived―a century earlier than forecast―with impacts bound to worsen for decades to come. Hertsgaard’s daughter Chiara, now five yea rs (sic) old, is part of what he has dubbed “Generation Hot”–the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption.
Yes indeedy, we’re loaded up with all the “usual suspects”. From NPR (a corporation) to New Yorker ( a corporation), Time, Vanity Fair, and The Nation (all corporations). And little did we know, “Climate Change” has already arrived… and, I love this, a whole “century earlier than forecast”!!!! And here I thought it was forecast to have arrived about 1990? So it got here in 1890? Who knew!
And even a sop to “the Children!!!”… who will now spend the rest of their abbreviated lives “coping with mounting climate disruption“. Golly, from Climate Change to Climate Disruption in 2 sentences.
HOT is a father’s cry against climate change, but most of the book focuses on s olutions (sic), offering a deeply reported blueprint for how all of us―as parents, communities, companies and countries―can navigate this unavoidable new era. Combining reporting from across the nation and around the world with personal reflections on his daugh ters (sic) future, Hertsgaard provides “pictures” of what is expected over the next fifty years: Chicagos (sic) climate transformed to resemble Houstons (sic); dwindling water supplies and crop yields at home and abroad; the redesign of New York and other cities against mega-storms and sea-level rise. Above all, he shows who is taking wise, creative precautions. For in the end, HOT is a book about how well (sic) survive.
Next, we have a “blueprint” made via “reporting”. How novel. Perhaps he can “report” on my next house and provide the blueprints so I can dodge those $Thousands of architect fees… He then proceeds to ‘retread’ the same old same old. I think someone needs to tell him that it was a bit colder in Chicago this year than in Houston and that there seems to have been a bit of an excess of water (over the entire tropical zone and in the USA). Oh, and sea level hasn’t risen. Though we have gotten some nice storms (and, if I’m right, NYC will get a nice “megastorm”, though when I was a kid we used to just call them Hurricanes… like the ones we used to get back in the 1800’s a lot. You know, when it was cold…)
Fade To Wayback Machine…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_hurricanes
I’m especially fond of the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846 as it ended up in Canada. Just wait until we have another one of those! I can hear it now: “Global Warming Climate Disruption Chaos Superstorm Himmicane Reaches ALL THE WAY TO CANADA!!!!”
Boy, that will be something to see. Just like the old days…
Mid-Atlantic and Northeast
The hurricane caused the Potomac River to reach its highest level in 20 years as tides rose 6.9 feet (2.1 m) above normal.
One hundred yards of the Battery was swept away by pounding surf. Widespread structural damage and heavy rainfall were experienced throughout the Northeastern United States as the hurricane was winding down.
In Hartford, Connecticut, hurricane-force winds destroyed a trestle bridge. Numerous apple orchards in Massachusetts were reported ruined. No deaths are attributed to the hurricane’s passage over New England.
Though a few deaths would make it better fodder for the “Generation HOT Hawkers” as they peddle their wares…
At any rate, I’m sure “well” is how I’ll survive. A bit of Goat Brie (“Woolwich Dairy Inc”) and some “Chuck the Chuck” $2 Buck Merlot from Whole Foods ( a corporation) which is surprisingly drinkable for a ‘table wine’ of the low cost price point. Reminds me of some Italian Chianti of the jug persuasion from a long ago trip… not quite as soft and could do with a year or two of bottle age but still, 2 Bucks?…. and reasonably smooth with a nice fruit to it? Nose is a bit weak, IMHO, but then again I don’t sniff my wine much… but I digress…
At any rate, get ready for the new onslaught of propaganda as the “loony side of left” tries to engage in “Generation Wars, Part 2, Revenge of the Hanseth Lords!” with their clone army of millions…
The WACy side of World Affairs Council
FWIW, the talking points of the presentation (sponsored by The World Affairs Council … a corporation… we need to break here for a sidebar:
Sidebar on the WAC:
Though it took a heck of a lot of digging on their site to find it… they keep calling themselves an ‘organization’ and talk about ‘membership’ like something a ‘community organizer’ would put together. Finally, buried way deep, was this note:
http://www.world-affairs.org/stories
World Affairs Council History: The 1950’s
Posted by Brian Pierce | February 11, 2011
The new World Affairs Council, incorporated on September 12, 1951, quickly established itself as a leading international force in Seattle and the Puget Sound region
OK, yet another of those EVIL RIGHT WING CORPORATIONS!!! (I’m pressing this point as some folks seem very slow to pick up that ‘corporation’ is a form, not a leaning, and can be either Loney Left or Radical Right with equal facility; so I’m pointing out every “left wing” – God how I hate that broken term, but it seems to be the only paradigm they can grasp – corporation and demonstrating how they are quite effective at promoting the “left wing” and socialists agenda.)
