nature bats last... 4/27/2017 0 Comments   The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which suggests that physical forces are gravitating to entropy, is a perfect metaphor for the moment. European economies are cascading into the netherworld of insolvency even as governments deny the reality.  by E.L. Christianson Jr. Nature Bats Last is the name of a very excellent website.  It features a slogan: Our Days are Numbers.  Passionately pursue a life of excellence. Anyone understanding the game of baseball will understand the meaning of the website name.  We humans, assuming that humans and nature are not on the same side of the game, will have our turn 'at the plate'.  And then, regardless of our successes or failures, nature will have the final opportunity to assert itself. Based upon the relative strength of the 'opposing' sides in this 'game', nobody can in their wildest imagination speculate that humans will end up dominating the scoreboard against nature.  To conclude the thought is to say that 'nature bats last, and that nature most assuredly will win'. From the website, this particular essay, "Predicaments Lack Solutions", forces us to be realistic.  It states some hard to accept truths.  After the almost automatic reactionary response to some statements, it sometimes takes a 'second thought' to see the truth of the statement.    "If there were a solution, I believe the people pulling the levers of industry would know about it. I don’t believe they enjoy the prospect of human extinction. Civilization is responsible for life-destroying, abrupt climate change. Turning off civilization kills us all faster" It is not exactly what we wanted to hear.  Can we no longer place 'blame' on the oligarchy? This work is developed by Mike Sliwa and Guy McPherson - there is additional information at the end of this blog.  Predicaments Lack Solutions One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise. ~ Aldo Leopold As “the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise,” I’m fed up with ridiculous “solutions.” Climate change is a predicament, not a problem. If there were a solution, I believe the people pulling the levers of industry would know about it. I don’t believe they enjoy the prospect of human extinction. Civilization is responsible for life-destroying, abrupt climate change. Turning off civilization kills us all faster.  If this seems like a Catch-22, you’ve got it figured out. I’m not suggesting that correctly identifying the predicament leads to a solution. It doesn’t. Predicaments don’t have solutions. ​ As I’ve pointed out previously in this space, the exceedingly unlikely chance of there being a human on Earth in nine years will have that person being hungry, thirsty, lonely, and bathing in ionizing radiation. Every day will be more tenuous than the day before, as is already the case for most organisms on this planet. Habitat for human animals might return in a few million years, although this outcome seems very unlikely. Humans will not. I promote and practice a gift economy and, with very few exceptions, it’s a one-way street. To employ the language of Daniel Quinn, takers outnumber leavers. I no longer expect better from humans, even those I know well. Civilization will kill us all, and it has already destroyed the ethical character of most people I’ve known. As a result, people generally believe what they want to believe, evidence notwithstanding. Principled actions are the bane of civilization. No bad deed goes unrewarded. We are all products of our genetics and our personal history. These attributes dictate who we are, but they need not limit us. I appreciate, although I can never fully understand, that some people have experienced abuse or other horrors. But those horrors need not come up in every conversation to explain contemporary shortcomings. Many adults abused as children share with graduates of the University of California at Berkeley the need to share the experience with everybody they meet, typically within the first 10 minutes. I understand and appreciate our near-absence of free will. And I understand, better than most people, the shackles of imperialism. There are still things I don’t understand. And apparently there remain a few people I’ve yet to offend. Ergo, this essay, which includes a few examples from among many. Politics remains my favorite brand of lunacy. The supporter of any politician remains my favorite brand of lunatic. Reliance on politics to solve an insoluble predicament created by the omnicidal heat engine of civilization is bizarre. Politicians transfer money, typically from people who have little money to people who have a lot of it, while blaming others. Believing your favorite politician will address any of your concerns is naively cute. As I’ve pointed out previously, the system is not broken, it is fixed. And it’s not fixed for you or me. The prostletizing vegan remains high on my list of misguided “fix-it” solutionistas. Living in the world of should, rather than reality, religious acolytes of veganism first try to convince me a planetary change in human diets will prevent runaway climate change. They say it’ll save us. When I point out it’s too late for that, they change course. Now, they say, veganism will save me. I’m fine, thanks. Please keep your salvation to yourself. Veganism, sometimes called “a way of being” by true believers, is no solution at any level. Claiming compassion via dietary preference — although many vegans go beyond the realm of dietary preference and into the realm of religion — is delusional when the diet is vegan. And delusion is exactly what I’ve come to expect from a dumbed-down, willfully ignorant populace. Particularly galling is the inability to understand the extreme environmental cost of veganism. There is no free lunch. Moving down the food web shifts the impact rather than reducing it. Eating a diet rich in soy, grains, fruits, and nuts increases and exacerbates agricultural intensification. The example of genetically modified soy destroying essentially every terrestrial form of life on Earth is not sufficiently convincing to the typical prostletizing vegan. California’s Central Valley milked dry for almonds is not sufficiently convincing to the typical prostletizing vegan. Among