I delivered a keynote address for the Bluegrass Bioneers on Friday, 2 November 2012. With thanks to Ben Evans for the video and also to Justin Mog and Amanda Fuller for hosting my stay in Louisville, the video is embedded below. I speak for about 30 minutes, and it’s extensive Q&A after that.
The presentation embedded here is the subject of considerable writing, most recently here.
______________
An invited essay for the Good Men Project was published yesterday. It’s adapted from earlier work in this space, and it’s here.
My monthly essay for Transition Voice came out 19 November 2012. It’s adapted from prior essays in this space, and it’s here.
______________
I’ve been asked to speak in and around Seattle, and I’m seeking venues for mid- to late-February 2013. If you or anybody you know is interested, please let me know via email at guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com.
November 23rd, 2012 at 8:07 am
Very nice essay in Transition Voice!
John
(Shipping container arrives today. ACK! Making the jump to hyperspace!)
November 23rd, 2012 at 9:37 am
Good stuff Guy.
I spoken with one of the propaganda writers for the local council a couple of days ago and pointed out that by promoting a monster truck extravaganza she was promoting destruction of her own future.
Chris Hedges summed it up stunningly well in ‘The Careerists’ (July 2012). I supplied her with a copy yesterday, plus a copy of the US drought monitor and a copy of the Arctic meltdown.
She and others like her will keep ‘doing it’ till they can’t because that is what she is paid to do. Sadly, the sumbed down masses continue to believe in the empire.
Meanwhile Max Keiser says: “Give America back to the Indians. White people have made a shocking mess of it.”
I’m disengaging from the madness as quickly as I can. Collapse cannot be far away.
The empire will respond to collapse by
November 23rd, 2012 at 9:51 am
Guy McPherson, the anti-Tony-Robbins.
November 23rd, 2012 at 10:26 am
With your essay in T.V., Guy, the wraps are off. NTE is now on the map and on the verge of going viral.
November 23rd, 2012 at 10:27 am
Guy McPherson, the anti-Tony-Robbins
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That’s funny!
November 23rd, 2012 at 11:39 am
quitter
November 23rd, 2012 at 11:48 am
Danielle, apparently you missed this line: “Lest I am misunderstood, I’m not suggesting we quit”
November 23rd, 2012 at 12:16 pm
To Daniel re: his long post in the last thread. This well considered essay is inspiring. You write well, think clearly, and reflect what I’m feeling as well. There are so many thoughts running around now. There are so many people I can’t even talk to about this. But do I care? I’m not sure I do. They’re living their lives, such as they are. I used to try to get people to stop smoking. Not anymore. Sometimes I get giddy with the freedom I feel now. Sometimes I’m weighed down with the gravity of what I know. I can no longer teach nursing. Most patients should die, not use up incredible amounts of fossil fuels to be kept alive. All that should be done is what individual people with simple tools and a stock of opium poppies can do. Death is not bad, suffering is bad. I hope they do me the same favour. I’ve cancelled my mammogram appointment, partly on the basis of the large study done in the U.S., partly because who cares? It’s not a bad way to go. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a lot of deaths, some good, some bad, and I have my own decisions, as do a lot of health professionals I know.
I can’t go to faculty meetings anymore. So petty. So meaningless. I just want to stay home and grow vegetables and help my neighbours shear sheep, milk cows, butcher animals for food, make cheese, have homegrown entertainment, create a gift economy, etc. There are only a few children in the small area where we live out of town, but I have this drive to protect them, to take away their electronic gagets and teach them to eat peas right off the vine and figure out where the deer bed down in the fall. I find myself thinking weird things like, “If Ryan and Marissa manage to grow up, they could marry. Or maybe Krista and Jeff’s son, what was his name again? I don’t know.” Is this what it feels like to be a crone?
Starving to death is also not a bad way to go. It’s silent, painless, and slow. Pneumonia is a very bad way to go.
It’s going to have to get pretty bad for me to off myself, but I’m not ruling it out, either. There are so many people who are going to come to me soon, and say, “You remember a couple of years ago and you were talking to me about climate change? I think I kinda blew you off. Can we go over that again?” I’m a teacher, and I can’t seem to stop being one. I just need a new venue. Not a university.
I expect some young people will be like this:
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2012/11/23/Riot-Kiss-Photo/
and if I were young again, I’d do the same thing.
November 23rd, 2012 at 12:18 pm
To someone who asked where I got the slavery number, it was here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery.html
November 23rd, 2012 at 12:25 pm
This is very interesting to me, I don’t know if others will find it so.
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_ward_on_mass_extinctions.html
This guy takes the fact that we are composed of many more bacterial cells than our own cells, and hypothesizes that these bacterial cells are descendents of cells that went through mass extinctions caused by hydrogen sulfide. In so doing, they developed mechanisms of survival that they retain to this day. The medical implications are explored. This is pretty wild jaw-dropping stuff, but not out of the range of possibility.
Two years later, his co-researcher did another talk. I’ll post it next.
November 23rd, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Mark Roth on suspended animation:
http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_roth_suspended_animation.html
None of this will happen, medically, of course, but it means bacteria might survive!
Yay! DNA wins again!
November 23rd, 2012 at 12:43 pm
PODCAST: NOVEMBER 21, 2012; THANKSGIVING EDITION: FINANCIAL PRESSURES ARE AFFECTING SAFETY DECISIONS AT THE NATIONS NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
Arnie explains that Oyster Creek is the only nuclear plant in the US that lacks a modern High Pressure Safety Injection System. This means that the recently discovered pipe crack in a 3 inch pipe at Oyster Creek would create a serious safety threat if it were to completely break. Arnie also discusses the cost of operating nuclear plants, and how many nuclear plants around the country are no longer a low cost electric producer. Finally, Arnie looks at the three nuclear plants with extended shutdowns (Ft. Calhoun, San Onofre and Crystal River) and concludes that the cost of maintaining large staffs when no electricity is being produced is not in the best interests of the ratepayers.
http://fairewinds.com/content/podcast-november-21-2012-thanksgiving-edition-financial-pressures-are-affecting-safety-decis
November 23rd, 2012 at 1:26 pm
BC Nurse Prof,
Most patients should die, not use up incredible amounts of fossil fuels to be kept alive.
This seems to be a fairly common POV among nurses in the U.S. It’s a logical response to having to deal with the often catastrophic consequences that occur when U.S. patients do not comply with treatment (don’t take their medicines, don’t change their diet, don’t take their medicines, don’t reduce their stress, don’t take their medicines…). The result invariably is that diseases that can now be cost-effectively managed (with low consumption of fossil fuels) are allowed to follow their natural course, leading to catastrophe and the consumption of incredible amount of fossil fuels to keep them alive.
Under the circumstances, it’s understandable why so many nurses, having to take care of such patients, and in the face of such irresponsibility, cease to be compassionate.
November 23rd, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Under the circumstances, it’s understandable why so many nurses, having to take care of such patients, and in the face of such irresponsibility, cease to be compassionate.
It has more to do with the fact that those who lack compassion select for those who lack compassion, and so you get a nursing profession that, with few exceptions, lacks compassion. No doubt the curriculum is designed to weed out compassionate types, as well. Considering, the comment from this nurse is not surprising, but not for the reasons you state. Nice try at providing cover and offering some slack, though.
November 23rd, 2012 at 2:04 pm
after not sending the post I took over an hour to write last night and spending the night half dreaming of Daniel’s reflexion, I was shocked to find the thread cut in the morning. thank you for keeping it alive.
bc nurse says: I’ve seen a lot of deaths, some good, some bad
this is not my case, I have never seen anybody die. But death is all around now and this body that I call «me» is strongly reacting. I use all my capacities to live in distress control mode.
for whatever love is, love you all
November 23rd, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Yet another thing white people like; Ted Talks.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2010/09/08/134-the-ted-conference/
The TED Conference is an invite-only affair that brings together the smartest minds from around the world to share their knowledge and wisdom with the attendees. Additionally all of the talks are made available online and as podcasts so that white people are able to watch or listen to them at work or during their commute.
These talks are like college lectures, except that they are free to listen, shorter, and white people aren’t hung over and pretending to listen.
Due to the broad audience watching the talks, TED speakers generally take very complex ideas and boil them down into a simple engaging presentation. So when a white person finds out that you have a PhD and visits and attempts to engage you in a conversation about String Theory, you should know that all of their understanding comes from a twenty-minute talk they listened to while running on a treadmill. You should also be aware that the average white person considers their knowledge on the subject to be on par or superior to yours.
Sadly, TED Talks are not all roses and NPR approved comedians. For many white people, TED Conferences are actually a source of sadness and depression. This comes from their dreams to attend a future TED Conference in person. But with a price tag of $6000 and an invite-only policy, many white people are simply unable to attend. This is a new concept for white people as they have successfully been creating and joining expensive exclusive clubs for over one thousand years. Popular examples include: private schools, politics, and ice hockey.
November 23rd, 2012 at 2:45 pm
BC nurse you wrote ‘Most patients should die, not use up incredible amounts of fossil fuels to be kept alive. All that should be done is what individual people with simple tools and a stock of opium poppies can do. Death is not bad, suffering is bad.”
This shows how strong your compassion is. Our society’s deep fear of death causes us to keep people living with arms and legs cut off, sometimes in constant pain. This is not compassion, this is inflicting torture to keep the denial alive. I have seen the compassion of family who support a loved one’s refusal of more treatment and entry into Hospice, and I have seen the ones who try to gain more treatment – usually not the primary care giver of the Hospice patient. They interfere from the sidelines and despite all the caring noises they lack the compassion of the caregivers who keep them comfortable and let them go.
I suggest the movie “Whose Life is It?” and again I suggest “The Sea Inside”. In both cases the people involved had to do a serious end run around Doctors and authorities to find release from a life they no longer find worth living. The Sea Inside is based on a true story.
Drs. and nurses don’t ever SAVE a life. No one can SAVE the life of a mortal. They can only extend it. Extending it is sometimes good, sometimes nothing short of torture.
November 23rd, 2012 at 4:52 pm
At this particular time a dear old (early 90′s) in-law and a relatively younger (57) cousin are both starving themselves to death. The old guy can’t use his legs any more and is in a wonderful nursing home (only entered <6 mo ago) with his wife (same age, she's lost her short term memory but is very pleasant and happy). He has no appetite any more and sleeps alot. My cousin has been fighting a hyper-reactivity disease for the past 30 years (it's to the point now where he can't even take medication – it just makes things worse) and is just worn out and doesn't want to fight it any more so he's stopped eating.
He and i had a good talk over the phone about "what's going on" and i'm of the frame of mind that this is the choice many of us will face soon. When the quality of life evaporates and it becomes raw survival, a LOT of people won't stick around or will be preyed upon.
i've been a "doomer" from about college (grad in '71) on. i read Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson, Camus and McCarthy, and came upon Guy here about a year or so ago. i've watched the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and all the others just get swept aside by the powers that be so they can continue to ride the gravy train. Corruption is so rampant now that even the FDA and the EPA are corporate arms. Yeah, i've known it was a losing cause for a long time, though i keep trying (i'm still real active in the anti-fracking thing going on here in PA). i know we're on our way out but there's nothing else to do but keep fightin' for the truth no matter how it ends.
Thanks for all of your links, comments and discussions. This is a haven from the insanity that is "civilization."
Guy – keep up the good work, i think people are starting to "get it" though it's far too late. Maybe we can just get the nuclear stations shut down and dismantled before it all goes south, but probably not; i think the collapse will just "happen" someday and it will be all be downhill (and rapidly) from there.
November 23rd, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Danielle,
You have a good point. There is indeed something about the U.S. medical system that selects against compassion in nursing. Now combine that with the appallingly low rate of treatment compliance of U.S. patients (on average 50% do not comply, and for many specific diseases, non-compliance is much higher), and you’re dealing with a real toxic brew. I’ve talked to a number of R.N.’s, and there is great frustration within nursing staffs about this. No doubt a big reason why is because they see the consequences of non-compliance up close, how it destroys not only the patients themselves, but everyone they’re connected to. No other country is like the U.S., in this regard. “Death is not bad, suffering is bad”. Indeed. All the more so when the suffering was avoidable.
So the nurses may start out “undercompassionate”, as you say. But to be frank, the behavior of U.S. patients provides very little incentive for them to be compassionate, either. And so everything spirals down into the sewer, where we all can be “as nasty as we wanna be”.
So when a nurse says “Most patients should die, not use up incredible amounts of fossil fuels to be kept alive”, I look at Americans and say “I get it”.
Straight ahead, BC Nurse Prof. Straight ahead.
Word.
November 23rd, 2012 at 8:27 pm
TROLL ALERT!!!!!
I suspect NBL’s resident obscurantist Morocco Bama, is now posting under a series of other names.
Possible candidates: Vibhu, Maggie, a punctuation mark, Ed, stealing others identity and now Danielle…….etc.
His latest whack-a-mole identity, can be found in his response to BC Nurse’s deeply compelling post:
“Considering, the comment from this nurse is not surprising, but not for the reasons you state. Nice try at providing cover and offering some slack, though”.
While it’s impossible for other contributors–especially new ones–to know exactly, it’s fairly easy to discern who he is, given we’re obviously dealing with a person who is suffering from some form of compulsive disorder. As well, it’s nearly impossible for him to mask his contempt of most everyone here, and refrain from petty name calling. Sadly, he’s probably not going away anytime soon, and like a bad case of herpes that regularly flairs up, we just have to live with it.
November 23rd, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Arthur Johnson, There is indeed something about the U.S. medical system that selects against compassion in nursing.
I know quite a few nurses who are very compassionate. However, I also know quite a few who aren’t. I think the disconnect comes from the fallacious idea that somehow nursing is a “calling”. It’s possible that it was at one time in the distant past, but for most nurses I know, it’s a job. That’s all. They needed to do something to earn a living in this unnatural world in which we live, and they found it somewhat interesting, so, “why not?”
As for patient compliance, it’s something which most health care providers find frustrating. When a patient comes to see me and seeks my advice and treatment, agrees that what I offer is the right plan for them, and then doesn’t follow it, it can be frustrating, maddening, and even demoralizing.
The one regimen that I’ve found almost 100% compliance with is pain meds and benzodiazepines (xanax, valium, etc.).
Tony Robbins was mentioned above; one of his earlier books discusses pain and pleasure as motivator for human behavior.
Pain: bad. Pleasure: good. Controlling blood pressure: huh?
November 23rd, 2012 at 9:26 pm
TRDH: “I know quite a few nurses who are very compassionate. However, I also know quite a few who aren’t. I think the disconnect comes from the fallacious idea that somehow nursing is a “calling”. It’s possible that it was at one time in the distant past, but for most nurses I know, it’s a job. That’s all. They needed to do something to earn a living in this unnatural world in which we live, and they found it somewhat interesting, so, “why not?”
You have surprised me. This same description could apply equally well, if not more so, to many doctors I know and have worked with. I hope you are not implying this only applies to nurses.
November 24th, 2012 at 2:21 am
Appears to me that Guy has lightened up a bit, as if he did indeed “let go”. I’m comparing the recent talk, above, to one he did nearly a year ago:
http://goodmenproject.com/social-justice-2/social-justice-walking-away-from-empire/
November 24th, 2012 at 3:11 am
Daniel, have you considered that some of the false names or hijacking of names might be Ivy Mike? They could both be playing the same game.
November 24th, 2012 at 3:12 am
@Daniel
Yes.
November 24th, 2012 at 3:18 am
Tom, when I started volunteering at Hospice they told us that when a cancer patient stops eating it makes the pain less. I don’t know if this is true but possibly for any end of life patient to stop eating feels better. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have chosen this way to hasten the end, it may just be that food no longer appeals.
Another option for end of life patients is in the book Final Exit – http://www.finalexit.org/ Since only a few states and countries will allow doctors to provide the mercy of speed at the end, the book offers some do it yourself methods.
November 24th, 2012 at 4:42 am
I came across this article on the BBC News Site, I live in the UK so apologies if the link doesn’t work for those abroad.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-20463857
A man is taken to court for “recklessly producing household electricity”
Apparently fed up of supporting major polluters to continue with paradigm lifestyle he took it on himself to rig up a generator to generate his own electricity.
“The charge alleges Mr McKenzie “culpably and recklessly” produced electricity “with total disregard for the safety of yourself and others”.”
If this case proceeds perhaps we could in turn state that this is what major power companies do on a wholesale scale to our planet. Not seriously as we know what the denial response would be, but still it made me smile.
November 24th, 2012 at 5:09 am
Guy,
Great presentation in Louisville. Good to see that McPherson sense of humor is alive and well. So much material. So little time.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:10 am
Regarding hijacking of names, I tend to fall for this garbage, being naive as I am. But down here on the farm if we have something that doesn’t work, we fix it…ourselves…before breakfast…today. I have been an agrarian anacharist for 50 years. That’s how we get things done. Hint, hint.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:44 am
Thanks Kathy.
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/
Does Humanity Have A Death Wish?
November 24th, 2012 at 7:57 am
@Judy: sorry. I should have included doctors in that number. In fact I’ll go further and say that I know of only a handful of doctors who view medicine as a calling and none who would do it for free, myself included.
Mind you, I have no problem providing care in exchange for a chicken or or something similar and will likely provide all sorts of free care at some point when fiat money no longer has value but in the meantime I have almost a half million dollars in debt to pay. Banks won’t take chickens or goats milk oddly enough. Even if I didn’t have debt, in order for me to keep a license I have to spend roughly $20,000 a year just for the privilege.
November 24th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Btw. When i post from my phone I don’t include a website and my IP address is different. So to prove I’m who I say I am, I think Kathy C is dead on with pretty much everything she posts. (I feel certain neither of our recents trolls could ever bring themselves to post that
November 24th, 2012 at 8:04 am
Interesting blog post, Tom. Reminded me of what BC Nurse Prof said in the last thread OK, so let me get this straight. There were groups of people living in this area, growing some corn and eating deer and greens and roots, etc. and working maybe a few hours each day. Keeping the underbrush cleared out with fire. They were taller, healthier, and stronger than the settlers (See “1491″ by Thomas C. Mann) but they had no iron. So the pioneers lived a brutal life trying to re-create the life they left in Europe? They laboriously smelted iron and cast pots and pans and made rifles. Millions of acres of chestnut and oak were burned into charcoal to melt iron ore “They ain’t none o’ them left now.”
When we try to understand what’s going on, it’s easy to think of the devilish capitalist Ickean Reptiloids with glowing red eyes, cloaked in human skins, but, like Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil, it’s arguable that the greater evil results from millions of dull, boring, ordinary individuals doing stuff like buying soap, which means whole countries get stripped of rain forest and biota, to grow monoculture industrial palm oil…
There is a reason why we are not living as palaeolithic hunter gatherers using flint spears… well, there’s several reasons, but one reason is that once someone found out how to make a copper tool, and then a bronze tool, and then an iron tool… the advantages are obvious, they work better, they stay sharper longer, don’t break so easily, as tools for cutting wood, and weapons for hunting animals, but even more crucially, as weapons for fighting your enemies.
It’s no good pretending we are all nice, sweet goodie-goodies, we’ve been killing large animals violently for eons and we’ve been killing other humans violently for eons. Earliest indisputable record off the top of my head at least 20,000 BC.
I’m not saying that the onlyreason a new technology gets adopted is because it is an improvement on an earlier version, or because it makes life easier. Sometimes it might just be because it confers status it prestige.
“Perhaps even more so then the native men, the Indian women welcomed the introduction of European technology. Items such as kettles, knives, awls and woolen and cotton fabrics greatly eased the domestic burdens of the women.”
http://www.mman.us/women.htm
As in Tom’s link, how does soceity, in it’s own interests ( so as not to become extinct ) legislate against destruction of the biosphere by the pursuit of human desire ?
I mean, there’s a lot of green fantasists, including some here, who believe we can ‘transition to sustainability’, but look at what the all the copper that the windmills and the photovoltaics and the smart grids and the electric cars and bicycles, etc, need, ( see last two comments on previous thread ). If people want iPads and iPhones, and microphones like Guy is holding in the lecture… I read somewhere that 1% of world energy use is now consumed by the internet, mostly by Google and Youtube, and it’s growing…
We can’t stop people doing stuff like selling girls as sex slaves, or rhino horn, or heroin, or child porn, or hundreds of other things that almost everyone agrees are undesirable… what chance of stopping the next generation of ‘must have’ consumer gadgets, even if it means another few million people die in the wars over minerals in the Congo ? I mean, even after Chernobyl and Fukushima, still no consensus on nuclear power, still no solution for the nuclear waste…
The only way, *theoretically*, as I see it, would be an absolutely ruthless global totalitarian eco-fascism of the Pol Pot type. Nobody is going to agree to that willingly, either…
November 24th, 2012 at 8:22 am
Here we go again. This weekend, as in every year for the past 18, thousands of negotiators, lobbyists, activists, journalists and assorted hangers-on are converging on a cavernous conference centre to haggle over one of the most complex, frustrating and urgent tasks of our times – the prevention of catastrophic climate change.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9699001/Doha-the-world-holds-its-breath-before-climate-change-summit.html
November 24th, 2012 at 9:49 am
An interesting observation. I’ve yet to see ANY of the familiar names here at other notable sites that deal with similar topical themes. That’s highly unlikely UNLESS of course some of the familiar names here are posting at those sites under different names. For example I haven’t noticed the name “Daniel” at CLUSTER FUCK NATION or at THE ARCHDRUID REPORT. Same goes for this “ulvfugl” character who claims to be a fan of JOHN MICHAEL GREER. Who is “Daniel” REALLY? I believe it’s time to include NATURE BATS LAST in the debate that’s ONGOING in the comments section of these other sites. In the name of BALANCE of course.
November 24th, 2012 at 10:24 am
I have been in a yahoo group for 9 years and I as well as others link to Kunstler, Greer, Orlov, Automaitc Earth, and many more if they appear interesting but I have never posted a comment to any of them…I don’t have the time to get involved. Just reading is all I can handle. I recently started to post here because this seems to be where “the meat is”. And it was falling apart. Let’s fix it. I’m a fix-it kind of person. I say trash WordPress. There are better ways to handle a group.
November 24th, 2012 at 10:33 am
Climate Change Evident Across Europe
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121123092138.htm
November 24th, 2012 at 11:00 am
dairymandave I’m a fix-it kind of person. I say trash WordPress. There are better ways to handle a group.
Go ahead. Set one up. Why not ?
November 24th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Ulvfugl makes an interesting point:
“The only way, *theoretically*, as I see it, would be an absolutely ruthless global totalitarian eco-fascism of the Pol Pot type. Nobody is going to agree to that willingly, either…”
We tend to interpret the human crisis in moral terms. “If only we had been more compassionate and more democratic, the uber capitalists would not have destroyed the biosphere.”
The fact is that animals expand their populations whenever there are ample food supplies and low predation. This seems to be the propensity of life itself. Nietzsche believed that life is “will to power,” a force that incessantly seeks to dominate and expand:
“[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body… will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant — not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power… ‘Exploitation’… belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.”
Beyond Good and Evil.
If that ends up being the case, then the only way of restraining a species’ will to power so that it doesn’t destroy itself would be an Anti-Christ, a Kalki Avatar, who will brutally depopulate the planet and install a totalitarian system of control for the remaining population and force upon them an austere standard of living. Perhaps what is needed is less democracy, more control, more death and devastation of human societies and greater misery? It seems that if a global version of Mao/Hitler/Stalin does not arrive, we are headed to death, horror and extinction anyway.
I’m not advocating totalitarianism, I’m just pointing out that the belief in a democratic kingdom of justice might be an ecocidal fantasy.
November 24th, 2012 at 11:19 am
ulvfugl, In the real world, the way it was for 99.99999% of the time since life started, (before oil) energy was diffuse and hard to get. Why didn’t human population grow exponentially during the first 200,000 years? War, famine, and disease kept it down to steady level. Getting the energy we need to survive on was a challenge. Didn’t need any “legislation”. I am one who thinks we naturally evolved to “get as much as we can”, maximize our EROEI, because those who didn’t, didn’t reproduce. Now, with all the abundance of everything, we can’t help ourselves to stop wanting to get “more”. Some of us understand this and can overcome it or substitute something else like getting knowlege. Overall, we as a species won’t stop “getting” until we can’t.
November 24th, 2012 at 11:22 am
ulvfugl, I’m not qualified to do that.
November 24th, 2012 at 11:26 am
d l, Getting rid of the oil would have done it. Trouble is, all the oil is now up in the air.
November 24th, 2012 at 11:55 am
depressive lucidity It seems that if a global version of Mao/Hitler/Stalin does not arrive, we are headed to death, horror and extinction anyway.
I’m not advocating totalitarianism, I’m just pointing out that the belief in a democratic kingdom of justice might be an ecocidal fantasy.
Yeah, I’m not advocating anything… just mulling it over… the Pol Pot 2 would have to be super-wise to know what was ecologically sustainable…
There’s so many lenses to look through, historical, biological, political, sociological, technological, etc, and whichever lens, seems to me the picture looks the same… yeah, they’ll probably try extreme total control as a last desperate resort, but we still get the horror and extinction anyway, if only because of natural aversion and resistance to dystopia…
Walmart Black Friday…
http://youtu.be/8O6IMYSSs7c
November 24th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12821-elites-will-make-gazans-of-us-all
Yeah, it’s become obvious, even if you weren’t paying attention before,
that the system is already beginning to collapse in on itself. The failing food chain, vanishing water and arable land, dying ocean and dwindling rainforests, thawing permafrost and melting poles and glaciers all indicate we’re on our way out within years. My grandson, aged 14 told me that he thinks we’re all gonna die before he gets as old as me.
