Neanderthal Future 2020

Why are we here on a suddenly threatening planet?

It is not because the Chinese ate bats in Wuhan.

>We are to blame, for having destroyed this loving blue ball in Space.

No humans can accept this truth, while devoted to driving fucked-up SUVs, eating poison potato chips, and drinking shitty rich motherfucker Budweiser in honor of a pedophile god-leader Donald Trump.

You are what you eat and Neanderthals were mostly vegetarian according to their poop pits.

Sadly we are fucked and fucked good.

World Population 2050 - 500 million.

In that year I shall be ninety years old surrounded by my tribe of Neanderthals in Ban-Nok Thailand, drinking lao-khao. We are comforted by the love of our people and knowing sloth is not a deadly sin.

The Fire Of Rampant Consumerism

In October 1973 an industrial neighborhood in Chelsea, Massachusetts was burned to the ground after a row of chemical storage warehouses burst into flames. The fire could be seen from fifteen miles away in the Blue Hills, but that conflagration was nothing in comparison to the last week's toxic waste fire at Ruihai Logistics in Tianjin, China, which is 159 kilometers downwind to the southeast of Beijing. Over a hundred people were killed and nearly a thousand injured by the fiery cocktail of calcium carbide, sodium nitrate, and potassium nitrate.

According to Wikipedia the first detonation in the port area happened near 11pm. Its blast was estimated to have the power of 3 tonnes of TNT. Seismographs registered 2.4 on the Richter Scale, however the second blast was ten times more powerful. The resulting fireballs reached hundreds of meters high and a Japanese satellite filmed the series of deadly explosions.

After the disaster Chinese authorities arrested a dozen executives from Ruihai Logistics China and the West have a common agreement to quash any reports on the country's near-lethal pollution levels. That danger is the price of progress and profit.

Despite both starting the 'Ch', China is no Chelsea.

But a good fire is always a good fire.

The Mysterious Bronx River

Donald Trump has been unstoppable in his assault of nature from defunding the EPA to banning the term 'Global Warming' in government releases, and rolling back the protective codes enacted over the last half-century. The GOP are happy as pigs in shit by the end to environmental strictures against pollution of water, air, and land. Liberals are outraged by thius assault on Mother Earth, yet few people are changing their consumption patterns.

The Bronx River is a good example.

The native Americans fished and ate oysters from the "Aquehung".

During the 19th Century industrial mills along the twenty-four mile waterway fouled the river.

A major contributor was Lorillard Snuff Mill manufacturing tobacco products since the 1700s.

The water quality improved in the 1900s, however the spread of the city surpassed the abuse of industry and the river died in the Bronx.

People did this.

Nothing lived in the river.

But people have repair the damage to the Bronk River.

Millions of oysters have been seeded at the mouth and recently residetns have sighted a beasver in the stream.

A beaver.

What has been done will be undone by Mother Earth, but only with help from Mankind.

Deconsume, you slobs.

It's the only way to save this planet.

ps Also resist Trump every step of the way.

The Choice Of Life

Beijing and rampant consumption under the myth of sustainable growth.

Or Ban Nok Thailand.

The rice fields slowly recovering fromthe poisoning of pesticides and debts to the banks.

I vote for the Village of the Birds.

The Western Forests are home.

3 Ma - CO2 = 400+

Three million years ago Paranthropus Boisei roamed the East African woods, existing on C4 plants according to scientists. Turtles, elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, rhinoceros and gazelles appear in the fossil record of that long-lost era. The CO2 level 3 ma was 400 ppm and this week the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded that number after 3 ma of 270 ppm.

I blame everything on consumption

Needless to say climate denialists refuse to recognize man's hand of the CO2 accelerator led by their fat champion, Donald 45 Trump. If this trend continues unabated, then the CO2 ppm level will reached a rate not seen for a half-billion years.

Although we achieve that regularly in some cities.

Like Delhi.

Beijing.

Kathmandu.

New York City.

But not the Western Forest.

Ban Nok is still clean.

How I wish I was there.

Pas De Voitures

Last Friday Devlin and I arrived at Gare Du Nord from Bruxelles. We had read in the newspaper that Paris was suffering from a toxic smog. The pollution levels hit 180 microgrammes of PM10 particulates per cubic metre, which was twice more the safety limit of 80. The Hotel de Ville banned cars from within le Periphirique. The clear sky was not an 'all-clear' sign, because my throat was burning from inhaling the air.

"Shall we take a taxi?" Devlin liked to see the city.

"The Metro goes direct to St. Gemain." We were staying at the Hotel Bel Ami on Rue St. Benoit. It was down the street from the Cafe de Flore.

"Then we'll take the Metro." Devlin was semi-rich. He liked to save money to insure his fortune remained a fortune.

"And it's free." The city had opened the Metro to induce people out of their cars.

"Free?" Devlin believed in capitalism.

"The triumph of communalism." I pushed on the turnstile. There was no resistance.

Twenty minutes later we emerged from the Metro onto the Boulevard St. Germain. The lack of horns or the rumble of cars greeted us on the sidewalk. I glanced at the headline of a right-wing newspaper.

PANIC.

The opposition leader was claiming that the ban lacked "coherence, explanation and on the ground it's really panic".

None of the pedestrians were running around like guillotined chickens.

"Nice." Devlin didn't have a car.

"Real nice." I liked GTOs and 60s motorcycles, but a world without internal combustion vehicles was the future. As we walked to our hotel, I said, "Welcome to the new reality. No cars."

"There'll be cars. Electric cars."

"There are no cars in STAR TREK. Cars are an ancient technology."

"How so?" Devlin was willing to hear my explanation. The hotel was right around the corner.

"A car is a marriage between fire and the wheel with a little metallurgy on the side." The inventions of the first two dated back to prehistory. "There were no cars over a hundred years ago."

"So we're going back to the horse?" scoffed the Irish financier.

"Heavens forbid a return to shit-strewn streets."

"So what will replace the car?"

I pointed to my feet.

"Public transportation and walking."

"People won't like it."

"They'll like dying from aphyxiation even less." The Great London Smog of 1952 killed over 12,000 in a month with thousands more suffering permanent damage to their lungs. "The smog here was as bad as Beijing and it's going to get worse everywhere in the world."

"So what are you saying?"

"Te moritum salutem."

"Latin?"

"A dead language, but that phrase means 'those that are about to die salute you." I lifted my middle finger to a passing car and we entered the hotel.

It was 5-star.

As a communalist I liked sharing someone else's wealth and Devlin was no miser. We had reservations at Joel Aubusson's Atelier. The restaurant served the best mashed potatos on the world and being Irish we appreciated that feat more than no cars.