Neil Young News: Blog Action Day 2009: Greendale's Very Inconvenient Truth

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Blog Action Day 2009: Greendale's Very Inconvenient Truth

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance: Climate change. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

And today's the day.

Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.

Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

Which brings us to Neil Young's 2003 masterpiece Greendale. As we've argued repeatedly over the years about the vastly underrated and under appreciated Greendale, the inconvenient truth of Greendale was that Sun Green -- and Neil Young -- were right.

We could point to a host of observations from Greendale that seemed a bit far-fetched then but now seem quite prescient. But we'll just point out this Greendale post where we referenced the impending collapse of Antarctica's Wilkins ice shelf. And as you see in the above video, Antarctica's Wilkins ice shelf has indeed collapsed.

The inconvenient truth of Greendale is that regardless of whether you loved it or hated it, it was -- as we wrote five years ago -- "the most important album of 2003, the musical equivalent of Silent Spring".

Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf Disintegrates - March 25, 2008

So down the road when we're all driving electric cars, just remember 2009's silly little car album "Fork In The Road".

save-alaska-billboard

"You can make a difference, if you really try" - BE THE RAIN

More on The Inconvenient Truth of Greendale.

p.s. - Be the Rain, Be the Change, Be the Wheat.

Peace,
Joe the Blogger

pss - Spread the word and re-tweet this post below using hashtag #BAD09 to be picked up on global Blog Action Day Twitter feed.

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24 Comments:

At 10/15/2009 01:17:00 AM, Canada said...: Will definitely be listening to some tunes by my fellow Canadian Neil Young today!

Here’s my post for Blog Action Day:

http://selfdestructivebastards.blogspot.com/2009/10/wake-up-humanity.html

Everyone else go make one too!
At 10/15/2009 02:41:00 AM, Chinese Translator said...: We were just hit by two very strong storms two weeks ago. we never had that in decades. They left our country with still so many flooded areas, a lot were homeless and lost so many loved ones. The effect of those twin storm were devastating. And the news says its all because of climate change.
At 10/15/2009 09:23:00 AM, Anonymous said...: Everyday should be blog action day.
It seems to be @ TW.
Thanks Thrasher~!
At 10/15/2009 10:14:00 AM, Anonymous said...: Trasher,
Sorry to be a dissenter, (and to be somewhat off topic) but many members of our society have recently made a dangerous leap from labelling global warming a theory to assuming its a fact ... during this great reccession when we have "people sleeping in a shoe" we ought to be careful about spending Billions of dollars we don't have based upon on the cassandras -- lets do some more research before burdening our overleveraged society with more taxes.

And although some bloggers may not like my message, that's my contribution to Blog Action Day -- remember to distinguish between fact and theory and act accordingly
At 10/15/2009 10:32:00 AM, RICK RANGEL said...: Maybe Neil oughta write a song
called "Chicken Little Blues"
because that's what's happening with this issue.People are seeing with their own eyes that the sky is falling and other people are refusing to see it. Sweeping something under a rug will not make it go away.
Rick Rangel
At 10/15/2009 11:42:00 AM, Anonymous said...: Thrasher,
sorry did not mean to write "Trasher"

Rick Rangel,
I bet during the ice age they would have welcomed some "global warming" ... the corrolation between warmer tempetures and more fossil fuels is inconclusive ... we have something like 150 years of tempeture data and the past 10 have been on the warmer side ... this summer in the North East was one of the coldest in decades ... so much for global warming ... Just because Al Gore says the sky is falling doesn't make it so ...

Neil to his credit was early to the game about the need to protect our environment ... 70's - "look at mother nature on the run...", 80's - "got styrofome garabage for the ozone layer.." 90s - Mother Earth; Now (2000's) he's saying, "just singing a song won't change the world" so he's doing something even more tangible -- building Lincoln Volt ...

I think Neil is setting the right model for our society and hopefully the pols will follow his lead ... Obama ought to meet with Neil and hear his vision -- which is utilize technology to reduce our consmption of fossil fuels ... that approach is good even if global warming turns out to be just a theory ... because Linclon Volt will reduce our reliance on terrorist, rouge nations like Iran, and protect our economy from oil spikes, then you get the global warming "benefit" as a cheap option .. also, I like how Lincoln Volt is a HUGE car ... Neil's telling us that if we make the right investments we don't have to completely give up living our lives for the sake of "Global Warming" ... that approach is much more balanced than those that want us to panic because "The sky is falling" ...