the other costs obvious to ecologists and ignored by prostletizing vegans: organisms that depend upon the rapidly vanishing grasslands and savannas of the world. Apparently no evidence is sufficiently convincing to true believers of Veganism. The typical prostletizing vegan will claim she doesn’t eat many grains, the large-scale production and distribution of which are fundamental to propping up civilization. Such a self-absorbed response makes approximately as much sense as the notion that my walking away from imperialism will terminate imperialism. I did. It didn’t. The prostletizing vegan could learn from my failure. But I doubt she will. And the defenseless plants know they are being eaten. Veganism is the flip side of eating flesh for every meal. At least the meat-eaters know what they are killing: It’s on the plate. Vegans who deny their murderous diets are still responsible for the damage: Ignorance of the crime being committed is no defense. Using dietary preference to maintain the omnicidal heat engine of civilization is disingenuous at best. Don’t even get me started on the polluted ocean resulting from a vegan diet. Holistic Resource Management offered by snake-oil salesman Allan Savory is yet another faux solution lapped up by the ignorant masses. I’ve been pointing out Savory’s silliness since my days as a researcher in graduate school. I filed an overview in this space more than four years ago. I’m fed up with magical thinking, too. They — whomever they are — are not trying to kill us with “chemtrails”. If they are trying to kill us with chemtrails — and they are not — then they are failing badly. We add more than 200,000 people to the planet every day, births minus deaths. If they are trying to positively influence the weather with chemtrails — and they are not — then they are failing badly. Killing us is easy: War has worked nicely at every point in history. Civilized humans fall for that trick every time. We’re easy to goad into hating an “other.” Any “other” will do, for most of us, most of the time. No “chemtrails” needed. Enough with the books, too. I don’t doubt your book has all the answers, but I don’t have time to review it before it’s published. I don’t have time to read it after it’s published, either. I simply don’t have time. I’m with author and teacher Jack Kornfield on this one, with a line frequently, incorrectly attributed to the Buddha: “The trouble is, you think there’s time.” All of the above applies to your film, too. And your workshop. And your philosophy. And your favorite brand of meditation. And your hemp. And, for that matter, every conceivable combination of every imaginable “solution.l” I’ve actually pondered my place in the universe. I don’t doubt your sincerity, but I sincerely doubt you can put much of a dent in my world view. You’re a few decades too late for that. I really don’t mind your dietary choices, your politics, or your perspective on any topic. I just don’t want your perspective pushed into my world. Jehovah’s Witnesses are welcome in my world. Prostletizing Jehovah’s Witnesses are not welcome. Ditto for anybody else prostletizing about anything else. I’m open to new information, as long as it’s grounded in reality.  If your “solution” violates the Laws of Thermodynamics, please make sure it is approved by U.S. Patent Office before you send it my way. Crawford’s Attractions has created a crowd-funding initiative to support my upcoming tours. For details and to provide support, click here. I’m tentatively scheduled to tour Ontario, Canada, in November 2017 with possible support from Sudbury, Hamilton, Montreal, and Ottawa. If you’d like to throw your hat into the ring, please send a message to booking@crawfordsattractions.com. To keep costs down, as part of this tour I am seeking hosts and venues in and near Burlington, Vermont. We urgently need Midwest U.S. support for June-July near Chicago, Ilinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, Cincinnati, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, St. Louis, Missouri, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Again, please send a message to booking@crawfordsattractions.com if you can help. ​ I’ve received recent requests for a workshop focused on emotions rather than evidence. Such a workshop is described here. It is available in your hometown and also in Belize. I’m booking guests at the mud hut. For details, click here. The next episode of NBL radio will air at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, 2 May 2017 at PRN.fm. Thanks for your patience. Thanks to Crawford’s Attractions for initiating a fund-raising campaign in support of speaking tours. It’s here. We’re also seeking volunteers to support my speaking tours this year. Details are provided beneath the “Coming Events” tab atop the page. If you are able to help, please send a message to booking@crawfordsattractions.com ______ Catch Nature Bats Last on the radio with Mike Sliwa and Guy McPherson. To listen live, tune in the first Tuesday of each month at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time, or catch up in the archives here. If you prefer the iTunes version, including the option to subscribe, you can click here. We’re on Stitcher, too. Please help us out by sending your ideas to Mike at mikeyjonsliwa@gmail.com. We welcome your toll-free call during the broadcast: 888.874.4888. ​ McPherson’s latest book is available in audio, and can be purchased here. Ms. Ladybug and Mr. Honeybee: A Love Story at the End of Time is intended for ages 11 and up. This blog (Nature Bats Last) focuses on the natural world, with a particular emphasis on the twin sides of our fossil-fuel addiction: (1) global climate change and (2) energy decline. Because these phenomena impact every aspect of life on Earth, specific topics range widely, and include philosophy, evolution, economics, humanity, politics, current events, and many aspects of the human condition. ​ Guy McPherson’s website: http://ag.arizona.edu/~grm/ email: guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com Skype: guy_mcpherson McPherson is on Facebook (personal page), Facebook again (“teacher” page, after reaching the Facebook-imposed limit on contacts), and Twitter. Nature Bats Last has a flickr account, too.

