Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - 11-19-2022

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

If is the 27th annual conference on climate change. Our political, social and business elite get to parade around to show their concern for earth. Demand each and everyone of us acknowledge our guilt of not caring about earth enough and causing its destruction. Plan on methods for each of us to atone for our sins. Conversion to Green Energy is the current mantra. A convenient side effect is limiting development of third world countries by increasing energy costs.

We will know our leaders are serious about actions to address climate change when contributions to habitat destruction, greenhouse gases and pollution for each country include war games and military activities.

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[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1OgJYqa1U]

World Beyond War online tool

a quick look showed
202 results found for bases of 10,000 or more acres
493 results found for bases with Personnel of 10,000 or more

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Even limited nuclear war would be a climate catastrophe Asia Times Nov 18, 2022

In 1982, a group of scientists including Carl Sagan began to raise the alarm on a climate apocalypse that could follow nuclear war. Using simple computer simulations and historic volcanic eruptions as natural analogues, they showed how smoke that lofted into the stratosphere from urban firestorms could block out the sun for years.

They found that this “nuclear winter”, as it came to be called, could trigger catastrophic famine far from the location of the war. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, leaders of the United States and Soviet Union in the 1980s, both cited this work when they declared that a nuclear war could not be won.

The contemporary threat has prompted a new era of research into the potential climate impact of a nuclear war. Using the latest computational tools, we have investigated what the consequences would be for all life on Earth.

In our most recent research, we show that a nuclear conflict would massively disrupt the climate system and cause global famine. It could also dramatically disturb the ocean and its ecosystems for decades and potentially thousands of years after a conflict.
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We explored the scenario of a nuclear war between the US and Russia that results in 150 billion tons of soot from burning cities reaching the upper atmosphere. We found that the low light and rapid cooling would cause large physical changes to the ocean, including a dramatic expansion of Artic sea ice. Critically, this ice would grow to block normally ice-free coastal regions essential for fishing, aquaculture, and shipping all across Europe.

Three years after such a war, Arctic sea ice expands by 50%, icing over the Baltic sea year-round and closing major ports such as Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. Even in the scenario of a more limited conflict between India and Pakistan, 27 to 47 billion tons of soot would be ejected into the upper atmosphere, and the resulting cooling would severely compromise shipping through northern Europe.

Worse, the sudden drop in light and ocean temperatures would decimate marine algae, which are the foundation of the marine food web, creating a years-long ocean famine. While the whole ocean would be affected, the worst effects would be concentrated at higher latitudes, including all of Europe and especially in the Baltic states, where ocean light is already in short supply.
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We expected that a reduction in sunlight and lower temperatures would cause more sea ice and less algae in the oceans. However, we were shocked that our model ocean remained materially transformed for decades after a war, long after temperature and light conditions returned to their pre-war state.

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As in the past, COP27 likely to miss the point Asia Time Nov 17, 2022

COP27 is under way in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Although the Ukraine war and other issues have shifted some people’s immediate focus away from the battle against global warming, it remains a central concern of our epoch.

Reports indicate that not only are we failing to meet our climate goals, we are also falling short of the targets by a large margin. Worse, the potent methane greenhouse gas emissions have grown far more rapidly, posing as much of a threat as carbon dioxide.
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The problem of methane

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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 1.4% of all natural gas produced in the US leaks into the atmosphere. But the March Stanford University study using cameras and small planes that fly over natural-gas infrastructure found that the figure is likely to be 9.4% – more than six times the EPA’s estimate.

Even if methane leaks are only 2.5% of natural-gas production, they will offset all the benefits of switching from coal to natural gas. “Clean” natural gas may be three to four times as bad as even dirty coal.
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The impact of methane leaks can be seen in another set of figures. The WMO reported the biggest jump in “methane concentrations in 2021 since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago.” While the WMO remains discreetly silent on why this jump has occurred, the relation between switching to natural gas and the consequent rise of methane emissions is hard to miss.
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The problem of energy storage

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The key to a transition to renewable energy – the only long-term solution to global warming – is to find a way of storing energy. Renewables, unlike fossil fuels, cannot be used at will, as the wind, sun, and even water provide a continuous flow of energy.