Dan
At 10/15/2009 12:02:00 PM, julia b. said...: Before using an argument with Cassandra, maybe go back and re-read your ancient mythology.

If you did, you would know that Cassandra proved to be right much too late.

If only folks had listened to Cassandra when she sounded the warning......
At 10/15/2009 12:46:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Greendale?! masterpiece?

Thrasher - you're drunk!

And this global warming crap? Stay away from the brown acid, dude.
At 10/15/2009 01:26:00 PM, Chris R said...: There are so many people who claim Global warming to be false, or at least not man-made... fine.

Whether it is actually true or not, there is a lot of evidence that supports global warming and that we are responsible. I think that it is our best interest to error on the side of caution and treat it as though it is a real threat.

If you were given a gun and one person said it has a bullet, the other said it was not loaded.... would you still hold it up to your head and pull the trigger?
At 10/15/2009 02:52:00 PM, Amy said...: I am not sure if we have any effect on global warming but I think we still need to be energy efficient and help the environment.
At 10/15/2009 02:58:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Thanks Julia B.

Most of the Arctic sea ice will be gone in a decade, according to newly released data. The Arctic Ocean will be “an open sea.” One researcher explains, “This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes.”

Cassandra
At 10/15/2009 05:40:00 PM, Anonymous said...: If Neil was a climate change sceptic, most of you would be too.
At 10/15/2009 05:46:00 PM, Chicken Little - Not! said...: Here's something I posted two years ago. Nothing much has changed...

Experts can't even predict next week's weather accurately - yet when they tell us what's going to happen in 50 years, 100 years time, it's just accepted as a given that they are right. Well, not by me. And there are plenty of well credentialled scientists who don't agree with the alarmist, politically driven propaganda either, but they get shot down if they try to speak up. For some reason I can't fathom, nobody wants to hear that 'global warming' may just be a cyclic phenomenon that the planet has gone through many times before - they seem to want to only hear the gloom and doom predictions - why is that? There is no scientific evidence that global warming, or increases in greenhouse gas are caused by human activity - it is arrogant to think that we humans can impact the weather of this planet. And this isn't an "anti-environmental" viewpoint. I compost, I recycle, I keep chickens... Pep is right in that regard, we should all be more environmentally friendly - we can clean up rivers, plant more trees, recycle etc... but my motivation for doing that is so my kids can drink clean water, or breath healthy air - not because I think it's going to change the overall weather patterns of the planet. And the celebrity hypocrites are something else - Gore's mansion uses the average home's yearly power each month! Rock stars and movie stars jetting all over the globe to preach to us how turning off light bulbs will save the earth! Just don't ask them to do it themselves though. And let's cut down on our car usage too I hear - just how many of those gas guzzlers does Neil have in his fleet now?
At 10/15/2009 06:18:00 PM, Simpson said...: I don't really have a definite stance on the issue, but on this day, I could use some global warming. It's snowing like crazy where I'm at and usually it doesn't even snow until after Christmas!

Note: Christmas is December 25
Today is October 15!
At 10/15/2009 07:50:00 PM, Anonymous said...: I was going to post my take but chicken said it for me,except that al gore has made over 50 mill for his GW farce.I wish people would open their tired eyes to the facts and just not follow what cnn tells them to.

Lauren
At 10/15/2009 09:30:00 PM, edwin sanchez said...: Once the deep mystery of “climate change” has been solved
And “What’s green and causes CC?” is no longer a popular riddle,
The legacy of the era most likely will be:
“Never in recorded history have so many made so much over so little”.
(With apologies to the late, great Winston Churchill).
At 10/15/2009 10:01:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Wow.

It's pretty disheartening to see so many Neil fans in such denial.

Where's Mother Nature when you need her??

earth brown
At 10/16/2009 09:23:00 AM, Anonymous said...: Hey bloggers,

October 15th is finally here and nearly 10,000 bloggers around the world are writing about climate change today for Blog Action Day 2009!

At the stroke of midnight we got off to a great start when UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown surprised us with a Blog Action Day post on his blog saying that "climate change is the biggest threat to all our futures."