the American dream is a nightmare for most Americans

4/25/2017

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It has been a downhill run for quite a long time, had anyone taken the time to notice.

Mark Manson's article, "The American Dream is Killing Us" offers some historic perspective and explanations for our failures.  "Since the beginning, Americans have always seen themselves as exceptional.  The United States’ meteoric rise to world superpower happened because of the confluence of four unique factors that it benefitted from greatly:

Unlimited Land – (As we know, the land was already occupied and required unlimited slaughter.)  From the very beginning, the US enjoyed a constant state of expansion.  Cheap and fertile farmland was always plentiful. And natural resources appeared to be endless, with massive reserves of oil, coal, timber, and precious metals that are still being discovered today.

Unlimited Cheap Labor – (As we know, slave labor is 'free' and the African continent possessed large populations.) 

Unlimited Innovation – Perhaps the one thing the US system got right more than anything else is that it is set up to reward ingenuity and innovation. If you come up with the latest, greatest idea, it’s here, more than anywhere else, that you’ll get rewarded for it. As such, many of the great technological advances in the last few centuries came from brilliant immigrants that the US attracted to its soil.  (As we know, today immigrants are bad and we want to keep them out or kick them out.)

Geographic Isolation – Civilizations in Europe and Asia were invaded, conquered, invaded again, conquered again, back and forth with the tides of history wiping cultures and peoples from the map over and over again.

But not the United States. It was just too bloody far away. I mean, if you’re Napoleon, why load up a bunch of expensive ships and sail for weeks, when you can just invade Italy, like, tomorrow?

It’s from this intersection of good fortune, plentiful resources, massive amounts of land, and creative ingenuity drawn from around the world that the idea of the American Dream was born.  That you too can own a McMansion with a three-car garage… 

Along with all of this 'good luck', the 'dream' has created some 'mental problems' for the citizensof this country.   The American Dream causes people to believe that people always get what they deserve;  it causes us to believe that people are only worth what they achieve;  indirectly, it encourages people to feel justified in exploiting others.

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM is the definitive discourse with Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as the most important intellectual alive, on the defining characteristic of our time - the deliberate concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few. Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality - tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority. Chomsky provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time - the death of the middle class and swan song of functioning democracy. A potent reminder that power ultimately rests in the hands of the governed.  The film is required viewing for all who maintain hope in a shared stake in the future.

American Dream in Freefall:
It's This Bad

'Declines in absolute mobility have been a systematic, widespread phenomenon throughout the United States since 1940,' the authors of the new study write.

from Common Dreams by Andrea Germanos
​
Whither the American Dream?
It may not be totally dead, but a new study suggests that it is certainly on life support.

Published in the American Association for the Advancement of Science journal Science, the team of researchers led by Raj Chetty and David Grusky of Stanford University used data from federal income tax returns and U.S. Census and Current Population Surveys to look at trends of this "absolute mobility," or earning more than one's parents.

What they found was a dramatic decline over the past several decades. While nearly all—over 90 percent—of children born in 1940 were able to earn more than their parents, that figure drops to 50 percent for children born in the 1980s.

The authors write that the decline was particularly acute "in the industrial Midwest," states like Michigan, and hit the middle class hardest, though they note "that declines in absolute mobility have been a systematic, widespread phenomenon throughout the United States since 1940."

An infographic conveying results by Chetty et al., which reveal that the probability for children to attain a higher income than their parents has dropped dramatically -- from more than 90 percent for children born in 1940 to 50 percent for children born in the 1980s. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 28 April 2017, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by R. Chetty at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, and colleagues was titled, 'The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940.'

(Image and caption: AAAS/Science)Intertwined with the ability to move upward is the inequality gripping the nation. They note: "Higher GDP growth rates do not substantially increase the number of children who earn more than their parents because a large fraction of GDP goes to a small number of high income earners today." Put another way, "Absolute mobility is highest when GDP growth rates are high and growth is spread broadly across the distribution."

Thus, a big part of reversing the trend means "more equal economic redistribution," the researchers conclude.

Noting the economic benefits that have been reaped most by those at the upper echelons, noted commentator Bill Moyers wrote months ago of "an ugly truth about America: inequality matters. It slows economic growth, undermines health, erodes social cohesion and solidarity, and starves education."
​
It was a major theme of the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who continues to rail against the country's "massive income and wealth inequality," and condemned President Donald Trump's budget blueprint last month as "morally obsence" for including "unacceptably painful cuts to programs that senior citizens, children, persons with disabilities, and working people rely on to feed their families, heat their homes, put food on the table, and educate their children."

