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interpretations of natural climate change and anthropogenic global warming...
In Australia, Aboriginal artists/philosophers/observers recorded the change of climate from about 14,000 years ago in cave paintings in Arnhem Land. From this time onwards, they drew pictures of the new species of fish that came into the rivers flowing from the plateau.
As the sea rose by around one hundred metres in less than 4,000 years, it flooded the low Arafura mostly flat plain that bridged Australia with New Guinea. The people living on the plain had to retreat either side. The rivers became estuaries, hence the new fishes. Rocky outcrops became islands.
This big melt event would have also changed the lands of Europe and the Middle East, where there is a good chance observation of this gradual sea-change level became oral tradition and folkloric record that eventually became part of the bible with a godly explanation of “our” sins. What else? The Aboriginal people were far less mistaken with their interpretation of the events that would have rocked their lives. Nothing to do with sin, or angry god. May be something to do with an untimely visit of the Rainbow Serpent (the rainbow in the sky with a change of weather) and that’s about it.
The Jews, in search of their promise land and in need to conquer something or blame someone for their own sins, had to create a whole fanciful godly vengeance tale about it: This is where Noah’s Ark comes in…
Since then, the adherents of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious rely on this old text and still believe in this crappy interpretation of a natural event. Most of them won’t understand global warming. Some of them go the full hog: creationism. We have to enlighten them (we don’t have to but we should), but do they wish to be enlightened? Not really, because understanding gets in the way of beliefs.
This is where we start to wallow in the Hollywoodian mud-crap...
Christianity and the film industry have long had a complicated — and sometimes hostile — relationship with one another. Christians have often felt as if their ideas were at odds with Hollywood, denouncing the crude language, illicit sex, and violence prevalent in films today. In turn, Hollywood has historically failed to understand what resonates with the faith community, as seen in the colossal box office failure of “Noah.”
https://www.christianpost.com/sponsored/heres-why-christians-should-engage-with-hollywood-according-to-industry-expert.html
In fact the colossal failure of Noah, was not as bad as it looks. It took about three times the amount of cash at the box office than it cost to make with special effects and a sterling performance by Russell Crowe — our Aussie from New Zealand. I had to mention NZ because this little country has been in the news lately. But the failure of “Noah” was not due because of Hollywood, but because most (let’s hope so) people don’t believe in this crap any more — and partaking from their hard-earned cash to see a full-blown realistic version of this legend might have been beyond their wishes. The critics panned the movie. The Christians had to go along with it despite some mighty deviations from the original story in the bible. Most Muslim countries refused to screen it. That did hurt the bottom line. I suppose the last scene of a drunken naked (acting) Crowe would have given the decisive go ahead for the chop.
Anyway, in the bible, god is a vengeful narcissist bastard. He (god is a male) wants people to whoreship (did I say whoreship?) Him (god is a male) exclusively. Some people preferred gold. So here we are:
The family Noah get on the boat and leave everyone else to die horribly, because God says so. Various unbiblical subplots are bunged in to make the 150 days they spend afloat less tedious: Tubal-Cain stows away (he didn't), two of Noah's sons don't have wives (they all did) and Ham [please visit Ken Ham] is jealous of Shem who does (he wasn't); Shem has a barren wife (she wasn't); then she gets magically pregnant and Noah decides he must murder her baby, again because God says so (nope, and nope). None of this makes the story interesting, because the characters are so unappealing. Noah is horrible, his wife is a drip, his kids are also drips apart from Ham who is a wally, and you're not supposed to like the baddie. You might have been able to root for the animals but, perhaps owing to the cost of having a massive cast of CGI creatures hopping and squirming in every scene, Naamah sedates them for the duration of their voyage with a magic potion. This film could really have been cheered up with a mischievous-yet-lovable spider monkey or wise-cracking platypus.
DebaucheryIt's a huge relief when the floodwaters recede and the ark grinds to a halt on a reappearing mountaintop. Sadly, that's not the end of the film. Director Darren Aronofsky couldn't resist squashing in the weird bit when Noah gets drunk and naked in front of his sons. Unlike most of the stuff that happens in this film, this is in the Bible – Genesis 9:20-25. However, its inclusion here, in a kind of limping, inconclusive last act that swipes at trying to rehabilitate its abject main character, does nothing to rescue the preposterous narrative.
VerdictDarren Aronofsky's Noah is, quite simply, godawful.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/apr/10/reel-history-noah-drowning-unbiblical-detail
Meanwhile, global warming is running hot. This one is not a natural event. The sea level is not rising as fast (YET) than during the last ice melt, but one could believe the Rainbow Serpent might be coming back with a vengeance in Arnhem Land. I guess the Aboriginal people won’t think so. They would understand the role played by global warming in the unusual behaviour of Cyclone Trevor that is coming at them…
Meanwhile on the Western side of the continent, Cyclone Veronica is going to possibly create some “record” flooding and misery for a few communities. They are used to it.
