Of course, there’s so much chatter about that particular sporting event, but not much on really what’s happening in our country and the world — the future looks dumb: “Do you know the vice president of the United States?” Austin asks. “I don’t know who it it’s, it’s, it’s somebody….Bin Ladin,” one student responds.
Only gets worse as the days, months and years of tomorrow will only bring problems no amount of education can handle (with bad English).

(Illustration found here).

Despite the education, or maybe because of it, President Obama’s view of the earth’s environment has been toned down to the point even a Republican could understand — the words are less frightful and easier to swallow like a nice pat on the head.
In Obama’s state of the union last week, ‘climate change‘ was mentioned just once (not at all in 2011).
One must remember, the White House switched from ‘global warming,’ to ‘global climate disruption‘ because it’s much, much easier to pass on to the ignorant masses in the search for more politically palatable ways to put horrible news in a happy context.
From the Washington Post:

When he did utter the phrase, it was merely to acknowledge the polarized atmosphere in Washington, saying, “The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.”
By contrast, Obama used the terms “energy” and “clean energy” nearly two dozen times.
That tally reflects a broader change in how the president talks about the planet.
A recent Brown University study looked specifically at the Obama administration’s language and found that mentions of “climate change” have been replaced by calls for “clean energy” and “energy independence.”
Graciela Kincaid, a co-author of the study, wrote: “The phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have become all but taboo on Capitol Hill. These terms are stunningly absent from the political arena.”
…
There is power in how language is deployed, and people setting policy agendas know this well.
In 2002, Republican political strategist Frank Luntz issued a widely cited memo advising that the Bush administration should shift its rhetoric on the climate.
“It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming. . . . ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming,’ ” the memo said.

And the GOP is into fear, but only in the fear itself, not the root cause.

A good view of the most-immediate future lies in the past.
The Green blog at the New York Times on the so-called “Little Ice Age,” which started at the end of the 13th century and lasted well into the 19th century and how this small speck makes a huge wad.
Money quote:

Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study and a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggested that the study has important implications for the modern-day climate change discussion.
“I think people might look at the Little Ice Age and think that all we need to save us from rising temperatures are some volcanic eruptions or the geo-engineering equivalent,” she said.
“But when you see what happened when global temperatures dropped by just one degree and you look at current predictions of six or seven degree increases for the future, you realize how precarious things are for life as we know it.”
“I don’t see a lot of hope that we can somehow compensate for the climate trajectory we’re on,” she said.

(h/t The Oil Drum).

On that big game, my store is way-looking forward to it — more booze!
In contrast, supposedly, or at least theoretically, every alcohol-drinking US person will consume at least seven beers on Sunday.
As we slowly die, we scream, ‘Drink Up!’

Newt Gingrich, however, does appear even worse after a couple of tokes — some changes require way more.

Pot is the weaker sister — the big headline in this story was marijuana, but alas…

A Rhode Island lawmaker is due in court following his second arrest on marijuana possession charges.
…
Police say they found marijuana and a smoking pipe in Watson’s vehicle, along with an opened beer can and two unopened beer bottles.

Smoke gets blamed for shit that just ain’t so.

(Illustration found here).

Living in the very midst of the pot-growing center of the universe makes a discussion about marijuana as dumb as a stump — pack that in your pipe and draw hard.
The discovery of weed in the mid-1970s was the second greatest single event in my life, changing attitudes, outlooks and how life actually works — no, this ain’t Kansas no more.
Marijuana is not the evil, the bad guys are those who not only don’t smoke, but hate those who do and wish horrible things upon smokers are the culprit — marijuana needs legalization.
And a good chunk of US peoples feel the same.
From CBS:

President Obama’s live, online chat slated for Monday afternoon is intended to focus on issues raised during last week’s State of the Union address — but his online audience seems to be much more interested in marijuana policy.
…
Sorting the questions by popularity reveals that 18 of the 20 most popular questions, according to YouTube, have something to do with marijuana policy, including the legalization of marijuana use, the cost of the war on drugs and other related issues.
Questions about marijuana policy have dominated multiple online engagement efforts from the Obama White House.
In fact, the second-most popular question for today’s “hangout” comes from a retired police officer with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) — just as it did in Mr. Obama’s 2011 YouTube chat.