"information is the currency of democracy" 4/23/2017 0 Comments   DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS IN THE FOOD YOU EAT ??? Ralph Nader made that statement. The question is, "why do 'we the people' have so little information?" We appear to lack even the most basic information about how our system of government works.  For example, people seem to misunderstand what goes on in congress.  It is the congress that writes the laws, levies taxes, borrows money, declares war, regulates commerce and impeaches the president. Virtually nobody knows how their representatives in congress vote on the most important issues.  Why is it difficult for a citizen to figure our how there representatives in congress have voted on the issues over the course of their political careers?   For most representatives in congress, they do not have their voting record on their websites... they do not want those they pretend to represent to know how they have consistently voted against their constituents and in favor of corporations  ​All voting in Congress is a matter of public record. However, not all floor votes are roll call votes. There are voice votes (“aye” or “no”) and standing votes (where the presiding officer counts Members), and these types of votes do not indicate by name how a member voted. Much of the 'work' that takes place in congress is done in committees.  Largely, those committee meetings and the results are not known outside of the congress. Typically, to follow the progress of legislation, one needs a bill or public law number to check the status of legislation.  Many bills are misnamed to deceive the constituency because the representatives in congress are, in truth, representing corporate interests (and their own interests) rather than the interests of the people. Even knowing a number of a bill is of little help when they change the number of the bill as it progresses through the system.  For example, it was H.R.1599 - Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 but previously it was H.R.4432 - Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014. The bill is another example (examples are nearly endless) of politicians voting against truth and transparency, against science, against the more than century-old right of states to legislate on matters relating to food safety and labeling. They voted against the 93 percent of Americans who are in favor of mandatory labeling of GMOs. They voted against the producers of non-GMO foods. They voted against their constituents by passing a bill to support Monsanto and the false labeling of the food we eat. Another example among the many is the cynically misnamed “Retail Investor Protection Act.”  The bill would actually harm investors by undermining the ability of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Labor (DOL) to ensure that financial professionals act in the best interests of their customers when providing investment advice.  Whose best interest should financial professionals be working for??? Ralph Nader is correct, "Information is the currency of democracy."  In the United States of America, where the media promotes the lies and propaganda of the oligarchy, the people have little or no accurate information.  Here, in our country, democracy is flat broke... actually, with the Trump presidency, we can use a word he is familiar with, 'bankrupt', to describe our democracy, and that's the truth !!! An article by Todd Phillips (Founder, LocalElectors.org) in the Huffington Post discusses a big part of our problem... he asks, ​"How Was 91 Percent of Congress Re-Elected Despite a 10 Percent Approval Rating?" ​ Surveys have found that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with Congress. As recently as three months ago, the Gallup organization found that 90 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Congress was handling its job. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 8 percent think Congress is doing a good job. A New York Times/CBS News Poll survey published in February 2010 found that 80 percent of Americans believe members of Congress were more interested in serving special interests than the people they represent. Under these circumstances, you would expect that 90+ percent of the Members of Congress would have lost their jobs in the recent election. But instead, 91 percent of those who ran for re-election won! If ever there was an indication that democracy in American is broken, this is it. As it turns out, Congressional re-election rates this high are quite normal. Only rarely are less than 90 percent of the members of the House of Representatives re-elected. And while the Senate is more competitive, it is rare for less than 80 percent of senators to be re-elected. Senator Tom Coburn described the situation well when he said, “In several election cycles in recent history, more incumbents died in office than lost reelection bids.” Members of Congress enjoy some of the best job security in America — and the least amount of accountability. Consider the following: According to The New American Democracy, “barely a third of the citizenry can recall the name of their [U.S. House of Representatives] representative, and even fewer can remember anything he or she has done for the district. Only about one in ten people can remember how their representative voted on a particular bill.” According to the American Thinker, only 27 percent of citizens can name both of their U.S. senators. Political parties exist only because of the enormous complexity of the government and the vast distance between citizens and the government, which makes it impossible for citizens to understand it to any sufficient level of depth. Parties simplify the political world into red and blue so citizens can feel comfortable with voting choices and participate in elections. Partisanship is therefore merely a symptom of the public’s inability to understand an enormously complex, vastly distant government — voter ignorance. ​ It is important to put this into the proper perspective. Citizens are expected to elect candidates at the national, state, and local level who are running for a wide variety of offices in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Once elected, each office holder will work on a wide variety of issues. In order to make informed voting decisions, voters need to understand the job responsibilities of each of these offices, as well as who the candidates are, what they represent, and what they have done in the past. This is an immense task — an impossible task — particularly for people who have busy lives full of more interesting and pressing things than following politics. the truth is that the media diverts our attention away from important issues and focuses on the trivial... when watching the 'news' notice how much time is directed to which hollywood star lost weight or is dating so and so...