Welcome to a warming planet earth.
- By Gus Leonisky at 22 Mar 2019 - 6:16am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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time for disney and hollywood to show us global warming...
As of 12:02am Eastern today, Disney has closed its acquisition of 21st Century Fox .
The goal of the enormous deal is to help Disney position itself for a streaming-centric future. The company has already taken a step in that direction with the ESPN+ streaming service, and it has plans to launch another service called Disney+ later this year, which will include new shows based on the Star Wars and Marvel universes, as well as Disney’s entire movie library.
With the Fox acquisition, Disney has even more films, TV shows and intellectual property to draw on — as indicated by the redesigned lead image on the Disney corporate website, which now features “The Shape of Water,” “Avatar” and “Deadpool” (all Fox films), as well as “The Simpsons” and “Atlanta” (which are produced by Fox studios and air on Fox networks). It also becomes the majority owner of Hulu, with CEO Bob Iger (pictured above) saying that Disney will invest in more original content for Hulu and help it expand internationally.
In addition, the deal solidifies Disney’s already dominant position in Hollywood, as seemingly the one studio that can still reliably draw massive audiences to movie theaters. Thanks to its previous acquisitions of Marvel and Lucasfilm, Disney has had the No. 1 movie at the worldwide box officefor each of the past four years, and in 2018, it released three of the top four films, while Fox had two movies in the top 10.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/20/disney-closes-it-71-3b-fox-acquisition/
Walt Disney Co.’s $71 billion takeover of a swath of 21st Century Fox Inc.’s assets isn’t just remaking the media landscape. It’s reshaping the fortune of one of the industry’s most powerful dynasties.
Over more than half a century, Rupert Murdoch built a media empire, and he’s now worth $19.3 billion. But the $12 billion of proceeds from the Disney deal are set to be distributed to his six children -- Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, James, Grace Helen and Chloe. That will make them billionaires in their own right while cutting the elder Murdoch’s fortune to $7.3 billion, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Fox declined to comment.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/murdoch-billionaires-to-multiply-after-disney-completes-fox-deal
Of course see:
uncle rupe saves the planet...
and see also: throw the CONservatives out...
These NSW CONservatives have sold most public assets (yours) in order to make their bottom-arse look good... They also believe in the Noah's Ark bizzo (with Scummo as the chief of the Noah's Ark Society), they do not believe in global warming — and never will even if it hits them in the gonads.
and don't forget your pills...
the beginning of doom...Read from top.
... and your religion is Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian, Islamic)...
philosophically digging holes...
Whether we’re doing it democratically or not, we (humans) are destroying the planet. This is a given.
Most of us, me included, spend more time digging holes, building stuff, cooking, eating, reproducing and cleaning up rather than philosophise about the shape of the football.
One of our failure is that, despite all our knowledge and knowingness, we have bugger of a chance to know what other people really think (we rarely know what we really think ourselves) at any one time and what is their major motivations apart from making more cash.
Watching a kid or a person of a different background than us (using the word ethnic could be seen as derogatory by some tight-arse progressive) scrolling up and down a smart phone, does not even give us a clue. We can see the image (I peep discreetly with my 20/20 short-sighted vision) and the text they suddenly stop upon for a maximum of 2.5 seconds. The headline is about a monkey that's eating bananas... Another is in Chinese.... Then it’s a scroll of stuff that don’t matter in the least for digging holes, building stuff, cooking, eating, reproducing and cleaning up.
This is us. The bus stops at Sydney Uni and the scrolling continues, pushed by an expert but impatient thumb.
There will be time to philosophise on Sunday at church — or at the atheistic burial of an atheist friend. Then we go back to digging holes, building stuff, cooking, eating, reproducing and cleaning up — and watching the mindless box, TV.
The students will carry on studying stuff that will make economic comfort more comfortable, while some will study the incomprehensible lingo of maths and sciences to park themselves in a profession where digging holes, building stuff, cooking, eating, reproducing and cleaning up is secondary to analysing why we dig round holes for square pegs, build stuff-ups, cook less and order Uber, eat the wrong food, reproduce like rabbits and rarely clean up our brain. TV programming will be the subject of a thesis.
This is a given.
We are destroying the (surface of the) planet.
Read from top.
Gus
and the skies became angry...
clouds. Picture by Gus Leonisky
as clear as night and day...
One of the feedback/mitigating factor in global warming is the dynamics of night and day. As our illustrious Miranda Devine once wrote in the DT, in a half-right spur of the pen, "it's the sun not carbon".