Topics on their topic list?
The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
YPIN: International Women’s Day Celebration! Network with Seattle Women in Development and Global Health!
Ending Violence and Empowering Women in Pakistan & the Muslim World
Women in Politics: A Webcast Conversation with Humaira Awais Shahid and Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles
WHAT WORKS SERIES: Seattle Premiere of No Woman, No Cry with Christy Turlington Burns
Global Classroom: Protest and Participation in the Middle East Exploring News Media Stereotypes and Bias
“Public Exposure” Meet the Young Professionals International Network (YPIN)
Chernobyl 25 Years Later: Lessons Learned? Networking Reception, Discussion, and Photo Exhibit
YPIN Film Screening & Discussion: Africa’s Lost Eden
Yeah, those Evil “Right Wing” Corporations…. no socialist could ever use them to advantage /sarcoff>
But back at the radio show:
He basically painted the usual picture of death, destruction, the inevitable end of the world as we know it. Spent a bit of time praising the taking of property via eminent domain and the Dutch for cutting off debate and “doing something” even when it trampled individual liberty and property. Yup, loves the Dutch… all those ‘communal dikes’ and all. “No one person can defend against the sea”… Basically, a great deal of praise for “collectivist action”.
Then I went in the store and missed the rest. Well, I didn’t hear it, but I didn’t actually miss it ;-)
At any rate, gear up people, cause it looks like they want to start a Generational War… Arm yourself with the truth and ‘splain things to a kid near you.
Footnote
(For the inevitable Dutchman who gets bent feelings: My family is partly from the low areas of Deutschland from before folks bothered to keep track of who was German and who was Dutch. Most likely we are kin, to some degree. I’m of a “Pennsylvania Dutch” background and that, unfortunately, is just a bit ambiguous in the modern age of those places being different countries. They spent a while in Switzerland, too, just to make it fun trying to put myself in a box… At any rate, I take liberties with the Dutch because you can do that with your relatives. Oh, and the family still does communal barn raisings too… back east somewhere… I’d love to find one to participate in, but not too many “Old Order Amish” in Silly Con Valley ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 
It just magically happens that the solution for all of these catastrophic problems is global governance and the end of the US as a country. (The ClimateGate emails contained a plan for this — to break up the United States into fifty separate little countries, so that they could do less harm.)
Of course, the most extreme of any of those actual plans would not affect the climate much, and they occasionally admit that. But if it’s an opportunity to tap into global (political) power and a tax base on every (evil Western) citizen, the other part somehow seems less important.
We have seen, with the phony “exoneration” of Mann and Jones et al., that real science and true information is not a high priority to the catastrophists like this character—and in many cases is an active threat to them. The passion for global control is just too “HOT” for that sort of quibble.
===|==============/ Level Head
I would have thought generation alarm or generation gullible was more apt.
On 2nd thoughts, being a teenager in the 70s I grew up believing just about everything would happen by the year 2000. You know, flying cars, martian colonies etc etc.
The difference between my generation and the current one is that we had something to LOOK FORWARD TO. Optimism abound even amidst scaremongering about nuclear holocausts.