surrounded by climate catastrophe 4/21/2017 0 Comments   Meltwater gushes from an ice cap on the island of Nordaustlandet, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE by E.L. Christianson Jr. Perhaps there is still time to 'ease' ourselves down the drain as opposed to being violently flushed away.  In either case, we should, at the very least, recognize our plight and attempt to respond responsibly.  It matters for our children and grand-children. When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it was home to an estimated 150 glaciers. Since then the number has decreased to fewer than 30, and most of those remaining have shrunk in area by two-thirds. Fagre predicts that within 30 years most if not all of the park's namesake glaciers will disappear. ​Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035. ​Arctic sea ice has thinned significantly over the past half century, and its extent has declined by about 10 percent in the past 30 years. NASA's repeated laser altimeter readings show the edges of Greenland's ice sheet shrinking. Spring freshwater ice breakup in the Northern Hemisphere now occurs nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and autumn freeze-up ten days later. Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet (4.6 meters) in parts of Alaska. From the Arctic to Peru, from Switzerland to the equatorial glaciers of Man Jaya in Indonesia, massive ice fields, monstrous glaciers, and sea ice are disappearing, fast. ​Rising sea level produces a cascade of effects. Bruce Douglas, a coastal researcher at Florida International University, calculates that every inch (2.5 centimeters) of sea-level rise could result in eight feet (2.4 meters) of horizontal retreat of sandy beach shorelines due to erosion. Furthermore, when salt water intrudes into freshwater aquifers, it threatens sources of drinking water and makes raising crops problematic. ​Oceans, in effect, mimic some functions of the human circulatory system. Just as arteries carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the extremities, and veins return blood to be replenished with oxygen, oceans provide life-sustaining circulation to the planet. Propelled mainly by prevailing winds and differences in water density, which changes with the temperature and salinity of the seawater, ocean currents are critical in cooling, warming, and watering the planet's terrestrial surfaces—and in transferring heat from the Equator to the Poles To put everything into perspective,​ more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years. Please watch the video featured below: We human beings are here at this specific point in time, having caused tremendous changes in Earth's climate which will have tremendous repercussions involving human existence on the planet, and we act stupidly, pretending to be innocent.  It is as if we are incapable of understanding anything other than making money today.  It is as if we are incapable of understanding anything about tomorrow.  When the sun comes up 'tomorrow', we will finally realize that the money we made yesterday has no value and there will be no 'tomorrows' for our grand-children.  If we wait that long, it will be too late, if not already, and that's the truth !!! a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away. The longest — and probably largest — proof of our current climate catastrophe ever caught on camera. ​Photographer James Balog and his crew were hanging out near a glacier when their camera captured something extraordinary. They were in Greenland, gathering footage from the time-lapse they'd positioned all around the Arctic Circle for the last several years. They were also there to shoot scenes for a documentary. And while they were hoping to capture some cool moments on camera, no one expected a huge chunk of a glacier to snap clean off and slide into the ocean right in front of their eyes. It was the largest such event ever filmed. For nearly an hour and 15 minutes, Balog and his crew stood by and watched as a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away. As far as anyone knows, this was an unprecedented geological catastrophe and they caught the entire thing on tape. It won't be the last time something like this happens either. But once upon a time, Balog was openly skeptical about that "global warming" thing. Balog had a reputation since the early 1980s as a conservationist and environmental photographer. And for nearly 20 years, he'd scoffed at the climate change heralds shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" "I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet. It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible," he explained in the 2012 documentary film "Chasing Ice." There was too much margin of error in the computer simulations, too many other pressing problems to address about our beautiful planet. As far as he was concerned, these melodramatic doomsayers were distracting from the real issues. That was then. In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Balog became a believer. He was sent on a photo expedition of the Arctic by National Geographic, and that first northern trip was more than enough to see the damage for himself. "It was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica," he said in a 2012 interview with ThinkProgress. "That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that's when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with." Some of that evidence may have been the fact that more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years. Here's the entire video of the crumbling glacier. And if you were moved even a fraction as much as those glaciers moved, you can sign this petition to demand that we protect the Arctic Circle now before it gets worse. Ice Age glaciers played an essential role in shaping Yosemite’s landscape. Most of this ice had melted away due to natural warming by about 10,000 years ago. During a more recent cold period called the Little Ice Age, small glaciers formed below the highest peaks. . Repeat photography of the Lyell Glacier shows 130 years of ice loss. USGS photo by Israel C. Russell (top) NPS photo (bottom)