If the elite see this coming, and want to capitalize or enable some kind of imagined “advantage” for themselves (so they can live a bit longer than most), they’d surely engineer it into being, since they have the resources, and by sacrificing all of us so that they go last.
Well, i believe we’re watching this unfold daily.
November 24th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
@ Ulvfugl and Depressive lucidly
Even the suggestion of Totalitarianism (or eco-authoritarianism), I believe is what brought so much heat down on Lovelock when he just barely hinted at such a possible future in his book Revenge of Gaia, where democracy may not be up for the task of mitigating against the worst threats of Climate Change. This of course echoed what the Right has been accusing the left of all along. So he had to be thrown under the bus. But none that really explains why Lovelock would recently redact his earlier claims, and use the very language of the Right in doing so: “I was an alarmist……”?????????
Anyone have any insight as to what the hell happened to Lovelock?
November 24th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
In the real world, the way it was for 99.99999% of the time since life started, (before oil) energy was diffuse and hard to get. Why didn’t human population grow exponentially during the first 200,000 years? War, famine, and disease kept it down to steady level. Getting the energy we need to survive on was a challenge. Didn’t need any “legislation”. I am one who thinks we naturally evolved to “get as much as we can”, maximize our EROEI, because those who didn’t, didn’t reproduce. Now, with all the abundance of everything, we can’t help ourselves to stop wanting to get “more”. Some of us understand this and can overcome it or substitute something else like getting knowlege. Overall, we as a species won’t stop “getting” until we can’t.
I think most of that timeline was hunting and gathering, and the population was mostly constrained by infant mortality. I’m sure anthropologists will correct me if that’s mistaken.
The wars, famine and disease don’t start until cities and agriculture, which is, relatively, very recent.
It’s difficult to tell how much of the ‘wanting more’ is inherent, and how much is trained into us by the culture.
Obviously there are some very placid individuals who are very happy and content with a simple existence, whilst others have burning ambition to build an empire…
During the Thatcher era I attended a business start up course which was intended to make such placid individuals become dynamic, competitive and greedy, partly by ridding them of any scruples they might have had about exploiting and ripping off other people, the general idea being to make UK PLC more competitive globally…
November 24th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
IMO, Lovelock has become very old, and mentally very cranky. Last I heard he is living in USA and is now in favour of fracking. I think it is sad, but he should not be taken seriously any more.
November 24th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Dr House thank you so much. It is an honor to be hated by hateful people. If they thought I was just hunky dory, then I would have to sit down and figure out where I went wrong.
November 24th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
After writing that I think some might misunderstand. It references Dr. House’s post that he is proving he is who he says he is by saying “So to prove I’m who I say I am, I think Kathy C is dead on with pretty much everything she posts. (I feel certain neither of our recents trolls could ever bring themselves to post that)” To be objectionable to the trolls is IMO a compliment.
November 24th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
@ dairymandave
You stated: “…as others link to Kunstler, Greer, Orlov, Automaitc Earth, and many more if they appear interesting but I have never posted a comment to any of them…I don’t have the time to get involved. Just reading is all I can handle. I recently started to post here because this seems to be where “the meat is……”
+ 1
BTW….Asoka, most likely another of their troll names. I think you may have missed out on just how insidious a few contributors originally operating under the name(s) Ivy Mike and Morocco Bama were/are (never quite sure if even they weren’t the same person). Regardless of whatever name they use, it’s fairly easy to identify them, given their demeanor always resorts to juvenile person attacks. IMO, a safe way to avoid them, is to only respond to those whose sincerity is easy to discern. What they can’t understand, is that no one here, “wants” to be thinking about NTE, who in their right mind, would ever “want” to be having these conversations?
November 24th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Kathy C, To be objectionable to the trolls is IMO a compliment.
Yes, my point exactly.
November 24th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Daniel, this behavior never happened on the Yahoo format. Threads are easy to follow, too. I don’t know the answer but I don’t want the burden of fighting this crap. Is there nothing that works well anymore?
November 24th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Could say that this person, J. Phipps, is the spokesperson for US ag.
http://johnwphipps.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-i-think-corn-yields.html
I try to report the farm view.
November 24th, 2012 at 1:12 pm
I agree that if we had not discovered hydro-carbons we would not be in this mess at this point in time. But as Ulvfugl noted, the wars of civilization started after the establishment of agriculture; so urban humanity was already in an expansionist, imperialist mode long before it was supercharged by the addition of black oily magick.
It was inevitable that we would eventually develop carbon based fuels once we reached the stage of civilization and material expansion became our number one priority.
My larger point was that existence costs. We have to kill other life forms in order to sustain our own. When a life form reaches a certain critical mass that allows it to dominate a large number of other life forms, it always expands. Humans have followed this trajectory; it just took us nearly 200 thousand years before we were able to harness congealed ancient solar energy. Like a crack addict with an endless supply of crack, we predictably destroyed ourselves (along with much of the biosphere).
I think that the primativists are stuck in an infantile fantasy of returning to the precivilizational state of nature (i.e. mommy’s warm, cozy womb). Even if that were possible, the planet is too depleted and damaged to sustain 99% of the population on the basis of hunting and gathering. There is not much left to hunt, or gather … especially when you consider that the very severe effects of climate change are going to hit even if industrial civilization were to disappear tomorrow.
Now it seems pretty clear that we are headed towards an Orwellian control society before we reach collapse. I think Chris Hedges got it right in his most recent article in which he claimed that one day (in the not too distant future) the elites and their private armies will make Gazans out of all of us.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/elites_will_make_gazans_of_us_all_20121119/
The question I’m struggling with is whether our extinction undermines our moral aspirations. Conceivably, an evil society that restrained population growth and the use of hydrocarbons would not be facing NTE.
November 24th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
@ Kathy C.
You asked a ways back: “why would facing the extinction of humans be any more traumatic than facing your own personal death. Once you are dead you will not know if others live on…….”.
I had to think on this for awhile. But I don’t think I would frame the question that way. For starters, it’s not my own personal death I find traumatic, I have long accepted my complete and utter insignificance, and actually find it rather comforting. In fact, as NTE runs its course, I find myself daydreaming ever more about Thelma and Louise. But that’s still down the road…..
Color me a misanthrope, but my approach to the meaning of life, has never been all that anthropocentric. It’s the loss of all other life that saddens me beyond despair. The fact that aside from all our individual beauty, integrity and genius, that there is no such thing as “collective wisdom”. The concept of “we” from a planetary scale, is but another useful myth to engender ourselves to some greater purpose, even a secular one. We’re just a conglomeration of individuals clamoring over each other in pursuit of our own immediate needs. I consider the foundation of our demise to be little more than “the tyranny of our immediate needs”. Civilization (Homo-colossus) has been an evolutionary dead end for millennia, we’re just the unfortunate blokes who get to experience it.
But back to what I am finding to be difficult(traumatic), is how best to live out the rest of my life, in the face of my own culpability of being a white American male, who has already taken far more than my share.
I’m also a diehard empiricist, as well as an atheist with an immovable ethical imperative, which translates into me being incredibly motivated by guilt.
I have been a radical environmentalist for the last 24 years. Similar to Guy, every year of my entire adult life, I have in stunned disbelief, watched the world move ever closer to where we are now, even while always knowing–at least to some degree–that our fate was inevitable. This has been my hypocrisy, grappling with a ethical imperative, while never having any faith in it.
November 24th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Depressive lucidly….perfectly stated!
November 24th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Changes in our reality
Cause changes in our mentality;
Jungle law is restored
When we cannot afford
The luxury of morality.
November 24th, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Tom’s link to the Chris hedges web piece on making Gazanz of us all is deply moving to me.
Here is the final parragraph:
“As the U.S. empire implodes, the harsher forms of violence employed on the outer reaches of empire are steadily migrating back to the homeland. At the same time, the internal systems of democratic governance have calcified. Centralized authority has devolved into the hands of an executive branch that slavishly serves global corporate interests. The press and the government’s judiciary and legislative branches have become toothless and decorative. The specter of terrorism, as in Israel, is used by the state to divert gargantuan expenditures to homeland security, the military and internal surveillance. Privacy is abolished. Dissent is treason. The military with its mantra of blind obedience and force characterizes the dark ethic of the wider culture. Beauty and truth are abolished. Culture is degraded into kitsch. The emotional and intellectual life of the citizenry is ravaged by spectacle, the tawdry and salacious, as well as by handfuls of painkillers and narcotics. Blind ambition, a lust for power and a grotesque personal vanity—exemplified by David Petraeus and his former mistress—are the engines of advancement. The concept of the common good is no longer part of the lexicon of power. This, as the novelist J.M. Coetzee writes, is “the black flower of civilization.” It is Rome under Diocletian. It is us. Empires, in the end, decay into despotic, murderous and corrupt regimes that finally consume themselves. And we, like Israel, are now coughing up blood.”
That guy can write!
The imagery reminds me of the recent movie “Children of Men”, and the way people are hoared into neverland camps , waiting for a chance to have a new life, but it never comes.
‘Children Of Men-Trailer’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikEQy1XxDE
The scene where the baby is carried through a destroyed building , which silences the gunfire, is reminiscent of the infuence a true holy man/woman has on fear. After thier passing, the violence resumes, however.
November 24th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Daniel, it’s even worse than you say. We clamor over others for WANTS, not even needs.
So many other threads of thought. One I wanted to respond to was about compassion in the nursing and doctoring professions. I’m not either one, but I’ve been in the hospital for operations and I’ll take a nurse over a doctor any day of the week. I’ve had terrific nurses. Good doctors, but not what I’d call compassionate.
I’ve seen Asoka on Kunstler’s blog and he’s a troll. One reason why I’ve never posted there. Orlov doesn’t seem to have the same problem.
November 24th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Daniel, I hear you. I too deal with guilt but less so over time. I don’t mourn even the loss of everything else so much anymore. After all out there in the lovely natural world, baby bunnies are being torn apart by foxes. One day a hawk got one of our chickens, we chased him off and picked up the dead chicken he had been eating only to find her still alive. From some perspectives the lovely natural world looks more like tooth and claw and blood and agony.
How to live the rest of our lives – much easier to answer for those of us who are older – we see our mortality statistics and have already had to work on that question. I plan to garden and raise chickens until I can’t.
November 24th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
That reminded me; along with war, famine and disease, there was predation during those early years. I don’t think child birth problems are significant. I don’t see that as a problem with other animals. Doing all these C-sections is a new thing.
November 24th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
David, there was predation…I don’t think child birth problems are significant. I don’t see that as a problem with other animals.
Infant mortality is not just child birth. Humans have large heads, causes problems, but after that, they have to live maybe 15 years before they can reproduce. Any of those years they can die from disease organisms. I think the fossil records show that if they survived to adulthood, they’d likely live to mature old age. But I’m sure this has been researched in detail somewhere. Don’t have time to look for it this moment.
I don’t think predation was very significant. Those guys had bows and arrows, spears, and fire. That’s sufficient protection.
November 24th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
depressive lucidity I think that the primativists are stuck in an infantile fantasy of returning to the precivilizational state of nature…
Don’t think it is/was quite that simple. Green anarchy/anarchism/anarcho-primitivism was partially a didactic device in the culture wars, to counter ‘the myth of eternal progress’ and educate people about our origins.
I agree, as a practical agenda, its not very practical, but at the start, it was an unbounded space for ideas, for thinking around the human condition…
…The kind of world envisaged by anarcho-primitivism is one unprecedented in human experience in terms of the degree and types of freedom anticipated … so there can’t be any limits on the forms of resistance and insurgency that might develop. The kind of vast transformations envisaged will need all kinds of innovative thought and activity….
http://www.primitivism.com/primer.htm
November 24th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
ulvfugl, thanks for the clarification re: primitivism.
I get your point that it was a philosophical weapon of resistance to capitalism which has been driven by an ideology of endless progress. Although his project is hopeless, I have always enjoyed reading Derek Jensen … particularly because of his cynical misanthropy.
Unfortunately, on this little blue planet unless one has the guns and the memes to move the masses, structural social change remains a pipe dream. Primitivism never stood a chance to win the hearts and minds of the suburban ignoranti because they only respond to noises like “bigger,” “better” and “we’re number one”. After collapse and on the way to NTE, who is going to have time for philosophical movements?
November 24th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Re: these comments from 2 or 3 posts back (how DO you italicize the quotes?)
“David, there was predation…I don’t think child birth problems are significant. I don’t see that as a problem with other animals.
Infant mortality is not just child birth. Humans have large heads, causes problems, but after that, they have to live maybe 15 years before they can reproduce. Any of those years they can die from disease organisms. I think the fossil records show that if they survived to adulthood, they’d likely live to mature old age. But I’m sure this has been researched in detail somewhere. Don’t have time to look for it this moment.
I don’t think predation was very significant. Those guys had bows and arrows, spears, and fire. That’s sufficient protection.”
My understanding is Homo sapiens has the highest infant and maternal morbidity and mortality rates of ALL primates … because of the large head and the need to minimize the female pelvis so she can still walk, we are born as still embryos making us very vulnerable for several years, as stated.
Regarding predation, 2.5 million years ago late Australopithicines and early Homo hablis were cat food. Fossil record shows tooth and claw striations on many bones. Out on the flat savanna we were Tasty Treats to the roaming cats. At least several hundred (or more) people each year are killed by tigers in India and Asia. Don’t forget the predation of Homo on other Homo – at least 500,000 murders each year worldwide. Predation was a problem and will be again.
Predation, in the form of the packs of domestic dogs which have formed and which will eat you I figure will be one of the biggest problems facing post-collapse survivors. I suggest arming yourself with a small caliber carbine (.22LR or .223) with large magazines if for no other reason than to protect yourself from being torn to pieces by dogs … and you can eat the ones you shoot, too.
Bows and arrows and spears and fire and language all appeared relatively late in the history of genus Homo from .25 million years ago to 60,000 years ago leaving at least two million years for us to be food for many different types of predators.
We are so divorced from death, reality, conflict, suffering, nature, predator/prey relations, and all the other stuff our self-domestication has protected us from that even our collapse scenarios are pollyanna-ish (or should that be Pollyanna-like?)
Try this one … and it is a hard one, a real thought experiment:
UNIMAGINABLE HORROR AND DEGRADATION.
That is part of a prophecy regarding the end times (Kali Yug) in the Puranas. It is one of my favourite turns of phrase. And I think it sums up the future handily in only four words. All you have to do is imagine the unimaginable … in the form of horror and degradation.
For a generation raised on fairy tales and too much techno-magic, this is a tough one. Especially when most of us do not know the purpose of Life – at least one of the two – is to reduce the thermodynamic gradient which means taking complexity and turning it into excrement. Which is what we are doing to the planet … on a planetary scale. Life doing what Life does, except running out of control like a cancer or a virus.
November 24th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
By the way, as much as I respect Chris Hedges, I think he is giving TPTB far too much credit that they can make Gazans of 5 or 6 or 7 billion people. When the REAL shit hits the fan, they will be running in circles panicing and worrying about themselves and their families. Desertion will be rampant (suicide is a form of desertion in the US Army already) and ALL systems will collapse including systems of repressive authoritarianism. I’m not saying it will be pretty – thousands will be slaughtered – but just like everything else humans have created, mass oppression will not be sustainable either.
November 24th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Not really disagreeing with you, Madmanintheattic, but dairymandave’s original timeline was 200,000 years….
Earliest fire 800,000 ? Earliest spears 400,000 ?
Yeah… the packs of feral dogs. Back to sleeping in trees. And then the ammo runs out…
Nasty
November 24th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/htmlitalic.php
November 24th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
madman “how DO you italicize the quotes?”
In front of the text you want italicized you put a
At the end of the text you want italicized you put a
NO spaces between the characters. To bold you substitute a B for the I.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:04 pm
ulvfugl you must have posted while I was tediously writing out my answer
November 24th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
I already learned that lesson the hard way once before Kathy
November 24th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
I’ve been looking for hominid mortality stuff, seems surprisingly difficult to find anything respectable, found plenty about life in the Garden of Eden, hahaha…
How about this…
If high mortality, warfare, homicide, and accidental trauma are typical of our Paleolithic ancestors, the Hiwi mortality patterns may be more representative of the past than those derived from other modern hunter-gatherers. If so, several observations about the Hiwi are important. First, conspecific violence was a prominent part of the demographic profile, accounting for many deaths in all age and sex categories. Most of the adult killings were due to either competition over women, reprisals by jealous husbands (on both their wives and their wives’ lovers), or reprisals for past killings. The criollo-caused killings were motivated by territorial conquest. Moreover, infanticide (especially on females) constituted the highest mortality rate component of all Hiwi conspecific violence. Second, no predation deaths were reported despite attacks by anacondas, Orinoco caimans, and piranhas, and the presence of jaguars in the area. Accidents associated with the active-forager lifestyle were common, but disease was a more important killer, accounting for nearly half of all deaths. This suggests an adaptive landscape in which success in social relations, competitive violence, and disease resistance are paramount. This may partially explain why many of the genes that appear to have been under strong selection in the past 50,000 years affect either disease resistance or cognitive function (Wang et al., 2006), presumably related to success in an atmosphere of frequent violent social competition (Hill et al. 2007:451).
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/aging_evolution/hill_2007_hiwi_mortality.html
November 24th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
I think the mortality rates in indigenous hunter/gatherer communities speak to the fantasy that collapse will bring us a purer, truer, clearer humanity and a golden age will rise from the ashes spontaneously, etc. This new-age fantasy theme does not appear here but it is the major theme of Carolyn Baker’s blog. That humans are somehow inately good and the only problem is the system we created and if the system comes down, everything will be sunshine, lollipops, rainbows once again is a nice panacea and a reassuring fantasy but consider this:
At the height of the murder boom in New York city the murder rate was about 8 per hundred thousand. However anthropological data I have seen says the murder rate in current hunter/gatherer societies (and, by extrapolation and some fossil evidence, past ones too) ranges around 50 to 90 per hundred thousand (I can find this reference but it will take some time – if any one wants it, please ask and be patient). We are not the peaceful, harmonious, ecological ape we appear to be in fairy tales. And most certainly the survivors suffering from traumatic stress will not be up to the task of creating a utopia as the struggle to survive on a wasted planet of weeds and toxins. (Stepen Pinker says the 20th century was the most peaceful and least violent of any time in recorded history)
I still think the best alternative to saving the biosphere whilst dealing with the problem of Homo sapiens is nuclear war but that has been shouted down here too many times for me to bother defending and explaining why and how it would work.
November 24th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Been reading Hedges since his amazing book: War Is The Force That Gives Us Meaning. It’s interesting to watch his evolution in regards to collapse. He seems to be moving ever more towards Guy’s perspective, but he is still putting all his eggs in civil disobedience, while willfully overlooking the glaring fact that very few Americans even remotely give a shit. He has a far larger base and platform than most radicals, but he also has a litter of little ones, so who knows how far he can allow himself to plumb the rabbit hole. But I agree, he’s an incredibly honest and unflinching author, and his background as a wartime correspondent is incomparable. He epitomizes the meaning of moral imperative IMO. For anyone not familiar with his weekly postings on Truthdig here is the link to his archived essays.
http://www.truthdig.com/tag/chris+hedges/
November 24th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
@ Ulvfugl
You had posted on the last thread: “There’s no need to call upon your ending to arrive sooner, death is inevitable, it’ll arrive when the time is right. Savour the precious moment that will never return, fill it with bliss, the exquisite pleasure of the clock ticking, power, magic, beauty, the whole Universe is yours, is YOU, just for a brief time, so you can know, and be grateful, because you saw something, not nothing… Let ego die now. There it is. All around you. You can’t avoid it. You are everything.”
Never got around to thanking you for your response. Seems you are a rare bird who has found a way to be mired in the triviality of the mundane, yet have achieved an amazing degree of clarity and presence. I very much appreciate this dichotomy and your contributions to this otherwise deplorable dilemma. Thanks for taking the time to share your perspective. All the best, D.
November 24th, 2012 at 7:27 pm
@The REAL Dr House Says:
November 24th, 2012 at 7:57 am
Thank you for clarifying, TRDH. As for providing care for free or trade, what I’ve gleaned from your postings over the last couple of years tells me that you are not about money; you want to help people. The reality, of course, is that we all have those pesky bills to pay, whether we are doctors, nurses, farmers, wage slaves, etc. The other reality is that we have to accept those things we cannot change, which, I think, is why some think that nurses and doctors have no compassion. Some don’t, but I know many who do, so I don’t subscribe to the no-compassion model. I do understand, however, that there comes a point of acceptance (as I mentioned above) which could be perceived as lack of compassion.
Again, thank you for clarifying.
November 24th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
@Kathy C, I watched the movie “The Sea Within” last night on your recommendation, and it sent me on an emotional roller coaster. A couple of years ago, a dear friend of mine committed suicide because he had cancer which he refused to treat. He used to post here.
Many years before that, my ex-sister-in-law attempted suicide after she was left paralyzed in an auto accident. Until now (after watching the movie), I did not understand her wish to die. I’ve been able to put myself in many shoes, but I did not put myself in hers…until now. However, I’ve always thought that we have the right to do with ourselves as we wish. It is a personal decision, and no one else has the right to limit our choices. Period.
November 24th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
@ Madmanintheattic I think the mortality rates in indigenous hunter/gatherer communities speak to the fantasy that collapse will bring us a purer, truer, clearer humanity… etc
I thought we were discussing what limited the palaeolithic population… but yes, ‘what was’ is not necessarily much of a guide as to ‘what will be’, and your Kali Yuga scenario for the ending of overshoot seems highly likely to me….
Btw, was the HTML stuff any help ? It’s incredibly simple when you know, but tricky to explain. Let’s see if this works…
<i> text you want to quote </i>
November 24th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
@ Daniel
Thanks, Daniel. Simple really. Live as if you’re already dead. Everything is miraculous.
November 24th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws
http://justdoitfilm.com/
November 24th, 2012 at 11:41 pm
ulvfugl
” Live as if you’re already dead.”
Now you’re talkin’.
That’s what I was alluding to with a previous thread posting about ‘Bhuddist Practice 101′. Considder death, really considder it, and live.
I had an interesting day today. Took my 13 son and 3 others to a Lezerzone and indoor bowling anthill in the middle of 40 degree C heat on railbusses and back, trains were off due to weekend line maintinence.
This experience was so appalling for me, but in some ways the boys liked the activities. All up it cost $180, incusive of fares some junk food, (all that was available). I was not in favour of the whole deal, but as the money was provided from relatives who were not around, and never are, and it was a social outing for them, I agreed.
The suburbs that we travelled through were there but thinner, when I was a boy, and were equally ‘dead’ zones then to me. People live there, but upon revisiting, going by comfy free air coach/bus, it became clearer the ‘carpet of suburbia’ that I suppose the majority of urbanites live in has little geographic anomolies, little environmental noteworthies to retreat to, and recall magnificent childhood experiences about.
A population brought up in these circumstance will naturally wish for the well known release strategies of industrial wealth societies – alcahol, porn, screen based distraction, and low-culture entertainments, that are expensive, like ‘Lazerzone, and Bowling’.
As I noted, in themselves these activities are not ‘evil’ or ‘bad’, and to a kid are cool. But as I constantly harp to my kids, money is not essential to be happy doing activities that you have fun doing, and perhaps learn stuff too.
I am very fortunate we presently rent on the edge of world heritage bushland, with resident wildlife seeming to recolonise their previously vacated zones. I am yet to be convinced these wildlife have not simply been displacd to here by the ever increaing suburban carpet rolling on, and this reserve zone is all they have.
I don’t know how I would cope without the weekly kangaroo poo gathering sessions, or seeing the bush as I type here now.
This was on my mind today as I used the 3 hours bus time to continue to read ‘Walking Away from Empire’ – that this is the suburbia that will be soon tested to breaking point.
My only mental fallback with these dire scenarios we all see coming is that there appear to be a lot of people around here who are gearing up with community activities, markets, local produce swaps, and some form of community culture resurging. As for the ‘full throttle’ suburbs, I am not sure. Collective effort will be a key to early adaptation and survival in the early phase of obvious collapse.
Town meetings will be the clincher to me that signals the ‘obviousness’ to all and sundry.
Martial Law could also do the trick as well.
Oil at USD $111 per barrel today.
December 21st is looking about right on the money…er..or collapse of it.
November 25th, 2012 at 12:35 am
This talk was great. On the question of why the the world’s owners (like Bill Gates or the Koch brothers) don’t or won’t change in response to the overwhelming data that they are killing the planet. The answer is that you cannot expect the people who have made their huge fortunes by killing the planet to suddenly stop and do something else. Being better than anyone else at killing the planet is how they got to be the world’s owners. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just capitalism being capitalism. Finding a natural resource and using it up is the most profitable thing you can do. Think of a rainforest, it’s just sitting there, with all it’s species all thriving together as they have for eons. Then think of how it must look to a capitalist, its not a forest, it’s money just sitting there, money that he must have. And the only way to get that money is to cut it down. These people can’t stop doing this, their addicted to it, its what they are.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:16 am
Judy, exactly, not having chosen to be born, we should at least have the right to exit when we want. However if we have dependent children, they also got no choice in their birth and have a claim therefore on their parents lives. Glad you saw the movie. It is a roller coaster emotionally but IMO a movie that makes you think about the issues of life is the only kind worth watching. Well and A Fish Called Wanda is worth watching too.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:22 am
BTW Guy, your essay at Transition sure sums things up. I have shared it around elsewhere.
