George Carlin: the Earth + plastic

[arcadian]

Think about this George Carlin bit then read the following story about the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean.

The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…asshole.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/16/vbs.toxic.garbage.island/index.html?hpt=C2

TOXIC: Garbage Island

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) -- Back in the mid-zeroes, I remember reading a lot of stories about a buildup of trash in the Pacific Ocean so massive that it had formed a floating island of waste the size of Texas. Its colorful nickname was the Great Eastern Garbage Patch, and what was even more mind-boggling than the purported scale was that pretty much the only places you could dig up any substantial info about it were in minor oceanographic and environmental publications. You also couldn't find a photo of it to save your life. It was like Garbage Brigadoon.

Anyhoo, the idea that one of the biggest environmental disasters of our age had been going on outside nearly everyone's awareness piqued our curiosity, so we decided to head out there (the middle of the ocean) and see it for ourselves.

The Garbage Patch is located at a natural collecting point at the center of a set of revolving currents called the North Pacific Gyre. The middle of the Gyre is more of a meteorological phenomenon than an actual place: a consistent high-pressure zone north of the Hawaiian Islands that, combined with the extremely weak currents, helps keep the ocean surface as placid as lake water.

Flotsam has been sucked into this area from the encircling currents for as long as the Pacific's existed, but up until the last century this process ended with the refuse safely biodegrading and being reabsorbed into the food chain as nutrients. With the advent of plastics, however, the Garbage Patch has transformed from a fertile feeding ground to the oceanic equivalent of a desert. And a particularly crap-strewn desert at that.

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[SoCalDem]

1. I sure do miss George Carlin..

He had a way of crystallizing things:)

[Echo In Light]

2. The tour from which that HBO show came from, Carlin considered his best work

It's also the one he opens up HARSHLY criticizing the first Gulf slaughter, and America being a "war-like" people with extensive masculinity problems.

[Initech]

8. It's also the one where he advocates turning golf courses into homeless shelters.

"Wanna know what we should do with the homeless? Give them their own magazine - Better Crates And Cartons."

"Watching golf is like watching flies fuck!"

[Echo In Light]

10. And when some were angered over his take on golfing, he says....

(paraphrasing) "Now I know some of you will say, 'But we know people who golf, and they're not rich!...FUCK EM! And shame on them for engaging in an elitist pastime."

Yeah, there's PLENTY to really piss off the average American in that one. Easy to see why it was his top pick of his HBO specials.

[liberal N proud]

3. He always had a way of making the stupid funny

[Echo In Light]

4. And re-framing common perceptions so that the brainwashed can see them more clearly

[Soylent Brice]

5. damn. here's a pic:

[Echo In Light]

6. Ugh...good call, tho

[Initech]

7. Carlin's visions like that are almost prophetic in a way.

[KittyWampus]

9. Garbage- the untapped Resource. It could handle a good portion of our Energy needs.