racial segregation is costly... to whites 4/20/2017 0 Comments   the only thing that is different today is that a 'Negro' doesn't have to step into the street and yield the sidewalk to a white man...  by E.L. Christianson Jr. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that state laws enforcing racial segregation in private businesses was constitutional.  That effectively settled the issue until the middle of the 1960's.  Before that it was slavery.   Blacks were kept from even living in the state of Oregon until the beginning of world war two.  And, while fighting for this 'great' nation, the United States Armed Forces were totally segregated until the Korean War.   White and black soldiers were kept separate, and black soldiers were led by white officers. Violence is the tool used to keep blacks 'in their place' in the racial hierarchy and that tradition is continued today by 'law enforcement'. Slavery ended in this country little more than a century and a half ago. This means that African-Americans are only two to three generations removed from slavery.  By contrast, and for a much longer period of time, former slaveholding families have built their fortunes on slave labor and continued the wealth/privilege/benefit disparities through overt and covert discrimination... both legal and illegal.  Up until the middle 1960's, most African Americans were not allowed to vote in the South.  And in many areas of the country they are still not allowed to vote through use of sleight of hand legal maneuvers such as: being a former felons (laws designed to create felons among African Americans); and purges of the voter rolls; and use of government-issued identification. Historically, it was illegal for slaves to learn to read or to write.  The tradition continues.  Along with the first legally integrated public schools there was massive white resistance.  Today that resistance takes the form of private schools and the 'defunding' of public education.  Added to that we now have Betsy DeVos. White supremacy hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, are motivated by race. They continue to thrive in each of our 50 states. Every aspect of life in the United States is effected by the race of the individual.  Everything in this country is held in check by our racial attitudes.  We can never reach our full potential as a nation as long as we are so divided.  And, this article only mentions the white-black divide.  The Native American population can never recover from the invasion of Europeans.  When adding Hispanics and Asians to the discussion, it gets to be more difficult to even conceive of solutions.  To think of all humanity as equal Americans is impossible. In spite of the fact that we had a president who was of African-American descent, the evidence is that we are an extremely long distance from any real racial equity in this country.  Based upon time estimates regarding extinction of the human species, we are closer to extinction than we are to racial harmony in this country, and unfortunately, that's the truth !!! To update your perspective, picture the 'black guy' driving a car and the 'white guy' in a police uniform with a gun... "Bang", "Bang" Everyone Pays A Hefty Price For Segregation ​ from NPR by Nick Chiles If Chicago, the fifth most racially and economically segregated city in the country, were to lower its level of segregation to the national median of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country, it would have a profound impact on the entire region. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThere's a compelling question at the heart of a report released this week by the Metropolitan Planning Council: If more people — especially educated professional white Americans — knew exactly how they are harmed by the country's pervasive racial segregation, would they be moved to try to decrease it? Researchers from the MPC, a Chicago-based nonprofit, and from the Washington-based Urban Institute tried to create a workable formula for estimating the cost, collectively and individually, of the persistent problem in their report, "The Cost of Segregation: Lost income. Lost lives. Lost potential. The steep costs all of us in the Chicago region pay by living so separately from each other." The researchers analyzed segregation patterns in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country and found that if Chicago — the fifth most racially and economically segregated city in the country — were to lower its level of segregation to the national median of those 100 cities, it would have a profound impact on the entire Chicago region, including raising the region's gross domestic product, raising incomes and lowering the homicide rate. "Segregation is not only an issue in low-income communities or communities of color," the report says. "Economic and racial segregation has strangled opportunities for millions of people. Disinvestment has devastated entire city neighborhoods and suburban villages, towns and cities. Lack of diversity also hurts affluent communities, where limited housing options often mean that young people cannot afford to return when starting their own families, retirees cannot afford to stay and valued employees are priced out. Add it up, and it's clear that segregation holds back the entire region's economy and potential —and whether we realize it or not, it's costing all of us." Amanda E. Lewis, director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois-Chicago, called the MPC report "very important." "The findings are pretty stark," Lewis said. "They're hard to ignore." The report concluded that the Chicago region would gain many benefits from lowering its segregation level to the national median. Chief among them would be that incomes for African-Americans in the Chicago region would rise an average of $2,982 per person per year, which would increase the earnings of the region by $4.4 billion and raise the Chicago region's gross domestic product, a leading measure of economic performance, by approximately $8 billion. Chicago's notorious crime would also be positively impacted. The region's homicide rate would drop by 30 percent, which would have saved 229 lives in Chicago in 2016. In 2010, the last year for which regional numbers are available, a 30 percent drop in the homicide rate would have saved 167 lives and saved $65 million in policing costs and an estimated $218 million in corrections costs. In addition, residential real estate values would have increased by at least $6 billion. Less segregation would also make Chicago and its environs more educated, with an estimated 83,000 more people who have bachelor's degrees, bringing the region an added $90 billion in total lifetime earnings. Marisa Novara, vice president of MPC and one of the report's authors, said the MPC was trying to change the narrative around segregation away from the commonly held view that white people clustered in upper-income communities are not touched by it. "That has absolutely been the way our society has understood this," she said in an interview. "This report really changes that. It shows that it's not true that segregation only works in white people's favor. We all pay a price — billions of dollars. The way we've talked about segregation to this point has really left a big part of our region feeling like segregation is not their problem and they don't need to be part of the solution. That's problematic." Novara said the MPC will follow up "The Cost of Segregation" with another report that details the steps the region needs to take to decrease segregation. "I think it's interesting to try to say, 'Hey this is your problem, too,'" said Anne Dodge, executive director of UChicago Urban, an institute at the University of Chicago that focuses on research on cities. "I like that the report talks collectively about the city. This is one place and we all own it, and we need to own each other's problems and each other's successes." The MPC report points out that racist government policies initially created segregated neighborhoods in Chicago, when the Chicago Real Estate Board (CREB) instituted racially restrictive covenants in the early 20th century that prohibited African-Americans from purchasing, leasing and occupying housing outside of a small area on the city's South Side. The covenants led to widespread "redlining" by denying black communities access to financial capital and resources to purchase homes and start small businesses. That kind of institutional racism has continued in the modern era by banks disproportionately saddling African-American home buyers with predatory loans. At its root, Lewis of the University of Illinois-Chicago said, the issue is racism and the too-pervasive white view that anything associated with black people is bad. "This isn't some abstract thing about the market — it's because white people don't tend to want to buy in black neighborhoods, and they are still the majority of people buying homes. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Lewis, co-author of Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools, a book about how even liberal white people make individual decisions that exacerbate inequality. "If you don't have the largest group in society, who happen to control the greatest amount of resources, being interested in buying in certain neighborhoods, the market forces suggest those neighborhoods won't accrue value as quickly. It has serious consequences for middle and upper middle-class black folks who want to be in communities with folks who look like them." Amara Enyia, a municipal policy consultant and 2014 Chicago mayoral candidate, complained on social media that the report spent too much time focusing on getting black people and white people to live together and not enough on gaining equity for black communities. "Yes, I believe there is a significant societal value to diversity and inclusion, but for now I'm focused on the premise of this report as it relates to the public space and public goods (i.e. education, housing, healthcare, etc.)," she wrote. While she feels the report is valuable, Lewis, who is white, said she is disturbed that it is even necessary to make the case to white people that segregation also hurts them in order for white people to care about segregation. ​ "Why isn't it enough to show negative consequences for black and brown people?" she asked. "Why wouldn't that be enough to motivate us? Why shouldn't that be the driving thing that says to us, 'This is unjust.' Having to make the case that all of us lose says a lot about our society writ large and why we are so segregated." May 2, 1967, Black Panthers come to the state capitol in Sacramento... perhaps this is the 'only' answer ???