And from Slate: In 1969, 12 percent of Americans thought pot should be legal. That percentage grew to the mid-20s by the late 1970s, passed 30 percent in 2000, and hit 40 percent in 2009, according to Gallup. A surprising October poll showed support at 50 percent, with just 46 percent against.
Lawmakers and other nefarious types are not paying attention, however.

Here in California, a ballot-box vote is on tap this November.
And about time:

A recent poll reveals that California voters, by a 62% to 35% margin, with 3% unsure, support a ballot initiative to regulate marijuana like wine.
…
Voters in California will have an opportunity to take that new approach this November with the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act of 2012 (RMLW), which will allow the state to regulate and tax marijuana and hemp.
The California Attorney General has projected “savings of potentially several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments of the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders,” as well as potentially generating “hundreds of millions of dollars in net additional tax revenues related to the production and sale of marijuana products.”

Law enforcement buys it, too.
And why don’t you?

Part of an e-mail yesterday from my youngest daughter, who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Oh yeah, It’s like 50 degrees and sunny today. crazyness, right? I was sweating like crazy riding my bike to work this morning. Global warming man…
The kid’s got some sense — just talkin’ ’bout the weather.

(Illustration found here).

A warm winter, duh!
From Climate Central:

This week, it’s likely that warm temperature records will be broken throughout the eastern U.S., with forecast highs in New York City approaching 60°F on Tuesday and Wednesday, and reaching the mid-60s in Washington, D.C. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), record highs may also be set today in Islip, N.Y., and Bridgeport, CT.
It has also been unusually warm in the mid-section of the country.
As Paul Douglas wrote for the Minneapolist Star-Tribune, the Twin Cities missed setting a record high by just four degrees on Monday, topping out at 44°F, about 20°F above average for the date.
Douglas wrote that there have been just three subzero nights so far this winter in Minneapolis-St. Paul, down from the average of 19 to date.
“It’s been one of the mildest winters on record; at the rate we’re going this will easily be a “Top 10 Warmest Winter” in the Twin Cities,” Douglas wrote.

And it’s only gonna get worse — Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderblog: But it strains the bounds of credulity that all of the extreme weather events — some of them 1-in-1000-year type events — could have occurred without a signicant change to the base climate state. Mother Nature is now able to hit the ball out of the park more often, and with much more power, thanks to the extra energy global warming has put into the atmosphere.
No one seems to be much concerned, however.

Despite all the warming, the US MSM still doesn’t connect the dots, or put two-and-two together, or use any other glib phrase to describe how Americans are walking around in January bundled up in a Slayer t-shirt seemingly without a care in the boiling world.
These warm countrywide temperatures ain’t no flash in the pan.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress:

Our science-based institutions, like the National Center for Atmospheric Research, have no difficulty straightforwardly explaining the connection between human-caused global warming and these monster heatwaves.
If only our news-based institutions could do the same.
Now as I’ve said many times, every story about extreme weather does not need to mention global warming.
But if you are writing about a heatwave that is so uniquely extensive in space and time — just the kind of heat wave climate scientists have warned would become increasingly likely — and you are devoting an entire science article to explaining why it’s been so warm, then, yes, it is incumbent on you to at least mention global warming.

And political irony from Craig Ferguson: “It was so hot in Washington that Congress had to install a fan on the debt ceiling.”

Beyond just talkin’ about the weather, we should be screaming, crying about it.

Some overriding health issues have caused me to have not a good night, thus, creating less-ability to compose coherent thoughts, and way-harder to transfer to blog lines (was about to write paper, but that’s so 1970s).
There’s plenty out yonder in the big, wide world to write about, but there’s a small imprint in the brain that wants to scream ‘Who Gives A Shit!’ except for those under barrage of that particular shit found in all corners of the globe.

Ugly unrest is on the peppered lips of today — the Occupy protests are getting not pretty, from the mess in Oakland, to a drive-in plunge in London, to more stun-gun episodes in Washington, DC.
People are only going to get even-more pissed.

(Illustration: “Extrangement of Vision — Edgar Allan Poe’s Optics” via M.C. Escher’s ‘Hand with Reflecting Sphere‘ found here).

