Bruce Sterling on The Drought

There were no massive hurricanes in the US this year, but typhoons kicked the hell out of Asia, and Australia is having the worst drought in a thousand years. Everybody's been figuring climate change for a poor man's problem, mostly because the Left own the green issue and they're very big on social issues, but Australia is a right-wing state full of rich white guys, and they may be more direly vulnerable to climate change than any nation in the world.

-- Bruce Sterling (again) talking about the Drought

I singled this out cause its just so damn right... and yet we do nothing worth a damn: Australia deserves its dominion of dirt and dust and dry rot.

UPDATE: I agree with the anonymous commentator (Dave W?):

Being right wing != being conservative.

Being conservative != being neoconservative.

(!= == not equal to; == == absolutely equal to)

I also wonder where Sterling pulled the 1000 years bit from. I've heard it argued that the last centuries rainfall was atypical and the weather conditions we are experiencing now are far more reflective of Australia's history... Which is kind of scary

Nonetheless, it's point is still valid -- that you'd think/hope Australia would be one of the most proactive countries in trying to solve the related issues of drought and climate change. But y'know, that would require a level of politics and civil society beyond the parochial aspirational class bullshit which is sinking our country.

brainfood looking back

Russia was the winner of the War for Oil, so they've
learned how to turn off the gas taps and wax all petrocratic.
Unfortunately they're run by a tiny Czarist-style
clique of spooky Rasputin radioactive poison fanatics,
so when their shadow crosses the global landscape
everybody crosses their fingers and shies away.
Luckily, a surprising number of guys they managed
to poison, ambush and shoot were Chechen warlords,
so their personal Islamic crisis is on the back burner.

*Castro got sick, but Chavez is the new Castro and
he's got megatons of oil. Chavez could do whatever he wants,
but he's not very bright and he likes the look of his
own face in the mirror better than any sight in the world.
History will likely judge that Castro and even Bolivar
get much the same assessment.

-- Bruce Sterling on 2006 and 2007

Read the comments. The comments are great... Sterling is a visionary and a great fucking writer e.g.

"It's gonna take a tremendous amount of money to fix a soiled planetary atmosphere. There's never been a state-sponsored project that size. Not even close. It makes the Hoover Dam look like a cork."

Dave wants me to write tech; Bek doesn't. Who should I listen to?