Category Archives: Environmentalism & Animal Rights

UPDATED (9/23/022): The Genius Of Erik Larson

Art, English, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, History, Literature, Science

Thanks are owed to the good friend who introduced me to the genius of author Erik Larson.

I’m finishing up Thunderstruck, so am learning more about Marconi than my old man, a PhD RF (wireless) engineer, knows. I do appreciate now the magic and mystique of the rather rarefied field of wireless. In fact, I’m quite captivated by it.

Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History is riveting—it taught me about the Galveston Hurricane, the most lethal natural disaster in US history, instantiating the arrogance of US climate scientists even in 1900. The state’s scientists dissed and cancelled (as in banned) the Cubans–who understood the science of hurricanes well before us–sacrificing about ten thousand souls.

I learned so much about the intrigue—and role of the British Empire, the Admiralty, in particular—in leading Lusitania, a luxury British passenger ship, right to the German, U-Boat assassins. The book is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania.

And who knew Chicago had such uniquely problematic soil? Larson does! Just as he conveys a solid grip of wireless technology in Thunderstruck, or the science of hurricanes in Issac’s Storm, Larson goes into the geology of the city and the great architecture and architects of fin de siècle America, all in The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.

(George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. wanted to best Gustave Eiffel, so he gave us the American version of  the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris wheel, which, during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, carried up to … 2000 people. All new and wondrous to me.)

There are always parallel murder plots, where you learn about the mass murderer du jour or wife killer on the cross-Atlantic lam. These are made all the more suspenseful if you DO NOT GOOGLE them.

Larson weaves gorgeously written, multi-layered, primary-source based yarns about epic historic events. And he never visits the Internet for his research, but, rather, works in libraries and wherever rare artifacts and documents are stowed.

On LinkedIn, a variety of people keep propagating on my page with fluffy effusions about their writing careers. Having sampled a paragraph or two of these people’s “prose”—and then promptly unfollowed the particular umbrella association that represents them (us “writers”) and advances the careers of these scribblers—I would advise these producers of piss-poor prose, first to quit assaulting the eye. But if they wish to improve, study Larson: structure of plot and sentences, syntax, how he starts a sentence; his use of adjectives, how he builds tension.

Still, there should be a guild that pays most “budding” writers not to write.

UPDATED (9/23/022): One of our readers is a descendant of brave survivors of the 1900s Galveston Hurricane. What tough, admirable people American were. Many still are: MAGA.

NEW COLUMN: Conservation IS Conservative: BLM? Black-And-Yellow Lives Matter

Argument, Conservatism, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Reason

NEW COLUMN: “Conservation IS Conservative: BLM? Black-And-Yellow Lives Matter.” It’s a feature on WND.COM, The Unz Review and The New American.

Excerpt:

… For the Left, love of the environment amounts to an anti-intellectual, atavistic ritual, the kind performed by Homo species, say, when lightning struck. Primitive man would have looked to the heavens, and promised a sacrifice, to appease the particular god in control. In our times, the pagan pantheon has been replaced with the Almighty God of Climate Change.

What about conservatives? Conservation is conservative. At least it ought to be.  But are conservatives better custodians of nature than progressives?

Everywhere you look conservatives are rejoicing that the world population count broke 8 billion this month. Population explosion is to be celebrated! You can never have too many people, for people, in conservative thinking, are only ever a positive sum; never zero sum. Resources are endless—or, so conservatives seem to assume.

Animal life and habitat? Who cares? Kill the good-for-nothing critters. Deforestation? Bring it on. Forests are overrated. Ditto oxygen. Besides, we are on our way to being an anaerobic species. Ask Mr. AI (Artificial Intelligence). He was on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” so he knows. (By the way, it’s beyond silly to believe in the autonomy of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is nothing more than meta-programing by mega-programmers.)

And, of course, the most populated places on earth are also heaven on earth. Oh, for the glories of Calcutta, Cairo and Gaza, already upon your little American hamlet.

The conservative overpopulation enthusiast could easily borrow the utilitarian arguments advanced by the open-border crowd, when touting the advantages of high-population density. …

… READ THE REST. “Conservation IS Conservative: BLM? Black-And-Yellow Lives Matter” is a feature on WND.COM, The Unz Review and The New American.

 

 

 

Black-And-Yellow Lives Matter: On Driving Your Local Liberal More Loco

Comedy & Humor, Conflict, Culture, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

Context: Our mountain neighborhood is blessed with a unique layout. The lower-neighborhood stretch faces green embankments, angled at approximately 60 degrees. This lovely midsection is abutted each side by the road.