So I would suggest it is now Generation Pessimism
@Baa Humbug:
One bright spot: My son has informed me that his group is fed up with “global warming” and just wants to get on with living life… He’s a “20 something” and not QUITE a “Gen Hot” as he missed it by one year I think…
But his friends and those around him spend about zero time “worried” about “global warming” and a whole lot more about what amp gives the best sound to the band and even got me to buy him a TUBE amp(!) for Christmas.
God, it was one of the happiest “bonding moments” of my life. Having “the kid” buy me a beer while I explained how TUBES worked and why he got the effects he did from his amp.
(There are certain “distortions” that give a particular sound. So if you want to recreate a Jimmy Hendrix rif, for example, you need an amp that can cause power supply sag at just the right loading… His has a power supply switch so you can choose to sag, or not… ;-)
So his priorties are: Work (for a ‘hot car parts” company), Girls, BMW, Band, other fun, family…, all that political crap.
Gotta love that Gen-X/Y attitude ;-)
Daughter is not much different (she is inside the date) but substitute “Honda” for “BMW” and “Hot Clothes Company” for “hot car parts”… and “boy friend” for “Girls”… Oh, and she’s not into “band” but acting. Was really good in My Fair Lady…
At any rate, they are “living life” first and not feeling one bit worried, paranoid, or guilty about it.
I think Mr. Mark H. has a tough row to hoe…
E M that warmed my heart. Beer with the kid and Tube amp.
My old man was an electronics engineer. Worked for NATO on their radars located in Northern Turkey (Bartin/Amasra) spying on the USSR.
He used to have drawers full of tubes that fascinated me. Used to sneak in and ‘check ’em out’. I loved their glow.
Anyways, thanx for the memory trigger.
@Baa Humbug:
You are most welcome. As I type I sit about 6 feet from a 1 M x 1.5 M tall “radio” that uses tubes and has a speaker about 1/2 M in diameter. I rescued it from the local “reseller” for about $60-$100 dollars ( I don’t remember and it was bought in a batch of stuff, so how much was which bit?).
The electrolytic caps are shot, so it hums like hell, and I need to pick a weekend to repair it, but it still gets a couple of stations so I’m pretty sure the tubes are OK.
It has “police” and “shortwave” bands and it is in a modestly nice wood cabinet (with many years of wear, age, and dust on it)….
Yet another “someday” project….
So yeah, “Me and the kid” got to share some beers while looking in the back of his new Christmas Present (about 1.5 years back?) at the Cheery Glow of Vacuum Tubes….
I’ve never loved Hard Rock so much in my life as when I learned they were preserving the entire tube market due to their desire to recreate specific “sounds” of amps….
FWIW, you can go into Amp stores and they charge extra for matched sets of triodes that are exactly the same transconductance et.al. There are even on line DIY places that will sell you an Amp kit if you are “unendowed” with cash….
If anyone is interested, I can post the links…
At any rate, yeah, a very cherished moment. Talking tubes…
So many thoughts have been initiated by reading this post and comments. I am moved to join in.
1. It warms me to hear that some of the ‘new’ generation have their feet on the ground, are not brainwashed and are enjoying the real elements of life. Hopefully their numbers are not confined to a few families like yours (EM) where their education is based on science, clear thinking and lack of prejudice.
2. The CAGW proponents certainly make their presence known by spouting extreme garbage. I am hoping I live long enough to have the last laugh. But that would mean I would be suffering from the cold and I prefer warm. Can’t keep everyone happy!
3. Strange how the likes of us, as ‘Level-Head’ depicts, can see clearly the machinations, the motivations, the prejudices and the irrationality of the AGW industry, yet we have difficulty in convincing the general public and our government leaders of the obvious.
[Actually our (Australian) opposition leader has just publicly stated that he doesn’t think that CO2 is the villain. I am wondering if he has actually
read one of my emails because they are my very words.]