From there we have seen thousands of interesting posts from bloggers in 150 countries. The Official Google Blog provided a green tour of their campus, Gadling is featuring green travel posts all day, and Grist has a great round-up of some of the best posts thus far. Nonprofits including Oxfam, Greenpeace , 1Sky and TckTckTck have all put up new posts. Blog Action Day has been the top Google blog search today and CNN just wrote an article about us!

Right now posts are pouring in constantly. It's truly an impressive display and there’s too much going on to list it all in an email.

You have to check it out yourself.

You can follow all the latest posts and tweets on a new live stream on the www.blogactionday.org homepage. You can also get breaking updates and more in-depth information on the official Blog Action Day blog.

If you haven't posted yet, remember to include the words “Blog Action Day” in your post so that it gets pulled into the live feed on our homepage. If you are on Twitter, you can follow @blogactionday and use the #BAD09 hashtag in your tweets.

Thanks to all of you who have already posted and to all of you who will throughout the rest of the day. If you haven't, you can still register and participate today!

This has already been an amazing day and the Blog Action Day team couldn’t be more impressed with how many bloggers from all parts of the global are coming together for such an important issue.

Thank you so much,

Robin Beck
Lead Organizer
Blog Action Day 09: Climate Change.
At 10/16/2009 10:34:00 AM, Anonymous said...: Chicken little - not!: There's a big difference between "weather forecasting" and "climate forecasting." The "weather" and the "climate" are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Don't conflate one with the other. Thus, the fact that your local weather today may be cold does not negate the fact that the global climate is warming. And, it IS warming - there's sufficient evidence for that fact. The arguments are what we can do about it.

Charlie
At 10/16/2009 01:49:00 PM, Anonymous said...: NOAA: Second hottest September on record and virtual tie for hottest in lower troposphere from satellite data
October 16, 2009

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has issued its latest monthly, “State of the Climate: Global Analysis,” which found:

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for September 2009 was 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th Century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F). This was the second warmest September on record, behind 2005, and the 33rd consecutive September with a global temperature above the 20th Century average. The last below-average September occurred in 1976.

Significantly, September was only 0.04°C (0.07°F) off the 2005 record.

- not chicken little or boy who cried wolf
At 10/17/2009 06:11:00 AM, Chicken Little - Not! said...: Some nice figures there. Now post us some details that prove those figures are a direct result of human activity. If you read my post properly, you'll see that I didn't suggest 'global warming' wasn't happening - I said that it "may just be a cyclic phenomenon that the planet has gone through many times before". But that's not accepted, because there's good money to be made out of this hoax. And as already pointed out, fat Al Gore has already pigged out, along with plenty of others. Nice to see you all believe everything you read... or everything Neil says.
At 10/17/2009 11:14:00 AM, Robin Beck said...: Hey bloggers,

You did it!

Yesterday you and bloggers in 155 countries across six continents wrote about a single issue that impacts us all, and turned Blog Action Day 2009 into one of the largest social change events ever held on the web.

Your participation helped change the conversation and showed the power of the web to connect people across the world who despite their varied backgrounds have one shared desire: to make a difference. According to blogpulse, we increased the number of posts about climate change on a given day by 500%, and CNN wrote a great article covering the excitement and diversity of today's event across the web and around the world.

A full recap is up on our blog, and here are some highlights:

We hit 31,000 total trackable blog posts, and our current estimate is that together we reached at least 17.9 million people yesterday. We just exceeded 13,000 registered bloggers on the site and are working to get all of you who posted but haven't yet registered into the final count.

We had at least three major world governments as active participants in this year's event. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown posted the first Blog Action Day entry in Britain at the stroke of midnight on the 15th, which was followed by Foreign Minister David Milliband and many others from the UK stationed around the world. The PSOE governing party of Spain hosted a bloggers event focused on climate change and transformed their website for the day to promote Blog Action Day. And late in the day, President Barack Obama's White House blog joined in become part of the global movement of bloggers shaking the web.