capitalist steal from everyone else to produce a profit

4/19/2017

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natural resources have value and have a cost when used by humans... capitalist use natural resources as if they already 'owned' those resources and then claim a 'profit' when selling those resources in the 'free market'.

by E.L. Christianson Jr.

The fact is that when the capitalist claims to have made a profit when consuming natural resources (coal, for example) to produce energy to produce a product (electricity, for example) their accounting systems ignore many of the 'real' costs associated with the process.  Because the 'real' costs are never factored into the ledger sheet, it appears that a 'profit' is made and capitalism appears to investors as a 'good' economic model.

The mining, transportation actual generation of electricity are factored into the equation.  However, the value of the coal under the mountain is never 'paid' for.   It is a blank spot that is not even identified in book-keeping... If it were, at the very least, identified, then it would, for book-keeping purposes be listed with a cost of 'zero' since that is what is actually paid -- as if 'donated'.

But as any idiot can recognize, the value of the coal in the ground is not zero.  If, in fact, the true value of the coal were to be 'paid' it would be paid to the owners of the coal... the people and not some 'token' payment to a complicit government agency.

Other components are incorporated into the production cycle of electricity.  Water and air are 2 obvious components and the owners of the water and air are the same 'people' of the land who own all of the natural resources of the land.  These people own the sky and the sunset.  They own the clouds and the forests.  They own the soil and the minerals under the soil.  The people are the owners of everything on, in or above the land.

There are costs associated with the use of these natural resources and there are costs associated with the depletion of these resources as well.

When the air is so fouled as to become unbreathable, that specific consequence is expensive but the cost is borne by the individual person who lives in that land and not the capitalist.  It is the same when the water quality deteriorates to a point where it is undrinkable.  It is the local population that is forced to carry that particular cost of purifying the water.

These are 'real' costs to producing 'a product' but these costs never appear on the 'balance sheet' of the capitalist.  But the hospital bill (for example) resulting from health problems caused by lack of clean air and clean water is covered by the individual.

And, this is only about production of electricity... Natural gas and oil are also used to make electricity and the scenario would be similar to that of coal.

The story is the same for everything that is manufactured and/or produced on the planet.

The 'bottom line' as we like to call it, is that the capitalist (who abhors socialism) steals resources from the 'commons' and uses those resources to create 'profit'.  But, when asked to contribute to the health-care of the masses suffering from corporate abuse of the environment, they cry 'freedom' and 'personal responsibility' and all manner of deceptions to avoid paying for the 'raw materials' that they use.

These are similar to the deceptions the capitalist uses to avoid paying a reasonable and equitable share of taxes,  and that's the truth !!!

the capitalist system is a series of 'laws' granting special 'rights' to the capitalist... how else to drain an oil field under The Gulf of Mexico or The Santa Barbara Channel ?