4. Vaccuum tubes: I find it almost weird that they still have a place, however minmal, in today’s electronics world. My tertiary education occurred in the late 1950’s. Transistors and diodes were the thing of the future, discussed, but not even part of our practical subjects. Since then, I have developed (or tried to), along with the science, through 8Kb RAM home computers (Commodore) with DOS OS on 5inch floppy discs to the current dual processor etc etc laptop, personalised all-singing-and-dancing mobile phones, etc etc.
5. So I have certainly lived in interesting times and may possibly have a few more to go. From crystal sets to “wrist TV’s”, from T Fords, still in road use, to absolutely magic machines, from ‘303’s to ‘drones’, from milk deliveries by horse and cart poured into your own billy to supermarket long life ‘chemical’ packeted milk, the list is endless.
5. Now I only have try survive the vagaries of our global warming/cooling environment and any catastrophic geological planet upheaval together with our psychopathic new world order schemes to come to fruition. What more could I ask?
It would be ironic if our planet is devestated, not by nuclear wars, but by peacefully used nuclear energy gone wrong!
Actually Gen X – Y – “Hot” – or whatnot, are the old foggies of the 20th Century, they occupy the nitch my grandparents did a hundred years ago (born in the “Good Old Days”, the parents of the New Generation that Brokaw called “The Greatest”). The oldest of the first Generation of the 21st Century is now 11 (or younger). Maybe we should call them the “Grand Generation”?
Ref: “A fresh take on climate change by a renowned journalist” – that seems a bit presumtuious, English sure has lost its character in the last 40 years. I’ll bet a Brit whouldn’t call the author “renouned”.
Ref: “I’m especially fond of the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846 as it ended up in Canada.” – has anyone else noticed that history only goes back 20 years or so now. No one remembers anything before that; nor do they read about anything either. Sure they google a snipet of something, but they don’t “read”. We have no histroy now. Our modern memory is 20 years and shrinking.
Ah yes, tubes.
A few years ago as I stood at the cash register of a local drug store, I noticed something on the shelf behind the twenty-something young woman who was ringing up my order. There were some miniature radios for sale with a sign reading “REAL TUBE RADIOS!” Sure enough, they each had three subminiature tubes with the old orangey glow.
Me: “Wow! Tube radios! I have not seen those for a while!”
Cashier: “Tubes? What is that?”
Me: “Hmmm… a bit before your time. Do you know what transistors are?
Cashier: “Transistors? No…”
Me: “Ok. Do you know what integrated circuits are?”
Cashier: “No…”
Me: “Computer chips?”
Cashier: “Oh sure! I know all about computers. I studied them in school.”
Me: “Ok, well, way back in the olden days, back when dinosaurs reigned and volcanos belched hourly, we used to have something called “tubes” that were used to make radios and TVs and such. I just have not seen any in a while. Mind if I take a look at one of those radios?”
Cashier: “Sure!”
I looked at the radio and examined the tubes. They were clear plastic with small neon lights inside for the glow.
Sigh.
@Jason Calley
Loved your little story. Neon lights in tubes…..lmao
Thanks for the message, E.M. Smith, but I am beginning to wonder if we have identified the wrong culprit:
“From NPR (a corporation) to New Yorker ( a corporation), Time, Vanity Fair, and The Nation (all corporations).”
As someone commented yesterday on the Climate Skeptics forum:
“There is definitely something going on, but why, especially the why, and who are the questions.
It is not in their own interests for “capitalists” to destroy markets. How are they going to get rich if there are no products to sell or people can’t afford to buy them anyway?”
It is encouraging to read that some members of the younger generating are not buying government propaganda about global warming.
But “official” misinformation continues to flourish regarding the origin, composition and source of energy for Earth’s heat source and its influence on Earth’s climate [“Neutron Repulsion”, The APEIRON Journal, in press (2011) 19 pages]:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.1499v1
Perhaps another culprit is involved. Subversion of the Western scientific community looks remarkably like the handiwork that Russian KGB defector (Yuri Bezmenov) described of the Russian KGB in several videos.