I wonder if people can really encompass the idea of 400 Chernobyls when we no longer have the power to do any amelioration at all. In Fukushima, while out of the news, the struggle goes on. The ability to get workers seems to be summed up by this
[Exploiting the youth] Fukushima university to give students credit for decontamination work
Posted by Mochizuki on
On 11/19/2012, Fukushima Diary wrote, “It’s likely that they make it a credit necessary to graduate from schools to go to Fukushima (plant).” in the column [Japan may seek solution of Fukushima in drifting to the right]. Fukushima university is going to do exactly what was written in the column.
Fukushima university is going to give students credit for decontamination work, which is supposed to be volunteer.
45 hours of decontamination is one credit, 90 hours of decontamination is two credits
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/exploiting-the-youth-fukushima-university-to-give-students-credit-for-decontamination-work/
November 25th, 2012 at 3:30 am
Kathy C
Just when one feels it cannot go much lower than invasion to secure oil, you post on credits for decontamination work at Fuk-u-shin-ah is sobering, and is somewhat of an indication just what things will devolve into before any wheels appear to have fallen off.
As sick as it sounds, your posts are always welcome information, if nothing else to let me know how much vomit I need to keep justice with my viceral self these days.
November 25th, 2012 at 5:59 am
Here’s a talk by a British engineer/prof. of energy & climate change at U of Manchester (K. Anderson) about the completely ludicrous climate change messages by reputable institutions and scientists who mainly remain silent about how dire it really is:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/502496.html
He’s a little hard to understand due to his making numerous side-comments under his breath and because he’s rushed, but there are a lot of graphs in his slide show to keep you up with what he’s saying. i don’t agree with his conclusion that we still can do anything about it, but that’s academic – the point, of course, is WILL we (and of course we won’t – since it’s already too late).
November 25th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Oh, yeah – forgot the reason i brought up the talk above:
The next climate change conference opens tomorrow in Doha, Qatar.
Here’s little blurb on that:
http://www.correntewire.com/doha_conference_six_degrees_of_climate_bakin#more
November 25th, 2012 at 6:36 am
This stuff is way above my pay grade… maybe the Empire is even more crumbly than it appears ?
November 25th, 2012 at 6:47 am
Last post of the day:
more on the same topic – explaining the time lag between emissions and temperature rise, especially, but lots more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pznsPkJy2x8#!
November 25th, 2012 at 7:47 am
As I dig further into this, I find that the IPCC can’t be trusted and
neither can Artic News. It takes an insider who is willing to tell it like it is. I found this video by David Wasdell. The presentation was done 4 years ago. At that time he thought we could do something. Maybe you folks have already seen this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbXuvQQt9YY&feature=related
Now, if that one doesn’t catch your interest, here he is in a recent interview.
It has 75 views so far so I know you folks have NOT already seen this. I like this man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3sgwZXRvxc&feature=related
David
November 25th, 2012 at 8:19 am
.
Radionuclides in the breeze,
A temp of a hundred degrees:
In this end to our sprees,
We’re about to reprise
The flight of Thelma and Louise.
November 25th, 2012 at 8:32 am
.
What I have lately observed
Is leaving me somewhat unnerved;
I’m beginning to think
That we should be extinct,
And our fate is truly deserved.
November 25th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Told we must resources conserve
From our path we would not swerve
We have partied with mirth
While we plundered the earth
Hell we’ll get, as its all we deserve
November 25th, 2012 at 9:11 am
It has 75 views so far so I know you folks have NOT already seen this.
David, I don’t mean to embarrass you, but it has been posted in many other places, including on this blog before.
November 25th, 2012 at 9:27 am
The haters got straight their priorities,
And, O.K.’d by unnamed authorities,
They can’t hardly wait
To act out their hate
And liquidate lots of minorities.
November 25th, 2012 at 10:06 am
OK, so what else have I missed? Could there be anything more?
November 25th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Sorry if that came across a bit bluntly, David, all I was saying was that many more than 75 people will have seen copies of that talk.
The Kevin Anderson talk that Tom mentioned above is possibly as far as the professional scientists are willing to go at this point. I mean, they have to stick to stuff they can support with published evidence, etc, and they have to worry about their reputation and career, or else they end up like Guy,
I think what Anderson is saying is extremely alarming, I don’t think he is including the feedbacks, I think he’s saying we’ll fail the 2 deg target, but must do better, but where’s the evidence that we WILL do better ??? Looking at the record over recent decades, emissions just keep rising and rising and rising….
He’s saying most of the pollution comes from a tiny percentage of the human population, but unfortunately, they are the ones who control the governments, the guns, the money, the industry, etc….
That said, none of this is simple. Seems that fracking for gas makes clean renewable solar and wind power uneconomic…. whilst adding even more methane to the atmosphere…
http://www.technologyreview.com/review/428900/king-natural-gas/
November 25th, 2012 at 10:40 am
Don’t know if this is helpful to you, I know it already, IMO fairly conservative downbeat estimation…
http://youtu.be/10cXRvC3crg
November 25th, 2012 at 10:42 am
Dr. McPherson,
Take Niall Ferguson off the list of those who think industrial civilization will soon collapse. He now thinks shale oil/gas will create an American economic boom. I wonder how many of the 80 think likewise, or are at least attached to growth.
November 25th, 2012 at 10:44 am
Here’s a pdf text version of Anderson’s lecture, with the graphs, etc, if you want to go through it with a fine comb.
http://whatnext.org/resources/Publications/Volume-III/Single-articles/wnv3_andersson_144.pdf
November 25th, 2012 at 11:06 am
I think agriculture, the industrial kind, will go through a short boom as folks spend their last dollars on food. That’s equivalent to the tail end of the Titanic going high up in the air before it went down.
November 25th, 2012 at 11:23 am
So, yes, collapse is in the air and I’ve been mulling over the sequence of events and kinda looking for the last big indicator that a final exit should be planned.
This is what my little brain has come up with: Financial markets are probably the first to go, but will take awhile. Rationing and resource wars are commonplace. States declare bankruptcy. The electric grid does some blinking and rolling brown outs become common. Civil unrest begins in earnest, martial law is imposed, and it’s all downhill from there. That’s sort of the long, slow version.
The variable is how long the nukes last before they Fukushima….can they survive brown outs? How long can they go separated from the grid? Will there be explosions? Radiation sickness is not my preferred way to go, assuming there is any choice in the matter.
I know I’m sort of sick, but I think I can get through each day better if I know in broad terms how and when my exit strategy kicks in.
November 25th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Ken Barrows, Niall Ferguson was wrong on 6 July 2012, two years after he predicted American Empire would fail within two years. Do you have a link for his French kiss to tight oil?
November 25th, 2012 at 11:52 am
We’re dealing with another paradigm shift. We all went through Santa Claus, then religion, politics, economics and on to peak oil. Each phase required a new shift. Peak oil went from Bad News to Good News and finally is No News at all. Same with the economy. Wow, it’s been a rough road. The best we can do now is help each other, here and locally, with the last paradigm shift.
November 25th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Reading the comments on that MIT Technology Review piece above, on gas fracking, and comparing with Kunstler, I’m just really glad it is not my responsibility to have to make decisions on energy policy…
The current price situation in shale gas is different than shale oil. The drilling frenzy in shale gas produced a glut, which drove down prices from a $13 a unit (thousand cubic feet or mcf) to around $2 at its low point earlier this year. That’s way below the price that is economically rational to drill and frack for it. The price collapse has played havoc among the companies engaged in shale gas, though it has been a boon to customers. A lot of the drilling equipment has moved to the North Dakota oil fields. There will be less shale gas in the period ahead and the price will go up. It has got to go above about $8 a unit or there will be no reason for any company to be in the shale gas business. But as is always the case in such a correction, the price will surely overshoot $8, at which point it will become unaffordable to its customers. The volatility alone will make the business of shale gas drilling impossible to maintain.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/11/epic-disappointment.html
November 25th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
wildwoman – with total grid collapse of a large enough area that diesel cannot be brought in, about 1 week to Fukushima. Collapse of the US grid would be IMO the time for final exit if that is your choice – everything falls apart with total grid collapse – food, water, sewer, heating, etc. Food probably runs out in about 1 week in most places so exit won’t be far off anyway – and here is the info on the nuclear power plants
http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon
“If an extreme GMD were to cause widespread grid collapse (which it most certainly will), in as little as one or two hours after each nuclear reactor facility’s backup generators either fail to start, or run out of fuel, the reactor cores will start to melt down. After a few days without electricity to run the cooling system pumps, the water bath covering the spent fuel rods stored in “spent-fuel ponds” will boil away, allowing the stored fuel rods to melt down and burn [2]. Since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) currently mandates that only one week’s supply of backup generator fuel needs to be stored at each reactor site, it is likely that, after we witness the spectacular nighttime celestial light show from the next extreme GMD, we will have about one week in which to prepare ourselves for Armageddon.”
Of course economic collapse is going to be pretty bad if it comes before grid collapse. I have neighbors talking of race wars….
November 25th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Nature Bats Last will be the first topic of discussion at this new blog. Many of the posters here and what they say and do will be analyzed and discussed in a forum open to all. The goal is help initiates navigate the minefields of this topic of collapse.
November 25th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Notice that the release of methane reaches a maximum during December-January and then declines for the winter. I find that this year, it shot up 35% in Sept. over last year at Barrow Alaska, and there haven’t been any reports since. Of course, Dec. and Jan. haven’t happened yet.
November 25th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Collapse Watch ?
Collapse Theory ? Is there indeed such a thing ?
Is it stated, cited or outlined somewhere by a named author ?
Or does whoever ( I don’t see any name or contact there ? ) has set up that site just mean the general area, as in ‘civilizations come and go’ ?
November 25th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Naah, first ten pages of google search find no such thing as ‘Collapse Theory’.
November 25th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Methinks that ‘Collapse Watch’ is yet another trolling stratagem, to attack this blog, by a name or names we are familiar with, who have posted that Robert Anton Wilson video here before.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Reading the C W blurb again, I find the tone distinctly sinister, inviting ‘novices’ and ‘initiates’, as if it were some sort of occult fraternity, hinting at harm to health, and yet insisting it is to be a group that is ‘not a group’… weird, confused, the motivation appears anything but honest, genuine and straightforward. Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
I agree, ulvfugl. It feels creepy. (Of course, some people might find this space creepy. I don’t.)
November 25th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@ Ulvfugl
My take on “collapse watch” as well…Anton Wilson, was a dead give away.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Collapse Watch writes Many of the posters here and what they say and do will be analyzed…
Ha ha ha ha ha, are we going the route of armchair diagnoses again?
November 25th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Collapse Watch = Morocco Bama = Maggie = MO = Dr. Phil = MO = .Says, ad infinitum. This from a man who proclaims, loudly and repeatedly, his personal integrity. What? Trespass on someone else’s blog when he knows he’s not welcome? Personal integrity??? This also from a man who admitted debasing himself on this blog. Well, the debasing continues unabated.
November 25th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
‘I’m disengaging from the madness as quickly as I can. Collapse cannot be far away.
The empire will respond to collapse by…’ -kevin moore, 2 days ago.
sorry, everyone, for responding to relatively old comments.
kevin, i love your comments. i wish they were more frequent. but then, i understand one can say essentially the same thing only in so many different ways on specially inspired days. excuse my bad ostentatious egotistical rhyme. as u see, i’m in a stream of consciousness frame of mind, meandering like a stream with no where to go…
it’s good to be reminded now and then that this calm before the storm is temporary and of unknown duration, unlikely to last many more years.
kevin, since u didn’t finish that last sentence, i’ll give it a quick shot. i can’t imagine the specifics of how it will respond, but i can make a wild guess that at some point in the usa and in many other places, ‘authority’ will wed more openly, broadly, and deeply, with crazy and cruel religious fundamentalist dogmas. i fear that someone like this budding young theocrat and his cronies will attain/seize power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJwsxmSi5fU&feature=fvwrel (wow, i just noticed this video has over 100.000 views and nearly 13,000 comments (at first glance most comments negative to the video, which is encouraging)
whatever does happen, i’m sure it won’t be pleasant and i’m not looking forward to it.
bc nurse prof, i hope danielle’s mean spirited criticism/attack regarding a comment u made about the foolishness of expending a great deal to maintain lives of poor quality by the medical profession, as well as someone else’s assumption that this comment was indicative of a lack of compassion… i hope u weren’t discouraged by these. it seems someone will always attack the teller of hard truths, but i, as well as probably most other regular participants on this blog embrace hard truths and hard truth tellers, obviously. kathy as usual has the right take on the situation imo, when she takes the opposing position in defense of the sanity and compassion of not spending a lot to maintain lives of suffering and anguish, in an over populated, collapsing environment.
guy, i have one kind of odd observation to make of a little detail of this latest video u’ve posted in the essay above. that is the frequent, inappropriate laughter of one particular audience member in response to several horrifying remarks by u. of course it’s just my opinion that laughing at ‘doom’ is inappropriate. certainly that sherson won’t be laughing when doom comes knocking at his door.
November 25th, 2012 at 8:01 pm
here’s a video link to the most comprehensive, eloquent, intelligent, and impassioned denunciation of dogmatic religious faith i’ve ever come across. it’s a surreal treat imo i hope u will enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUI_ML1qkQE&feature=watch-vrec
November 25th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
‘i’m still real active in the anti-fracking thing going on here in PA’
hey tom, i just went to a volunteer water testing workshop a couple weeks ago in coudersport, in the northern tier of PA. i live in the southern tier of new york and am awaiting with dread the arrival of fracking here soon. anyway, nice to know of another nbl poster who lives fairly close.
November 25th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
The Climate Change: Do the Math video was very well done and quite pretty to watch. Unfortunately, it has some glaring problems. Two really caught my eye.
The video mentions that if we spent 20% of what we’re currently spending on oil to develop alternative energy sources, we could replace oil outright. At the same time, we could save 400,000 lives every year by fixing climate change.
Unfortunately, for many aspects of our modern world, there are no replacements for oil. As to saving 400,000 lives every year, we are in overshoot. Every live saved worsens the predicament for every other life.
Like so many others who are discussing the problems we’re facing, this video focuses on one problem and ignores all the others that are just too inconvenient to consider.
Frequently, I vacillate between there being no solution to any of our problems and there being some small chance that someone will find a way to keep this from ending up in total annihilation of the planet. If there is any possible way of finding a way to save this beautiful world, we must tell the truth – the WHOLE truth.
Being honest and discussing ALL the problems we face is one of the characteristics I’ve found in those who post here.
We cannot ignore facts we don’t like and hope that they go away while we solve some other problem over there.
November 25th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Guy,
Niall Ferguson has indeed changed his mind about collapse, at least for the U.S.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/23/business/america-shale-gas-ferguson-stevens/index.html
November 25th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Thanks for the link, Arthur Johnson. Ferguson prefers environmental collapse over economic collapse. He’s not alone.
November 25th, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Guy,
Perhaps Ferguson et al simply can’t wrap their heads around the idea that man can influence climate in any significant way. Man is so “little” and the Earth is so “big, you know.
OTOH, Ferguson recently had a kid with his beautiful new wife, and he has at least two kids from a previous marriage. Family reasons could very well have compelled him to begin regular injections of hopium. Hopium addiction would explain his sudden change in outlook.
November 26th, 2012 at 12:35 am
I posted this at Collapse Watchers a few minutes ago, using a neighbours wifi, (if no password, is it illegal?) and a fake email account:
“You, whoever ‘you’ are, have set some very high ideals for this site.
Good for you!
A voyage of discovery will come your way, but I have a cautionary comment here.
You are actually aiming for non-Truth with this site.
You have the whole area of epistemological doubt and Scientific, philosophical ideas of ‘reality’ to deal with.
I mean, no one even knows ‘where’ we all are, ‘what’ anything is, and what ‘consciousness’ is, so to establish any ‘fact’, or consensus of ‘fact’, here for discussion, is your BIG initiation problem
Good luck with that.
As you have advised the readers to fully considder, and refrain from ‘belief in a belief system’ and ‘doubt everything’, first question you will encounter is what are commenters going to accept as a baseline for reality?
If you are not accepting a belief system , or refusing all belief systems, then after you say “Hi” what is there to say.
Are you going to accept Science as some baseline, because it is woefully inadequate in accounting for reality, and is a belief system formulated in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe in reaction to the power of religeous dogma, and it’s entrenched corruption,(read the play ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller).
Science and Religion are both incomplete belief systems, and you have to trawl and trawl and trawl through 4 thousand years of world-wide philospophy to understand that it is only a fully realised being, Ego burned away by perfect sacrifice, that is free of a belief system.
If you want to discuss the collapse of Industrial Civilisation, and what causes it, the mechanics of energy, population growth, EROEI and Peak Everything, great, stick to that.
But this will inevitably bring discussion to what some supposed ‘facts’ mean, and then you are, to use your metaphore, sliding down a rabbit hole, and probably have been all along, just now you can see it.
I can’t seem to find an identity associated with this site so far, and until I can I won’t be posting comments here.
Best of luck with all that Collapse Watching.
Ha Ha.”
Sink your teeth into that Collapse Watchers!!
November 26th, 2012 at 12:55 am
I will be interested to see if this post gets to first base at CW, and if it is unaltered.
I viewed the lecture by Anderson, Tom posted, and it is simply so obvious, why can’t most people get the message?
Yes, he skims by the non-account of feedback issues in most reports, and he thinks 4C Degrees is savable, but the issues are there for all to see.
I am beginning to think that there is a consensus in the halls of power, yes TPTB, that nuclear winter will solve global warming, and so just make hay now, make a polar refuge, probably the Antarctic, as it has a land mass, dig in, and ride it out.
Wow, what a plan A.
And also plan B, the orbiting space stations we know nothing about. Are the space shuttles really that old and unservicable?
And as a tilt of my hat to Kathy C, plan C, the Aliens,(Capitalised to show respect in case), may still arrive to harvest us, slightly warmer,(was Predator some kind of illuminarti message?), and slightly irradiated,(was the X-files on the money?).
We have not long now to wait for December 21st 2012.
November 26th, 2012 at 1:58 am
the virgin terry ..that is the frequent, inappropriate laughter of one particular audience member in response to several horrifying remarks…
Yes, that made me cringe, what sort of mentality inhabits such a person ?
November 26th, 2012 at 2:30 am
ulvfugl
My thoughts to this were: Is that what stage 5 in the Kuebler Ross stages feels like?
Peace
November 26th, 2012 at 2:50 am
Hi Bernhard, I don’t myself subscribe to the Kuebler Ross analysis ( if others find it useful, that’s fine. )
That laughter seemed like something from an Adams Family cartoon, if you know what I mean… Made me shudder.
I know there’s a fine line between a university seminar and stand-up comedy, and Guy is becoming a master of the art, ( very relaxed, great timing, and so forth… ) but do people go to be entertained and amused ? Are they really that sick, that ’200 species a day becoming extinct’ is like the punch line to a joke to laugh at ?
November 26th, 2012 at 3:15 am
Btw, I don’t accept ‘the 200 species a day’, because nobody knows how many species exist. The numbers of bacterial species in the soil, the species in the oceans, the species in the rain forests, are only the vaguest guestimates.
It could be very much MORE than 200.
On the thing about timing and the power stand-up comedy. I grew up watching tv where Winston Churchill was portrayed as part of British heroic nationalist mythology, an icon drummed into everyone’s consciousness.
The genius of Stuart Lee and Alan Moore in this youtube clip, just for a moment, I really did believe that Churchill had never existed and was indeed only a cigar marketing campaign that had got out of hand…
http://youtu.be/IcG2t_idcTA
November 26th, 2012 at 3:16 am
I noticed in Guy’s talk a quote from Van Jones – here is the whole thing
People say that I am hard core about some of this stuff but I know because I have been to Davos, and I’ve sat with Bill Clinton and I’ve sat with Bill Gates and I’ve sat with Tony Blair and I’ve sat with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve sat with all these people who we think are in charge, and they don’t know what to do. Take that in: they don’t know what to do! You think you’re scared? You think you’re terrified? They have the Pentagon’s intelligence, they have every major corporation’s input; Shell Oil that has done this survey and study around the peak oil problem. You think we’ve got to get on the Internet and say, “Peak oil!” because the system doesn’t know about it? They know, and they don’t know what to do. And they are terrified that if they do anything they’ll loose their positions. So they keep juggling chickens and chainsaws and hope it works out just like most of us everyday at work. That’s real, that’s real.
Selections from the speech are at http://www.hopedance.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=98
Seems a sort of rambling talk, perhaps because this is just excerpts. At any rate if he speaks from real experience it gives us a clue about just where Some PTB ar at….
November 26th, 2012 at 3:25 am
Terry, this is one you will enjoy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pX6SdLI_qs&feature=g-all it addresses the issue of a powerful god not being a good god. DarkMatter2525 has some really good vids, this one is one of his better ones. It appeals to me because I do not say there is not God, I just examined the facts of the ground (for years) and found no way a good god could be consistent with a powerful god who acts in humans affairs. Settling that in my mind, it became irrelevant to me if there was or wasn’t a god. It took so long, not because I am a slow learner, but because I so wanted there to be a good god….but the world is as it is, indifferent to us humans.
November 26th, 2012 at 3:30 am
Alan Moore suggests everyone should worship their own god, and explains why he worships Glycon
http://youtu.be/Cam2kK7J_8k
November 26th, 2012 at 3:45 am
Bernhard, I think every one of my Hospice patients that I volunteered with had reached peace – I suppose just saying “OK then, Hospice” means you have come to peace with your own death regardless of how many “stages” it took to get there. The stages are not a fixed thing, just a way of organizing the usual kind of things people go thru when accepting death (and now have to go thru to accept NTE) Extinction was always going to happen – all species go extinct. Our sun will explode some day and earth will be gone. It is the near part that one has to work thru whether death of our body, death of an ideal or belief, or death of our species.
November 26th, 2012 at 4:38 am
Impressing two minutes, Terence McKenna sums it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eu9GfHCpVo&feature=youtu.be
Kathy from your link to Van Jones, this I really liked:
“‘Comfort zone’
People are always talking about their comfort zones, you ever heard that expression? “This is outside of my comfort zone.” Grow your goddamn comfort zone then, okay? ‘Cause we are running out of time. My suggestion is, grow the comfort zone.”
Kathy, ulvfugl on stages and species.
40+ years ago as kid, witnessing the changes on the small scale agriculture, the chopping down of the fruit trees, the dams built on the rivers,roads and roads built,… the drop in wildlife of the snakes, the frogs, the birds, the hares,… and then their vanishing, that pain felt like being torn apart. Oh the butterflies.
That pain is still here, the tearing apart part subsided.
November 26th, 2012 at 5:58 am
Guy, I got this as a response from someone to the statements about arctic ice and methane. Any thoughts?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-ado-about-methane/
November 26th, 2012 at 6:59 am
http://www.pantedmonkey.org/podcastgen/download.php?filename=2011-06-23_1300_what_now_lynn_margulis.mp3
November 26th, 2012 at 7:00 am
Lynn Margulis speaks to Ken Rose on the extinction of the human species.
November 26th, 2012 at 7:07 am
Jakob, the writer is dismissing methane, which is 20-100 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and which is potentially more abundant than carbon dioxide. That seems a tad risky to me. And the writer calls for large-scale sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a process for which we have no technology at present.
Also, there’s this link, including a comment from James Hansen: http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-must-see-video.html
November 26th, 2012 at 7:28 am
Kathy C, thanks for referencing Van Jones’ comment. I’ve mentioned this before so I’m glad that someone who’s been there has confirmed my suspicions: the powers that be are scared shitless and powerless to make any substantive changes. They have more information than we do and they know there’s no way out. They are just going on, ignoring it as much as possible, all the while hugging their kids and trying to keep the world in one piece for as long as they can.
November 26th, 2012 at 7:44 am
Sea creatures’ shells are being dissolved by global warming – making them defenceless against predators, according to new research.
Waters around Antarctica are becoming more acidic due to increased levels of carbon dioxide and are corroding the protective outer layer of swimming snails.
The situation is at its worst in polar regions because the gas is more soluble in cold water.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2238302/Acidic-oceans-dissolving-sea-creatures-shells-leaving-defenceless-predators.html
November 26th, 2012 at 8:27 am
I agree about people who have power– they are just people, there is nothing miraculous about them (at least, nothing more miraculous about them than any other person- I think we are all a sort of miracle). Powerful people ultimately do not have the control, influence, and wisdom that they want to have or that ‘the masses’ might want them to have. This includes psychopaths, who can inflict an astounding amount of damage, but they still do not have god-like control. I think people with power could show a hell of a lot more leadership but I don’t think most of them have grasped what true “leadership” is. It’s not power over.
Bernhard, thanks for bringing in that quote about comfort zones. Grow the comfort zone? How about kicking it to the curb? I think people need to let go of their *&$^# comfort zone. Nothing really shifts in that zone.
Kathy C: It is the near part that one has to work thru whether death of our body, death of an ideal or belief, or death of our species. Yes. The near part. I’m glad you keep highlighting this. Thank you.