None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
from Grist By David Roberts

​The notion of “externalities” has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs.

While the notion is incredibly useful, especially in folding ecological concerns into economics, I’ve always had my reservations about it. Environmentalists these days love speaking in the language of economics — it makes them sound Serious — but I worry that wrapping this notion in a bloodless technical term tends to have a narcotizing effect. It brings to mind incrementalism: boost a few taxes here, tighten a regulation there, and the industrial juggernaut can keep right on chugging. However, if we take the idea seriously, not just as an accounting phenomenon but as a deep description of current human practices, its implications are positively revolutionary.

To see what I mean, check out a recent report [PDF] done by environmental consultancy Trucost on behalf of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) program sponsored by United Nations Environmental Program. TEEB asked Trucost to tally up the total “unpriced natural capital” consumed by the world’s top industrial sectors. (“Natural capital” refers to ecological materials and services like, say, clean water or a stable atmosphere; “unpriced” means that businesses don’t pay to consume them.)

It’s a huge task; obviously, doing it required a specific methodology that built in a series of assumptions. (Plenty of details in the report.) But it serves as an important signpost pointing the way to the truth about externalities.

Here’s how those costs break down:

The majority of unpriced natural capital costs are from greenhouse gas emissions (38%), followed by water use (25%), land use (24%), air pollution (7%), land and water pollution (5%), and waste (1%).
So how much is that costing us? Trucost’s headline results are fairly stunning.

First, the total unpriced natural capital consumed by the more than 1,000 “global primary production and primary processing region-sectors” amounts to $7.3 trillion a year — 13 percent of 2009 global GDP.
(A “region-sector” is a particular industry in a particular region — say, wheat farming in East Asia.)

Second, surprising no one, coal is the enemy of the human race. Trucost compiled rankings, both of the top environmental impacts and of the top industrial culprits.

Here are the top five biggest environmental impacts and the region-sectors responsible for them:

Click to embiggen. UNEP The biggest single environmental cost? Greenhouse gases from coal burning in China. The fifth biggest? Greenhouse gases from coal burning in North America. (This also shows what an unholy nightmare deforestation in South America is.)

Now, here are the top five industrial sectors ranked by total ecological damages imposed:

Click to embiggen. UNEP  It’s coal again! This time North American coal is up at number three.

Trucost’s third big finding is the coup de grace. Of the top 20 region-sectors ranked by environmental impacts, none would be profitable if environmental costs were fully integrated. Ponder that for a moment: None of the world’s top industrial sectors would be profitable if they were paying their full freight. Zero.

That amounts to an global industrial system built on sleight of hand. As Paul Hawken likes to put it, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.

This gets back to what I was saying at the top. The notion of “externalities” is so technical, such an economist’s term. Got a few unfortunate side effects, so just move some numbers from Column A to Column B, right?

But the UNEP report makes clear that what’s going on today is more than a few accounting oversights here and there. The distance between today’s industrial systems and truly sustainable industrial systems — systems that do not spend down stored natural capital but instead integrate into current energy and material flows — is not one of degree, but one of kind.

What’s needed is not just better accounting but a new global industrial system, a new way of providing for human wellbeing, and fast.

That means a revolution.

Mountaintop removal mining devastates the landscape, turning areas that should be lush with forests and wildlife into barren moonscapes. Huge machines, called "draglines," push rock and dirt into nearby streams and valleys, forever burying waterways. The massive dragline in the photo, which can weigh up to 12 million pounds and be as big as an entire city block, is dwarfed by the scale of this devastation. PHOTO COURTESY OF OVEC

an abandoned water-filled anthracite strip mining pit 20 acres in size, 40′ deep, nearly 200′ feet across, 4/10s of a mile long; The pit is flooded with abandoned mine drainage that enters the pit in several fractured areas along one side. The abandoned mine water has an alkaline pH of 6.2, very low acidity levels, and iron hydroxide levels that exceed 40 parts per million (40 mg/L). The orange-ish, red color exhibited in the pit is precipitated iron oxide that has dropped our of solution and deposited naturally on the rocks around the site and at the base of the natural vegetation that has grown around the water’s edge.

Surface mining in Martin County in 1998. Fights over strip mining across Appalachia have raged for decades. (Photo: MICHAEL CLEVENGER/THE COURIER-JOURNAL)

​Mark Ovaska in West Virginia: "Strip Mining Prevents Forest Fires"

​Ninety years ago, during the late summer of 1921, one of the largest armed confrontations of American history other than the Civil War occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, when the struggle between coal miners and the coal companies exploded into open warfare in the Battle Of Blair Mountain. Hundreds were killed, and every weapon from rifles to machine-guns and airplanes were used. The companies, backed by what we would now call private contractor paramilitary militias and eventually the US Army, broke the union and crushed the uprising.

Simply Unbelievable -- Trump issued an Executive Order Mar. 28 to lift a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land and reevaluate the Clean Power Plan aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions from electric generation by 32 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.