Sounds about right...

For some reason, I found this clip disturbing. Maybe it's because if there is a 'world without us' I fear we will have done something that will have a lasting catastrophic effect on Earth's ecology, like numerous simultaneous nuclear strikes. On that note, sweet dreams...

beautiful. very humbling. i was cheering on the green. Mother E is gonna be alright in time. but not so sure about all of us 2-legged upright saps.

carmen, i am not a scientist, but next to the planet and the cosmos, even our "lasting" effects are but very transient. we really only threaten to make this world uninhabitable to ourselves. las planetas will be fine, i think. i find the clip soothing. what i find disturbing is all the shit we are doing to the world today. even now, inside CIA people are telling us that inside the intelligence community it is understood that we will hit Iran within six months. i wonder how far away nuclear strikes really are. youtube is the least of my personal stressors...

"...las planetas will be fine..." I hope you are right, Nez.

well...i may not be right about the earth. but i guess somewhere in my core, i feel that "IT" will be all right, even if we are a hive of confused creatures tugging at ourselves until we come to pieces. after all, it's not as if the cosmos needs earth, right? or even ten planets. they say that many of the stars you see don't even exist anymore because of all the years it takes for the light to reach our eyes. and that a great amount are in the sky, but we don't yet see them. i guess i feel that in all of it, we are pretty small, though we take ourselves terribly seriously. (i know i do so often!) if we flood this world with radioactivity, well...(we already are, we bury it at sea, etc) life will go on. it may not be inhabitable to you and i or most life on this planet. but life will mutate, adapt. that's what it does, eh? supposedly we began as soup. mmmm.

You know, if we could keep medicine and just give back most of the rest of Industrialization, I wonder. I guess heating fuel would be a problem.

i hear you, tom. it's all so tied together. like "is one worth the other" and unknowable riddles like that. perhaps even a false choice, tho it reminds me of those SciFi societal conundrum stories on balance...

Another reminder of why we need to get rid of nuclear weapons. Human beings after all are an aspect of nature, even our more beastly sides evolved straight from it. In some ways separated from nature around us but simultaneously a very interesting branch of it-- at our best capable of doing amazing and truly lasting things, at our worst a force of nature capable of doing far more damage in a single fit of arrogance than the worst volcano or hurricane.

The problem is, for us to tap into our good sides, we got to at least limit the damage we can do when our bad sides run amok. And the truth is, we're just not mature enough to be handling something as suddenly destructive as nuclear weapons-- we're like little kids playing with loaded guns. No human institution can be trusted with those things.

Just look at the hatred that Anglos today show toward Iraqis, toward Latinos and other dark-skinned peoples both within and outside the USA, and then think that these same hate-filled Anglos are the ones with their fingers on the nuclear trigger-- and you realize that for our own good and for our cousins in nature around us, it's too dangerous for us to be handling nuclear weapons. In fact on our nukes and the rest of our military, we spend more than the rest of the world does combined-- and this, while poor Latino children in Tejas and Arizona go starving, with terrible health due to cuts in Medicaid and basic services.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if some war-hungry, bloodthirsty Anglo jerk drops a nuke on Iraq or Iran.

In fact, ustedes posiblemente have noticed, that Tom Tancredo-- that same racist pendejo de Colorado who hates Latinos and wants to deport us-- also gets wet dreams about dropping nukes on Mecca and Medina. Thereby pissing off *even more* hundreds of millions of people against the USA.

You know, the militaristic menace of the Anglos is yet another reason to look forward to our own future and the reclamation of our rights, it's maybe the only effective check there is to restrain the Anglo imperialistic dogs of war. Latinos will soon be the majority in the Southwest, and we will finally be able to neutralize this Anglo hatred and imperialism that has victimized us and other peoples-- people of color and even other Europeans like the Irish-- for so many centuries. In fact, I've gotten the sense that the rest of the world, shuddering at the hateful belligerence of the Anglo United States, brandishing its nuclear weapons and threatening more regional wars and even a new and catastrophic world war-- the rest of the world is quietly cheering on us Latinos to again regain our rightful position in the homelands where we ourselves have been brutalized for so long.

We, after all, are probably the only ones in the world right now who can realistically provide a check against unrestrained Anglo militaristic expansionism-- when we are able to again regain our proper social, cultural and political rights in our homelands, we will be the only ones who can effectively exercise enough political power to turn back the Anglo warmongering monster, and prevent the Anglos from mustering forth their arsenal of mass hatred and destruction from being turned against the rest of the world, just as it's been turned against us for so long. It's no exaggeration to suggest that the well-being of the rest of the world is in our hands. Heck, at least in California and Arizona, the more tolerant White people (I hesitate to use the term "Anglo" in this case since so many of them are of Irish or German descent and despise Anglo imperialism just as we do) seem to be assimilating partly to our culture and accepting and respecting us, both as the founders of the cities in this region and as a group of people determined to halt the Anglo warmaking and imperialistic march in its path.

Al menos, cuando ganamos mas poder politico en el Suroeste, vamos a también ganar el poder efectuar un cambio en las actitudes y la tendencia a violencia que caracterizan el dominio de los Anglos. Aun más una razón para continuar luchar para nuestros derechos con orgullo y vigor!

Having grown up in California, I agree with a lot of what el gato is saying. San Bernardino is crowded and smoggy but the people are kind.

Now you got me homesick.

carmen, i am not a scientist, but next to the planet and the cosmos, even our "lasting" effects are but very transient. we really only threaten to make this world uninhabitable to ourselves. las planetas will be fine, i think.

I have a decidedly unradical suggestion to make about an appropriate environmental ethic - one rooted in the issue of appropriate human scale vs. the majesty, but irrelevance of geological time....Christians call this principle the "golden rule"; Plato, Hillel and Confucius knew the same maxim by other names. I cannot think of a better principle based on enlightened self-interest. If we all treated each other as we wished to be treated ourselves, then decency and stability would have to prevail.

I suggest we execute such a pact with our planet. She holds all the cards, and has immense power over us - so such a compact, which we desperately need but she does not at her own timescale, would be a blessing for us and an indulgence for her. We had better sign the papers while she's willing to make a deal. If we treat her nicely, she will keep us going for a while. If we scratch her, she will bleed, kick us out, bandage up, and go about her business at her own scale. Poor Richard told us that "necessity never made a good bargain," but the earth is kinder than human agents in the "art of the deal." She will uphold her end; we must now go and do likewise.

thank you steve.

yes, he puts it well. i only wonder how much patience she has with us...

although, carmen, perhaps part of the reason it might feel a little creepy is the damn sound design! yikes. like yanking wires until they break or pebbles falling into poison. not a happy track.