What really matters
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Saturday, December 27, 2025 05:23
VIEWED: 8767
PAGE 3 of 7
So this overlaps with "Fix it where you are". Of course, we should all be personally responsible:
Reducing our purchases of unnecessary goods, repairing and re-purposing what we have, and recycling where possible;
Being mindful of our utilities consumption, choosing lower-emitting vehicles, lightbulbs, toilets and showerheads, appliances, air conditioners and home heaters, etc at purchase, reducing their use when possible and keeping them tuned up and in good repair (air filters changed, tires properly inflated etc) for better efficiency.
For property owners, mindful landscaping: using trees to provide shade in the summer and shrubs to break cold wind in the winter, planting natives and avoiding invasives etc.
However, there is a lot of systemic waste that can't be avoided on the personal level, such as the military waste of feckless wars (think of the fuel and materiel used!) and land-use planning mistakes which require people to drive 15+ miles to work each way.
So I would say that this will require activism, something that a lot of people don't have time for, but DIRECT pressure at the city, county, state, and Federal levels to do the right thing: not just the power of the vote (which is very important) but also the power of words: Presentations to the City Council and Planning Commission, letters to the editor, phone calls to County Commissioners and State representatives etc. The formation of school groups, for example, the high school group that I was in formed the very first permanent recycling center in our state.
One thing I've been very disappointed with has been the role of the NGOs. The concept that you can donate your way to a better world has been very ineffective. You have to be very careful about where your money is going. But that's a different and much larger story.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
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Quote:Rappy, you're so cute when you try to be a grown up.
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Hypotheticals vs actual , real life events.
http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/record-highs-vs-record-
lows
Record Highs vs. Record Lows
Another important set of records are the daily records set at stations across the country.
Without climate change, the ratio of daily record highs to daily record lows should be in balance when looking over years and decades — although there will still be swings to cold and hot years. However, over the last several decades in the U.S. record highs are significantly outpacing record lows, which indicates a long-term and sustained warming trend.
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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Quote:
Originally posted by DEVERSE:
Interesting thread, but I'm at a loss as to how the planet will die or be destroyed.
Humans could burn the planet with nuclear weapons, poison it with toxins and contaminate the soil, air and water with waste, but the only thing that is going to be destroyed by any of this is humanity. ....
Even I wouldn't go that far. Many species would die.
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The sun follows a pendulum-like pattern of activity over roughly an 11-year period, and while scientists say this behaviour is not unusual, some have warned the current trend could send Earth into a ‘mini ice age.’
A study last year claimed to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.
This, they say, will lead to another 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3980462/The-dead-sun-St
unning-Nasa-image-reveals-barren-solar-surface-lowest-level-activity-2011.html#ixzz4RMN3jKe1
Not that any scientist has ever been able to predict anything very well....
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Lots of answers. No one has said 'increase nuclear weapons stockpiles'. Or, 'strip-mine the oceans till every last fish is gone'. Or 'dump enough plastic trash into the ocean so we stay on target to meet our 'more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050'' prediction.
Seeing as how things aren't going in the direction most would prefer, what do you think we - as individuals and cooperating groups, independent of officialdom and power - can start doing differently?
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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OK.
Here's an idea. Assuming none of you would need to get this going or organize it -
Jack, I'm sure you've acquired many skills and might even like to know more. (Your post indicates you would.) What would you be willing to trade to learn something new and useful? Teach someone your skills? Do yard-work? Would you be willing to split the produce from your yard if someone came and showed you how to grow things?
Wish. Your schedule sure seems overloaded. Would you be willing to trade a fully prepared meal your entire family can eat for 5 hours of child-minding? Would you trade a couple of buckets of kitchen scraps for a half-dozen eggs?
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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This seems pretty primitive, I know. And it won't stop the US military from wasting resources and destroying countries.
But by removing essential parts of your life from the official economy, you're putting choice back into your hands, and those of the people you cooperate with. The more you can get done locally, on your own - through cooperation and barter, through do-it-yourself and grow-your-own - the less you depend on the banks, on agribusiness, on transnational corporations. The fewer people those entities have under their control, the smaller the fraction of you life that they run, the weaker they get and the stronger you become.