Of course, well-known bloggers were a big presence yesterday as well:

* The Official Google Blog gave a green tour of the company's campus;
* Mashable asked what you're doing to reverse climate change;
* The Unofficial Apple Weblog suggested "Five apps to help save the world";
* Treehugger gave us two simple things that could, by themselves, stop climate change;
* Global Voices posted a roundup of bloggers from around the world writing in many languages;
* Gadling spent the whole day posting about green travel;
* BlogHer covered the road to the next international climate negotations in Copehagen.

There are many more, and we encourage you to check out the Featured Posts on the blogactionday.org homepage for a longer list of some of the world's largest blogs.

Many of our nonprofit partners, leading organizations from around the world, were also actively involved in making the event a success:

* TckTckTck released a beautiful and touching new video;
* Greenpeace bloggers from around the world joined in;
* World Wildlife Fund featured Blog Action Day on their international climate blog;
* Oxfam helped emphasize the human side of the climate crisis;
* 1Sky wrote about the front lines of political activism in the US;
* The Nature Conservancy helped us understand the science of climate change;
* NRDC's Switchboard bloggers wrote informative posts all day;
* Consequence wrote a whole series of posts on youth climate leadership.

You should all feel proud of this remarkable collective effort. And it doesn't have to end today. For many, we hope this serves as an entry point into the broader movement to address the issue of climate change. There are a number of ways and some amazing organizations through which you can continue to remain involved, and we encourage you to check out our Take Action section to learn more.

We will continue providing updates and information about the success of today's event and ongoing opportunities for involvement--including the the October 24th International Day of Climate Action organized by our friends at 350.org--here in the weeks ahead, and we hope you'll stay with us.

Thank you so much,

Robin Beck
Lead Organizer
Blog Action Day 2009
At 10/19/2009 10:51:00 PM, Anonymous said...: Wow Robin; that is a lot of data to swallow hook line and sinker! Swallow as you may, the folks who want to control you know what buttons to push and which ones to pull. Now shut down your computer because it is leading to GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE CHANGE.
At 10/21/2009 11:31:00 AM, Robin Beck said...: Hey bloggers,

You just took part in something unprecedented--with a 500% increase in blog posts about climate change, last Thursday was the largest coordinated climate communication of all time. It was amazing to be part of something with such broad scope, and now we have the opportunity to use our voices online to mobilize global offline action.

As many of you know, this December, world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to draft a new global climate treaty - one that has the potential to turn the tide on global warming and get our planet back on a brighter path. The problem is, most world leaders and their negotiators aren't getting it. They’re not planning to do enough to avert the climate crisis.

Many of you have asked us what you can do to help change this. The single biggest thing you can do right now is to follow-up your participation in Blog Action Day and support the International Day of Climate Action organized by our friends at 350.org this Saturday, October 24th.

Already, over 4000 creative events are being planned in over 170 countries - from the slopes of Mt. Everest to the underwater reefs of the Maldive Islands, to the parks and streets of your own communities. Activists will be uploading images of their events in real-time to both the 350.org website and on the giant screens of Times Square. By day's end, there will be an unprecedented global gallery of images and stories, enough to make both old media and new ring out with this crucial number.

October 24th is shaping up to be the most widespread day of environmental action in the history of the planet. All events are designed to do one thing: show the support for the most important number in the world: 350.

What’s the big deal with 350? 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for parts per million carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. 350 is the number humanity needs to get below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. (Watch this animation). Most immediately, 350 is the number world leaders need to lead with as they prepare to meet in Copenhagen this December to draft a new global climate treaty.

With fewer than 3 days to go until Oct. 24th, we need to take action now to make this day truly count.

So, here's what you can do as a blogger to help: Use your blog posts TODAY and in the few days that follow to help build the viral wave behind 350.org's October 24th Global Day of Action. There are a whole series of tools at 350.org/bloggers that you can use in your blog posts: embeddable widgets that help people search for an event from within your blog, web banners, twitter widgets that collect the buzz about 350, and more.

Invite your readers to take action by joining you at events around the world. And continue to use your posts in the weeks ahead to make the most important number on the planet the most well known. If you want to start an event yourself there is also a quick and easy guide.

Last week your posts demonstrated the power that bloggers across the web can have in raising awareness about an important issue. This week your posts can help mobilize direct action, draw new people into this global grassroots movement and change the course of climate history.

Thank you for lending your voice,

Robin Beck
Lead Organizer, Blog Action Day 2009

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