Wednesday, October 2, 2024

#276 / Mark This!

   


Jason Mark is the editor of Sierra Magazine, and he has a very simple message to impart: "Abolish Fossil Fuels." Mark's article can be found in the Fall 2024 edition of the magazine. As far as I can tell, no paywall will prevent you from reading his appeal, which he subtitles as follows: "A moral case for ending the age of coal, oil, and gas." 

I subscribe to Sierra, as a member of the Sierra Club, and I found the entire Fall 2024 issue to be compelling. I particularly appreciated the magazine's acknowledgment of the "Dark Cloud" overhanging our efforts to eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels. As specifically noted in the "Opening Remarks" by Paul Rauber, "progress is threatened by AI, cryptocurrency, and our new penchant for putting our entire digital lives in "the cloud."

In fact, we are, more and more, locating our entire lives "online." We certainly entertain ourselves online, watching full length movies, or crazy little cat videos. More substantively, we run our economy online. That's where we bank; that's where we transact business. We store our memories online. and we write blogs online. 

Please don't think I'm not aware of the irony, as I protest our abandonment of the common, "real" world into which we have been so mysteriously born. Instead of being willing to live there, we are choosing, from an early age, to sequester ourselves in a completely non-physical dimension, "online," and that "online" world - run by giant corporations, by the way - is supported by massive amounts of human-created electric power. Sierra alerts us to some of the implications of this decision to transition our lives online by presenting the facts in "game" form: "The Game of Life: Electrified."

When something goes wrong, and the "lights go out," we will find ourselves both wordless and worldless. Mark this! It's a real problem. It is, as the Fall 2024 edition of Sierra says, a genuine "Dark Cloud" shadowing everything. 

I think I am right about the absence of a paywall. Presuming that I am, I invite you to check out that Fall 2024 issue of Sierra.

If I'm wrong, and you need to be a member of the Sierra Club to get access to the magazine, then I suggest you join! 


No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comment!