One item did catch my blurred, Poed eyeball — in one of those Internet video “hangouts” yesterday on Google’s social network, Google+, also streamed live on YouTube, President Obama talked about a rare subject — the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Via the BBC:

Asked about the use of drone strikes, which have increased in intensity during his presidency, he said “a lot of these strikes have been in the Fata”, or Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
The strikes target “al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Mr Obama added.
“For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we’re already engaging in.”

A shitload of innocent people have been killed and wounded during these strikes, and folks in Pakistan are pretty-much getting pissed about the whole operation.
Obama, though, bypassed some important questions:

In a previous town hall-style event hosted by Facebook, the White House was criticised for ignoring one of most popular questions: Mr Obama’s stance on legalising marijuana.
He did not answer questions on drug policy in Monday’s event.

Dude, what’s the deal?

Poe knew.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Poem found here.

Including this horror show in Florida — and I don’t mean  the upcoming GOP primary:

“As it was happening on the northbound side, it was happening on the southbound side as well,” he said.
“There was nowhere to go. It was just cars hitting cars and cars.”
He called the scene “horrendous.”
“Everybody was crying,” he said. “You still can’t see anything.”
Some motorists were stuck in their vehicles, he said, calling it “mass chaos.”

Mankind should take another look at how we move ourselves around on this earth.

(Illustration found here).

Even as more than 300 people have been arrested in Oakland in an Occupy throw-down, the problem of inequality is been seen as worldwide, an in vestment in a trouble future and if ignored problems will keep popping up everywhere.

A UN report — “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” — displays the growing trouble of cash flow.
From the BBC:

Ms Halonen (co-chair of the report, Finnish President Tarja Halonen) emphasised the theme of equality that runs through the report, in terms of gender and redressing the burgeoning gap between people on high and low incomes.
“Eradication of poverty and improving equity must remain priorities for the world community,” she said.
…
“We undertook this report during a period of global volatility and uncertainty,” it says.
“Economies are teetering. Inequality is growing. And global temperatures continue to rise.
“We are testing the capacity of the planet to sustain us.”
To turn this around, it says: “We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the ecosystems that support us.”

Even as the US turns skeptic, just north of us is calling bogus:

Some of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s newly-appointed senators are emerging as global-warming skeptics in the wake of aggressive government positions to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, slam environmentalists and downplay potential damage caused by Canadian oil and gas exploration.
“I felt like it is kind of an insult to be a denier for a long time,” said Sen. Bert Brown, last month at a parliamentary committee studying energy policies.
“It feels pretty good this morning.”

Laugh at the tomorrow, cry for the future.

On this amazing time to be alive motif, one can also include the weather, which in reality covers a lot of shit, and one in particular, ‘energy,’  a build-in, self-generating climate-change-creating piece of literal machinery.
We couldn’t have one without the other — the influence of ‘energy‘ has been the fatal factor on the weather.
The most-likely-insurmountable problem facing mankind right now is what I call the ‘Double-Bitch-Bang‘ — climate change and “peak oil,” or its overall equivalent, “resource depletion” — and the rub of the matter is there’s no real big scream to do something.
Ironic humanity: Civilization requires more and more energy, and with that comes more and more climate change, and thusly, bad weather.

In reality, the weather is indeed a throwback, but not from any known time frame.
The brainiacs pose it better — from NASA:

The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time.
Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.
When we talk about climate change, we talk about changes in long-term averages of daily weather.

And that’s the entire point of climate change — it’s not about some far off place, but right outside everybody’s front door.

Odd how some folks have known for some time about global warming.
From USATODAY last week on a new government map and the abrupt-subtly of a warming planet:

“It is a good thing the government has updated the map,” says Woodrow Nelson, director of marketing communications for the Arbor Day Foundation.
“Our members have been noticing these climate changes for years and have been successfully growing new kinds of trees in places they wouldn’t grow before.”

And the people who deny climate change are just dumb, or belong to the Republican party, or in most denier cases, are both — from LiveScience: Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
So not only does humanity have this enormous problem with actual survival, but there’s this entire cross-section of society that’s hindering any solutions — we be f*cked.
And in an age of a long-list of bad shit happening all at once, humanity is in for a rough ride.