Re: the inappropriate laughter from someone in Guy’s audience, I took that as “Holy shit, I’m so disturbed and uncomfortable, and I need to discharge it in some way. Oh, here, easy coping mechanism, I’ll laugh. That way I can sit with it as a sort of dark humor instead of feeling torn apart. Or I could be viewed as dismissive, which could also make me feel better, to let everyone know that I think this is nuts and I’m not crazy, I’m apart from this.”
November 26th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Oz wrote: “And as a tilt of my hat to Kathy C, plan C, the Aliens,(Capitalised to show respect in case), may still arrive to harvest us, slightly warmer,(was Predator some kind of illuminarti message?), and slightly irradiated,(was the X-files on the money?).”
Materialism and the narrow epistemology it entails have blinded us to the vast and mysterious nature of reality. One of the reasons the rape of Gaia was so palatable is because we assumed it was just dead stuff. The Dawkins view is tied to the human desire for control. If we can measure it, we can control it. But there are phenomena that exceed our finite and transient paradigms.
I don’t know what the aliens are up to, but they are definitely in the mix. Just as most people dismiss the dire consequences of climate change and intentionally choose blissful ignorance, many ignore the mountain of evidence which demonstrates that nonhuman intelligences are involved with our little blue planet.
Just say’in. There might actually be a plan “C”, although if David Icke is right about the Lizards, we’re just cattle who overshot the farm’s carrying capacity.
November 26th, 2012 at 9:06 am
@ Bernhard
Kathy, ulvfugl on stages and species.
40+ years ago as kid, witnessing the changes on the small scale agriculture, the chopping down of the fruit trees, the dams built on the rivers,roads and roads built,… the drop in wildlife of the snakes, the frogs, the birds, the hares,… and then their vanishing, that pain felt like being torn apart. Oh the butterflies.
That pain is still here, the tearing apart part subsided.
May I ask where that was, Bernhard ? I watched all that too. Not as extreme as some parts of the world. Mostly just constant intensification of agriculture. Expansion of roads and towns. Only anecdotal, but I’d say all wildlife has dropped by more than half since my childhood.
Some of the rarest special species were saved and have done very well because of great effort of time and money by conservationists.
I always hoped for a better future, when people would feel rich enough that they’d stop wrecking everything locally. But they don’t know what they lost. They value a trip to Disney much more than a bluebell wood, because that’s what tv teaches them.
Then came the horrible and shocking realisation about 30 years ago, that it had gone global, and once the climate is wrecked, there’s no way back.
Then the even more horrible realisation that ‘they’ had no intention of ever stopping, even now, when faced with the ultimate catastrophe of a dead planet…. staring them in the face.
You only need to read the comments on youtube or after the various newspaper articles on climate and energy, etc, to see that, as a species, we are doomed, the masses and the leaders, hopelessly uneducated irresponsible reckless idiots with no respect for this Earth.
I wonder what the climate scientists and the politicians and all the rest with power and responsibility for decisions, really think, in private, in their bath or in bed, when they imagine their children’s futures…
November 26th, 2012 at 9:52 am
ulvfugl
Your reminiscences about the richness of nature forty years ago brings to mind the scene in the movie Soylent Green where Sol (played by Edward G. Robinson) goes to some drab government facility to be euthanized. He chose to be surrounded by scenes of nature as he lay dying. Ironically, when the scene was filmed, Robinson was dying of cancer and he was completely deaf.
I saw this movie as a kid in 1973 and thought that we would never do this to ourselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOV8mBjHHYg
November 26th, 2012 at 9:59 am
Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility – In One Pie Chart
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart
November 26th, 2012 at 10:20 am
@ Jacob
I too remember taking issue with David Archer last year, in being so flippant in his dismissal of the threat of Arctic Methane. Much ado about nothing? Are you kidding me? It’s deeply troubling how anyone, but a climate scientist no less, could look at all the available data, as well as, all the latest research coming from two of the leading Arctic scientists and conclude, “much ado about nothing”.
It actually was this article take made me stop reading realclimate.
For anyone who has yet to read through the comment section on the link Jakob posted, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-ado-about-methane/
it makes for a terribly good read. There’s a few contributors who take Archer to task, and he really has no response to them.
Case in point:
“Thanks for pointing out that the methane spike has now been scrubbed from the Barrow, Hank. Usually don’t they replace the aberrant orange dots with little green crosses? This time they seem to have been left out completely. Is that a usual practice, as far as you know?………I would really like to hear what people are thinking of Semiletov and Shakhova. It seems to me that we either have to say, in spite of their impressive credentials and experience in the area, that they are essentially delusional, or that they are right but that the monitoring stations and some other sources are faulty. Is it possible that large quantities of methane would not have made it to monitoring stations hundreds of miles away by now? Or is there some super sink that could have gobbled up all the methane that S&S (and others) report seeing bubbling from the ocean? Could it be that something else was bubbling up?…….In short, should we really just ignore the statements of these experienced scientists? Do they have a reputation for making things up that we should know about?”
David Archer’s response: “I think they’re doing important, necessary work and I’m grateful to them.”
Now, if that’s considered a “response”, then “ignoring” has more synonyms than I’m aware of.
November 26th, 2012 at 10:38 am
When our local TV station website, which is notoriously conservative (part of the RayCom group), starts running stories about climate change, you know that the world is starting to “get it”.
http://www.kait8.com/story/20159723/us-roads-airports-unready-for-extreme-weather
Not surprisingly, they acknowledge climate change but don’t go beyond that to the extreme consequences. It reminds me of when I first started realizing what was happening and it seemed like each couple of weeks I would make another step toward understanding.
If the masses begin to do that, who knows what will happen.
November 26th, 2012 at 10:44 am
Yes, Daniel, it is puzzling, isn’t it. Makes one wonder what’s going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about, trying to be diplomatic, rivalry, pressures, loyalties, vested interests, politics, corruption, whatever….
November 26th, 2012 at 10:52 am
Thanks for the info, Kathy C.
November 26th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
The life expectancy of common people in Egypt during the Pharaohs was less than thirty years. At the height of the Greek civilisation it was in the mid thirties for the average Greek, and in a similar range early in the Roman Empire for Roman citizens: it declined significantly with the fortunes of the Empire.
Homo neanderthalensis also had a life expectancy of less than thirty years, but it should be kept in mind that they lasted 400,000 years, going extinct 32,000 years ago: we’ve been around for 200,000 years. Retention of immature features and slower maturation have been prominent in the Homo lineage.
The Turkana Boy fossil, generally recognised as Homo erectus, is estimated to have been eight years old at the time of his death, but had the development of a sixteen year old. This is an intermediate between the great apes that reach maturity at two years and humans who reach maturity at sixteen to eighteen years.
It was common occurrence for two or three siblings to survive out of a half dozen or more as recently as the late nineteeth century – even in North America and Europe. When vaccinations are history, and sanitation is spotty, the “usual childhood diseases” and worse may once again take their toll.
November 26th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Dr. House: in answer to your question (who knows) – i, of course don’t KNOW, but i’m willing to bet (being that we’re dealing with humanity here – like that line in Blazing Saddles where the Waco Kid tells the Sheriff: “These are the people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know, morons!”) that all hell breaks loose.
What gets me is that the authorities (TPTB) KNOWING this stuff and doing nothing is going to result in violent outrage against the entire system (of government, law, etc). People will begin going nuts once the food chain breaks down. Everyone with a gun will be supremely tempted to use it (best to use it on themselves, but of course they’ll want to take others along on the way out), the police and military will be in the same boat and mass defections will probably ensue, and finally anyone in the health care field may come to the conclusion “why bother?” and walk off the job. i wouldn’t put it past them to launch all out nuclear war just to distract the rabble while TPTB make their way to their secret hide-outs to ride it out (which we know is ridiculous).
What do you all think will happen? A world-wide Kumbaya moment?
November 26th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
depressive lucidity
Re. your comments about aliens, and the relative probability of Plan C,(named in honour of Kathy C, He He):
Who do you think pointed us to the oil underground as a sourse of quick fattening energy? Why the aliens of course. Now the aliens’ human meaty bites have a lot more fat and will be tastier. Just sayin’.
November 26th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Guy
You wrote:
“And the writer calls for large-scale sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a process for which we have no technology at present.”
What about plant life, like trees?
If we all planted 5 trees, of various species, and watered and fed them to get them going, in zones that will keep them alive, would 35 billion trees scrub the air of CO2?
Or if that is not enough maynbe 10 trees each?
Shallow breathing on our part wont do it, that’s for sure.
November 26th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Oz man
What some policymakers suggest by promoting carbon sequestration is that if a much bigger plastic bag were placed over all the forests of the world we would find that the trees and plants were working, collectively, to scrub the atmosphere of excess carbon dioxide. Our forests can never do that; and the reason, in part, is that while some trees and plants bloom and grow, others simultaneously die and rot, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. It’s a closed loop.
http://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/look-beyond-forests-to-fight-climate-change
more about the problem at the link
November 26th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
The REAL Dr. House
You wrote:
“When our local TV station website, which is notoriously conservative (part of the RayCom group), starts running stories about climate change, you know that the world is starting to “get it”.”
Here in Australia, Australians voted Kevin Rudd as the Prime Minister in 2007, when he ran on a headline ticked with the slogan;
‘Climate Change is the greatest challenge of a generation’
My feeling is that many many people here responded to that ‘call’. At least in their hearts, perhaps ignorant of the details of what it may take to shift the snowballing problems, but nevertheless, they did ‘get the message’. After Copenhagen’s failure, Kevin Rudd, decided to make the big guys pay, by ntroducing a Mining Superprofits Tax of 40% of mining profits.
Thier response was to pay for a 12 Million dollar add campaign on national TV, papers and internet to discredit the Tax as dodgy, and under this pressure, with Rudd’s political party paying only 8 million for counter adds, the powerbrokers in the back row organised a leadership challenge and ditched the only elected prime minister of Australia who had the balls to stand up th the big profit rakers. At least that is a perception of what he was trying to do.
So our current prime minister, also Labour, is the replacement, there to do absolutely nothing.
‘We’ woke up 5 years ago, and were dumbed down by prestidigitation like Refugee and asylum seeker wedge politics.
It is hard not to agree with the old saying, the people get the government they deserve.
But the people do not deserve the climate change they are getting.
The bastards!!!
November 26th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Kathy C
Point taken.
November 26th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Having planted thousands of trees in my lifetime, in the hope of doing some good, I’ve thought about that carbon sequestration thing. One way of adding to the positive effect is agro-forestry or forest gardening. Like an orchard with animal grazing or crops beneath the trees is more efficient than either on is own. Another approach is terra preta/ bio char.
However, where I live here, 30,000 under a flight path from London to New York, each one of those passengers is using up ( I think ) 30 years worth of individual carbon quota on a return ticket. There can be ten or more planes in view at a time, day and night.
Yeah. The bastards. Cancels out all my lifetime’s tree planting in a couple of hours.
November 26th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
OzMan, of course we should plant trees. But it’s insufficient, as pointed out by Solomon et al. in a prestigious journal many years ago.
November 26th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
planting trees? All the trees are dying. Some neighbours planted a baby tree last spring that I visited every day since. They saw the stippled leaves after a couple of weeks and did all they could to save it. But they could not take the tropospheric ozone from the air though. And the tree is dead. It is too late to plant trees.
talking about trees, new post at wit’s end: http://witsendnj.blogspot.ca/
November 26th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
My best guess–thin the herd. A nice, lethal designer germ, probably something related to smallpox. Get the population down to a few million. A select few million. Certainly within the capabilities, and morality, of many in the position to bring it about. Plenty of resources left. Peak oil?? Big deal. Climate chaos?? Geo-engineered underground domes. Paradise for the chosen few. Of course, it won’t work long term. A human engineered ecosystem?? Are you nuts?? But ya think these people know that?
November 26th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
So. Last week of class. Students panicking over their marks. Me wondering if they know what they’ve learned. Looking back now, I’ve had so many students. I’ve taught first year, I’ve taught graduate students. I’ve practiced nursing myself for {mumble, mumble} years. My students mean so much to me. I’ve seen them with their bright eyes right out of high school, wanting so much to be a nurse. When they learn how to take a blood pressure it’s like they own the world. They forget their revulsion when they have to clean up a bed full of shit because, after all, it’s someone’s mom, someone’s daughter.
My first dressing change, as a student, was on a man who had cancer in his eye that had spread to one half of his face. They took out his eye. The whole side of his face was one weeping, bleeding, pus filled open sore. They pumped him full of the most powerful antibiotics then in existence. He was a cheerful man and he felt sorry for me, having been assigned to do his dressing that day. He warned me that it would be ugly when I got the dressing off. It was, but I was amazed that I could see directly into his sinuses! (I loved anatomy class.) He died, of course. Slowly and painfully.
I tell my students that there will be one thing in nursing that they can’t do. One thing. Every nurse has it. One colleague told me that the very idea of trimming someone’s toenails made her retch. Another told me that hers was eye-drops. She could not make herself to put a drop of anything in anyone’s eye. She shivered when she told me this. Mine is trach care. If any patient of mine is hacking green gobs onto the wall on the other side of the room through his or her tracheostomy, I’m out. Can’t do it. Lung ward? No, thanks.
Once I had to start an IV on a child. My daughter was nearly the same age at the time. This child had been playing nearby when her farmer father was getting ready to hang a new gate. The gate fell over and hit her in the middle of the back, breaking her spine. She never walked again. In the ER I had to start the IV. She cried for her mom and dad and brother. Her veins were so small. I had a 20 gauge and it was too big. I tried again with a 22 gauge. She didn’t fight me, she just looked at me and cried. I was a wreck. I got the IV in, but I had sweated into my uniform from my armpits to my waist. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. I wanted to go home but I had to finish my shift.
How many shifts have I finished, standing at the med cart dancing from one foot to the other, realizing that I’ve been flying up and down the hall for eight hours without going to the bathroom, without getting a drink, without eating anything?
I once did CPR on a heart patient on my knees on the bed and he came back. The next day, in the cafeteria, he yelled across the room, “There she is!” and brought his whole family over to meet me. I was so embarrassed.
I did CPR on a man in the middle of the dance floor at a Christmas party for university faculty. In a floor length gown. He collapsed during a waltz, as I remember. A physician came over to relieve me and I started to look for a pulse as he did the compressions. Nothing at the carotid. Nothing at the wrist. Nothing at the groin. I couldn’t understand it. The paramedics came, started bagging him and put him on a stretcher and took him away. I later learned that he died. He had had a heart attack six weeks earlier and dancing had completely blown out the weakened side of his left ventricle. No wonder no pulse. We were squishing blood out into his chest cavity with every pump.
I’m so proud when my students graduate. I stand there in my fancy robes and watch them go by. I meet their families at the reception, ask them where they’ll be working. They all have jobs before they graduate, even before they take the RN licensing exams. Mostly they don’t care where: rehab, community, ICU, neurology, etc. They just want to help people.
Then they go to work. The health authority in this part of the province cuts back and cuts back and cuts back. Cut the dietary staff – the nurses can do it! Cut the cleaning staff – the nurses can do it! Cut the pharmacy techs! Give them rotating shift work – two days on, two nights on, one day off, three days on, etc. Do you know what that does to your sleep patterns? No matter, there’s more where those came from, and the new ones are cheaper.
I once worked where they tried to cut back on nurses by hiring “bath techs” and “med techs.” Yay! we shouted. No more baths! Some six-week wonder came in and did all the baths on the floor, going one room to the next, in and out, knocking out IV’s leaving stuff on the floor. Then they cut back on the number of nurses. So I spent my time running after the bath techs, asking, “How did the dressing look in 219? How’s the incision in 220? The bruising in 221?” “Don’t ask me, lady, I give baths. That’s all.” Giving a bath is not giving a bath, it’t talking, it’s looking, it’s feeling, it’s listening. That guy would have given a bath to a dead person and gone on.
We teach the students how to give a proper back rub. Do they have time to do it? Not a chance. Older nurses teach them short cuts to care “It’s the only way you’ll survive, sweetie.” If you complain, you’re likely to be put on a shift that keeps you away from your kids. “But that’s the way we do it here, luv.”
In two years they’re burnt out. I mean burnt. They sneer. They drip sarcasm. They cut corners. They cheat. They begin to hate their patients. “God, don’t give me 401, he took a swing at me yesterday. Can someone else take 401?”
What has happened? I dont’ know, but it’s all wrong. I went into teaching because there was some integrity left there. Now it’s gone here, too. My research has included violence in health care. I’ve published and presented at international conferences and guess what – the stories get worse every time. People are at their wits’ end. Everyone. Patients, nurses, physicians. I’ve seen the research – many treatments have worse outcomes than not doing anything. Physicians more often choose no treatment at all and simply go home to their familes because they know this.
Our culture is sick.
But there are other cultures. We’re trying to wipe them all out, but there are still some left. We’re losing 200 species a day, and we’re losing whole ways of being human at a similar rate. Wade Davis came to speak to our university recently. I left in tears and my husband had to hold me upright as we walked back to the car. I showed a video of him presenting the very same presentation he did for us to my class. They doodled and whispered to each other and updated their Facebook pages. I give up.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html
November 26th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Wow BC nurse, what sharing. I am not sure how you hold together.
When I was in Haiti, I was just a volunteer, not a nurse. I saw babies die, saw babies cough up foot long worms, horrible sores, a baby so thin from starvation that the skin looked like parchment – the sisters just called for the head sister to come and baptize that baby as they realized it had so little time left. I helped in the wound clinic and saw the walking wounded with sores going down to the bone. But the only thing I couldn’t handle was the starving baby I held while the nurse tried to put in an IV. She finally got it into a blood vessel on the scalp. Why was that the one that made me turn my head and not look? I still wonder today.
Well there was one other that I couldn’t deal with – at the wound clinic where we treated mostly leg wounds, a man was trying to tell me in Creole what he needed and I couldn’t understand. Finally he dropped his pants – he had syphilis. I quickly called one of the brothers.
Funny how our modern medical miracles create as much suffering for some as does the poverty of Haiti, just usually gives them a few more years without suffering before the suffering of treatment begins.
November 26th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Guy: OzMan, of course we should plant trees. But it’s insufficient . . .
On average, each human is comprised of 16 kg of carbon. Multiply that by 7 billion and you get 112 billion kilograms or roughly 123,500,000 tons of carbon. Talk about sequestering carbon. Unless all those bodies are put under ground, when we all die, we’ll again be releasing a hell of a lot of carbon. Hmmm.
November 26th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Re: Niall Ferguson
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/23/business/america-shale-gas-ferguson-stevens/index.html
November 26th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
The REAL Dr. House
Yes, 16kg per person. Thats’s a lot, especially when it is added up for the 7 Billionn, but we do not fix carbon in the air into our biomass, as plants do, so all out bodily carbon, the 16kg average, is from our food. So we just hold it a bit longer, and yes, it will decompose and get back into the biosphere/atmosphere eventually.
More Carbon deams.
November 26th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Regarding the Arctic methane, (which hasn’t been reported since August that I can find), it spiked in August and should continue to rise to a peak by the end of Dec. Perhaps Prince Charles knows. He must have access to this information if he wants it. He says “Mankind Must Go Green or Die”.
November 26th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
‘animals expand their populations whenever there are ample food supplies and low predation’ -depressive lucidity
your name just brought to mind a classic american heavy metal song titled ‘silent lucidity’ from a band named queensryche, beautiful song and video.
replying to your comment, what about intelligent thinking animals like us? animals who create optimum conditions for themselves, who are authors of their own success? why isn’t the intelligence that enabled our species to so greatly expand it’s numbers used to self limit when it becomes apparent (at least to a few of us) that too much ‘success’ has deadly implications for the health of gaia and our longer term survival?
‘Anyone have any insight as to what the hell happened to Lovelock?’ -daniel
maybe senility. more likely he couldn’t stand the isolation and ridicule of being a high profile ‘doomer’. maybe both.
November 26th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
If we recycled our human waste, it would end up in the soil. The carbon would stay there.in the form of organic matter. The flush toilet was probably the biggest mistake we made, up there with fossil fuel use. So, try telling folks they should give up their fuel and their toilets as well as electricity. You better have a fast horse.
November 26th, 2012 at 7:17 pm
‘UNIMAGINABLE HORROR AND DEGRADATION’
madman, i agree, but i’m hoping the peak nightmare experience is decades in the future. i’m pretty sure it’s at least several years away. knowing it’s coming certainly brings thoughts of suicide. i disagree with ulvfugl here. i prefer dying on my own terms and timing. as has been pointed out, there are many ways to die, and some are much more desirable than others.
November 26th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Nurses
My Mom was a nurse, so I know the amazing things nurses like BC Prof and Kathy C do.
I started to wonder how much more money is the best nurse in the US worth, compared to the average nurse. Or to put it another way, how much harder could the best nurse in the US work compared to the average nurse? What do you think, twice as hard, 5 times, how about 10? Or how about 1,157,894 times? That’s how many times harder Bill Gates “worked” that the median US household. Humans are truly amazing creatures aren’t they? Imagine finding a squirrel somewhere in the US that had gathered a million more nuts the than the average. But we don’t find such examples in nature, do we? Could this be the source of our problem?
November 26th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Kathy C. I don’t know if I could have done what you have done. Like most nurses, I do really well in a modern hospital with all the fossil fuel based supplies I need. Contaminate a glove? Throw it away and get another one. We think “patient safety” justifies ruining an entire planet. Health professionals, in general, think that they are “exempt” from changing their practices. But we’re saving lives! Yeah. Lives that shouldn’t be saved.
I love starting IV’s. Just not on kids. It’s always easier on men. Try this: have the nearest man to you stand up with his arms at his side. Go around behind him and look at the back of his lower arm. There you will see a huge vein that looks like a kinky garden hose going from near the elbow down near the wrist. I once had to start an IV for cancer chemotherapy on an angry black man. He was diagnosed with throat cancer and he told the doctors to stuff it, he’d go home and cure himself. Well two years later he was back, not cured, and with a huge tumor on the side of his neck. He said they were now supposed to cure him. Now? It’s inoperable now, it’s in his trachea, in the blood vessels, everywhere. But they said they would give him chemo and see what happens.
Well I’ve probably pumped the equivalent of a 55 gallon drum of chemo into people’s veins. He was steaming with anger and none of the nurses could get an IV into his hand. I came in and he was even angrier because they had poked and poked. I told him I’d give it one try.
I made him stand beside the bed and face the wall. Then I got down on my knees behind him and laid out all my stuff. I didn’t use a tourniquet, I just rammed a 20 gauge upward into that huge vein. Bingo. He had it in for three days while his chemo was going. The chemo didn’t work, of course, but I was happy to start that IV.
It sticks with you. All nurses know this. In the grocery store check out counter you look at people’s hands. “Oh, man, I could get a 16 in there!” you say to yourself.
Our culture is so competitive. Why? Other cultures are not so competitive. Our culture is not the “best” culture. We are not at the apex of evolution. As Wade Davis says, “Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you.” “There are 6,000 voices that can answer the question of what it means to be human and alive.” We’re losing cultural diversity in the ethnosphere.
I was so interested to read that Van Jones thinks TPTB just don’t know what the hell to do! I actually believe that that must be true. Leaders don’t lead, they just follow at the front. We need to tell them what to do. Our voices have to get louder.
November 26th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Random thoughts on NTE.
A while back, John Michael Greer, made a statement in one of his essays (sorry can’t remember which one), which has haunted me ever since, especially now. He wrote, “we imitate what we contemplate”. While this is rather obvious once you think about it, I never quite framed it so succinctly. And now, as I obsessively contemplate NTE, like a moth to a flame, I wonder how I’m currently, or will over time, start to imitate NTE in my life?
All we’re contemplating is our manifold failure as a species and our subsequent death. How long can any of us, seriously hold such catastrophic knowledge as close as we are, and not over time, be utterly consumed by it?
November 26th, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Van Jones thinks TPTB just don’t know what the hell to do! I actually believe that that must be true.
I wish you were right BC. John Kenneth Galbraith frequently remarked that the world became much easier to understand if one simply kept in mind that rich people believe they should be even richer. TPTB know exactly what to do–keep grabbing as much as they can until there is nothing left. So, for billionaires, having a million times more than they need is still not enough. Dr. M. is an expert in natural systems, that’s a way of life that cannot be a part of any natural system. Yet it goes unquestioned in our society. The cultures that are being destroyed are being destroyed because they are in the way of people who can never have enough.
November 26th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
@ BC Nurse
I have little to add as to our current concept of health care. I have only been to a doctor once in my life as an adult, and that’s not because I don’t have health insurance. I’ve just been terribly fortunate in my life…..at least up to this point.
I have several friends who are teaching, and the one thing they all seem to have in common, is their lack of faith in their profession.
All I can say, is here your heartache, institutional and otherwise, and how frustrating it must be to see how our for-profit dysfunction, eventually sullies everything, even the best of our intentions.
BTW, congrats on your planned retirement.
November 26th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
BC Nurse Prof,
“Lives that shouldn’t be saved.”
I hear you. Here in the U.S., there’s a story behind each one of those “lives that shouldn’t be saved”. Most of the time, the basic story line is depressingly familiar, and runs along the line of your terminal throat cancer patient. Disease diagnosed early, patient does not comply with treatment plan (“I’ll cure myself”; “Modern medicine is poison”), disease follows its natural course, catastrophe strikes, patient now requires extremely expensive, aggressive treatment, often in the hospital or intensive care. This pattern is so common in the U.S. that’s it’s now virtually the “default condition”. This behavior is now so common that it has become the butt of jokes and ridicule:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/07/59-natural-medicine/
The people of many other countries, even some Western ones (France, Germany, Japan) are much less likely to exhibit such behavior, have much higher rates of treatment compliance, and enjoy better health because of it. When faced with disease, they deal with it as adults, not as adolescents. There’s no question that the cultures within which these people live play a large part in explaining the difference in behavior.
November 27th, 2012 at 2:55 am
Belatedly stating the obvious..
Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=2698&ArticleID=9338
November 27th, 2012 at 3:28 am
“Animals are literally dissolving because of acid in the ocean”. One of the commentors denies this story. Any comments? I know from experience that acid kills cows and it inhibits crop production. There are some species, strawberries for example, that need some acid. How do we explain shell fish?
http://gizmodo.com/5963106/animals-are-literally-dissolving-because-of-acid-in-the-ocean
November 27th, 2012 at 3:35 am
Ripley, I am not a nurse, just an ordinary volunteer in Haiti. I assisted the Sisters and the one nurse they had at the Children’s home. At the wound clinic I mostly just handed out supplies for patients to bandage their own wounds. We had iodine and hydrogen peroxide for cleaning – watered down. The patients would ask for rouge or blanc and then we would provide an ointment from the stock that had been donated – the nurse was never with us at the wound clinic so I had no idea what ointment or powder was best for different kinds of wounds. When a Dr. visited I grilled him as to what was best for the different types of wounds. We handed out cloth for bandages and made sure the people attending the clinic didn’t steal the scissors and forceps (often unsuccessfully).
When new children came in to the home someone made a diagnosis and treatment was prescribed. They had one sheet of paper for each room with a block for each bed in which the medication was indicated. The medication was written in pencil and erased and reused as children came and went. One day I got mixed up and gave several children the wrong meds – I told the nurse, she shrugged. A short term volunteer asked why the Hatitian women who were in charge of the rooms didn’t give the meds, why it was given out by white volunteers. I guess she was looking for discrimination = the answer of course was they couldn’t read. Us who could didn’t get it right all the time, too many babies, not enough time.
I tried using latex gloves once – the sisters has a stockpile of them. I put one on and it was full of holes – they had all started to disintegrate. I never asked why they hadn’t used them when they were good – perhaps they were donated in that condition.
November 27th, 2012 at 3:37 am
Arthur, I know many people who have done the modern medicine route the whole course of their treatment. They often do not know when to stop. If the decide to stop, often family members, afraid of their own mortality, refuse to let them stop.
The root of the problem is our denial that we are mortal beings.
November 27th, 2012 at 3:47 am
Daniel “All we’re contemplating is our manifold failure as a species and our subsequent death. How long can any of us, seriously hold such catastrophic knowledge as close as we are, and not over time, be utterly consumed by it?”
When I first realized we were at peak oil I realized that a huge dieoff was in the offing. I felt overwhelmed. Then I reminded my self that no one would die that wouldn’t die anyway. What we were talking about was timing and how many would be able to pass on genes. Every species was slated for extinction sometime anyway. All we are talking about is a speeding up of that process with no species passing any genes into the future. Since the sun would eventually die this would all happen anyway. We are living out the future in fast forward. That is what I think about to not be consumed by it.
However how it will play out is another matter and some days it scares me shitless – like the days I see pictures from Gaza and think this might play out here, or the days I see pictures of starving people and think “coming soon to a city near you”. It is not the fact of NTE extinction that is hard for me, but thinking about the time just before. Then I remind myself of the torture people put themselves through for a few days more of life, the torture family members put someone through because they can’t let go and I remember that end of life suffering is what most of us were destined for anyway. Go visit a nursing home (particularly one for poor people) – then be glad that that end of life is going to be gone. You will not end up your life strapped in a wheel chair, drooling on yourself with painful bedsores on your butt.
November 27th, 2012 at 4:47 am
dairymandave One of the commentors denies this story. Any comments? I know from experience that acid kills cows and it inhibits crop production. There are some species, strawberries for example, that need some acid. How do we explain shell fish?
That commentor is the typical idiot repeating anti-science, anti-climate change propaganda memes that are consciously and deliberately originated by public relations professionals for Big Oil, Big Coal, and the Christian Fundamentalist ‘God created life 6000 years ago’ think tanks, and various other groups, who see any constraint upon destruction of the the environment as a threat to their profit margins.
There is no such thing as ‘acid’, there’s many, many different kinds of acid, with different chemical compositions, which have different effects, depending on how concentrated or diluted they are, and where they are.
For example, you’ve got hydrochloric acid in your stomach, which is essential for digesting your food, and a very good thing. But if it wasn’t for a thin layer of mucus, it would start digesting you, as it does in the case of stomach ulcers.
The life in the oceans can cope with fluctuations in acidity and alkalinity ( measured on the pH scale, don’t you know the pH of the soil on your farm ? ) but, as with climate change over all, it’s the speed, the rate of change, which is the grave threat, because there is no time for life to evolve and adapt, the change is simply much too fast.
What it means is that the ecology of the oceans will crash, and instead of providing us with abundant sea food and oxygen to breath, they’ll become filled with blooms of all sorts of unpleasant micro-organisms producing unpleasant toxic chemicals, and life forms which can tolerate anoxic conditions, like jellyfish.
All part of the ongoing mass extinction event that we are causing.
November 27th, 2012 at 5:52 am
BC Nurse Prof, thank you for your eloquent and moving account of your life’s work, I do admire you for your integrity and ideals, and being able to cope with all that…
Our culture is so competitive. Why? Other cultures are not so competitive. Our culture is not the “best” culture. We are not at the apex of evolution. As Wade Davis says, “Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you.” “There are 6,000 voices that can answer the question of what it means to be human and alive.” We’re losing cultural diversity in the ethnosphere.
Could argue, it’s the WORST, no other has been so blind as to carelessly destroy the entire biosphere, it’s barely lasted a couple of centuries compared with some that lasted millennia, whilst being so self-aggrandising of itself ( I read today there was a plan to blow up the Moon with nuclear weapons for no other reason but to show everyone that they could ! ) and so disparaging, contemptuous and disrespectful of all other cultures and life forms, and so gullible and easily duped into accepting the most ridiculous notions, ignoring all the evidence…
Apart from the few of us who wake up, the masses see everything through the reality tunnels that their culture teaches them. I mean, IMO, it’s not really their fault, they’ve been deliberately dumbed down and brainwashed for a century, as a matter of policy, and this mindless ignorant trash culture is the result.
I’m watching this interesting video, I think it’s a good example. The factual empirical evidence is there, in the landscape. How you interpret it, depends upon the paradigm that you have in your head, the mental filters that your culture has put there. I’m not saying which story is right and which is wrong. An educated human should be able to make an informed critical appraisal, evaluate the evidence, not just accept the unconscious prejudice and bias that presumes meaning.
http://youtu.be/ELu9ARLo0jc
November 27th, 2012 at 6:37 am
In case any of you don’t watch that TED talk, it ends with the permanent exhibit on climate, at the Smithsonian, funded by the Koch Brothers, which suggests that to cope with climate change, humans may develop underground cities, and short, compact bodies and curved spines, so that moving around in tight spaces will be no problem….
So, you see, that’s the future that the Kochs envisage for the rest of us and our descendants, whilst they continue making billions now, wrecking a perfectly good planet, that lets us live up in the surface, in sunlight, walking around upright, with normal bodies and straight spines…
November 27th, 2012 at 6:46 am
Note that when the rest of the world’s nuclear plants go Fukushima even this inadequate response will not occur.
[Contaminated water storage] 240,000 tones of tank is full, pipe runs for 10km, finding storage place getting harder
Posted by Mochizuki on November 26th, 2012
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/contaminated-water-storage-240000-tones-of-tank-is-full-pipe-runs-for-10km-finding-storage-place-getting-harder-and-harder/
Nikkei reported the shortage of contaminated water storage in Fukushima plant, which is going worse.In mid-October of 2011, NIkkei entered Fukushima plant for the first time, when Tepco opened it for press. As the bus took us around, we saw the bizarre scenery of blue and white tanks. They are the contaminated water storage tanks.
The radiation level leaking from reactor1 ~ 3 reduced to be 1 in 80 million, but melted fuel remains there. Tepco keeps giving 17 tones of water every single hour so the cripple reactors don’t go out of control again.
They circulate the coolant water, but because the reactors are crippled, it keeps leaking. Even 400 tones of underground water flows to around the reactors. The contaminated water keeps increasing. They filter it out to an extent, and keep it in the tanks.
“Where to stock the water next month. It always gives me a headache.” Mr. Arai, the project team manager of water processing talks.
At this moment, the tank for 240,000 tones of contaminated water is already full. Tepco is going to add the storage facility of 700,000 tones of water in three years. It’s already more than a half of Tokyo dome. Tepco started the construction to bypass underground water to avoid flowing into the reactors but the bypassed water has to be stocked as well.
The pipe to circulate contaminated water runs for 10km. Scattered debris, trucks and heavy machinery damaged the vinyl chloride pipe to cause contaminated water leakage.
They were relieved to fix them by last Autumn in 2011, but water started leaking again in late January. It leaked at 10 locations in the same day at the most due to the frozen water in the pipe.
Tepco is supposed to have changed most of the pipe to polyethylene one and attached heat insulating material before the second winter.
They could shorten the pipe by making it circulate at each reactor, but they are postponing the construction due to the shortage of resource. Managing contaminated water is an endless process.
Related article..[Express] “Seismic stability of contaminated water storage tanks is questionable”
November 27th, 2012 at 7:40 am
BC Nurse Prof,
Thanks for sharing your insights and memories. My dad’s kidneys have been declining and he always said he wouldn’t do dialysis, that he wanted to do an Art Buchwald. Well, my mother didn’t want to see 80 and didn’t and my dad remarried and is now doing dialysis three times a week. I’m grateful that he feels better, but he’s 86 years old and this life extension at all costs is crazy.
Like others here, the Van Jones comment about TPTB and juggling chickens and chainsaws resonated. But c’mon, I can see not knowing what to do about IT ALL, but saying okay to Tar Sands? To fracking? They know better than that…..and they are going to do it anyway. Jensen is right, this culture and most of it’s members are insane. That is the only way to explain our current behavior. Isn’t it easier to stop something before it starts? And yet, we don’t.
Daniel, I know exactly how you’re feeling. I do a lot of self medicating.:)
November 27th, 2012 at 7:47 am
Back in the 80s and 90s I spent a considerable amount of time using the new spreadsheets, Lotus, to develop a good usable nutrition program for my dairy cows. There wasn’t much out there and those folks who were learning to program weren’t the same ones who milked cows. The capitalist system has caused dairying to push milk production to the limit which now is about 10 times what is natural for the cow. It can be done but the nutritional needs must all be met and it takes a computer to figure it out. There is only so much space in there; space is limited. Just one mistake, lacking of one amino acid or one mineral or one fiber and the cow dies. The acids produced need to be buffered continually. Much more involved. You know where I am going with this. We expect the Earth to feed 10 times more people than ever before. It could have done that if we had respected its every need. What we did was violate every one of its needs. We destroyed every thing we possibly could that Earth needed to stay alive. Methane or not, CO2 or not, what should we expect the prognosis to be? Were we good doctors and nurses for patient Earth?
November 27th, 2012 at 8:21 am
TPTB and juggling… hmph, IMO, they are ignorant, poorly educated, obscenely greedy, psychopathic delusional c**ts, who only care about themselves and playing wealth and power games.
Koch says he’s not sure if global warming is caused by human activities, and at any rate, he sees the heating up of the planet as good news. Lengthened growing seasons in the northern hemisphere, he says, will make up for any trauma caused by the slow migration of people away from disappearing coastlines. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food,” he says.
Except that he’s either a liar or an idiot, because growing food depends upon many more factors than temperature, global warming doesn’t increase day length, or improve the soil fertility, or the amount of water available, but then I bet he’s never grown a vegetable in his life… ‘enormously more people’ ? Yeah. Just what the Earth needs. That’s the sort of genius level thinking that being very rich produces.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/02/1128541/carbon-king-david-koch-thinks-climate-action-will-damage-the-economy-but-sandy-underscores-how-inaction-is-much-costlier/
November 27th, 2012 at 8:23 am
I’ve been reflecting on BC Nurse Prof’s account of nursing and her career, and Kathy C’s work in Haiti and in nursing homes, and I just came across this:
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~Elizabeth Kubler Ross~
November 27th, 2012 at 9:08 am
I read this tweet
America has 5% of the global population but consumes 80% of the pain opiates produced by the pharmaceutical industry and i wonder if it’s because USA has more pain, or more consumers with money, or more doctors who make money from prescribing, or what ? I wish americans understood what pain and suffering they cause to other people in other countries.
http://www.countercurrents.org/cooke261112.htm
November 27th, 2012 at 9:14 am
We are basically overwhelmed by our stuff that is full of poison and becomes shit or «debris» (the latest new name of stuff, see fukushima, sandy, etc.) The meds that we ingest to “comply” with our doctor’s orders mostly go into the drinking water (and into the ground of cemeteries), the platic bottles find their way into dolphins, everything is going back to the ocean, one way or the other and we are fast approaching a planet covered in leachate and plastic soup. Even the jellyfish won’t survive.
And we are still producing at this very moment an UNIMAGINABLE quantity of shit(planes, x-ray machines,iphones, cars, cars, etc.)
The size of the NTE just fukes my brains out. My heart has a feeling, but my intellect is phased out, fried. No words can even minimally carry what I feel (not in english in any case). I can only say that as long as I have electricity and am connected to internet, I am irrestibly attracted to NBL to find some food for thought that my human condition makes me crave for.
November 27th, 2012 at 9:26 am
Let’s do an experiment. Let’s raise the temperature of Mr. Koch 4 degrees and see if he dies.
November 27th, 2012 at 10:24 am
m/m, if it makes you feel any better, Nature Bats Last.
November 27th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Remember this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO4gPCpws60
November 27th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
John Sterman, MIT Professor…lays out the stark realities we are facing with climate change inaction in his presentation at the MIT Museum last month. He describes the risks we face by not taking immediate measures to address climate change in every sector of society and equates it to playing Russian Roulette with a revolver that has 19 of 20 chambers filled.
http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/mit-professor-says-we-are-playing-russian-roulette-with-our-childrens-future/
November 27th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Usual sickening crap, Bruce Wrobel and Herakles Farm, call themselves ‘environmentalists’, trash pristine rain forest in the Cameroons, to make money out of palm oil…
http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1126-hance-herakles-photos.html
November 27th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
President Obama has signed into law a bill that requires U.S. airlines be excluded from European carbon emissions fees.
Environmentalists had framed the bill as the first test of the president’s commitment to fighting climate change in his second term and urged him to veto it. Obama signed it over their objections, though the move was not publicized by the White House.
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/aviation/269603-obama-quietly-signs-airline-emission-trading-ban
November 27th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
A history lesson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8tIdCsMufIY
November 27th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Perhaps the Obama Admin. has been reading Nature Bats Last and realizes any efforts to curb emissions on air traffic are too little, too late. If that’s the case, as Martha’s fond of saying, “it’s a good thing.”
November 27th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Dawn, thank you much.
Dave thanks for the bit of Boss Hogg humor
Michelle, all I know to do is find what joys I can in the daily life. Mine right now, despite aches and pains is the best it has ever been. That makes it easier to do what I advise I know. I have these spiders that live in the house called house spiders and also known as vibrating spiders – they are reputed to eat other spiders including brown recluse spiders so I welcome them. Whenever I need a bit of a smile I touch a web and watch them vibrate – small things. Youtube seems to have everything so you can watch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhQJtwOGWgw
November 27th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Bru Pearce, at Arctic News, is pushing the geoengineering scam along with renewable energies as the big fix. We just need to put the planet under new management, then we can get back to Koch bros style capitalism and making more babies … to infinity and beyond.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/11/climate-management.html
November 27th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
depressive lucidity,
Bru Pearce is nuts. He’s off his rocker. The sea ice will be gone by 2015. Geoengineering can’t save it. There’s not enough time. Only eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano can save the sea ice now, and what’s the chance of that happening?
AMEG’s contemplation of the consequences of sea ice collapse is driving them off the deep end. Each geoengineering scheme coming out of their workshops is wackier than the last.
November 27th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Geoengineering’s basic gig:
A refrigerator—really big;
Global warming gets gone
Because they’ll turn it on
But leave the door open—can you dig?
November 27th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
John Sterman, MIT Professor. If technology is ultimately the cause of NTE, what would you expect from a university whose middle name is Technology. Thumbs down on most of it. He believes in progress and growth…and technology.
November 27th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
To: Dawn L
re: Kubler-Ross quote
I am not sure I understand the intent or meaning of this quote and perhaps I am not seeing it in the context Dawn L intends it. As it stands it seems hackneyed, banal or trite (not sure what the right word is …) insofar as while what she says may in fact be true and most of us here would agree, it seems to me that the majority of people who have “known suffering, known struggle, known loss” have actually NOT “found their way out of the depths” and, if the trauma acted upon them early in life, have ended up damaged, dysfunctional, disordered and/or addicted and likely passing the trauma on down the line. If it has happened to them later in life they are traumatically stressed and instead have ended up damaged, dysfunctional, disordered and/or addicted and likely passing the trauma on down the line. (just think about it for a while: how many traumatized people have you encountered who are “beautiful” and how many are obviously damaged?)
These overly simple meditations I find disingenuous at best and a destructive form of “hopium” at worst. Sure, “the most beautiful people we have known” may have healed or compensated for their trauma but the most dangerous, disturbed and destructive people I have ever met have NOT found their way out of the depths and rather than “an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern,” they are angry, bitter, resentful, vengeful and express their unhealed anger and hurt in various forms of maladaptive mayhem. I have a feeling the latter make up a larger population sub-group than do the well-healed former. As far as collapse and the debris strewn road toward NTE goes, I suspect most of us will obtain less uplift-ment from the healed and rather more difficulty from the un-healed.
I guess all I’m saying is half-baked, unexamined, feel-good platitudes don’t really offer much to me and, I feel, often act to obscure the whole truth by not looking at the other, and often much more important, side of the story. In my experience the happiest, healthiest, most productive, most successful, most fulfilled, most satisfied people I have met are the ones who came from priveledged up-bringings in well-off, emotionally healthy families and managed to avoid most of the trials and traumas which trip up and damage so many others.
In the end we are all only going to do what we can with what we have wherever we happen to be (with whomever we happen to be with, I suppose). A person’s level of success with that is going to have far more to do with how mentally and emotionally resilient they are under traumatic stress (of seeing everything one knows and loves collapse) rather than how many tools, guns and foodstores they have on hand.
What will enable people to deal with traumatic stress, I believe, will be their emotional resilience. The problem is most or all survivors will be traumatically stressed (including yourselves) and that damage will be the defining parameter for post-collapse social interaction i.e., scrabbling to survive as a scavenger on a planet of weeds in the rubble of our biosphere killing civilization.
November 27th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
To: Arthur Johnson
re: “Only eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano can save the sea ice now, and what’s the chance of that happening?”
The chance of that happening is indeterminate, indeed. However there is another thing, I believe, which could re-freeze the tundra, the sea-ice and the methane chlathrate formations and do a great deal of other good and which is much less indeterminate: Nuclear War leading to Nuclear Winter. This solution could have been implemented by now if our comrades in the United Snakes had voted for McCain and Palin instead of for O’bumwad. Iran would would be a cooling cinder by now and nuclear winter would be healing the wounds of the planet having sanitized the planet it of the disease agent (Homo sapiens sapiens biosphere-killer).
I know this idea has been hammered down by elfuggler and others in the past and, thus being condemned by the most vociferous, has never elicited rational conversation on this site (that I have seen) regarding the pros and cons of this as a viable (for saving the biosphere, not us) alternative. So instead of just dissing, try discussing. I’m not sure if Romney and Dipshit could have facilitated this solution but it is unlikely that O’bumwad will. He seems far too corporate controlled (Fascist) and aware this kind of Shock Doctrine Capitalism is a bit of over-kill (is that a pun?).
November 27th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
‘All we’re contemplating is our manifold failure as a species and our subsequent death. How long can any of us, seriously hold such catastrophic knowledge as close as we are, and not over time, be utterly consumed by it?’
of course, daniel, our extinction isn’t the most tragic. it’s just a small part of the mass extinction, which will leave gaia a much bleaker place for millions of years to come.
i can’t speak for anyone else. i’ll try to speak for myself. i hate a lot of things about our culture, gaia, myself. i hate a lot about my life. i didn’t ask to be born, nor did any of u either, i take it. i didn’t ask to be flawed within a flawed culture, as part of an apparently insane, purposeless, absurd, and often cruel world. i didn’t ask to be endowed with an instinct to live, or to be offered a life of addictive pleasures and profound pains. if i believed in a personal god, i, like kathy, would have to conclude that my god is a sadist. perhaps he feeds off misery.
i don’t believe in god and i’m not a fan of civilization, but i am dependent on it, and surrealize that there’s probably no escaping it except via death, because it’s taken over virtually every inhabitable place, imposing it’s laws and dogmas, domesticating every animal that can be exploited for profit, including humans, of course.
i’m not proud of myself. i’m addicted to life as long as the pleasures combined with survival instinct and aversion to dying, outweighs the pain/anguish, and the weak rational surrealization that i’m being ruled by fear or else i’d probably already have killed myself. i look forward to life’s pleasures, and the vast majority of my conscious time is spent not dwelling on doom. call it denial if u wish.
i call it despair. the bitter surrealization that this flawed existence is what it is, and there’s nothing i can do about it. i’m just along for the ride, hoping and probably deluding myself that when the ride gets too bumpy, scary, and painful, i’ll be prepared to get off.
i’m not prepared now. the matter is greatly complicated by it’s great stigma and by the law that makes assisting suicide a crime. it’s like life’s final trauma to have to face suicide alone, utterly without support or solace. i’m not ready to go there yet. i fear i won’t be until too late.
timing suicide, especially for anyone not suffering unbearably, is problematic. no one wants to experience unbearable unremitting pain/anguish, but no one wants to cut short life’s pleasures, either. by postponing suicide, one always runs the risk of suddenly becoming a victim of fate (or a sadistic, unbelievable deity).
anyway, i’m not consumed by awareness of doom. it doesn’t faze me much anymore to think of it, it’s just another unpleasant fact of life as i perceive it. there’s solace in recognizing my own fallibility, there’s hope my perceptions and convictions are wrong. most of all, there’s awareness that in any case i’m powerless to alter fate, except for my personal fate, over which i’m a bit anxious.
November 27th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
re: Kubler-Ross quote
In defense of Kubler-Ross’s earlier work but NOT the quote, I suspect it came from her later years (can’t find a date for it), during which some of her ideas became, how you say, less mainstream.
November 27th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
@ madmanintheattic
That’s a whole lot of rubbish, I certainly hope you don’t plan on dumping more of it here.
November 27th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
a pleasant beautiful musical fantasy distraction: ‘silent lucidity’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_19a9RZ9bk
November 27th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
with lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_19a9RZ9bk
Hush now don’t you cry
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You’re lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head…
November 27th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
@ TVT
“…..my personal fate, over which i’m a bit anxious.
Care to share more?
November 27th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
re:
“Daniel Says:
November 27th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
@ madmanintheattic
That’s a whole lot of rubbish, I certainly hope you don’t plan on dumping more of it here.”
Did I say something about dicussing rather than dismissing? I’m sure I did.
Daniel, I posted two consecutive comments. If you are going to be dissing rather than discussing you could at least point out which of the two posts you are dismissing and exercise a bit of respect and explain why it is rubbish. Otherwise your comment is merely empty anger and ABSOLUTELY meaningless.
November 27th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Madmanintheattic,
Nuclear holocaust is certainly a potential outcome of what’s happening in the world. In fact, I’d say that some sort of nuclear war is downright likely given worsening food shortages and resource depletion.
However, there is no indication that nuclear winter would “save the biosphere”. There are enough nuclear warheads on this planet to roast it for a good long time. Add to that the fallout from the destruction of all the toxic nasties that humans have created which require constant energy to keep them from spewing their poison all over the place (nuclear power plants, chemical refineries, bio-weapons labs, etc.), and there is nothing to make me believe that the situation would be any better than it would be with runaway warming. Either way, the planet is toast for a very long time.
November 27th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
to: REAL Dr
I didn’t say it would be pretty; I just said it would be a way to re-freeze the tundra, the arctic sea-ice, the methane chlathrates and stop the further decimation of glaciers, reduce the CO2 load, eliminate the cause of the problem and give the planet a chance to heal. I didn’t say it would be pretty and there are many related problems like loss of various needed containments.
HOWEVER I am pretty sure complex life will have a better chance finding it’s way after a Nuclear Winter than it will after we have released all the carbon we possibly can creating Venus 2.0. Complex life will have NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER on Venus 2.0; it might have a fighting chance on Earth Artificial Ice Age.
And for those of you who seem to read only what you want and leave the rest I DID NOT SAY IT WOULD BE PRETTY, I just think it is the only real chance for complex life, a better chance than Venus 2.0. Simple as that, really.
To the usual suspects, go ahead and dismiss and nit-pick … but do you have a better idea? One which covers as many bases as Nuclear Winter? Please share …
November 27th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Madmanintheattic, I didn’t imply that you thought it would be pretty. However, just because you believe something passionately, and I see things differently, doesn’t mean you’re right and I’m wrong, nor that I’m right and you’re wrong. Since neither one of us has any hard data to support which outcome would be more or less devastating, then it’s really just a matter of discussing our own opinions. Personally, I don’t think there will be much difference either way.
I’m more than happy to consider why you think that nuclear winter would give life a better chance. If you provide your reasoning rather than start out convinced that everyone is going to poo poo your ideas, perhaps it would be easier to discuss it with you.
Of course, as I’ve implied, I don’t really believe it matters either way. We can’t affect the outcome regardless what we think. But, discussing it can still provide a certain catharsis, I suppose.
November 27th, 2012 at 9:08 pm
@ Madman
If I read ANYTHING in your post worthy of being “discussed” I would. But I don’t. These are the last words I’ll ever write to someone who could possibly think nuking Iran would ever be considered a………solution? You should walk in the shoes of a troubled childhood down the streets of Tehran before you make such generalizations. Iranians are some of most hospitable and cultured people you could ever hope to meet. Please take your “banal and trite” observations elsewhere.
November 27th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
Dr. Strangelove has already been cooking up a pot of nuclear winter with the boys at NASA and the Pentagram.
If Kubrick were still alive, he could fake an Iranian first strike in order to light the fuse.
How I learned to stop worrying about climate change and love the bomb.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110223-nuclear-war-winter-global-warming-environment-science-climate-change/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iesXUFOlWC0
November 27th, 2012 at 10:49 pm
Here’s an article from Huff Post about Kevin Anderson’s recent talk about climate scientists downplaying the crisis for political reasons.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-k-comstock/a-suit-for-the-emperor_b_2189679.html
The article, like most of the stuff that is now seeping into the MSM, persists in the same evasions and bromides that ‘yes 2C is really bad, but we can deal with the situation if the rich countries would just behave and try to kick the carbon habit.’
No one dares to mention overpopulation (which is on its way to 9 billion), or feedback mechanisms, or how 2C quickly ramps up to 6C, or the methane bomb (which has already been triggered).
Not that it matters in the end. It’s obvious that nothing of consequence will be done and that the beast will just collapse and die a miserable death. It’s nevertheless amazing how delusional people are, regardless of their level of education. Everyone runs from reality. For me this is one of the most fascinating aspects of this experience. Seeing first hand the collective insanity of the culture and the extreme denial in the face of an ongoing mass extinction.
November 28th, 2012 at 2:15 am
ulvfugl
Guy
and all
The Sydney Morning herald, a still sort of leftish national newspaper,put the Permafrost melting and methane on the front page today.
It could originate from the same sourse (ulvfugl) you put up yesterday, coming out of the just started Doha conference, I’m not sure.
There is nothing new in it for those regulars here, but it is good to see an admission that this feedback loop, which is clearly explained with diagrams, is getting out.
what concerns me a bit is the obfuscation of responsibility on why these feeback loops were never included in the IPCC ans other reports, ostensibly those Guy details in his recent talk in Louisville, USA.
It is just framed in such a way that lets everyone who should have known the truth off, and now we have a bigger problem and be damned if it isn’t a lot harder to keep to 2 C scenario. This is probably why they were kept out of all those important reports, so we could just blame there feedback loops for missing the 2 C target, and then its all too dificcult, or- we see a police state, or ‘Annex-1′ world, which is where my money(if I had any) is going.
‘Where even the earth is melting’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/where-even-the-earth-is-melting-20121127-2a5tp.html
Some quotes:
“The world is on the cusp of a “tipping point” into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.
“The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales,” says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. “Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started.”
While countries the size of Australia tally up their greenhouse emissions in hundreds of millions of tonnes, the Arctic’s stores are measured in tens of billions.
Human-induced emissions now appear to have warmed the Arctic enough to unlock this vast carbon bank, with stark implications for international efforts to hold global warming to a safe level. Ancient forests locked under ice tens of thousands of years ago are beginning to melt and rot, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.
Advertisement The report estimates the greenhouse gases leaking from the thawing Arctic will eventually add more to emissions than last year’s combined carbon output of the US and Europe – a statistic which means present global plans to hold climate change to an average 2degree temperature rise this century are now likely to be much more difficult.
Until very recently permafrost was thought to have been melting too slowly to make a meaningful difference to temperatures this century, so it was left out of the Kyoto Protocol, and ignored by many climate change models.”
Can you all hear the obfuscation too ?
More:
” Professor Schaefer told Fairfax Media…. “Participating modelling teams have completed their climate projections in support of the Fifth Assessment Report, but these projections do not include the permafrost carbon feedback,” the report said. “Consequently, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, due for release in stages between September 2013 and October 2014, will not include the potential effects of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate.”"
Also:
“In a piece in the journal Nature, Mr Abbott and fellow researcher Edward Schuur from the University of Florida summarised recent findings from experts in the field.
About 1700 billion tonnes of organic carbon is held in frozen northern soils, they said – about four times more than all the carbon emitted by human activity in modern times and twice as much as is present in the atmosphere now. The impact of thawing soil on the speed of climate change will be similar to the total rate of logging in all forests around the world, they calculated.
“Our collective estimate is that carbon will be released more quickly than models suggest, and at levels that are cause for serious concern,” they wrote. “We calculate that permafrost thaw will release the same order of magnitude of carbon as deforestation if current rates of deforestation continue.”
Like Professor Miller, Mr Abbott’s job involves long expeditions into the Alaskan tundra.
“I think it’s easy for people to feel that the Arctic is just a far away place that will never have any direct effect on their life,” he said. “[But] the last time a majority of permafrost carbon was thawed and lost to the atmosphere, temperatures increased by 6degrees. That’s a different world. Too often climate change is depicted as a story of drowning polar bears and third world countries. Human-caused climate change has the potential to change our way of life. Mix in the potent feedbacks from the permafrost system and it becomes clear that we need to act now.” ”
Guy
I might give that ABC producer I mentioned a call again, if that’s ok with you?
November 28th, 2012 at 2:30 am
I listened to the Alex Smith audio. Even Anderson is in denial as he describes the emperor with no clothes. He believes “We’re Done” but won’t come right out and say it. Alex too. But telling it like it is hurts. We are damaged and scared and so we play turtle; afraid to stick our head out of our shell because it may get lopped off by others who are also emotionally traumatized.
The wounds heal and make us stronger. I like to think I can use that to be helpful to others who are likewise going to bleed. Offing yourself is very self centered. It really hurts those left behind.
November 28th, 2012 at 2:39 am
Evidence of climate change? In fairness to ordinary people who ask that question, the evidence has to be much more dramatic and persistent. I grew up in S. FL and experienced a cat 1 storm and a cat 2 storm, both were frightening, unpleasant experiences. You mentioned hurricane Katrina, but not too many people know that New Orleans got lucky with Katrina. That’s right, the storm weakened from 170 mph cat 5 to a 120mph cat 3 as it approached because the storm hit cooler water, and the city was on the weak side of the storm and only received cat 1-2 winds. But if the entire gulf is 1 or 2 degrees warmer every decade, the cooler areas vanish. New Orleans’ fate is sealed, it almost happened this year with Isaac. But this time NO was saved by El Nino which causes more shear that keeps storms weak, so Isaac remained only a cat 1.
I could go on, but with the kind of warming that is coming, Katrina/Sandy type events or worse, will certainly go from 2 per decade to 10 or more by the end of the decade. And in any given year some city’s luck could run out. A cat 5 into Tampa Bay or Miami. A cat 3-4 directly into Hudson’s Bay would send a wall of seawater onto the floor the NYSE in Southern Manhattan and cripple the entire subway system for months if not years. With hurricanes nature rolls dice, one year it will come up double sixes, and all these events could even happen it the same year. That’s when you will stop getting questions about evidence for cc. The 2012 hurricane season ends this week, who knows, by this time next year, those questions may finally be a thing of the past.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:16 am
Arthur “AMEG’s contemplation of the consequences of sea ice collapse is driving them off the deep end. Each geoengineering scheme coming out of their workshops is wackier than the last.”
That is the impression I get too. I don’t think they are part of some uber plan by TPTB, just a bunch of folks who see and can’t stand the seeing. However if anyone hears that Fox news is having them on I might change my mind. As far as I can tell virtually no one is paying them any attention.
November 28th, 2012 at 4:15 am
Madmanintheattic, earlier in the thread you asked how to italicise quotes.
Both Kathy C. and I tried to explain to you how to do it. You neither thanked us, nor, it seems, made the effort to learn how to do it. Why should anyone bother to help you ? I don’t see any reason, but anyway, for the benefit of others, here it is again.
Type into the textbox exactly like this <em> words you want to quote </em>
and it should then appear like this words you want to quote
As for your thoughts regarding nuclear war as a remedy for global warming, it seems to me that you have a very limited understanding of both. The fact that you bring up Iran at all shows how illogical and immoral your thinking is, and IMO brings this blog into disrepute, but even as a wacky thought experiment, nuclear winter as a sort of manmade therapy to refreeze the tundra seems like the sort of suggestion I’d expect from a very young child…. Don’t we have more than enough horror to contemplate already, without adding absurd, impractical, nightmares to the mix, that benefit nothing and nobody ?
November 28th, 2012 at 4:39 am
Are we to take this seriously ? Perhaps too early to know, I remain suspicious, but anyway possibly an interesting point of reference in contemplating what we are, as civilised/uncivilised beings…
Something very profound has happened. The existence of Sasquatch has been confirmed by a DNA study that appears to have been carried out at a high level of scientific competence. It isn’t simply a matter of us having discovered a new species on the Earth. What has been discovered is an intelligent species that is living in a way that is precisely the opposite of the way we live. The potential for a whole new kind of relationship therefore exists, and for both species the chance of embarking on a new journey that is far richer than the ones we have thus far pursued.
We are as different as we can be. In fact, polar opposites. Sasquatch is here to be; Man is here to do. These are two opposite poles of consciousness, and if we can find balance, we can, each of us, find ourselves in a completely new way. This possibility has never existed before, not in all the long years that the two species have spent living on Earth together.
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/confirmation-bigfoot-and-danger-left-hand-path
November 28th, 2012 at 5:03 am
@ Ripley Evidence of climate change? In fairness to ordinary people who ask that question, the evidence has to be much more dramatic and persistent.
Personally, I have no patience with that, because if people are so inattentive, dumb, uneducated, careless, irresponsible, that the vanishing of the Arctic ice cap is not sufficiently dramatic, then they don’t deserve to survive…
But it’s not my personal attitude that matters, is it. Nature, evolution, the tao, the universe, is totally ruthless. Anything that doesn’t attend to it’s own survival doesn’t survive. Our ancestors knew this. For a million years they stayed alert and aware and trusted their senses and their intuition. They had strong, hard, slim, muscular bodies, and they were closely attuned to all the other life forms around them.
All that has gone. And produced this, crazy obese consumer culture, which thinks it is ‘the pinnacle of evolution’, as BC Nurse put it, which IMO guarantees human extinction….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2239279/Black-Friday-2012-EVERY-American-adult-went-shopping-weekend.html
November 28th, 2012 at 5:07 am
TPTB are letting the truth out slowly to keep the peak of outrage low. They all hire this guy and use his playbook:
http://www.psandman.com/
Look at his client list, connect the dots. Look at the strategy he outlines, consider their strategy, connect the dots.
November 28th, 2012 at 5:09 am
ulvfugl
Serious question: Is unknowncountry something like theonion.com?
Answer (belated) to a question of yours: The stretch of land is along the Hungarian border, called Burgenland. It used to be the “poor” house of Austria. People from over here fuelled immigration to the Us, mainly to Chicago, in the Twenties and then Fifties again.
Madmanintheattic
“Nuclear War leading to Nuclear Winter.”
In order to save the planet we had to destroy it? Someone way more capable of using his brain said likewise: “The same kind of thinking that brought us into this trouble will no way be capable to bring us out of trouble.”
Well I guess there are plans around a plenty to “solve” some problems and neither of them we will like. (Won’t talk about my ideas in public, collapsewatch is watching
Peace.
November 28th, 2012 at 5:28 am
Story came out a few days ago, Bernhard, maybe something to it ?
Could be like Homo Floriensis/ Hobbit ? people didn’t believe that at the time.
http://www.monsangelorum.net/?topic=miscellany-9&paged=6#post-5833
November 28th, 2012 at 5:41 am
Ripley, I believe that the paradigm shift of climate change acceptance has finally taken place courtesy of super storm Sandy. Many in this part of the country had already been discussing it quietly and with reservation, lest someone ridicule them. Now, however, it’s out there being discussed on the big news stations. Climate change has finally come out of the closet.
The question now is, will the full picture of the coming devastation be painted, or will there be a concerted effort to mute the story so as to “protect the people”?
If people begin to get the full picture, then, as Tom noted above in response to my original positing of this scenario, “all hell will break loose”.
If one assumes that it is too late to do anything about this situation for all the reasons we discuss here, then what is the point of educating people? Is it solely for the reason of allow people to prepare?
It can be argued that mental and emotional preparation is of value. Also of value for many, myself included, is knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I’m not certain that everyone would agree with that though.
November 28th, 2012 at 6:05 am
geoengineering?
If the type of sunblocker aerosols are deployed to keep heat solar out, then this will also mean world crop yoelds will be far less.
This is what happens when a super volcanic erruption occurs, naturally blocking the sun.
What a mess.
November 28th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Climate change? First let’s have some evidence. Until at least one alligator has firmly chomped down there is no need to consider draining the swamp.
Folks don’t realise that the biosphere was already buggered before climate change “came out of the closet”.
November 28th, 2012 at 7:59 am
ulvfugl said: «Personally, I have no patience with that, because if people are so inattentive, dumb, uneducated, careless, irresponsible, that the vanishing of the Arctic ice cap is not sufficiently dramatic, then they don’t deserve to survive… »
Forget the Artic ice cap, they don’t see the trees dead or almost dead in front of their houses, through their own windows. When I talk about it, they answer: «I don’t know. I never really looked at the trees. I can’t tell what normal looks like.» or «Did not the ice storm break those trees in the 1990s?». Or some other insignificant reply.
The most difficult part will always be to accept that there is nothing “to do”. In my experience, most humans always want “to do” something in front of adversity. Animals have that instinct to, like vibrating spiders. When you sense danger, to escape powerlessness and madness, start vibrating. Do something. To die vibrating with all my might seems somehow better than to die cornered and terrified.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:02 am
CIA and Climate Change
http://www.ecoshock.info/2012/11/the-cia-nigeria-and-germany.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoshockNews+%28Ecoshock+News%29
November 28th, 2012 at 8:03 am
depressive lucidity Says: Seeing first hand the collective insanity of the culture and the extreme denial in the face of an ongoing mass extinction.
Doom avoidance reactions
Are technically not insane actions;
They must somehow involve
That we didn’t evolve
To rely on such mental abstractions.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:08 am
michele/montreal Says: The most difficult part will always be to accept that there is nothing “to do”.
When seen in a doomer’s light,
The world’s a disturbing sight;
It’s getting too hot,
But we cannot do squat,
So don’t let it get you uptight.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:32 am
michele/montreal The most difficult part will always be to accept that there is nothing “to do”. In my experience, most humans always want “to do” something in front of adversity. Animals have that instinct to, like vibrating spiders. When you sense danger, to escape powerlessness and madness, start vibrating. Do something. To die vibrating with all my might seems somehow better than to die cornered and terrified.
I take your point, but I think there’s a difference between us and those spiders.
I have those spiders in my house too. The fact that they are so widespread – possibly all around the world ? – is remarkable. I think they vibrate to confuse something like a bird, that thinks they might be edible. I makes it hard to see them clearly, as a target. I think they have powerful venom, I’ve seen that they have killed much larger spiders.
They must have evolved that behaviour because it was successful. The ones that didn’t vibrate gat eaten. Other creatures do ‘do nothing’, like fawns and rabbits freeze and hope they’ll be unnoticed.
I think the case is quite different for humans. All other living things follow their intrinsic nature, their instinctive, intuitive behaviour. We humans have lost that and become hopelessly confused. We have ‘culture’, and habits and values and feelings which motivate us, and pull us in different directions. Many people insist there is not even such a thing as human nature.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:38 am
Underminers is a work of love and of anger; a book about ordinary people, the ordeals they face, the lives they are made to lead, and the extraordinary things they could achieve in making the future a possibility for humanity. It is borne of deep ecology, a complete distrust of the industrial system and the institutions it has spawned. Nothing in the mainstream, so-called “environmental” movement threatens the continuation of the industrial machine and its rapacious desire to grow at any cost. Underminers is the alternative; a radical and remarkably rich tapestry of ideas for closing down the industrial system and returning humanity to a state of connection with its surroundings, with its communities and with itself. Such is its nature that no publisher will entertain the idea of printing the book. Not for want of trying, or even a lack of literary credentials – simply, the book is beyond the mainstream and I have no choice but to publish it myself.
So, the manuscript has been written, proof-read, laid out, and is ready for printing as a monumental piece of work – more than two years in the making. I want nothing more than to make the work available to all, hence it is already free to read and download online, and will be sold in print and eBook editions for no profit at all.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/861859782/publishing-of-underminers-in-physical-and-ebook-fo
November 28th, 2012 at 8:55 am
@OzMan re: Mr Abbott’s job involves long expeditions into the Alaskan tundra.
“I think it’s easy for people to feel that the Arctic is just a far away place that will never have any direct effect on their life,” he said.
Being from Alaska, I can assure you most Alaskans don’t even think about the Arctic. I remember reading an article around 15 years ago about how the melting permafrost was changing the subsistence lifestyle of natives, but I swear there is a never-ending supply of stupid Alaskans who are all for Global Warming because it was -30 F. After a summer of Arctic cyclones, massive wind storms in SC Alaska, and historic flooding up there, I had occasion to explain the jet stream to my brother, why they were all wet, and we here in South Dakota were in exceptional(!) drought.
Myself, I keep an eye on ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). Things are bad enough, but I figure if they ever open ANWR up to drilling, it’s all over. Probably makes no difference now, whether they do or not, since they are set for deep-water drilling just off the coast. I cried when I saw a photo of the oil rig. Wait and see.
November 28th, 2012 at 9:57 am
ulvfugl, I think we do follow our programs, its just we are now set in the wrong operating system, so instead of working towards our benefit, they work towards our detriment. People who understand our programs use them to sell ideas and products. Some of our programs may be suffering from disuse and some may be overstimulated (on purpose often) but 10,000 years is not enough time to evolve new programs (IMHO)
I don’t say that H-G life is the best life, a good life or any of that. Just that it is the life we evolved to live and IMO is the life in which we would feel most right.
November 28th, 2012 at 10:31 am
Wish I’d kept my mouth shut Kathy, because the subject is too big and too contentious
Programs ? We are not computers, we are not machines, that reduces us, diminishes us, IMO.
Yes, we evolved for H-G life, and that would suit us best, I agree, but even then, which one ? There are/were thousands, vast range of difference….
We seem to be almost infinitely flexible. If we decide to be nasty grubby sneak thieves, we can be, if we decide to be buddhas, we can be…
November 28th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Random thoughts on NTE
For the sake of argument, putting aside Keeling’s early work, let’s say climate science(the study of global warming) is basically thirty years old.
So, for the last thirty years, we’ve been watching this slow motion tragedy unfold during a significant portion of all our lives. For many of us, we came of age during the era of global warming. However, this decadal awareness, has inadvertently hampered how many of us now perceive the reality before us. We have a very linear understanding of non-linear events, given none of us have ever lived through such rapid change over such a short period of time.
For twenty five/thirty years, we have known about the potential threat of runaway global warming. We’ve known that if humanity is to survive, we must curtail our pollution, before we triggered any number of intractable catastrophic feedbacks. For the last thirty years, we have only witnessed our continued failure to heed the scientific warnings.
Now, it’s 2012, and no less than five feedbacks have been triggered, and we are now witnessing the last three years of non-linear rates of change, completely erase all “conventional wisdom” concerning climate change. However, as Guy repeatedly highlighted in his last PowerPoint, we are now where we knew we would be twenty five years ago.
Yes, it’s terribly confusing. Yes, climate science has sadly been proven correct, but our socio-economic policies have so distorted the science, it’s extremely challenging to know who or what to trust. Especially, given that the rates of change we are now observing, are probably beyond the scientific community’s peer review process, which only adds to the insane complexity of this ever unfolding cataclysm.
Similar to peak oil, we can only know we reached a peak in hindsight. We need several years to pass, before we can discern whether we’re just witnessing an anomaly, or discovering a new normal. Same goes for climatic non-linear rates of change. Though we’ve been witnessing accelerated rates of change starting around 2007, it didn’t kick in until 2010. We’ve needed several years of data sets, for us to determine whether or not we’ve finally crossed the point of no return. This means, with the advent of this year’s record loss and methane spike, we have only truly been living in full awareness of the possible threat of NTE for about six months +/-. And even though it confirms what many of us have long suspected, and have been watching unfold over that last few years, we’ve only recently, had the empirical evidence to finally establish the trend of non-linear rates of change.
And for we empiricists, that makes all the difference. Regardless of our personal acceptance, it now moves the entire conversation of Abrupt Climate Change from hypothesis to empirical fact. And in the rational minds of those who put truth above all else, that changes everything. And this is probably why Guy has changed his tune. We all just changed our tune, whether we’re fully aware of it or not.
So what does any of THIS mean?
Well, for starters, it’s no longer any of our subjective opinions. It means, the entire human race, is only about six months into realizing we’re now living in a whole new paradigm. We are only six months in beginning to fully internalize the implications of this new reality, wherein processing the signal greatest catastrophic event in human history. Only six months in realizing everything in our lives has just been turned upside down. Only six months in having to experience the signal most distressing reality our species has ever had knowledge.
Even for all my fellow travelers who have been living with Pre-TSD for decades, even though we have been witnessing this last extinction unfold for years, non-linear rates of change, is its own Event Horizon, which recasts our worst fears, from surreality to inescapability. And no matter how long any of us, have been preparing ourselves for this moment in time, all of us, are only six months into living with such acidic empirical evidence. Climatic non-linear rates of change, just took a seat in middle of our minds for the rest of our lives.
And again, that changes everything. It’s the difference between suspecting something to be true, and knowing it to be. Whatever hope we were once so desperately holding onto in the absence of not knowing, just flew out the window, and it’s never coming back. That long dark road we’ve all been looking down for a painfully long time, just got a hell of a lot shorter and darker.
All past references just became irrelevant. All prior knowledge, just became redundant. Every institution is just living on borrowed time. This truly is, the end of history. Simply because it is the end of literally everything. We are only six months into a dilemma that most likely has only one escape at some point.
Given everyone on earth is only about six months into this new paradigm, then I haven’t much “faith” in how we are currently framing this new reality, given it will repeatedly mutate over time, as such coercive knowledge slowly runs its course through our current vested interests. This newly discovered empiricism, is beyond sobering. It is utterly life changing. For it will very soon, become nearly impossible for anyone who has accepted to live with it, to continue justifying doing anything that doesn’t somehow merit our limited time. And in this culture, that’s eventually going to prove to be just about everything.
November 28th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Hahahaha…. ( that is rather sad, bitter laughter, Daniel )
I had a Greenpeace leaflet pinned on my toilet door, by a PhD scientist, 30 plus years ago, which has proven to be incredibly accurate, droughts in US southwest, fires in Siberia, melting Arctic, ocean acidification, etc, etc, the whole damn thing was predicted… I expected something would be done. The Chinese economic revolution hadn’t even happened then.
And then The Ecologist mag had an article showing expected sea level rise for UK. I was living in a house on the beach. Highest tide came up to my back door. I used to go across the road to the shop most days. I told the woman who owned it, what I’d read. She told me not to be stupid, ‘They’re only saying that to frighten us’… and I realised there was a problem… no matter what the scientists found or said, certain people were never going to believe it or accept it… and they still don’t and won’t…
One day I saw a man surveying on the beach, so I spoke with him. He was from the local council, responsible for sea defences. He knew all about the threat. He said the area would be abandoned, because it wouldn’t be cost effective to save a few hundred houses on a pebble bank of a river estuary which got flooded even without sea level rise.
I’ve been thinking about it most days, for thirty years. Only this year that I stopped feeling compelled to wake people up, because there seems no point any more. So much of what is going to happen is now already in the pipeline and cannot be revoked, it’s locked in, none of us can change it, can we.
November 28th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Ulvfugl, sorry I shouldn’t have written that as you have the opinion that we are more than animals, and I have the opinion that we are very smart animals, but nothing more than animals. But we are never going to agree on that.
November 28th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Guy! Quick! Don’t let this post by Daniel get away! Make it a post to start a new thread. This needs to be jammed in every mailbox, posted on every web site, emailed to every relative, released to every media outlet, sent to all Congress critters, all MP’s and politicians everywhere. I mean it’s real, it’s the truth, this is it.
We’re done.
I’ve been writing my article for the doc in Ontario. It will be my last act of publishing. My magnum opus. I sat in my Dean’s office and she asked me why I wanted to retire. I told her all I had learned on Guy’s blog. (I learned later from her husband that she went home and cried that evening.) I told her I wanted to go home, grow vegetables and sit on my porch and apologize to all the species we were destroying. Not to us humans, to the other species, although I’m sure we don’t even have enough time left for me to pronounce the names of all the species, even talking 24 hours a day until the end.