Yes, GLOBAL WARMING is due to the SUN and it is not due to CARBON... First we have to recognise that CARBON is not the culprit but CARBON DIOXIDE is. Second, carbon dioxide is not warming up at night. CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) ONLY WARMS UP IN THE SUNLIGHT — under some very specific waveforms (wavelengths) of infrared radiation.
This creates an increased difference of potential between day and night weather. Cool night, warmer day. I believe that this effect is taken into account by all the global warming computer modelling.
See also:
oh what a tangled web they weave, when first they practise to deceive...
the unknowledge of the stupid heartland institute...
the tragedy of the commons...
global warming is but a simple process of planetary reactivity...and especially:
a quarter of a nobel prize...unprecedented deluge in NZ...
The Waiho River Bridge, south of the Franz Josef township on New Zealand’s South Island, was swept away during the unprecedented rainfall, breaking apart piece by piece before being swept away downstream. Another bridge was also damaged during the downpour.
See more:
https://www.rt.com/news/454816-new-zealand-bridge-washed-away/
Read from top.
hail and avocadoes...
A hail storm that ripped through an avocado orchard in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales last week has destroyed an estimated 4 million avocados.
Aussie Orchards' managing director Colin Foyster said 80 per cent of the fruit on the 12,000 trees at the Pretty Gully farm was knocked off and onto the ground.
"I wasn't here but some people have said the hail stones were up to three inches [7.6cm] in size and very jagged," he said.
"It only hailed for less than 10 minutes, but [the stones were] big enough to knock the fruit off the tree or damage the remaining fruit.
"It's three months away from harvest, so it's all immature, so it's unsalvageable."
Mr Foyster said the remaining fruit on the trees also had impact marks where the hail hit the fruit, and the trees themselves were also damaged.
"If it's around the stem, or it's severe, it will lead to a rot and that fruit will then drop off," he said.
"But most of the remaining fruit, the 20 per cent, it'll just be downgraded."
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-03-27/hail-storm-smashes-4-millio...
the rabid loony right populists...
Across Europe, right-wing populist parties are picking up votes. In some countries, once-fringe parties have gained enough support to propel them into the halls of national power. But, for most, an easier target has been the European Parliament. And that could matter for climate change.
The UK Independence Party is a case in point. The group, once led by Nigel Farage, has seven MEPs, in contrast to zero MPs in the UK parliament. But it is not alone in eyeing Brussels as a potential foothold on the path to power.
In the 2014 elections, right-wing populist parties took almost 15 percent of the European parliament’s 751 seats. This is predicted to increase in the 2019 elections, scheduled for the end of May. Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the parliament’s liberal alliance, recently warned that the shake-up could usher in a five-year populist “nightmare”.
This means that parties such as France’s National Rally (known as Front National until 2018, when its leader Marine Le Pen decided on a rebrand), the Netherlands’ Party For Freedom, and the Danish People’s Party are suddenly a force to be reckoned with.
“As unprecedented popular discontent obstructs governments in shaping climate policy, the question is whether the EU will be able to maintain its progressive role after the next elections,” write Stella Schaller and Alexander Carius, from the Berlin think-tank Adelphi, in a recent report on rightwing populism and its impact on climate policies.
Over the last two decades, the EU has been a fairly consistent voice in calling for climate action, even if its targets haven’t always matched the urgency of the task. Its goal of cutting emissions by 40 percent by 2030 is deemed “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, meaning that if all governments adopted similarly ambitious targets, the planet would warm by up to 3C.
The EU’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Cañete, has already said that the EU is in a position to raise its target and increase its ambition, a move that would have to be approved by the European Council.
But observers are worried that an uptick in populist MEPs could hinder progress, given that their parties regularly adopt positions denying the science of climate change and opposing renewable energy.
Read more:
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/27/what-rise-right-wing-populism-europe...
Read from top.
impacts of global warming are accelerating...
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that the physical and financial impacts of global warming are accelerating.
Record greenhouse gas levels are driving temperatures to "increasingly dangerous levels", it says.
Their report comes in the same week as the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported a surge in CO2 in 2018.
However, new data from the UK suggests Britain is bucking the trend with emissions down by 3%.
This year's State of the Climate report from the WMO is the 25th annual record of the climate.
When it first came out in 1993, carbon dioxide levels were at 357 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere. These have now risen to 405.5ppm and are expected to increase further.
This is having a significant impact on temperatures, with 2018 the fourth warmest year on record, almost 1C above what they were in the period between 1850-1900.
Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47723577
good one, russell...
Russell Crowe won a best actor Golden Globe but was not there to collect the award because he is in Australia "protecting his family from the devastating bushfires". He sent a message about climate change.
We are with you... Read from top.
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-06/2020-golden-globes-live-blog/1183...