still think it's about our own preferences? about voting consciences:

[nofurylike]

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?o=43885

Apocalypse revisited
George Monbiot
03 March 2004

It is old news — 251-million years old — but the story of what happened then, now told for the first time, demands our urgent attention. Its implications are more profound than anything taking place in Washington or Iraq. Prehistory may soon repeat itself, not as tragedy but as catastrophe, unless we understand what happened and act upon that intelligence.
-snip-
They made a shattering discovery. In China, South Africa, Australia, Greenland, Russia and Svalbard the rocks record an almost identical sequence of events, taking place not gradually, but instantaneously. They show that a cataclysm caused by natural processes almost brought life on Earth to an end. They also suggest that a set of human activities that threatens to replicate those processes could exert the same effect within the lifetime of some of those on Earth today.
-snip-
Neither model takes into account the possibility of a partial melting of the methane hydrate still present in vast quantities around the fringes of the polar seas.

Suddenly, the events of a quarter of a billion years ago begin to look topical indeed. One of the possible endings of the human story has already been told. Our principal political effort must now be to ensure that it does not become set in stone. — © Guardian Newspapers 2003

****

the permafrost is already melting. a degree or two more and the enormous quantity of methane under there gets released.
then it's runaway greenhouse, and FAST! "maybe as soon as the next three years" some scientists have speculated.

we don't have time to restructure the electoral process. and even john kerry isn't really getting it - his 20% alternative energy in twenty years thing is useless before this prognosis - YET.

BUT, he is the only one who seems IS going to be nominated, AND he has shown sincere concern about the environment.


and, by the way, bush* has known this all along, as did clinton and poppy. in the eighties, environmentalists were ordered gagged so as not to "alarm the public."


this is not about our personal preferences for president, or our political ideals!! we do not have time for IDEALS right now. time for dialectic, folks. compromise.

well, or spending what time we have left making peace with ourselves and our communities, to pass on soulfully intact - if that matters to you. or maybe some of you will afford your place on the space colony....?

i neglected to say in my tirade the other day that i hope against hope that dean will be nominated in a brokered convention. but no matter how much i wish for that, no matter how CERTAIN i am that he is the very best white male (the only population the ruling class of this bigot-haven country lets us choose from) candidate we have to choose from, i will vote for ANY democrat who gets nominated, in the general election.

and that appears to be john kerry. and fortunately he has shown himself to be more dedicated to the environment that most are - and INFINITELY more dedicated than shrub is!!

we must also make sure kerry is more educated on this than he seems to be now.


please. i hope to see dems discussing this on this level. urgency. the most any generation has ever known - well, since the last great extinction. no, this is even more dire.

work together, or let's all just let go, give up. yes?
no?


peace

[absyntheNsugar]

1. If theres one area the Naderites have no ground

...it's on the environment. Kerry has a stellar record on environmental issues.

[rdfi-defi]

3. i do not know about "stellar"

while it is true kerry has a better record on the enviroment (like that is hard). i do recall him saying in a debate that he would not support the kyoto protocall because " it can't pass." that is hardly stellar. i agree with the original post, we must make sure "kerry is more educated on (the enviroment) than he seems to be now."

[absyntheNsugar]

4. If I remember correctly, he wanted to write a new treaty

That could pass, but would have all of the same protections of Kyoto.

Basically he's being pragmatic, rather than backing a treaty which will assuredly fail in a Repub Congress...

[sandnsea]

2. More educated?

Please do tell. I really gotta' hear this.

[nofurylike]

5. an example:

from a news report today:
>Kerry said the public deserves an answer as soon as possible about what went wrong leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Nothing could be more important to the American people at this moment," he said. "They need to know why we had such a failure of intelligence." <

even the pentagon has acknowledged that the most urgent national security concern is this looming global disaster.


peace

[nofurylike]

6. thank you for commenting, folk! about kyoto accords,

they just don't go far enough anymore. they would've made a difference, but took too long.

it is essential, and urgent, that the nominee show the public exactly why the rt wing - and handmaids - blocked kyoto, and what blocking it has now made necessary.

kind of like: "o, a dollar is too much to pay? well, now the price is TWO dollars."

you know, compared to the mass panic and worse we'll see in a couple years - should we last even that long - upsetting the people with the truth is not something to hide from any more.

kerry COULD just tell the truth in so compassionate a way that everyone realizes we really do need people to care enough to work together, planetwide, to save the world...

just a thought.

i personally think we should all be writing to him asking him to do just that. i am.


thanks again!
peace!