It's a little bit like the question that went around during the Vietnam War - what if they called a war and nobody came? What if they called an economy and nobody joined in?
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Jack, I'm sure you've acquired many skills and might even like to know more. (Your post indicates you would.) What would you be willing to trade to learn something new and useful? Teach someone your skills? Do yard-work? Would you be willing to split the produce from your yard if someone came and showed you how to grow things?
Absolutely 1kiki,
I actually wish I had a few "survivalist" friends out there. My younger brother was my only real one, but he's been "domisticated". He's the stay at home dad to my sis in law and angel of a niece and his wife makes an easy 6 figures. Once those debts are paid off, assuming the economy doesn't collapse by then, they'll be living on easy street. :)
I don't JUST sit around and do nothing now that I'm unemployed. I live off of almost nothing and I have zero debts, and I do spend more than I make and leach off of what's left of my liquid nest egg, but I do odd jobs here and there. It's amazing what 25 or 50 dollars here or there buys you when you have no bills besides utilities and minimum property taxes.
I'm actually hoping we get the SUPER SNOWY winter that they're predicting now. I've got a super bad-ass near Industrial sized snowplow that makes short work of even the largest driveways. All it needs is a little gas and somebody behind it to push the buttons and walk .0125MPH behind it.
If it gets really bad, I think I might just walk up and down the streets near me with the thing ROARing like the IceCream Truck guy with his songs in the summer and watch people run outside and throw money at me.
Be careful who's advice you take though. It's been a LONG time since anybody has scammed me, but I have to give mad props to a college kid on youtube who is probably paying for his college debt with DIY Youtube videos he has made...
"TRIPLE YOUR INTERNET SPEED FOR FREE!!!!!"
I know... I feel REALLY dumb now. :)
But this guy looked like I did when I was 22, was well dressed, well spoken, he had a lot of convincing graphics, and the remedial knowledge of electronics and transformers I had actually made me buy into it even more than if I knew nothing.
I watched it on a limited TV version of Youtube that doesn't allow you to watch descriptions or comments, only the videos.
So I tried it, not once, but TWICE before I went to my laptop and brought the video up. The second I brought the video up? I saw in his own description that he says it's a JOKE!
Good show kid. That video has over 2.5 Million Views, and you just got 2 more out of me in a single night, and made me waste about 1/10th of a roll of electrical tape that cost me 75 cents.
TRUE Prankster among a site full of fake pranksters. And he isn't actually hurting anyone with his pranks. I feel like a dumbass for sure, but I've told everyone I know to watch his stuff after I fell for it.
I actually still have my CAT5 Cable sitting there with the new battery mod. Why remove it? If anybody sees it when they come to my house and ask what that's all about, it's a great story. :)
So 1kiki. You got something good to share with me?
If you're interested, I can show you how to build some BADASS video game systems for your nieces and nephews that are 100's of times better than the NES classic that is sold out and going for thousands on ebay.
Unlike the video I showed you, I am 100% legit and you can do it for about 75-100 bucks, shipped. Not only can this play Nintendo games, but it can play a lot of other systems, arcade games, and even those Laser Disc games like Dragon's Warrior.
If I didn't have a house to lose, I could make a ton of money selling this stuff at a swap market. But I'm a white dude with a house. Immediately I get put in prison or at least sued for it. :)
Meanwhile, some assholes swooped up 20 or 30 NES Mini Systems and are selling t
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Well, they don't even have to be 'survival' skills. Can you bake bread? Or darn a sock? Sew a button on properly? Unstick a zipper? Or, are you willing to trade work for work? Anything that you might have to pay to buy, or have done, is fair game.
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Dood, this is where you act just like a know-nothing liberaloid. They have their religion, I guess, and you have yours.
Hypotheticals vs actual , real life events. -RAPPY
Real-life events: "The 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with the exception of 1998." But when did little things like FACTS ever slow you down?? Oh ... never. Sheesh.
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Wow... 134 years, on a planet that's 4.2+ billion years old. And this coming from a community of " experts " who have been caught either promoting false data or flat out making shit up, all for the stated POLITICAL agenda of more and more centralized power and less freedom.
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