I like my incline to be natural, which means that now, the embankment is supposed to be blanketed with wild flowers. But not if the local, progressive, statist tyrant has his way, and he always does.

It has been decreed that a close shave of the neighborhood embankments be the rule, for fear of … as Basil Fawlty would screech, “Fa-Fa-Fa-fire.” That is ridiculous, because the grass is predominantly green, and, you know, … the asphalt. It acts as a firebreak.

But progressive statists are not good at loving a neighbor as thyself (one of the Ten Commandments), which means practicing the live-and-let-live motto. Neither are progressives environmentalists. When it comes down to brass tacks, they don’t much like the natural world.

But I do.

So mow we do. But we leave the lovely embankment dotted with little alien-like crop-circles of wild flowers and grasses. And, I had a signpost made to place alongside my wild flower crop-circles. It reads:

“HELP THE BEES POLLINATE
BLACK-AND-YELLOW LIVES MATTER”

In one fell-swoop, the local progressive vigilante is being taunted for his lack of brotherly bee love. Mocking the Black Lives Matter catechism is a heresy that drives this progressive prototype more loco than he already is.

 

 

UPDATED (7/30/022): The Pall Of Humanity’s Blanketing God’s Green Earth, And Conservatives Are Loving it

Canada, Conservatism, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Republicans

Despite the fact that conservatism conserves nothing—CONSERVATION IS CONSERVATIVE. It ought to be our cause

©2022 ILANA MERCER

There goes the conservative idiocracy. Everywhere you look conservatives are rejoicing that world population count hit 8 billion. Population explosion is to be celebrated! More, more, more people. It’s only good; never zero sum, for resources are endless. Animal life and habitat? Who cares? Kill ’em. Good for nothing. Deforestation? Bring it on. Forests are overrated. And, after all, the most populated places on earth are also heaven on earth. Oh, for the glories of Calcutta, Cairo and Gaza, coming to your little hamlet.

From their vantage point, cultivated usually from the serenity of their stately homes, advocates for over-population could use the utilitarian arguments of the open-border crowd, who tout the advantages of high-population density. Apparently, Mumbai and Manila are models for the specialization that comes with an increased division of labor. However, if American history (circa 1894) is anything to go by, the scarcity and high cost of labor helped propel this country into its position as the world’s leading industrial power. These factors, historian Paul Johnson has observed, “[G]ave the strongest possible motive not only to invent but to buy and install labor-saving machinery, the essence of high productivity, and so mass production.”

This conservative celebration of the 8 billion is obscene. It conjures one of the more profound—but contradictory—pieces by Tucker Carlson, discussing the concept of “community”. Millions-upon-millions of people can never form community, said he, wisely. Too much. Too big. All the more so when they do not cohere and do not instantiate those Burkean little platoons.

For gigantism is the opposite of community. Only small is community. Small is beautiful. And here Mr. Carlson contradicted himself and his achingly beautiful sentiment: He loves population explosion. Every baby born is a gem. Contradictions, contradictions.

By the numbers, and so you know: In celebrating overpopulation—conservatives are calling for the Third World to be fruitful and to multiply. Own it!!!

For Wildlife and White Men the end maybe nigh” by Hannes Wessels:

… “With Europeans on the ropes the future for wildlife and the natural environment in Africa has probably never looked so bleak. As far as the continent is concerned we live in a world that has allowed the human population to multiply without control and all other forms of life simply suffer the consequences…..population growth is logarithmic and unsustainable ..”

No mention any longer is made by progressives of ‘planned parenthood’ or ‘family planning’ for the 3rd world because that might be considered ‘racist’, aimed at reducing the number of Africans and other peoples in in the Third World. … Conservatives are no different.

HOWEVER—and despite the fact that conservatism conserves nothing—CONSERVATION IS CONSERVATIVE. It ought to be our cause.

If you are celebrating population explosion please spare us the pretense at spirituality and love of nature and the outdoors. For your actions are phony. Rudderless. They amount to a performative contradiction.

And, if you visit this space expecting rote conservative positions, or textbook libertarianism; you won’t find these. You will find the truth. I suspect that new-generation conservatives are not necessarily on board with the old school’s fill-the-oceans-with-plastics and kill-everything-that-moves gang. UPDATED (7/30/022): Yes, since conservatives always tinker at the margins, they are picking on Il Duce Trudeau not for trashing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but for not wanting to trash the environment with plastic cutlery. To coincide with the ocean currents, every one of our oceans has gyres of garbage (much of it plastic), as big as Texas. Much of the plastic is single-use plastic, the stuff for which conservatives reserve the “best” of philosophical defenses.

Suggested election campaign slogan: GOP for growing the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre.