A cyber-penny for your thoughts.
Toles has the cartoon that sums up the week’s biggest news:
Notice how he sneaks in climate change along with the food insecurity message.
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Joe, Will we find you Sunday at the tar sands action event?
I am planning to go, but it will be quite crowded so finding me may be another matter.
We should have a Climate Progress meet-up at the event.
Meet-up in spirit, if not in person.
I’ll stick with others from Syracuse and Ithaca NY. It simplifies the process later to get us all back onto our charter bus and home before 3 a.m. Monday.
Hoping for a peaceful, meaningful, focused event.
Last week the CNN website did an on-line poll where it asked its viewers if they thought that the growth in human population was a cause of concern or not. Amazingly, at least to me, is that 45% indicated that over population wasn’t a worrisome issue. This is despite the fact that today over one billion people world-wide don’t have access to safe drinking water.
Hmm. An online poll, which is unscientific by definition, asks wealthy people (compared to the global average) who, on average, know next to nothing about sustainability issues, if they think the current world population is a problem, and only 45% said no?
I’m stunned it wasn’t 95%.
We must start transitioning to a more resilent agriculture NOW. Here’s a new essay: http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-11-04/planting-our-perennial-future-corn-trees-oil-bushes-potato-thickets-sweater-sward
i think that storm shelters would be a hard pill to swallow for many who think that their ins. will cover. Exclusion of the weather is one thing but to find suddenly that the ins. excludes them when they fought to keep rates low. Hard pill. Better to reinforce for a shelter before your child labor is not comfy after having helped to build. All hands on deck, so to speak.
We are looking at mass starvation in the future, whether it’s in 2050, 2100, or some other date. Climate change will be the main driver. People do not starve quietly, and there will be chaos, roving warlord bands, and societal breakdown in general. We went crazy in the 70′s when we had to wait in line for gas, so Americans may be emotionally the least prepared.
Scientists and artistic thinkers- such as screenwriters and novelists- need to envision this future and turn it into a realistic narrative that will attract a big audience. The public doesn’t relate to numbers or dry outlines, and a visceral approach is needed.
Blocking this movie is corporate control of all eight major studios, through interlocking ownership with banks and fossil fuels. It will either have to be done on a shoestring or an angel will have to step forward.
This is our best hope- Avatar for real, set in this country. Editorials and scientific papers won’t get er done.
Recent film “Contagion” demonstrated hoarding and other anti-social behavior.
Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, ClimateProgress and Joe, and etc.
This week, Lawrence O’Donnell really went after some folks: I think they were the leaders of the National Restaurant Association (or whatever it’s called) to demand that they release the ladies who accused Cain from their confidentiality agreements.
In seeing how energetic he is when he’s on a mission — and Rachel Maddow too — (I applaud them both) — I hope they’ll find it natural to insist strongly, to the powers that be at NBC, to make sure that the Repub candidates at the upcoming debates (that will be held on NBC) are asked the pivotal questions regarding climate change.
NBC will host the Repub debates on January 23 and March 5. (The next debate, as I understand it, is on CNBC on November 9. Following that are a Nov. 12 debate on CBS and a Nov. 15 debate on CNN.)
In any case, I’m encouraging and hoping that ClimateProgress and Joe will do a post addressed specifically to the media outlets who will be hosting the upcoming debates, by name, to politely (but clearly and firmly) ask that they include pivotal questions about climate change. If we want to see pivotal climate change questions in at least a few of the debates (I’ve written an example in an earlier comment on this subject), then we’d better use a suitable large platform (ClimateProgress hopefully) to state that point clearly to the media hosts of the debates.
And hopefully we can bring the matter to the attention of folks like Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow, who in turn have platforms and internal leverage (hopefully) to help make sure that such questions are included in the debates hosted by their own network or mother-network, as they should be.
Be Well,
Jeff
I like your selection of candidates to be the captains to steer those Republican debates into deeper waters re climate change and all things environmental, Jeff. They’d be mine, too. Though Rachel Maddow has often said on her show that she feels she has complete editorial freedom, I wonder whether that would hold true if she really pushed the envelope climate change. The possible flies in the ointment are the facts that GE owns a major chunk of that network, a network that receives a large part of its advertising revenue from Big Oil touting their “millions” of dollars investments into clean energy, etc. McDonnell and Maddow may find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place with this. Olbermann has similar troubles with the boss, didn’t he?
Interesting summary of recent polar changes and science here:
http://indymedia.org.au/2011/11/06/global-warming-in-antarctica-glaciers-accelerating-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-losing-mass
Don’t miss the DENIAL TANGO by the Sydney group “Men With Day Jobs” …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrURLJ6Vlsg
This ’round-the-world disaster is an evil, greedy trap
‘Cause everybody knows the world is flat
Their e-mail address is listed below the video if you want to thank them.
Live tweets … Blogs if possible much appreciated..
Ironically the universe is to big to grasp and we are to stupid to figure out how to advance in a timely manner.
I believe the only feasible way to solve the population “bomb” is to expand our civilization into space. Yes this is radical and yes this requires a lot of work and takes time too. But as Stephen Hawking and Isaac Asimov and many many others pointed out, this is required. To save the human race!
And when it comes to these fundamental “ideas”, the lame stream media is so fast to pick it up…
Human race ‘must colonise space or face extinction’, warns Stephen Hawking
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1301482/Human-race-colonise-space-face-extinction-warns-Stephen-Hawking.html#ixzz1cqknUUOL
How can the human race survive the next hundred years?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TJlfhZwCMw
We have the technology today to build bases on-under the lunar surface, on mars and stationary at the Lagrange points in near earth orbit. These ideas are figured out at least till the 70′s. This does include solutions for small scale farming and drinking water generation, to become self sustaining.
A NASA video from a time of great optimism about space exploration. The Apollo missions were completed and the Space Shuttle program was underway. How soon before cheap and frequent flights to space would allow the construction of O’Neal colonies and mining camps on the Moon? This visionary approach calls for tiered greenhouses in space and unlimited solar power beamed back to Earth… all before the year 2000!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgrdAUFFMrA
China’s Moon? Space Race For Base, Minerals Favor Chinese
Forget simply putting a man on the moon. China’s ambition of placing an operational lunar base on the moon’s surface could be the first step in a move to gain territorial and mineral rights by right of presence and development.
http://www.huliq.com/12092/chinas-moon-space-race-base-minerals-favor-chinese
Japan Plans a Moon Base by 2020, Built by Robots for Robots
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-05/japan-wants-moon-base-2020-built-robots-robots
Japan Plans $21 Billion Solar Space Post to Power 294,000 Home
http://inhabitat.com/japan-plans-21-billion-solar-space-post-to-power-294000-homes/
In space the sun can be harnest 24 hours, 7 days a week.
ps. If you like to listen to some nice music i’m composing check out my new SoundCloud, with free downloads (work in progress) http://soundcloud.com/galaxy-studio
Wish you all a great weekend and the optimism which is required to solve the climate crisis and advance humanity.
China now the dominant manufacturing entity on the planet, it might soon say the same thing off Earth as well. In fact, the Asian nation could very well own the moon before 2030. With plans to establish a manned lunar facility in a few years, China has plans to be the first nation to establish a base of operations on the moon. Bigelow believes that it will be just the first step in a lunar land grab by the Chinese, one complete with territorial dominance and mineral rights.
In what Bigelow refers to as “Solar System Monopoly,” it appears as if China will be the first to “Pass Go, Collect $200″ and begin to acquire real estate off-planet. With plenty of money, a national direction, and the personnel and technology to do it, it has been reported that China could have a moon base up and functioning in the mid-2020s. But according to Discovery News, that date has been pushed up to 2020. With the newly discovered mineral richness of Earth’s nearest neighbor, China could set up mining operations, establishing de facto monopolies over titanium and Helium-3, both rare on Earth but found with regularity on the moon.
“This will characterize the 21st and 22nd centuries and beyond. If we ignore this, it will be at our extreme peril,” Bigelow said at this week’s International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, N.M.
http://www.huliq.com/12092/chinas-moon-space-race-base-minerals-favor-chinese
But oh the USA is busy to scale back all government spending and on a trip to become a 3rd world country it seems :)
Nice
Enjoy
Colonizing space does have a storm shelter advantage over the common Backyard hole even if the hole is velvet lined.
A basic concept of a moral is that it is a way of behaving that is sustainable through generations.
If not on Earth then where is a viable question.
Besides US already seems to have issues with keeping the advances of space rewarded with timely shipments of food etc. (Retirement of the space shuttle sys.)
Big deal to get food generation capabilities up into space; but, I think hydroponics would be a starting point.
Food production over some time would countervail the recurring investment of food shipments.
Just a thought…
Prok, this is a disturbing line of thinking. Even if it were technically feasible now, please ask yourself the question – ‘do we have the right to do it?’
Climate change is a problem of our attitude towards the Earth: in the last 200 years we have treated her with utter disrespect, appointed our species as dominant over her, acted with reckless abandon ignoring all the warnings to the point that we now risk the life of all species, not only our own.
And you think we have the right to expand? I think not.
Until we can prove that we understand the basics of cooperation and respect, we must stay at home and cop the consequences of our destruction, ME
For a very long time now, the thought of Neanderthal-brained humans colonizing space has sent shivers down my spine. The picture that immediately leaps to mind is one of killer bees swarming high into the sky before finally coming together and making a new hive. I hope this space colony idea never comes to fruition until, and unless, we learn to live constructively and harmoniously on this planet.
I think that space colonization is the logical next step in space exploration. And it is required and helps to solve many problems. LIke getting energy from the sun and resources from the moon’s crust.
Prok, with all due respect for all your prodigeous efforts to bring us vast amounts of info that I for one don’t have time to collect for myself, you are epitomizing the problem we face.
You have not addressed the core of the problem that Cali Chris and I both raised, AND you are ignoring the current reality that slowly but surely, our industrial capacity is being reduced day by day.
1. You appear to have no awareness that it is our assumption of dominance over everything that has contributed to our predicament and seem to assume that we have the right to rape and pillage the rest of the universe. Why is this?
We are already getting energy from the sun. In fact, it is the only source of energy we have. Why haven’t we been rushing into it for yonks?
2. Despite the fact that you regularly post reports of new multiple and simultaneous disasters which are draining ever more economic resources from all our national and global accounts, you somehow believe that amidst all this planetary chaos and heartbreak, we will be in good shape to mount the huge technical and economic effort (to say nothing of the popular will) required to colonize?
I suggest you take your reports seriously and consider what they mean?
They mean the party is over. These sorts of megalomaniac dreams about dominating the natural world are simply that, ME
Six killed in floods as muddy torrent sweeps through the streets of an Italian city
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057917/Italy-floods-Six-killed-muddy-torrent-sweeps-streets-Genoa.html#ixzz1cqtnT72U
This video circulating on the internet, shows mud torrents raging in the streets of italy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VZLrJUB1vg&feature=youtube_gdata
This comes only a week after parts of italy saw the worst floods in human recorded history.
Can you verify that last sentence?
I can use the link.
One thing about these events, once they get going , they keep going ….. It’s not just the North West of Italy -
(Reuters) – Heavy rains and flooding in southern France over the weekend forced the evacuation of about six hundred people, and three people died in weather-related deaths as a dozen local regions remained on alert on Sunday.
Naples Braces for Flooding After Heavy Rains
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/naples-braces-flooding-heavy-rains-14891700
Just saw this at reddit..
As much as 40 percent of the people who start out majoring in science and engineering end up switching to other degrees. Why? The answers are complex, and the people who drop out are often the best-of-the-best. (nytimes.com)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
the horror is that population is a self-limiting problem.
But we can give the curse of a destabilizing climate to our children, and to all further generations.
We burden all future generations – and we may make it impossible for ANY population.
Don’t expect any monuments to our wisdom.
An energy plan needs to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based.
The ‘plan’ passed by the Scottish parliment recently has been excoriated by The Institute of Mechanical Engineers as abundantly failing to be SMART.
theconversation.au has an article on a quark in physics-maybe more evidence that parts of light are speeding.
The Florida Independent News has a story today about a discrepancy in following Election Law. The story says that Florida may act in violation of it’s own election laws. Seem that uniform election law has had a long standing but now?
PLAN A , PLANB and BIG-AGRI
The current Plan A for addressing climate change relies on reducing the emissions of long lived greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. It emphasises keeping the level of long lived greenhouse gasses below a peak level at which dangerous climate change becomes probable.
Plan B delays global temperature rises by means that have an immediate effect. It places emphasis on the reduction of short term climate forcing agents such as methane and black carbon. It also advocates geo-engineering schemes to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface and to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – with the hope they will become available.
Plan B emphasises reducing short term forcing. If we take this seriously, our impact on climate should be measured differently, especially by changing how to account for methane. Methane’s rating increases by a factor of about four for the short term – and this means that animal husbandry has a much higher rating. There is a report by world bank people that animal husbandry is over 50% of global warming. Cattle and sheep are particularly bad.
My version of Plan B would include drastically reduced meat consumption, particularly beef and lamb. This would bring a huge cut in climate forcing and make the growing capacity that we have go much, much further because meat is so resource intensive.
But, as we have seen on Climate Progress, the threat of drought is terrifying. This will be particularly damaging to the monoculture pushed by agribusiness funded scientists and, sad to say, by most government funded ones too. The gardeners, permaculturalists or whatever you want to call them, have a different approach. A good exposition of this approach is a country specific one which can in Low Input Food and Nutrition by the World Food Programme Malawi.
I fell into this “scientists vs amateurs” conflict when I attended a meeting in the UK Parliament where a “monoculture” professor was giving his talk. He was asked by someone from the Transitions Towns movement, “What about gardening?”. The professor seemed to say that it had been proved that this approach would not work. To cut a longish story short. The professor had no “proof” but the gardeners do not seem to have much in the way of “scientific numbers”
However, in Ireland before the famine, potatoes, with some milk and pigs could support a population density approaching 10 people per hectare. The world now has about 0.5 people per hectare. That’s about 5% of the population density of pre-famine Ireland.
So what’s the problem?
Clearly it’s not “the problem” but lots of problems. One of the problems is information – not so much the lack of it – OK, there are big gaps – but the spin that’s put on it.
Climate Progress highlights the role of “Big Oil”. What about “Big Agri”?
For references see: Plan A might fail … so we need Plan B
and: Food: Scientists vs amateurs
live stream DC:
http://www.livestream.com/occupytv
amazing scenes :)
Climate change, beetle may doom rugged pine
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016699269_barkbeetle06m.html
Southern Scotland -
Climate change affects the seasons: autumn doesn’t know if it’s coming or going -
” I’m lucky. I have been able to live in the same glen for over 40 years. I have recorded the weather and the natural history around me for all of that time. I have seen huge changes. Blackcaps, once rare summer visitors, are now among our commonest warblers, firing every bramble thicket with jubilant song. In the south of England they’ve given up migrating. They stick tight all year, and they can only do that because there are enough bugs to eat.
And that’s the biggest change, the bugs. Years ago, the dreaded Highland midge appeared in July and was gone with the first frosts in September. Now it has invaded June and even May on the west coast, and sticks around until the snows hit the high hills at the end of October. Ticks, too, have proliferated hugely. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8872078/Climate-change-affects-the-seasons-autumn-doesnt-know-if-its-coming-or-going.html
Fourteen U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters in 2011: a new record
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1981#commenttop
There has been an oyster die – off in the Gulf :
http://www.pnj.com/article/20111101/NEWS01/111010311/Scientists-arrive-study-East-Bay-oyster-die-off?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
And Chesapeake Bay.
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2011/11/06-52/Oyster-kill-forces-areas-last-skipjack-captain-to-quit.html?ne=1
Speaking of KochCain -
The Wizards of Oil: How the Koch brothers are influencing U.S. environmental policy
http://www.realaspen.com/article/928/The-Wizards-of-Oil-How-the-Koch-brothers-are-influencing-US-environmental-policy
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