I told her that this was the year that it all fell apart. I told her that I couldn’t keep up anymore adding references to my paper. Every day, I said, another study, another report, or two or three, comes out saying how the planet is doomed.
Sea ice, methane, tipping points, albedo, boreal peat, drought, flood, jet stream, food prices. They’re everywhere in the empirical literature now. We’ve gone past all the markers. I’ve taken to looking at the table of contents for Nature and Science and Geophysical Research Letters every week as they are published, and lots of other journals, too. All have two or three articles directly related to catastrophic runaway climate change. Like, happening NOW.
I saw a link today about a woman who saw “Chasing Ice” the movie someone linked to here not long ago. She was clearly distraught and had changed her mind completely, now believing in climate change. Before, she told the interviewer that she had thrown people out of her house for believing in climate change. Now she was going to dedicate the rest of her life to fighting it.
Even though it’s too late.
A new phase has been reached. Now we’ll get to see how this monstrous species of ours responds. I’m sure it will be one disastrous idea after another. Another fix of technology that causes more problems than it solves.
Theatre of the Absurd.
November 28th, 2012 at 1:54 pm
OK I will say this about programs. Even simple digital programs can learn to hide. We are vastly more complex programs and so seem like we must be more.
snippet from http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177184710&archive=&start_from=&ucat=8&
In order to add two numbers together, for example, a digital organism needs to carry out a lot of simpler operations, such as reading the numbers and holding pieces of those numbers in its memory. Knock out the commands that let a digital organism do one of these simple operations and it may not be able to add. The Avida team realized that by watching a complex organism evolve, they might learn some lessons about how complexity evolves in general.
The researchers set up an experiment to document how one particularly complex operation evolved. The operation, known as equals, consists of comparing pairs of binary numbers, bit by bit, and recording whether each pair of digits is the same. It’s a standard operation found in software, but it’s not a simple one. The shortest equals program Ofria could write is 19 lines long. The chances that random mutations alone could produce it are about one in a thousand trillion trillion.
To test Darwin’s idea that complex systems evolve from simpler precursors, the Avida team set up rewards for simpler operations and bigger rewards for more complex ones. The researchers set up an experiment in which organisms replicate for 16,000 generations. They then repeated the experiment 50 times.
Avida beat the odds. In 23 of the 50 trials, evolution produced organisms that could carry out the equals operation. And when the researchers took away rewards for simpler operations, the organisms never evolved an equals program. “When we looked at the 23 tests, they were all done in completely different ways,” adds Ofria. He was reminded of how Darwin pointed out that many evolutionary paths can produce the same complex organ. A fly and an octopus can both produce an image with their eyes, but their eyes are dramatically different from ours. “Darwin was right on that—there are many different ways of evolving the same function,” says Ofria…
Ofria has been finding that digital organisms have a way of outwitting him as well. Not long ago, he decided to see what would happen if he stopped digital organisms from adapting. Whenever an organism mutated, he would run it through a special test to see whether the mutation was beneficial. If it was, he killed the organism off. “You’d think that would turn off any further adaptation,” he says. Instead, the digital organisms kept evolving. They learned to process information in new ways and were able to replicate faster. It took a while for Ofria to realize that they had tricked him. They had evolved a way to tell when Ofria was testing them by looking at the numbers he fed them. As soon as they recognized they were being tested, they stopped processing numbers. “If it was a test environment, they said, ‘Let’s play dead,’ ” says Ofria. “There’s this thing coming to kill them, and so they avoid it and go on with their lives.”
Of course there is a lot of anthropomorphism in the description, but it turns out we humans have a hard time expressing such things without ascribing intention to things that act like they have intention but don’t. Perhaps we do the same with ourselves.
November 28th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Even the folks on Real Climate are slowly working themselves around to some grim realisations that some of us had a long time ago.
About a decade ago I was on a discussion group about environmental ethics. It seemed to me that someone flying in a plane or driving in a car, burning oil, that caused CO2 to cause climate change that ruined someone else’s livelihood or caused them to die in a flood or a starve in drought was, indirectly, causing death and deprivation. I mean, the argument was put, what about whole countries that become uninhabitable because of climate change or sea level rise, are other countries obliged to offer the people sanctuary or pay for re-location, when it is other countries causing and profiting the pollution ? The only person who argued against any obligation turned out to be a public relations official for a California energy corporation.
This kind of situation is recognised in many situations of civil litigation, locally, in so much as if someone is negligent, and causes injury or loss to another, they are legally liable. But, so far, international law hasn’t caught up. Not only hasn’t it caught up, countries like the USA regularly disregard international laws that have been agreed.
Seems to me, as this crisis progresses, what we are going to see, is the choices being made as to who gets to live and who gets to die. I posted that comment at the end of the last thread re the proposed copper mine, which would put an end to a great salmon fishery that employs and feeds a hell of a lot of people. It’s either the one or the other. Salmon or copper.
Millions of people have been murdered in the Congo so that the consumers on Black Friday can have the coltan in their cheap mobile phones… this madness is going to keep on getting worse and worse until it puts an end to us all, or somebody figures out an answer… the Real Climate guys aren’t stupid, they’ve listened to Kevin Anderson, but I’ve heard it all before, the technofix, the revolution, the guillotines, the democratic pluralism, the protests, the fascist force, the economic crash, etc, etc, …. and there’s no time left any more… and Obama just showed where he’s really at, re America’s airlines, and the American people showed where they are at, out buying more crap on credit….
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/unforced-variations-nov-2012/comment-page-8/#comment-302795
Sigh…
November 28th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Kathy ..I shouldn’t have written that as you have the opinion that we are more than animals, and I have the opinion that we are very smart animals, but nothing more than animals. But we are never going to agree on that.
Oh, but I agree that we are animals, a lot of us are very stupid animals, but a few are smart enough to realise that we are amazing magic animals…
November 28th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
i’ve been living without a heater since August. At first we (wife and i and 2 dogs) had no problem and our propane bill was the lowest we’ve ever seen. We don’t use the heater until after Thanksgiving as a rule of thumb (because i’m secretly preparing them for when we DON’T HAVE HEAT IN THE WINTER), but last night, with a low around 34 after it snowed most of the day (slushy accumulation – no biggie) was a little rough (we snuggled with the dogs under the covers and it was only rough when we got up and out of bed in the morning).
Well, the HVAC guy showed up and fixed the thing today so now we have heat until the whole system of civilization falls apart (soon). By the way, the A/C unit is on the fritz too .. . (If we make it to next summer, maybe we’ll get that fixed too – if we still have “jobs”)
Now, the real reason i wanted to post today: it’s looking more and more like climate guys like Joe Romm (and others) are beginning to see that we’re on our way out. Here’s today’s Romm post:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/28/1249391/study-sea-levels-rising-60-faster-than-projected-planet-keeps-warming-as-expected/
There’s another post there, that i’ve seen elsewhere, in which ordinary climate deniers (like this woman in the video) goes to see Chasing Ice and it completely blows her away – so now she knows that Bill O’Reilly, et al, are a complete bunch of psychopathic LIARS and have been for decades – and now she wants to DO something about it! Let’s see how long it takes her to reach our conclusion.
i wanted to also express my gratitude to all the commenters for the great links and conversations i’ve been following here.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
BC Nurse Prof Says: Guy! Quick! Don’t let this post by Daniel get away! Make it a post to start a new thread.
Agree. Totally outasight.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Yep, and bc nurse profs response to it. Totally crystallized.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
depressive lucidity Says: Seeing first hand the collective insanity of the culture and the extreme denial in the face of an ongoing mass extinction.
“Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”
==
“Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five.”
Part of warming denial’s drive
Is consensus trance where you contrive
To rewire your brain
To the kind of insane
Which sees four fingers instead of five.
November 28th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Reactor3 got worse than last year] 5 Sv/h on the first floor of reactor3, “3.6 times worse than last year”
Posted by Mochizuki on November 28th, 2012
On 11/27/2012, Tepco conducted robot survey on the first floor of reactor3 building.
The purpose was to investigate the pipe for contaminated air from the turbin building, the pipe is already damaged.
The result shows there was no additional damage on the pipe but the radiation level increased at 5 of 8 locations, the highest reading was 4.78 Sv/h, which increased from 1.3 Sv/h since 11/14/2011.
It reaches the fatal dose within two hours.
It was 8mSv/h at the entrance of the building.
Tepco is now researching the cause of having increased the radiation level drastically since last year.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/reactor3-got-worse-than-last-year-5-svh-on-the-first-floor-of-reactor3-3-6-times-worse-than-last-year/
November 28th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Aah, but, but, BenjaminDonkey ( and Kathy C. re the digital organism ) seems brains and numbers are both kinda insane, some deep weirdness going on that nobody understands…
The ABC conjecture is a young problem in mathematics, first proposed in 1985 by the mathematicians Joseph Oesterlé and David Masser to describe the relationship between three numbers: a, b, and their sum, c. The conjecture says that if those three numbers don’t have any factors in common apart from 1, then the product of their distinct prime factors (when raised to a power slightly greater than one), is almost always going to be greater than c.
The conjecture intrigues mathematicians because, according to traditional thinking, there shouldn’t be any connection between the prime factors of a and b and the prime factors of their sum. If the ABC conjecture is true, it suggests there’s some hidden property of prime numbers that extends down deeper than we’ve been able to perceive.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/11/03/abc-proof-too-tough-even-for-mathematicians/o9bja4kwPuXhDeDb2Ana2K/story.html
Btw, I also agree, Daniel’s comment is amongst the best ever. ( How about filling it out a bit ? I’m not completely easy about the starting date, perhaps just my age, but for me it begins with Silent Spring… ) Definitely deserves greater prominence.
November 28th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
people do what they can until they can’t, and then they don’t
November 28th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Ulvfugl you wrote “Seems to me, as this crisis progresses, what we are going to see, is the choices being made as to who gets to live and who gets to die.”
IMO if we are to remain sane at all in the coming insanity we have to change the usual way humans speak. Drs. don’t save lives, they extend them. We don’t get to see who gets to live and who gets to die, we get to see who dies first and who dies later.
For me being able to say over and over NO ONE DIES WHO WOULDN’T DIE ANYWAY is the way I stay sane with this knowledge of the end coming. Everyone alive was always going to die. Birth is the cause of death. The unborn never die, the born always do.
Then we can talk about timing, if anyone is left to keep the species going etc. I know I rant on this over and over but it is important. The question is not IF we die or don’t die. The question is when and how.
Those who might make the choices, have to die too. The executioner always dies in the end. The hangman may never hang but he too dies. TPTB are mortals and they too die. Reagan died. Mao died. Stalin died. Mayer Rothschild died. Hitler died. Caesar died.
Well unless aliens brought them back to life and they are plotting against us on another planet.
November 28th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
“Well unless aliens brought them back to life and they are plotting against us on another planet.”
Of course that is what is happening, KathyC! Hahahaha!
November 28th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Maybe the penguines in Anarctica will survive. Just a nice thought.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Kathy C, NO ONE DIES WHO WOULDN’T DIE ANYWAY The first time I heard a variation of this was from a preacher in South Florida. He said, “nobody gets out of this alive”. When you let that sink in a bit, you become aware of just how hard we work as a species to deny that simple fact. Everyone dies. Period. End of story.
I frequently tell patients that, like me, they are going to die – nothing I nor anyone else does is going to change that; the question is what quality of life he or she will have until that day arrives.
Most of my patients have grown used to my eccentricities, but occasionally I rattle someone just a bit.
In a related vein, I had two separate patients strike up a conversation with me today about some of the things we discuss here, at least marginally. One was curious if I thought the world was going to come to an end this year a’la the Mayan calendar. The other was asking my opinion on whether it was too early to start his garden for next year (indoors, of course). He’s decided that he’s going to need a big garden next year because he’s afraid that food will become scarce.
There is definitely an awakening taking place. It’s going to be interesting in so many ways, that’s for sure.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Kathy C, NO ONE DIES WHO WOULDN’T DIE ANYWAY The first time I heard a variation of this was from a preacher in South Florida. He said, “nobody gets out of this alive”. When you let that sink in a bit, you become aware of just how hard we work as a species to deny that simple fact. Everyone dies. Period. End of story.
That’s what Truman and LeMay said when they decided to drop the two bombs on the Japs. The tens of millions killed in WWII? Sorry…but suck it up, you would have died anyway. Cool.
November 28th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Kathy C Says: For me being able to say over and over NO ONE DIES WHO WOULDN’T DIE ANYWAY is the way I stay sane with this knowledge of the end coming.
Detachment is how I stay sane
On our swirling trip down the drain;
It decreases the strain
That would freak out my brain,
And it really helps me maintain.
November 29th, 2012 at 1:53 am
Thank you all for your terribly kind words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYRbFCnioSk
November 29th, 2012 at 2:06 am
Kathy C. Ulvfugl you wrote “Seems to me, as this crisis progresses, what we are going to see, is the choices being made as to who gets to live and who gets to die.”
IMO if we are to remain sane at all in the coming insanity we have to change the usual way humans speak. Drs. don’t save lives, they extend them. We don’t get to see who gets to live and who gets to die, we get to see who dies first and who dies later.
For me being able to say over and over NO ONE DIES WHO WOULDN’T DIE ANYWAY is the way I stay sane with this knowledge of the end coming. Everyone alive was always going to die. Birth is the cause of death. The unborn never die, the born always do.
Then we can talk about timing, if anyone is left to keep the species going etc. I know I rant on this over and over but it is important. The question is not IF we die or don’t die. The question is when and how.
Those who might make the choices, have to die too. The executioner always dies in the end. The hangman may never hang but he too dies. TPTB are mortals and they too die. Reagan died. Mao died. Stalin died. Mayer Rothschild died. Hitler died. Caesar died.
Well unless aliens brought them back to life and they are plotting against us on another planet.
Yes. It would be good if we could refine the language. As Keynes said ‘In the long run, we’re all dead’. The time dimension is important. So do we squander everything now, in a big party, and to hell with the future ? That’s American culture isn’t it ? It’s self-fulfilling, ensures that there isn’t a future.
I was thinking more in eco-geo-politico terms, about resources. People A depend upon resource X to live. People B have more power than people A, because they control the money, or the weapons, or the political machinery. So people A lose, they pushed off the planet. ( Wade Davis. )
I was reading last night about ancient ivory discovered in Spain dated about 4000 years old. It had been assumed it was from the North African elephant, which is extinct. I did not know that that had been a North African elephant. Now it has been shown that it is actually from the Syrian elephant, also extinct. I did not know there had been a Syrian elephant either. It’s not that long ago, possibly as recently as 700 BC. Both pushed off this planet by us.
So if we think of it in that way. We are pushing people(s), and species, and cultures, and so forth, off the planet, into oblivion. We make choices. We’d rather have cars and planes than salmon and albatross and penguins. ( Sorry, dairymandave, the Emperors and Adelies are in trouble too ).
And because the choices are ignorant, informed by crass human desire, profit, advertising, not scientific understanding of biology, ecology and earth systems, we cause our own extinction. Does that make sense ?
November 29th, 2012 at 2:34 am
To save : to rescue from danger, loss, or harm.
Thing is, depending upon how we define the words, I have had my life ‘saved’ by doctors and nurses, in the sense that, I would have died, but they acted in ways that prevented my death at that particular time, and thus extended my life. They didn’t extend it indefinitely. I remain mortal, just like them.
Funny thing was, when I was leaving, and had to fill in some forms, and thanked the surgeon for saving my life ( kinda precious to ME ! ) he appeared slightly resentful and annoyed and said ‘I’m just doing my job !’. Not sure what I was supposed to make of that. Perhaps he was just stressed out and didn’t want any personal connection to any of it.
In a sense, it is a gift. ‘Here is this restored health, so you can live for x amount of time’.
Rather like, ‘Here is this food, so that you can live for x amount of time’.
So then you have x amount of time available. What do you do with it ?
November 29th, 2012 at 2:55 am
It is interesting to look back on the 25 year long history of this issue. I remember seeing Dr Hansen’s 1988 testimony before congress on being covered very prominently in the mass media. It’s was a summer of devastating forest fires in Yellowstone. It all received very high profile, cover of Newsweek, type media coverage. There was this link in people’s minds, catastrophic events in Yellowstone plus smartest NASA scientist on the planet warning of climate change. So it is important to remember that if it the dramatic burning of Yellowstone hadn’t happened, it’s doubtful the issue climate change would have received any widespread attention at all at that point in history.
But after this dramatic start, what happened to the issue and to environmental issues in general over those next two decades? Just at the time when these issues needed serious public discussion and reinforcement, quite the opposite occurred. Here in the US a very interesting phenomenon occurred, instead of a brilliant NASA, it was a college dropout named Rush Limbaugh who become the most prominent spokesman on environmental issues in the nation. His analysis of the issue was simple and effective, anyone who cared about these issues, (Dr. Hansen, Dr McPherson, etc) were simply labeled “environmental wackos.” RL’s appearance on thousands of radio stations throughout the US matches the history of the CC issue almost to the day. The owners of America’s mass media made a decision about what kind of information on CC millions of people would get, and they’ve reinforced that by adding numerous RL clones and Fox news. So, Hansen received a brief flurry of media attention, a few hours of testimony to congress, followed by decades of round the clock barrage of media calling him and people like him crazy. And it continues to this very day.
November 29th, 2012 at 3:05 am
The TED video has probably been around but it is still good until the end. We, the audience, are supposed to read between the lines; The Impossible is NOT Possible. If he told all the truth, he wouldn’t get invited to speak. Those with the ears to hear will hear.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/5-charts-about-climate-change-that-should-have-you-very-very-worried/265554/
David
November 29th, 2012 at 3:14 am
I can say this: If I treated my cows just 10% as bad as we, all of us, have
treated Earth, they would all be dead. How can you think we, all of us, can be
so disrespectful to a highly balanced ecosystem and expect it to stay balanced?
That’s not reasonable. We have never found, yet, another place like Earth that
is so finely balanced so as to support life. Extinction has happened 5 times
before when things got out of balance. Is there any reason why it can’t happen
again considering what damage we have done?
November 29th, 2012 at 3:19 am
Ripley, Prince Charles was shown on Today show stating his “Get green or die” but the subject was quickly changed to the new hairdo of his daughter in law. And that was the end of that.
November 29th, 2012 at 3:20 am
BtD, yes detachment. I cannot live and plant my garden without some detachment from the future I see coming. When I was in Haiti there was one baby at the Children’s Home who was plump and healthy looking. Unlike the others this child was an abandoned child, dropped on the steps as a newborn. For 6 mos the nuns had fed him well and he thrived, while the other children that came and went home or came and died, had never had enough food and were thin and often stunted. But this baby was orphaned and could be put up for adoption. I think this baby helped the nuns detach from the lives that they could only help marginally.
An adoption was set, the child was to go to a couple in Germany. His leaving was a few days away, but an AIDS test was required. Well you know the end of the story. He was infected with AIDS, he could not be adopted in Germany. It was the only time I saw the nuns let down the detachment that allowed them to function day by day. And in telling it a bit of my carefully fostered detachment slips.
November 29th, 2012 at 3:20 am
Yes. We, the ones who have cared, have known this stuff for years and years, for example, this from 2007 :
In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death.
Such is also the path of a dying species. Beyond a critical point, the collective body of a unique kind of mammal or bird or amphibian or tree cannot be salvaged, no matter the first aid rendered. Too few individuals spread too far apart, or too genetically weakened, are susceptible to even small natural disasters: a passing thunderstorm; an unexpected freeze; drought. At fewer than 50 members, populations experience increasingly random fluctuations until a kind of fatal arrhythmia takes hold. Eventually, an entire genetic legacy, born in the beginnings of life on earth, is removed from the future.
Scientists recognise that species continually disappear at a background extinction rate estimated at about one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost in a sustainable fashion. Occasional mass extinctions convulse this orderly norm, followed by excruciatingly slow recoveries as new species emerge from the remaining gene-pool, until the world is once again repopulated by a different catalogue of flora and fauna
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction–the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.html
November 29th, 2012 at 3:30 am
Re Rush Limbaugh, etc, if you have not seen it, you really MUST watch Century of the Self, by Adam Curtis, which explains the whole deal…
http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/the-century-of-the-self-part-1/kJYbYhfxKG54YDIWgC4hVw
November 29th, 2012 at 3:35 am
Ulvfugl “So do we squander everything now, in a big party, and to hell with the future ? That’s American culture isn’t it ? It’s self-fulfilling, ensures that there isn’t a future.”
Yes we Americans are squandering everything, including those on this site even if we are living at a lower scale than most Americans. I was told by a friend that I was noble for my willingness to live very simply. That seemed funny to me as I didn’t feel I was anywhere near where I thought I should be (back in the days when I was doing it for human equality reasons more than ecology reasons). But Americans aren’t squandering everything because they know they are mortal or because they see the end coming. They are doing it because they can and because the media tells them they will be happier if they do.
I have from a young age acknowledged my own mortality. It never made me live an extravagant life. Acknowledging the species mortality isn’t making me go out an buy stuff or change my lifestyle. It wouldn’t make me happy. What others do with the knowledge is up to them. I suspect that those who accept the coming extinction of humans will not go party, the ones that upon hearing the news and go party are the ones who are desperately trying to not hear it.
November 29th, 2012 at 4:09 am
A gorilla has a stillborn baby, then a week later seems to have an emotional catharsis amidst a cloud of butterflies… or at least, that’s a possible interpretation.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/11/gorilla-butterflies.html
November 29th, 2012 at 4:35 am
Ulvfugl– thanks for that link, I’ve seen some of it before, I’ll take another look.
To me the history of how our society and TPTB responded to information about climate change is as fascinating as climate change itself. That people who cared about the environment would actually be demonized, to the point of being labeled insane and even compared with terrorists. That this would be considered legitimate debate worthy of billions of dollars of funding by very wealthy people and disseminated on thousands of media outlets over several decades, is as important a part of the story as the latest CO2 reading. That it happened, and continues to happen in the US, needs to be talked about, since it’s a big part of the reason we are in the mess we are in.
November 29th, 2012 at 4:38 am
When falling in earth’s gravity the acceleration (in the vicinity of the surface) is 32 ft/sec/sec. At the beginning of the first second it is 0 ft/sec and at the end of that second it is 32 ft/sec. At the end of the first quarter-second it is 8 ft/sec. The average for the first quarter-second is (0 + 8)/2 = 4 ft/sec: for a 1 ft fall in the first 1/4 sec.
In the fifth quarter-second the beginning velocity is 32 ft/sec and the ending velocity is 32 + 8 = 40 ft/sec for an average of (32 + 40)/2 = 36 ft/sec: for a 9 ft fall in the fifth quarter second.
We are somewhere in the first quarter second, and are just beginning to realise what’s happening. Since a change of infinite magnitude cannot happen on a finite planet, it will have to level off somewhere after the steep rise, a sigmoid (S-shaped) curve. We are at the beginning of where the curve bends upwards. All bets are off from this point onwards; we don’t even have any idea of where it will begin to level off. Yet it would be safe to venture that the pace and magnitude of change would preclude almost all of the present biota on this Blue Marble from the adaptations necessary for survival. More cogent in our consideration is the minuscule portion of that biota served up on our dinner plates.
November 29th, 2012 at 5:11 am
And because the choices are ignorant, informed by crass human desire, profit, advertising, not scientific understanding of biology, ecology and earth systems, we cause our own extinction. Does that make sense ?
Not really. “Scientific understanding” gets a pass, and it shouldn’t. It’s part of Civilization as much as religion is part of Civilization. It’s about experiencing the world through abstraction, rather than via primal, visceral sensing.
November 29th, 2012 at 5:33 am
That this would be considered legitimate debate worthy of billions of dollars of funding by very wealthy people and disseminated on thousands of media outlets over several decades, is as important a part of the story as the latest CO2 reading. That it happened, and continues to happen in the US, needs to be talked about, since it’s a big part of the reason we are in the mess we are in.
You do realize you are setting a trap for yourself, don’t you? If you accept the notion that the MSM is the whore of TPTB and has done their bidding as it relates to any topic of importance, meaning it spins, lies, distorts and misdirects, then what of the talk around here lately that “the media is finally starting to carry the dire message?” Are we to now trust the compromised media to tell the truth for once, and come clean? You can’t demonize the media, and say it’s bought and paid for when it denies ACC, and then embrace and praise the media when it does the opposite. That’s inconsistent. You can’t have your End, and eat it too.
November 29th, 2012 at 6:23 am
Ripley …That it happened, and continues to happen in the US, needs to be talked about, since it’s a big part of the reason we are in the mess we are in.
Yeah, well, I pointed to that video because it gives the history, the guys ( e.g. Kochs, Murdoch, etc ) have had a century to learn how to control the media to control the internal psychology of the individual consumers and shape their worldviews. All those people, who think that they are free independent individuals have actually had their brains colonised, taken over, filled with memes, mind-viruses, to make them incapable of any kind of critical thought processes.
For example, if the simple folk should happen to wake up for a second and have the idea ‘I wonder what carbon dioxide really is ?’ the denialist propaganda think tanks are one step ahead and have prepared an answer ‘Carbon dioxide is plant food, essential to all life. Now, rest easy, and go back to sleep.’