And all this bubbling shit is intertwined — from the abstract of ‘Oil supply limits and the continuing financial crisis‘ (pdf):

Since 2005, (1) world oil supply has not increased, and (2) the world has undergone its most severe economic crisis since the Depression…
The expected impact of reduced oil supply combined with this reduced leverage is similar to the actual impact of the 2008–2009 recession in OECD countries…
If this should happen, based on these findings we can expect a continuing financial crisis similar to the 2008–2009 recession including significant debt defaults. The financial crisis may eventually worsen, to resemble a collapse situation as described by Joseph Tainter in The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990) or an adverse decline situation similar to adverse scenarios foreseen by Donella Meadows in Limits to Growth (1972).

And how are people going to respond when the time comes.
What to do? — RT took to the streets of New York to find out:

Global warming is not only wearing out our planet’s environment, but also the minds of global leaders trying to find solutions.
Legislators are introducing more and more bills to help curb the effects of climate change.
RT’s Lori Harfenist found out on the streets of the Big Apple that ordinary Americans are ready to give up something to fight global warming — but certainly not everything.
Things like quitting hairdryers and walking distances less than two miles instead of driving actually meet no resistance, but as for drying clothes on the line instead of using a spin-dryer and taking a shower for less than a minute — these things met with much less understanding.
One woman even told Lori that people “are cold and selfish”.
She said “they do not care about the planet unless it affects them personally”.
“Unfortunately that is the world we are living in”, the woman said.
Changing personal habits of energy consumption can clearly seem depressing — but might become obligatory, if global warming really does continue to affect our planet.

We all have our thoughts on those in the playground.

A penny here, a penny there and soon you’ve have a pile of some real money.

(Illustration found here).

Crude is still gushing upward.
From liveoilprices: In London, Brent crude oil futures for March 2012 delivery was trading at $111.22 a barrel, 15.30 GMT today on the ICE Futures Exchange.
Meanwhile, WTI: US Light crude oil futures for March 2012 delivery was trading at $99.67 a barrel, 15.06 GMT today in trading on the NYMEX. The US oil contract is up 1.2 percent over this mornings opening price of $98 a barrel.

The shit with Iran is the bad bet at the pump.
The International Monetary Fund warns the planet:

The International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday that global crude prices could rise as much as 30 percent if Iran halts oil exports as a result of U.S. and European Union sanctions.
If Iran halts exports to countries without offsets from other sources it would likely trigger an “initial” oil price jump of 20 to 30 percent, or about $20 to $30 a barrel, the IMF said in its first public comment on a possible Iranian oil supply disruption.
The IMF highlighted the risks of rising tensions over Iran sanctions in a note on Wednesday sent to deputies from G20 countries who met in Mexico City last week.
The price impact caused by a cut in Iranian exports could be exacerbated by below average oil stocks in many countries, the result of tight oil market conditions through much of last year, the IMF said.

And in this the old ‘peak oil’ ugly raises its head.
Via the New York Times:

In an opinion piece (paywall) released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, James Murray of the University of Washington and David King of the University of Oxford point out that global oil production appeared to hit a cap of about 75 million barrels a day in 2005.
Since then, they note, small supply bumps have caused big price gyrations, yet even when prices spike above $100 a barrel, supply appears incapable of rising to meet the demand.
The professors make only a glancing mention of the term “peak oil,” a widely promoted and widely attacked concept, but their argument resembles some of the less feverish versions of the peak oil case.
They essentially argue that oil supply now represents a large strategic risk to global economic growth, and that smart governments ought to be developing comprehensive plans and pushing hard to move their citizens into more efficient cars, onto public transit and so forth — a greener energy path that would also be good for the climate.

Even with all this mess at the gas pumps, there’s an underlying bullshit irony to it all.
Oil companies know the future is coming — via TreeHugger:

Utilities, the oil and gas industry, agricultural companies and insurers are building assumptions about rising temperatures and extreme weather events into their scenario planning.
This is what’s being called climate adaptation or climate preparedness.
The payoff from investing in adaptation could be substantial.
In 2011, insured losses in the U.S. from natural catastrophes, including tornadoes, floods and hurricanes, topped $105 billion, breaking the record of $101 billion set in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm.
Some of those losses had nothing to do with climate change, but others did.

Pump it down and dirty.

(Illustration found here).

