Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/18/2010 10:35:56 PM PDT by TruthHound
Billed as....
"How could a civilization that mastered the planet suddenly Collapse? Inspired by the New York Times best-selling book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", NGC time travels 200 years into the future to see what the world would look like after civilization as we know it collapsed. Guided by author Jared Diamond, we'll piece together the remarkable story of what on earth triggered our decline."
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/collapse-based-on-the-book-by-jared-diamond-4436/Overview
I should have known better.
It started out interesting enough exploring how a future civilization takes it upon themselves to sift through the relics of the shining cities we currently enjoy, and figure out where we went wrong—not unlike our recounting the fall of the Romans, the Maya, etc.
My first clue of the leftward direction was a segment on the "drought" in Central California. Acres upon acres of Almond tree orchards being uprooted for lack of water. But nary a mention of the Congress-created dustbowl to save the almighty Delta Smelt. Nope. It was the human over-consumption of water at fault. Too many greedy humans who dared to move into previously uninhabitable desert terrain like Phoenix and Las Vegas. Bastard Homo Sapiens and their swimming pools, air conditioning, technology, cheap energy and an insatiable desire to gang-rape mother Earth.
It then snowballed into about as sticky and stinky of a greenfest as you can imagine. There are too many of us. We're spoiled. We're fat and toxic to each other and nature itself. And we don't give a flying fart about how we're destroying the planet.
Resisting the urge to channel surf to anything but, I stuck out this visual anthem to the moo-moo-clad, unshaven, utopiate class. Man, I miss the bong I had in college.
Okay, so they did touch briefly onto how the Masters of Government are spending like drunken sailors. Wow, a bone!
Did anyone else see this fecal film? Comments?
Ecoganda Ping.
As far as the Byzantines were concerned, the Roman Empire didn’t “fall” in 476. It moved to Constantinople and chugged along for another 800 years or so. Then it was overrun by an Islamic horde.
As far as the Byzantines were concerned, the Roman Empire didn’t “fall” in 476. It moved to Constantinople and chugged along for another 800 years or so. Then it was overrun by an Islamic horde.
**************
And transferred to Moscow, the “Third Rome”. According to the Russians. For good or ill, Roman Imperium DNA is found throughout western civilization, if not the world at this point.
Well, for what it’s worth, the Germanic tribes that invaded Rome in 400-500 AD were driven south by the CRUSHING cold weather of the Dark Ages (that followed the much warmer Roman Warming Period of 100 BC - 300 AD !) ...
Things were bad in Europe (everywhere in the world) from mid-600’s up until the Medieval Warming Period about 800 years later of 1000 - 1200 AD.
Gosh.
Then we tumbled (all long before CO2) into the Little Ice Age of 1600 - 2700 AD. Notice that Cornelius Vanderbilt of the mid-1800’s industrial revolution and transportation tycoons made his first money rowing a man-powered ferry across the ICE_BOUND Hudson River to New York in the early 1800’s !!.
Figure we’ve warmed up some from Washington and Vanderbilt’s time in the 1790-1800’s?
Now? we are 400 years later, in the Modern Warming Period. Right on schedule: early 2000 - 2010.
Only question is: Is this the peak - before we slide back again into a Future Ice Age in 2400? Or we will get one more peak in the 60-year short cycle and see higher temperatures in 2060 - 2070?
I believe I saw this earlier today and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at it’s absurdity.
I believe the last line was “and the world’s population keeps increasing” or something to that effect.
It’s not too difficult to discern the beliefs of these screwballs.
Two names should have clued you in: Jared Diamond and National Geographic. Both are about as far to the left as possible. Nat Geo gave up honest science about 25 years ago to beat the drum for “green” propaganda. Diamond’s just another academic environmental shill.
The History Channel has made the same move over the last 7-8 years. They have a 2 hour 'History of the KKK' that fails to mention its intimate connections to the democrat party.
NatGeo still has good programs about space, etc., but you are right on the leftward shift to the 'Church of Global Warming'.
It was simply a rehash of long known water problems in the Southwest. Folks living in the desert will have to decide what their priorities are with water usage. Like the man said, ‘A thousand dollar water bill gets your attention’.
Of course, market forces would lead to, first gradual, but steadily increasing, out migration from regions where such resources became inordinately expensive due to over-consumption and short supplies; and/or market forces would lead to replacement and conservation of those resources.
Despite the stubbornly irrational beliefs of leftoids that only big government can manage economic and resource "sustainability," the private sector, thanks to the existence of futures markets, and the fact that most investors are in for the long term, also manages this far more competently; and does so with far greater foresight than government could even in theory (that is even if we negate the fact that most government decisions in this regard, as in others, are motivated by short term political considerations rather than long term rational ones).
So this means that the scenario envisioned could only occur if government has massively intruded into and distorted the market system, as for instance by subsidizing the cost of resources, leading to their overconsumption, while stifling innovation and conservation.
Since government IS massively interfering with markets, and picking "winners and losers" based on political, rather than rational criteria (and government necessarily makes poor decisions even if it were able to set politics aside, which it isn't, so that it makes not just bad, but utterly terrible decisions) this scenario is actually somewhat plausible.
It's just that the writers and producers, being leftists, can't comprehend the role of anti-market forces in such potential disaster, so they have to implausibly pretend the private sector would be at fault.
They lose their focus on what matters and how they became successful.....
.....Doing things like elect BO and embracing feel good Socialism, only to slip into Communism.
National Geographic surely found the wrong causes with respect to our own present decline.
It is out of control environmentalism, multiculturalism, pacifism, etc that threatens us today; the very things National Geographic finds as key to our survival.
I don’t need to watch it...your review sounds perfect.
I took one look at the blurb and passed it by. Programming quality in the last year and a half on all stations has taken a decided plunge in quality, general interest, political correctness, and technical expertise.
I just bought a 42" flat-panel tv, and I have to leave it off simply because there is nothing to watch that is worthwhile. (I do have exceptions, of course, but most of the time, the screen is black because I want it that way.)
Soon as it turned to propaganda, I stopped watching.
Old National Geographic magazines are great: They’re very educational. You learned about actual geography. The world was an amazingly varied place. And if you were in school, you could cut them up and paste the photos into your report.
In the past 20 years or thereabouts, NG has become nothing more than a bizarre collection of stories that seldom have anything to do with geography or reality. And it is all agenda-driven drivel. Humans = bad. Persons of European descent = worse than bad. Americans = worst of all. It’s all far-left environmentalist delusions. Why would any rational, self-respecting person pay money for the garbage that National Geographic has become?
Yup - 5 mion into the show and the thread started.
Switched it off.
NGC time travels 200 years into the future to see what the world would look like after civilization as we know it collapsed. Guided by author Jared Diamond, we'll piece together the remarkable story of what on earth triggered our decline.So-called journalists were the trigger. Thanks TruthHound.
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Jared Diamond was always a gnoofball, but he’s totally flaked out now.
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