Someone named Fred Berple first brought this to my attention on Professor Curry’s discussion about the climate scandal:
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
@Oliver K. Manuel:
At the risk of having another “is so – is not” “Evil Socialism” vs “Evil Capitalism” thread break out on yet another unrelated topic…. to answer the implied question “why would capitalists destroy their own markets?”:
Realize that the capitalist urge is not toward a competitive market. It’s the very LAST thing any profit maximizer wants. Even in Adam Smith’s “The Wealth Of Nations” he recognizes that ~’Rairly do men of means gather, even for merryment and {discourse?} but that the conversation turns to ways to {restrict competition and raise prices}’.
What a profit maximizer wants is a monopoly where they can achieve the profit maximizing price point. Not competition. No “market” with many sellers.
So watch what GE does, as an example. It is always on the hunt for a market it can “dominate”. It uses political leverage to get its products mandated and the competition banned. It doesn’t want a market, it wants a ‘company store’.
Internalize that, and a lot of things “fit” better…
Monsanto pushing legislation to ban private traditional seeds and seed sharing, and promoting GMO products. (Why would a seed company want to ‘destroy’ a seed market? So you must come to the company store…)
EPA is used to forbid all sorts of things that can be done easily and cheaply, and where the alternative is very expensive (and available from very few, or one, supplier). So, want to make your own “trash to fuel FT machine”? Well, better check out all the “regulations” on fuel refining and production … if you don’t have a few full time lawyers to fill out the paperwork and a few more to defend against the EPA suing you, it’s a no-go. And who DOES have those lawyers? AND the already established refineries? Oh yeah…
Once corporations figure out that it is cheaper and easier to get the competition banned and them mandated, than to create new products; and that they can make lots of money as the sole provider of a crappy product but not that much making good products in a competitive market; well, lets just say that the campagne contributions flow…
Oddly, you can look at Communism as the “limit case” where there is ONE corporation and it IS the government. At the other extreme is “laissez faire” with huge numbers of competitors. As you move toward Communism you pass through stages of ever more “concentration” of control. Just shy of communism is Classical Socialism with it’s state planning boards and commissions. A bit more toward L.F. you get “Market Socialism” (with some sub-types in between).
The USA until about 1990 was a “Mixed Economy” with some “natural monopolies” under government “control” via “regulation”; and with many competitive markets. We’ve moved to more central planning and more central “regulation” (in some cases as a cover for the “planning” word that has gotten tied to Socialism… so is political to some extent). With the nationalization of GM and the bank “bailout” / “rescue” that was really more of a ‘take-under’ in some ways; we moved to a Lange Type Socialism.
The result of the last 50 years has been more companies in markets with Oligopolies that are essentially guaranteed by the government. Who dominates the Home Mortgage Market? Fanny & Freddy – Gov’t Corporations. Who dominates the Student Loan Market? Sally Mae – a Gov’t Corporation. Who dominates US Autos? GM – a Gov’t Corporation via Nationalization, but now being sold off. (Though Ford is doing well too.) And who “Calls the Tune” for the Banks in America? ALL of them? The Federal Reserve Bank – a Gov’t sponsored corporation. And there are a whole lot more of them. Try taking a train from coast to coast for example…
At the next tier down, we have Gov’t dependent Oligopolies. Say you wanted to make airplanes. First off, you need that dozen lawyers to work the FAA for you. Next up, you need some friends in the Military to feed you contracts. Don’t think so? When Boeing gets a $B contract to ‘study’ or ‘develop’ and you need to design your new tech from scratch on your own money: Who do you think will win? So the government basically decides how many companies it wants, and who they will be, then funds them “to plan” with contracts. (This is NOT a hypothetical… I’ve watched them flat out announce “We’d like Lockheed and Martin to merge” or “we don’t want…” usually when one of them is ‘having issues’ and the topic is raised. Then the gov’t casts the one vote that matters…)
And so it goes…
This is, dare I say it…. basically the same way the Fascist “Third Way” worked. (And it DOES work). FDR and Wilson both had high praise for The Third Way and you can see how they shifted America from a ‘free market’ toward “Third Way” government – corporation “cooperation” … It was this same process / tendency that Ike warned about in the “Military Industrial Complex” speech.