Obama even had the flag carried by the US Navy SEAL team that assassinated Osama last year: “Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation room…All that mattered that day was the mission. No-one thought about politics…”

And he pounded it home:

“Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes.
No-one built this country on their own,” Obama said.
“This nation is great because we built it together.
This nation is great because we worked as a team.
This nation is great because we get each others’ backs.
And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great, no mission too hard.”

In this he laid the groundwork for the next eleven months — the real man-up ruler of the US can only be the guy that got Osama bin Laden, and it will surely not work if anyone else takes the reins of power, so vote for me!
And boxed in between the warmongering, Obama slapped at income inequality and the Republicans who have produced the situation — the president proposed big shifts with the US tax system, like for instance, a minimum 30 per cent effective rate on millionaires.
Which prompted Mitch Daniels in response to whine: “No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favour with some Americans by castigating others,” Daniels said, according to excerpts of his speech.
In other words — leave the rich alone.

And this tweet via Aljazeera English: “RT @theonlyadult: Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. #obama2012 #sotu”

And as if on cue, early this morning U.S. Navy SEALs popped into Somalia to grab two kidnapped aid workers — an American and a Dane — in a daring helicopter raid reminiscent of the Osama attack.

Before news broke of the rescue, Obama told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “Leon, good job tonight. Good job tonight,” at the State of the Union address.

Election 2012 is gonna be a dandy, action-packed pile of hollerin’ bullshit.

The chaotic mess of the GOP primary is finally over and Newt Gingrich urinated on everything.
In shame of Republicans, half-crazed Steven Colbert humiliated the entire process by shoving the way-ugly of current US politics back in every straight-face that chimes democracy.

(Illustration found here).

In a land where up is really down, US peoples are laced up the asshole and remain income-challenged, wealth-challenged, and debt-constrained with nowhere to go — and no one to lead them there.
The GOP has no face and no real policies, and they’re tracking nobody — even across the aisle, President Obama is not leading, but just continuing to follow.

A bit of 2012 insight from the LA Times:

The pertinent question raised by Colbert’s attention grab on the day before South Carolina’s primary vote is why the four remaining Republican candidates are not drawing crowds as big and adoring as Colbert’s.
Yes, Colbert is a celebrity.
He’s an expert entertainer.
And it’s not too hard to get a few thousand college kids to skip class on any day of the week.
But four years ago at this point in the campaign, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were pulling in crowds as big or bigger.
John McCain was packing the gymnasiums pretty well too.
And, later in the campaign, Sarah Palin proved she could rock an arena.
This year’s candidates are avoiding big events because they do not want to be photographed in half-empty halls.
Gingrich actually refused to speak to the GOP leadership conference because so few Republicans showed up.
Instead, voters have most often been invited to meet the candidates in the cramped confines of restaurants where a few hundred or even a few dozen people can look like a lot on TV.
An example of this small-scale café campaign is Newt Gingrich’s schedule for voting day: 8 a.m. at the Grapevine Restaurant in Spartanburg, 10:45 at Tommy’s Ham House in Greenville, 3:30 at the Chik-Fil-A in Anderson and 5:45 at Whiteford’s Restaurant in Laurens.

One wishes Colbert/Stewart would actually be on the ballot in November — Obama would then have to actually lead, really talk the talk, or get punk’d.

In the US today, apparently all collective eyes were glued to South Carolina where intelligence-deficit Republicans held their primary to select from among a short-list of bullshitters a warm body to run against President Obama this November.
And Newt Gingrich is now the man of the hour — a later laugh is always loudest.
From a late afternoon post at CNN: “Gingrich has been harder to kill than Rasputin,” Republican strategist and CNN contributor Alex Castellanos said Saturday. “He has been dead three times in this campaign, and … the guy keeps coming back.”

US politics for 2012 so far has Never-Ever witnessed such a handful of completely worthless and despicable characters — a line up of reasons why this country/world is f*cked.

A most-likely insurmountable obstacle is truth of priorities and sight.
And Newt is no friend of the environment — he’s goes where be Robert Dollar.
An entire US political party (there’s only two) is working way-hard to create calamity for the coming years — twisting knowledge like a pretzel, cherry-picking data and just out-and-out lying — which in turn morphed a most-important circumstance into a cultural/religious phenomenon.
Last week, the Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson positioned correctly: But however interesting this sociology may be, it has nothing to do with the science at issue. Even if all environmentalists were socialists and secularists and insufferable and partisan to the core, it would not alter the reality of the Earth’s temperature.
There it is — reality.
And a shit-biscuit reality for our kids.

