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Climate change is not just real, it’s obvious

Vox has posted this before, but it was updated recently with new clips to bring it to the present. It highlights the partisan shift regarding climate change in American politics, from acknowledging that climate change is real, to Republicans realizing the best (only?) way to actually fight climate change effectively from an economic perspective is a tax on greenhouse gas pollution, which of course would be very unpopular for their base (and the business interests funding their re-election campaigns).

It’s particularly galling to me when you hear the Republican politicians early in the ’16 year’ timeline making points that are good and true about what needs to be done, both with respect to acknowledging the outcomes of scientific research, and to the effects of climate change in general. This is skillfully juxtaposed with clips later in the video where those same people are reversing those previous opinions with industry talking points about the economic impacts of climate change in the coal industry, for example.

It’s very frustrating to see this all play out like this on a linear timeline, because the hypocrisy of politics in general is expertly laid bare by the editor, with no context or narration given other than sound bites. The conclusion this video presents is quite an obvious one to me, and I think I would be hard pressed to find somebody who wouldn’t agree.

It’s politically disastrous for a Republican to support the existence of climate change because it will require a tax increase on businesses in order to actually have an impact in the short term (before non-polluting alternative energy becomes more economically advantageous, which will happen in due course). So those politicians, almost exclusively old white dudes, I note, cling to their voters and the business interests supporting their re-election, rather than taking action to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

We, as humans, are not used to our actions having a global impact, and I think this is why it’s so hard for individual people to accept that something they are doing could ruin the planet and ‘habitat’ of millions of others, but that’s the reality of what’s happening here. Our biology and instincts haven’t caught up with the scale of our civilization, and empathy on a massive scale will be required in order for any real change to come about on this issue.

Climate, and the well-being of all humanity, should not be a partisan bargaining chip, and I just hope we won’t be too late to fix the problems being caused right now when presented with even more obvious symptoms of the problem. It’s worth bearing in mind this adage: “The Earth will survive humanity, but humans may not“.

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Abduction As Romance is Just Weird

I’ve posted about this channel before, as they make a lot of great videos shedding light on some weird, regressive tropes in media, and this one is no exception. Portraying kidnapping situations as ones where two people are equals, and are therefore might lead to romance, has always struck me as a little weird.

There are lots of things you can do in movies or TV where characters can partner up in creative ways, and many don’t require a character to threaten or hold somebody against their will. Enabling female characters to be more than just victims or valuable objects isn’t difficult, but it typically requires a more diverse writing team. With more voices at the table, these kinds of problematic storylines can usually be avoided, and audiences will usually be more interested and invested in what happens if the stories they see make more sense than a victim immediately developing feeling for their captors.

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Stuck in the Past: Projection Woes

Next week, I will be heading to Montreal, where I’ll be giving three different presentations to three different audiences in three different rooms. I’ll be bringing my laptop, my iPad, and my phone with me, any of which has the built-in capability to show a PowerPoint presentation. I’ve given these kinds of presentations before, and I’m not particularly nervous about the content of the talks.

However, there is something about this weekend that is causing me serious bouts of anxiety, and that’s showing the actual presentation. Like I said, I’ll be bringing 3 different computers to the conference, which connect to other display devices via Lightning adapter (iPhone and iPad) or mini DisplayPort (my MacBook Air) to DVI or VGA or even HDMI, or via screen sharing if there was an Apple TV/Chromecast(?) involved.

However, what I *don’t* know is what display technology will be available on the other end, connected to the projector. I am aware that many universities are starting to make sure projectors have connection options for Mac, which means one or more of these options may just be ready and waiting for me. But since I want to actually know at least one of these options WILL be available, does that mean I need to go and buy at least one adapter for VGA/DVI/HDMI just in case any of those is all the projector works with? Should I just buy an Apple TV for the weekend, hook it up, and share my screen to it (again, hoping the projector has an HDMI hookup). The Apple TV method means I’ll also need access to a stable Wi-Fi connection to run the screen share, which isn’t always the case.

I’m very risk averse, but I also like to be prepared for any possibility when it comes to this kind of thing, but it feels like there should be a better way when it comes to giving presentations in an unfamiliar environment. Conferences are a VERY common thing, and it just seems like there’s no good way to do things consistently with so many moving parts.

Side note: don’t even get me started on using a secondary device as a remote to control the presentation. This technology has existed for a decade, but the only software integration that currently exists for PowerPoint is that a presentation on the iPhone can be controlled via the Apple Watch. It just feels like these kinds of things should be further along than they are.