Ozer Khalid @ozer@qoto.org

#Democracy dies in the dark

Our #digital commons are de-democratized
#censorship reflects a society`s lack of confidence in itself

Censoring @telesurenglish @venanalysis @AbbyMartin & @EmpireFiles
#socialmedia`s Suffocating Sinister Suppression of voices must end

This is all part of an #Online Orwellian Complicity of Silence
We do not live in 2018
Welcome back to 1984 !

The bitter (yet reversible) *reality* of #climatechange

Irrespective of ideological inclination and political predisposition:

It is high-time to scale back on industrialisation & #pollution to avert an #ecological meltdown

The planet's average surface temperature has risen by about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius). Extreme #weather conditions, alarming sea level rises, warming oceans, decreasing in the global snow cover, species extinction, lack of bio-diversity, glacial retreat are all indisputable *facts* not some *rhetorical confirmation bias*

A global convulsion owing to toxic pollution, radioactive elements, use of plastic, horrid chemical usage and spills, a non-organic carbon-based economy and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere and more.

We have no planet B
Let us preserve & protect the only planet we have
For ourselves and our coming generations

cc @arteteco & @augustus

#ecology #sustainability #renewableenergy #nature

To all #climatechange deniers like @arteteco & @augustus this is not some infantile left-wing/right wing political binary. I agree that science and government should be separate.

HAARP sponsored weather alteration is sheer criminality.

I am an #environmentalist and dismissing climate change as "one big #corporate / #government hoax" - let us not get blinded by our deluded naïveté.

The "government" is most strongly lobbied/paid by the #oilandgas and #automotive industries which stand the most to lose from the climate change reality. Critically think about this reality without a biased lens.

We cannot, with a straight and sober face, deny NASA/other totally independent third party institutionally verified and certified #data that has been captured by scientifically-precise
earth-orbiting satellites and thousands of other #tech advances.

How can you point blank deny the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide (C02) and other gases ? An inevitable, inescapable heat which will keep scorching us, keep subsuming us, with every passing day. Climate change deniers put forward a lazy simplistic blind blanket wholesale dismissal on the increase of greenhouse gases causing the Earth to warm as attested by many independent bodies.

Be realistic and practical. Entire samples of Ice cores drawn from #Greenland #Antarctica and tropical mountain glaciers show that the #Earth ’s #climate responds to alterations in toxic greenhouse gas levels. Independent (non-governmental) scientific testimony demonstrates this to us in ocean sediments, tree rings, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks.

Let us, as one collective humanity, not sleep-walk into our own denial and obliterate ourselves in the process. Any globally eminent climatologist worth their salt knows that by 2030 if we do not reduce the global climate by 2 degrees celsius we are in for an even ruder awakening.

Look everywhere around your alert and open eyes: from Hurricane Harvey to Rita, Katrina, the #California & Greece fires, to #Japan `s tornado, #Pakistan floods #Afghanistan earthquakes.
Mother Nature is showing us signs and we ignore Her signs at our own peril.

Just critically ask yourselves, why are entire global cities reducing their carbon footprint ? Logically all this can`t be reduced to a "corporate/government/NASA mafia conspiracy" that is lazy rhetoric/"whataboutery" here is why - remember the oil and gas and automotive industry stand the most to lose from these bitter realities.

Paleoclimatologists testify that current #globalwarming is mathematically occurring 10 times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. In light of all the above and so much more evidence (melting of the glaciers, species extinction, warming of the oceans etc) are you dismissing all this data as "weather channel fake news" ? I know we live in a "post-truth" world but common !

Interesting to note that bots are active on #qoto for instance the #mastodon #bot account @Seebee gathers data necessary to compete social engineering experiments. Invasive and intrusive #data and #privacy breaches are likely to ensue. Merely a matter of time before the next #cambridgeanalytica fiasco unfurls. All part and parcel of the #socialmedia landscape in 2018. #cyberwarfare #artificialintelligence #social #engineering

I am now reading "House of Debt" by @AtifRMian #AtifMian & Sufi

The book highlights the excesses of the Great Recession as well as the Great Depression and how to avoid such future convulsions.

Key takeaways from the #book are as follows:
1 Get rid of boom and bust cycles by avoiding inflexible #debt #contracts

2 Have new #mortgage contracts based on #Risk sharing

3 Be cautious with #Credit issuance

A tome grounded in convincing #Economic evidence

The trials and tribulations of #Pakistan - US relations

by @ozer
Twitter: @OzerKhalid

published in the Express Tribune @ETOpEd @etribune

Read at https://tribune.com.pk/story/1796235/6

#ForeignPolicy

Guns don’t Kill people
Bullets Kill people
Fired from Guns
Wielded by People
Who Shoot at Will

How the NRA staff sleep at night is way beyond me

#Jacksonville #Jacksonvilleshooting
#Florida #Floridashoting

#Elections are often an illusion of "choice". #ozerkhalid