So next time they have a casual conversation with a neighbour about global warming, they can both agree, it’s a scam, because they can both agree that CO2 is plant food, essential to all life, couldn’t possibly do any harm…
It’s true, carbon dioxide is plant food. But then so is water. What matters is the quantity of it. And where it is.
Too much, too little, wrong place, you die. The denialist propaganda snake oil merchants don’t bother to mention that part.
November 29th, 2012 at 7:03 am
I’m sure this has been around, too, but it’s a good review. Is this all correct?
Just Right Planet
Characteristics of the earth seem to be just right to support life. If the earth’s gravity were greater, the atmosphere would retain too much ammonia and methane for life. If it were weaker it would retain too little hydrogen and water for life. The location of the planet in regards to the sun is critical for life; it the distance were greater the earth would be too cool for a stable water cycle; if the distance were less it would be too warm for a stable water cycle. If the orbital eccentricity of earth were greater the seasonal temperature range would be too extreme for life. If the axial tilt of the earth were greater or lesser, surface temperature differences would be too great to sustain diverse lifeforms. If the rate of change of axial tilt were greater, temperature changes might be too extreme for life. If the daily rotational period of the earth were longer, diurnal temperature differences would be to great for life. If the rotational period were shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great for life. Related to this, it is known that the planet’s rotation has slowed considerable over 4 billion years. Thus if the earth were older or young (spinning faster or slower), life might not be possible. If the earth’s metallic core were larger and the magnetic field greater electromagnetic storms would be too severe, if weaker the planetary surface and ozone layer would be inadequately protected from hard solar and stellar radiation. If the earth’s crust were thicker tectonic activity would not be possible; if it were thinner tectonic activity would destroy life. If the earth’s albedo were greater runaway glaciation would occur; if it were less a runaway greenhouse effect would occur. If volcanic activity were lower insufficient amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor would be returned to the atmosphere; soil mineralization would be insufficient for life advanced life support. If volcanic activity were higher, there would be massive damage to life’s ecosystems. If tectonic activity were slower, the cycling of crustal nutrients would hinder life, if faster crustal activity would be too unstable for complex ecosystems to develop. If the ratio of ocean to continents were greater (continents have evolved over time, there is far more continental rock today than earlier) the diversity of and complexity of lifeforms were be limited (the vast majority of the earth’s biomass in on land); if the ratio were smaller the result would probably be the same. If the distribution of the continents were different global climate could change drastically. If the frequency of the earth’s glacial ages were less, earth’s surface would lack the mineral concentrations and availability essential for advanced life; if they were greater the disturbance would destroy complex ecosystems.
The characteristics of the earth’s atmosphere are within narrow limits suitable for life. A thicker atmosphere would retain too much heat, a thinner one too little. If carbon dioxide levels were greater a runaway greenhouse effect would develop, if lower plants would be unable to maintain efficient photosynthesis. If oxygen levels in the atmosphere were lower advanced life functions (metabolism) would proceed too slowly, if levels were higher fires would burn uncontrollably. If water vapor quantity in the atmosphere were greater a runaway greenhouse effect would develop, if less rainfall would be too meager for advanced land life. If the ozone layer were greater surface temperatures would be too low for life; and there would be insufficient UV radiation for life, if less surface temperatures would be too high for life; UV radiation would be too intense for life. If the atmospheric electric discharge rate were greater fires would be too frequent for diverse life, if less too little nitrogen would be fixed from the atmosphere for complex life.
November 29th, 2012 at 7:49 am
Hahahaha, fascinating comment on Real Climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/unforced-variations-nov-2012/comment-page-9/#comment-303010
Gavin Schmidt makes a very fair point. Doing things properly. Doing things properly, as in scientific procedure, that is.
But what about the ‘unknown unknowns’ ? It is just possible, that is, not impossible, that our situation could be very, very much worse than anyone so far realises… Real Climate is supposed to be strictly about the science not about hopes or speculations or hand waving… but let’s consider an analogy…
Four hundred years ago, or whenever it was, surgeons like Harvey, were trying to understand how the human blood system worked. They cut people open and they saw the hear pumping and the lungs, and they saw red blood and blue blood and arteries and veins and so forth, and the people died, and they kept on doing it, and eventually, they figured out the circuitry through the capillaries and understood how the system worked. Round of applause ! Isn’t science wonderful !
That’s where Real Climate are at. They want to know the technical details, how the systems works. Trouble is, the rest of us are the effing patient. Life on Earth. We don’t get a second chance. By the time they know whether the sensitivity is 2.8 or 3.2 or whatever, or what explains the missing methane emissions in the Eemian, etc, etc, it’s all too bloody late and nobody cares about the answers any more, because life on Earth is down the pan…. There is ONLY ONE EXPERIMENT.
November 29th, 2012 at 8:16 am
Non-expectation is one of the characteristics of the so-called “enlightened”. This is to be distinguished from anticipation, which is based on cause and effect, a part of rationality that guides action. One may perform certain actions and avoids others, based on anticipation of the results, but expectation of the anticipated results reinforces attachments. Expectation is the substance of hope. Non-expectation is true hopelessness: what is commonly understood as “hopelessness” has a kernel of (thwarted) expectation.
November 29th, 2012 at 8:27 am
dairymandave, it’s very hard to know if it’s all correct, because that depends upon the theoretical, or philosophical, assumption that a person makes as to what ‘it’ actually is.
How can we know ? We’ve tried hard to find out. I favour Lovelock’s idea, but Peter Ward, whose TEDtalk I posted recently, says it’s rubbish. I’d say he’s wrong. His criticism is that there are cataclysmic interruptions to life, so how can Gaia be favouring life ? But if you watch the Daisy World model, seems quite reasonable to me, that there’d be big instabilities as it oscillated between black daisies and white daisies, and other perturbations. I think the fact that it eventually recovers, strongly favours Lovelock.
http://youtu.be/I47vhzErOCE
November 29th, 2012 at 8:41 am
Just Right Planet
Anthropic principle:
“In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universe’s fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.”
If the conditions were not just so, there would be no one around to be amazed.
November 29th, 2012 at 8:49 am
Seeing Is Believing
or
Daniel Tames the Lion
or
Some Guy on Internet Solves Problem of Denial
Not theories the experts are weaving
Or TPTB deceiving,
But simply perceiving
Convinces we’re leaving
And demonstrates seeing’s believing.
November 29th, 2012 at 9:42 am
So in otherwords, BTD, there’s no need for reference to TED Talks. If seeing is believing, we don’t need the elitist exclusivity of TED, do we? We should be able to see it plainly enough for ourselves without any aid. There’s no need to defer to “authority” (TED) if it’s so plainly obvious.
November 29th, 2012 at 10:06 am
TED Talks: tl;dr
November 29th, 2012 at 10:24 am
The real mystery is the Lego blocks, the elements. When conditions are just right, they link up and eventually make life happen. It had to happen, condsidering the characteristics of the Lego blocks. Every so often, the conditions get “not just right” and the black board gets erased so things can proceed forward again, maybe this time it will be dinosours, next time it will be intelligence. Intelligence didn’t work out so well so it gets erased by heating. Then, see what happens next. I’m saying it seems to work like this using hindsight.
November 29th, 2012 at 10:51 am
Nuclear disasters in the U.S. are more likely than people think:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/whistleblower-nuclear-disaster-america-more-likely-public-aware
November 29th, 2012 at 11:13 am
Industrial civilization:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nkK1qz-VOFI/UK-Tp1TPbXI/AAAAAAAAAa8/gdjK9fCXymI/s1600/leviathan.jpeg
November 29th, 2012 at 11:57 am
dairymandave, have you ever milked sheep? I have read that their milk is more like human milk than cow or goat. I love sheep cheese.
Have you read “Devil in the Milk” ?
Have a look at these reviews for a summary:
http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Milk-Illness-Health-Politics/product-reviews/1603581022/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
November 29th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Lego blocks, dairymandave ? If you used the correct terms it would be easier for others to understand what you mean. DNA ?
I don’t think dinosaurs were unintelligent.
November 29th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Any evidence of tool use by dinosaurs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_intelligence – more at the link, snip below
Dinosaur intelligence has been a point of contention for paleontologists. Dinosaurs were once regarded as being extremely stupid animals but have largely been appraised more generously since the dinosaur renaissance. This new found optimism for dinosaur intelligence has led to highly exaggerated portrayals in pop cultural works like Jurassic Park. Paleontologists now regard dinosaurs as being very intelligent for reptiles, but generally not as smart as mammals. Some have speculated that if the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event had not occurred, the more intelligent forms of small theropods may have eventually evolved human-like levels of intelligence. Popular misconceptions of dinosaur neurology include the concept of a second brain in the pelvis of stegosaurs and sauropods.
November 29th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Ulbfugl “To save : to rescue from danger, loss, or harm.”
Yes the dictionary definition does not indicate anything about the question of mortality. Yet when people think of a life saved they think – didn’t die, and don’t go any farther. The younger the life saved, the less they think of the eventual death. In fact saved has taken on the religious connotation of never dying, ie being saved for life eternal. The word survive, especially in the peak oil groups I have been on also never seems to carry with it a timeline. People say “I am going to survive” not “I am going to survive for a normal lifetime”, or “I am going to survive longer than others”. If you use the term extend your life instead of save or put the add ons to survive then you more accurately think about the issue of mortality. You put it out there where it can’t be missed, while if you say I am going to survive the massive dieoff (and die after the mass of humans have bit the dust) it forces you to think about how many bodies you will have to climb over to get to that magical place where you too get to die. When considering dieoff after peak oil, I decided that I wouldn’t enjoy a life on a world where billions had died but I lived (think of the stink) so I did not make longer survival a goal. Now it seems not to matter, no one survives.
You may say that I am a fink
Because of the things that I think
But I’d rather go early
Miss the loud hurly burly
And the horrible, horrible stink
November 29th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Oh dear, I’ve gone and done it again, Kathy, too big and too contentious
November 29th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
I just wanted to say that I have been reading this blog for years now and today I cried for the first time after reading Daniel’s comment and BC Nurses response after that,so sad but so real.
Thank you all for your insight and especially a huge thanks to Guy for hosting this site.
Carol
November 29th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
BC Nurse: I really don’t know a thing about A1 and A2 milk. But of course I wouldn’t; I’m a producer. Don’t know anything about sheep, either. Had goat’s milk once; very rich but supposed to be easier to digest with the small fat droplets. We drink unpasturized milk and seem to be healthy, both me and my wife. However, one of our 4 daughters developed schizophrenia and she eventually took her life 7 years ago. At the time no one seemed to really know what caused the disease but I tended to think it was triggered by stress. She was an extremely sensitive, gentle person. Everyone loved her. She grew up on our farm milk. Another daughter is into human food anaysis and she may know about this. Seems that it is worth knowing about.
By the way, my wife and I were up half the night delivering twin calves. The second one was backwards and dead. The mother is fine after 3 IVs and antacids for her stomach. My wife is very good at raising the calves. We have raised nearly 1300 in the past 39 years and she lost only 2. I think you can appreciate what that means.
November 29th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Driving over the bodies scene from Hotel Rawanda – for anyone who wants to live as long as possible into our increasingly dire looking future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHwlWpQzVhI
November 29th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
ulvfugl: Lego blocks are elements, my term. They fit together in certain ways and stick together and make things. Given the elements, evolution had to happen, in my opinion. Dinosaurs were around 200 million years and weren’t intelligent enough to destroy the planet. We did it in 200. Who’s more intelligent?
November 29th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Kathy C: What about the extended family? Do you leave them behind to deal with the stink?
November 29th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Women 16-49 at Risk of Multiple Pollutants, Which Could Harm Brain Development of Fetuses and Babies
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) — In a new analysis of thousands of U.S. women of childbearing age, Brown University researchers found that most exceeded the median blood level for two or more of three environmental pollutants that could harm brain development of fetuses and babies: lead, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
rest at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128143944.htm
November 29th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Dave, the family is not near. If they want to deal with the stink and I can help them I will. We have land but we won’t survive here long. Drought is extreme – wells drying up. Driest fall and early winter in memory after a very dry and hot summer. I offered 10 years ago to my grown children to try prepare someplace they could come when things got bad. They told me not to bother, they didn’t think things would get bad. I did some preps anyway. Now I find this is not a place to come (no rain, no food) and it looks like things will go down so fast that all one could do with the best of efforts and luck is extend a few years longer than others.
Within a decade or two one way or other we will all go together when we go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
November 29th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
This project asks for a 15 year commitment from everyone (i don’t think we have that long, but it’s good advise):
http://dkeenan.com/Flametree.pdf
November 29th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Melting of polar ice sheets has added 11mm to global sea levels over the past two decades, according to the most definitive assessment so far.
More than 20 polar research teams have combined forces to produce estimates of the state of the ice in Greenland and Antarctica in a paper in Science.
Until now different measurement means have produced a wide range of estimates with large uncertainties.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20543483
November 29th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Kathy, I’m so sad to hear about the drought where you are. That ruins everything, doesn’t it? Aquifer depletion is going to get much worse. I live in Canada’s desert southwest and we’ve had a couple of bad years recently, but when the next El Nino comes along, we’ll be in big trouble. The last one was 2003 and so much of B.C. burned. The last two years have been uneven. We get a month of solid rain, which is unheard of, then two months of nothing. The biologist guys on my floor are having fits with their measuring of tree health. There are so many dead trees from the pine beetle that one lightning strike and the whole area goes up in flames.
In the summer, on an average day, B.C. will have 800 fires burning at one time. Most of them will be way up north and they don’t do any harm and keep the forest healthy. But now we’re getting thousands and thousands of fires all at once and, because people keep building houses in the bush, threatening homes. Then folks get all upset and angry at the provincial government for not saving their cottage at the lake.
November 29th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Dave, back in the good old days of peak oil, many of us read Richard Duncan’s Olduvai theory that predicted going back to the stone age by 2030 and the defining event would be the collapse of the grid. Back then that meant no more fuel for cars and trucks and a complete collapse of industry among other things. That was the good old days before Fukushima revealed that there is a ton of spent fuel in pools that must be cooled along with the reactors and if not 400+ nuke plants go Fukushima. So when that happens (EMP attack, Carrington Event solar flare, or just infrastructure collapse from lack of maintenance, increasing weather events, and lack of fuel) dieoff begins, and unlike what we imagined dieoff 10 years ago it will include being irradiated. So when that happens I guess I could walk 500 miles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbNlMtqrYS0 to one of my children’s homes and stand between them and the prevailing wind, absorbing the radiation for them. The other son would require a longer walk and a very long swim. Our congress has been told the dangers of EMP and Solar Flares and for about 1 billion they could provide protection for the grid and buy backup transformers and supply 1 year diesel fuel to each nuclear power plant. They think dealing with a fictional fiscal cliff much more important.
So it goes…..
November 29th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
For anyone who missed it
http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon
Snippet below
Preventing Armageddon
The Congressionally mandated EMP Commission has studied the threat of both EMP and extreme GMD events and made recommendations to the US Congress to implement protective devices and procedures to ensure the survival of the grid and other critical infrastructures in either event. John Kappenman, author of the Metatech study, estimates that it would cost about $1 billion to build special protective devices into the US grid to protect its EHV transformers from EMP or extreme GMD damage and to build stores of critical replacement parts should some of these items be damaged or destroyed. Kappenman estimates that it would cost significantly less than $1 billion to store at least a year’s worth of diesel fuel for backup generators at each US nuclear facility and to store sets of critical spare parts, such as backup generators, inside EMP-hardened steel containers to be available for quick change-out in the event that any of these items were damaged by an EMP or GMD.[12]
For the cost of a single B-2 bomber or a tiny fraction of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bank bailout, we could invest in preventative measures to avert what might well become the end of life as we know it. There is no way to protect against all possible effects from an extreme GMD or an EMP attack, but we could implement measures to protect against the worst effects. Since 2008, Congress has narrowly failed to pass legislation that would implement at least some of the EMP Commission’s recommendations.[13]
November 29th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
BC nurse, then think of those fires when we can no longer fight them….No doubt that thought has crossed your mind already.
At http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DM_southeast.htm see the dark red blob that extends into AL – that’s us. Not unusual for our little part of the state to get slighted. Not sure what makes that so, but there you have it.
November 29th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
dairymandave Lego blocks are elements, my term. They fit together in certain ways and stick together and make things. Given the elements, evolution had to happen, in my opinion.
Well, if that’s how you want to picture it in your mind, and it makes sense to you, it’s not my job to educate you, but IMO it’s a very misleading picture, Lego blocks are manmade plastic toys, there aren’t any ‘elements’, unless you mean DNA, but all that does is code for making proteins, so exactly how it produces an organism remains somewhat mysterious.
Nature is actually much more interesting than Lego, you can get the latest highest quality science from Prof Sapolsky at Stanford, online youtubes, for free, in easily accessible language…
I mean, just look at the wondrous, marvellous creatures that there are out there, try explaining this with your Lego elements theory
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-amazing-mimicry-of-frogfish/
November 29th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Truly, as Dickens wrote, we are in the best of times and the worst of times… as Daniel so eloquently and poignantly expressed, we’re coming to terms with something that no humans have ever had to face before… something so terrible that it is beyond words to express…
And at the same time, I rejoice, because all my life, I’ve craved access to the world’s great literature, great music, the finest teachers, and to know what was out there… and now it’s readily available.
Nobody could have heard someone like Sapolsky or Lynn Margulis before without having passed a lot of exams and getting enrolled as a student and having the money, it’s just amazing that this technology empowers people to have access to so much….
http://youtu.be/b8xqu_TlQPU
The contrast is so stark… I met an English guy once who told me he was in Saigon when the Americans left. He said the city was very strange, almost empty, waiting for the Viet Cong to enter. I asked him, didn’t he expect to be killed ? He said no, he was an oil engineer, the Viet Cong wanted the oil, needed guys like him. He said he met some girls, who’d been whores for the U.S. soldiers. They did expect to be killed. They were in an abandoned hotel, helping themselves to pot and booze, dancing to rock and roll, getting high, laughing, waiting, waiting, waiting…
Best of times, worst of times….
November 29th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars.
http://nasaupdatecenter.us/press.html
November 29th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
ulvfugl: “Lego blocks” is an analogy: a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison can be based. I quit grad school to pursue better things.
November 29th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Collapse Watch said:
“You can’t demonize the media, and say it’s bought and paid for when it denies ACC, and then embrace and praise the media when it does the opposite. That’s inconsistent. You can’t have your End, and eat it too.”
That’s some strange logic. It’s a historical fact that for decades the corporate media in the US has spent billions of dollars telling people that they don’t need to care or think about conservation, species loss, or climate change. They’ve told people that if they care about those things then they are on the side of the “environmentalist wackos.” If they change their tune now (which I doubt), it would not change that history. Anyone who is praising the behavior of the corporate media on these issues here in the US is either deluded, or they have been living here. When CC does become undeniable you can bet that the corporate media will place blame on everyone but on the big corporations that clear cut forests, blow off mt tops to get coal, make nukes, build gas guzzling vehicles, frack, drill, and spill oil. I suspect the corporate media will employ some form of twisted sophistry to blame people like Guy McPherson, James Hansen, and the rest of the “wackos” that tried to care about the environment. They’ll probably be blamed for not speaking out loud enough.
November 29th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
‘we humans have a hard time expressing such things without ascribing intention to things that act like they have intention but don’t. Perhaps we do the same with ourselves’
kathy, thanks. also to btd and his gifted doomer poetry, like this:
‘Part of warming denial’s drive
Is consensus trance where you contrive
To rewire your brain
To the kind of insane
Which sees four fingers instead of five.’
however, i must point out btd, that the above poem ascribes intention to humans. i think kathy’s right. free will exists only in our imagination. otherwise i agree with u. it certainly appears that the myth of free will is often exercised in unfathomable ways by humans, making our species appear to be collectively crazy.
‘Detachment is how I stay sane
On our swirling trip down the drain;
It decreases the strain
That would freak out my brain,
And it really helps me maintain.’
love it!
November 29th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
I’ve posted anew. It’s here.
November 29th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
@ Kathy: Nice limerick!
@ tvt:
You’re going to give me a swelled head, but thank you so much.
Point taken, but I hurry to assure you I am a non-free-will non-compatibilist determinist and my favorite book on the subject is Wegner’s “The Illusion of Conscious Will.”
Also, I very much appreciate feedback, as it significantly determines, in both physical materialistic and subjective ways, what I write later. Seriously. I’m often surprised that people like something I thought was just a throwaway.
Your posts are great, and I still fully intend to rip off, er, I mean, be inspired, right, be inspired, to write based on something you’ve written.
BTW, I corrected the fourth line of the first limerick you quoted to “FROM the kind of insane…” because O’Brien was really showing four fingers duh.
November 30th, 2012 at 4:00 am
dairymandave “Lego blocks” is an analogy: a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison can be based. I quit grad school to pursue better things.
Yes, I understand that, and they are very useful when you want to explain something to somebody, and there can be good ones and bad ones, but in this instance, I don’t think your analogy works. What is there in nature that corresponds with the Lego brick element ? I mean, the analogy is supposed to give illumination and insight.
In nature, there are chemicals, as described in the Periodic Table, which then combine in various ways, to form more complex chemicals, and then in ascending complexity, we get into self-replicating stuff like viruses, which have DNA, which is very significant, and then living cells like bacteria, and then larger living cells, like amoeba and flagellates, and then these cells cluster together, forming organisms, which scale up, all the way to the size of Blue Whales.
Biologists know a lot about all that. It’s all amazing. There’s still a lot they don’t know.
Afaik, there is no satisfactory explanation in classical Darwinian evolutionary theory, or Dawkin’s neo-Darwinism, for how those frogfish mimicing sponges, etc, works.
Richard Leakey mentions a case of an aphid colony which mimic a flower. Green ones make the leafy parts, red and orange ones make the coloured parts. The weirdest thing is, it’s not a flower that exists. They invented their own flower.
How does a bunch of cells get to know that, if it changes its visual appearance to resemble something completely different, it’ll have some advantage ? How can they ‘see themselves’ ? And, once it’s figured that out, how does it then go about changing its physical form and colouration ? I mean, it seems a huge challenge, and if it doesn’t work out, what then ? it goes extinct ?
I mean, as a (bad) analogy, it’s the equivalent of a pig coming into your field and evolving itself to look almost exactly like a cow, because with that disguise it gets an easy meal. How can that happen ? Does it see with its eyes, and its brain tells its body to change shape to match what it sees ? And then it’s babies inherit that knowledge. Perhaps somebody knows how that works, but I don’t.
Btw, I never went to grad school, so I didn’t have to bother to drop out
November 30th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
@ulvfugl Personally, I have no patience with [people who remain unaware of the climate change crisis because they have not experience dramatic enough events], because if people are so inattentive, dumb, uneducated, careless, irresponsible, that the vanishing of the Arctic ice cap is not sufficiently dramatic, then they don’t deserve to survive…
Like many of those who post here, I have been trying to discern whether TPTB have been intentionally doing nothing about the loss of arctic ice and the rest of it. It is tempting to believe that some esoteric order of the shadow elite have formulated a sinister survival plan. But the more time I spend with people who are probably among the top 2% of educated Americans, the more I realize that they are as clueless and programmed as the unwashed sheeple who live hand to mouth, shop at Walmart and interpret their lives through television commercials.
If one accepts the anthropic principle, there may be an evolutionary mechanism that excludes those “intelligent species” that reach a level of industrialization comparable to our won and are unable to limit growth in order to avoid planetary overshoot. Like Neanderthal we are clever, but not clever enough. We are still too dependent on intersubjective delusional mechanisms which prevent us from processing reality even when the facts undermine our sense of security.
November 30th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
kathy, i just looked at your drought maps (national, regional). it’s odd how rainfall in your region has been so unevenly distributed, considering that less than 100 miles to your west it appears it’s not even classified as abnormally dry.
i was surprised to learn that much of upstate new york is considered abnormally dry presently, including the ithaca area, less than 50 miles as the crow flies to the east. spring was very dry here, but midsummer rains came before official drought was declared. rainfall for the whole year at rochester, about 60 miles to the north, is very close, like within an inch, of average. i suspect the same applies here.
it looks like most of the eastern 1/3 of the usa (roughly that part east of the mississippi) is like where i’m at, not in drought, not even abnormally dry, and that less than 1% is experiencing the exceptional drought that u are. very unlucky. things will get better soon for u, i think very likely.
btd, what can i say? your poetry is great, u appear humble and kind, but u’re still doomed! DOOMED, I SAY! (wicked maniacal laughter) (smile)
December 1st, 2012 at 3:18 am
Ripley
You said: “They’ll probably be blamed for not speaking out loud enough”.
And maybe that those who spoke up in time missed something in presenting the dire picture, not an important part, just something, just to fuel the blame.
That’s how that weird game works and always has.
Peace.
December 1st, 2012 at 5:42 am
“All that is known originates against the backdrop of the unknowable. From the womb of the great unknown we are born, and into the unknown we shall perish. We are contained within the circumference of the unknown. Within the depths of our being we encounter the unknown and within the other there is always an unknown frontier yet to be discovered.
The questions I have for you are as follows: What is your relationship to the unknown? Is it a primal abyss from which you feel you must flee? Is it a chasm which seeks to devour you? The womb from which you turned turn away so long ago?
Maybe it is the emptiness in which you find refuge. The primal mother whom offers you an eternal abode. Or even the depths of Self in which you discover hidden chambers of being.”
http://psychotheology.org/2012/11/29/the-unknown/