So we’ve moved away from straight up competition (and with good reasons… it is less profitable and more destructive in some ways and it is prone to monopoly practices) and toward that Classical Socialist end of things; with exact placement varying over time. And we called it a “Mixed Economy” at the ‘tepid’ end; as the name “fascist Third Way” got a bit tainted during W.W.II …. that tendency for Mussolini and Hitler to stir in a load of Nationalism and for the Nazi’s a double helping of Racism spoiled the soup for the Third Way “Socialist Lite” folks like FDR.
And the propaganda worked.
We’ve now got a “Progressive” and a “Third Way” government that IS a form of Socialism. (Now being rebranded as “Market Socialism” in the Eastern Block and Euro zones; called “Regulation” in the USA and sometimes poking it’s head up under “Rescue” as well with the most recent bits called “Social Justice”… all the pieces as slices of salami, but no overall Big Picture of it… we like to keep our socialism hidden in tiny bites with different names.) But just don’t ever point out that it’s basically the same “Third Way” process, using what’s properly called “Corporatism”, to achieve the Socialist agenda; that was first innovated by the Fascists… After all, it doesn’t fit the propaganda paradigm “Fascists bad, WORLD Socialists good” put out by Stalin…
And that is the root cause of your pondering. Corporations are very happy under a Socialist Third Way / Progressive / Market Socialism / Fascist / “Government regulated Coopetition” (whatever you name you like to apply to the same beast) system. They are not very happy with wide open competitive markets. See all of Europe for an example of “Managed Markets” (yet another name…) The French are masters of this technique, and the Germans not far behind. The Japanese innovated the Keiretsu as a way to limit competition to manageable chunks with government supervision.
Like I said, it DOES work. What galls me is just that we run around putting 20 different names on the same process and that just hides what’s really going on. All for political reasons. Very “un-tidy”… You’d think these folks had something to hide…
At any rate, I’d like our economy to move back more toward a “Mixed Economy” with less of it “regulated and rescued” and be a bit further from a Lange Type Socialism and more like the Socialism Lite we used to be. Somehow some folks think that means I want laissez faire (which is prone to other evil failures); even more folks think Corporations must be laissez faire machines and tools of the Evil Right Wing; when the reality is that they are much more useful to the Third Way Socialists of the world… and make much more stable profits under them.
Hope that helps you see why “corporations would want to destroy their own markets”… Just need to change it around a little and it makes a lot of sense:
“Why would corporations want to destroy the competitive nature of their own markets?”…
Oh, and in my storage unit I’ve got an old “2 Valve” radio ‘kit’ from Australia that uses very large tubes… They were being ‘closed out’ about 20 years ago and I could not resist…
@10:48 am E.M.Smith
Thanks for your excellent response.
Can you also weave into that response an explanation for the abuse of government science for government propaganda, as Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell address:
@Oliver K Manuel:
I think the answer to your question is found here:
The government moved into an “integrated” response, and that creates a feedback loop…
So government now “directs science” that now “informs policy” that “directs science” that … and BOTH sides have a vested interest in have the “most favorable” answers…
(P.S.: FWIW, the more I look at your stuff the more I think you are right. One of the ‘loose ends’ that always nagged at me was “Why did we form 4.5 Billion years ago?” Wasn’t the Big Bang the genesis event? OK, we are made from supernova stuff – as we have heavy elements – so there WAS a supernova that made our stuff… so where are it’s ‘ashes’? Where is the remnant neutron start? All loose ends. They go away if you have our sun AS the remnant… )