What set me in this thought direction was a post at The Dish earlier today which included the writings of Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, especially Burke, who was concerned that the ‘earlier’ generation made up of his own contemporaries ought not jeopardize the future of still later generations who had not yet been born by creating chaos and disorder.
And a further look at the US future via five trends, the biggest problem being the national debt.
Debt?

The US has one, and really only one problem, and it’s a humongous one (along with the entire freakin’ planet), and it ain’t financial.
The near-immediate by-and-by carries a most-disconcerting view like this quick clip found right here  — a sight of the near-immediate past into the nowadays that casts a look at a future horror for all our offspring.
Another related contemplation comes from Dianne Monroe at Speaking Truth to Power — she portends this is an unique period in world history and “an amazing time to be alive.”
Some snippets:

If you are reading this, you are alive today, and that means you are part of this Great Unraveling/ Great Turning, or whatever name we choose to call it.
If you, like me, are middle aged or beyond, we have lived through the apex of a global empire now passed irrevocably into decline.
When exactly that point of turning was passed is the topic of many discussions.
I am not sure how important it is to know that precise point.
We can see that it happened sometime as we were following our dreams and passions, pursuing careers, raising families, paying mortgages… or however we chose to spend those years of our lives.
We know that something big happened on the way down with the economic crisis of 2008, even if the mainstream economic pundits keep assuring us that prosperity is just around the corner.
…
We are experiencing this great crumbling from within, as it is happening.
We will not experience it as an academic lecture or experiment (although some may try), with us standing outside of and observing some scientific process.
We are each in different locations as it unfolds.
One analogy I have heard is that it is like a long, slow train wreck.
The people toward the back are still riding along comfortably.
They may not have even noticed that something is amiss.

Good post, but like a lot of others has way-too much chasing windmills in the mind.
Despite some success in gaining traction — the Occupy movement opened eyes to the impact of income inequality, the Internet blackout rebellion last week knocked SOPA for a loop, and even the public demonstrations that helped put a end to the Keystone pipeline — all good results with good intentions, but the broad matter of a swiftly-changing climate hasn’t been seriously addressed, and it may never even have a chance.
And yes, this age is most-interesting and amazing, and therefore will become more violent and dangerous.
Some US peoples — currently tagged a subculture — have become “preppers,” or those preparing themselves for what they call, “uncivilization,” the disintegration of society and government — the end of life as we know it.
Take a look  at American Preppers Network.
And this from Reuters‘ interviewee Patty Tegeler on acquiring survival equipment and stockpiling supplies of freeze-dried food: “I think it’s silly not to be prepared,” she said. “After all, anything can happen.”
Anything always happens.

Good sense goes back a long way.
From IPS and the modern Mayans:

But the end of a cycle does not mean the end of the world, and the collective hysteria triggered by the supposed 2012 Maya doomsday prediction does not at all reflect the thinking of today’s Maya Indians in Guatemala.
“There are leaders who let themselves be carried away by what they hear, or because ’13′ has very strong energy and they are worried that a catastrophe will happen, but none of that is true,” said Antonio Mendoza, an activist with Oxlajuj Ajpop, a local NGO whose name in the Maya Quiché language refers to the 13 forces represented by the Maya calendar.
On the contrary, he said, “this new stage is extremely important for reflection and analysis about human coexistence and nature,” he told IPS.
…
Mario Molina of the national network of Maya youth organisations, RENOJ, told IPS that Dec. 21 “will not mark the end of the Maya or the world, but will be a moment to assess the progress made in the development of nature and humanity.”

One must remember the operative words here: ‘neoliberal policies.’
A concept that take in absolutely no account of nature and humanity.

A view from the UK’s Guardian:

For decades, many of the poorest in developing countries have been left reeling from free-market World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic policies.
Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) included forced privatisation, public spending cuts and lowered taxes on the global south.
They spelled a triumph for Milton Freedman’s Chicago School of Economics, which proposed that only by leaving everything to the market could economies flourish.
Prosperity did rise for the few, as levels of inequality deepened.
Sound familiar?

And the children will cry and wonder why.