While water can be stored in large reservoirs, wind and sun cannot be, unless they are converted to chemical energy in batteries. Or unless they are converted to hydrogen and then stored in either tanks or in geological formations, underground or in salt caverns.
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The energy from oil or natural gas is 20-40 times that of the most efficient battery available currently. For an electric vehicle, that is not such a major issue. It simply determines how often the vehicle’s batteries need to be charged and how long charging will take. It means developing a charging infrastructure with a quick turnaround time. The much bigger problem is how to store energy at the grid level.
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The contradiction at the heart of global warming is private greed over social needs. And who funds such a transition, the poor or the rich? This is also what COP27 is all about, not simply about how to stop global warming.

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A good article that fills in many of the details about Squanto we were not ready to learn in elementary school.

A man without a tribe: The true story of Squanto Cape Cod Times Nov 19, 2020

The first visitor to the Pilgrims' settlement in Plymouth would make himself known, remarkably, by speaking English.

Samoset, an Abenaki sachem who was visiting among the Wampanoag and likely learned to speak the language as a result of long-standing relations with English and European traders, bid them “Welcome, Englishmen.” After establishing a modicum of goodwill with the colonists, he left and returned with Wampanoag Tisquantum, known commonly as Squanto, who spoke more fluent English.

That each of these men spoke English was hardly questioned before Squanto was introduced into the historical genre as a “special instrument sent of God” in William Bradford’s book "Of Plimoth Plantation."
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As a young man he was among 20 unfortunate men of Patuxet lured aboard the ship of Thomas Hunt in 1614 to be sold into slavery in Spain. He spent at least six weeks in the dank, dark belly of a ship, chained to his brothers, given just enough fresh water, raw fish and stale bread to keep them alive.

In Malaga, Spain, Hunt attempted to unload his cargo of stunned and bewildered Wampanoag men in the slave market with little success, due to uninterested brokers and the intervention of a religious order of friars. Squanto ultimately made his way to London, where he found himself living with John Slaney, a man who had great potential to afford him passage home. He likely did all he could to appease Slaney, who was a merchant and shipbuilder and also a grantee of the land patent issued to the Newfoundland Company. Squanto bided his time, charming his host and earning celebrity as a novelty. The presence of a Native man fascinated Londoners. Not only were Native men set apart by their bronze skin, chiseled features and dark eyes, but they were virtual giants to the small-statured Englishmen. Squanto’s faithfulness paid off. Slaney allowed Squanto to travel as a guide to Newfoundland, where he met Thomas Dermer, an English explorer who brought him home in 1619.
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Cast in the role of interpreter, Squanto was far more helpful to the English than he was to his own people. In fact, if we are to judge his effectiveness as an interpreter by his first and perhaps most important translation, he was an epic failure.
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To this day, this treaty is passed off as a harmless and friendly agreement. However, the authors, penning the document in English, took clear advantage of the language and cultural ambiguity to deceive Ousamequin, who was unable to discern the not-so-subtle threat to Wampanoag sovereignty.
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When the English celebrated their first harvest with a bullish muster performed by the colony’s militia, the repeated blast of muskets, considered entertainment by the settlers, was interpreted as a threat by the Wampanoag. Soon after, Ousamequin approached the settlement with about 90 warriors. The virtual army of Natives appearing without warning, contrary to the diplomatic efforts of Stephen Hopkins and Edward Winslow just a few months earlier, was a clear show of force on the part of Ousamequin and his men in response to the muster that likely created a very tense situation.

Bradford’s history makes only a brief reference to this harvest feast, with no mention of the participation of the Wampanoag. Winslow, however, does write about the uninvited dinner guests, “Whom for three days we entertained and feasted,” no doubt in another act of diplomacy to ease the strained confrontation, which could only be achieved by each side letting down its guard. For his part, Ousamequin and his warriors contributed to the feast: “they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.”

But nearly 250 years later this event serves as the inspiration for one of America’s most popular holidays. On the third Thursday of November, American families gather together and celebrate a national day of unity and mutual gratitude inspired by a warped interpretation of that first harvest feast. The contemporary holiday perpetuates the myths of Wampanoag and Pilgrim relations.

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A popular holiday season recipe from from my 3x5 recipe box.
The only time of the year I buy cereal.

Party Mix
6 Tablespoon butter
4 teaspoon worchester sauce
1 teaspoon season salt*
6 cups total of various cereals (in the past Chex and plain Cheerios)
and pretzel sticks - I currently try to find organic brands
or break organic Triscuit crackers into small pieces.
3/4 cup peanuts or mixed nuts (or drop the carbs & use 7 cups nuts)

Melt butter, stir in worchester sauce and spiced. Pour over cereal and nuts in a bowl, mix together. Spread on cookie sheets and bake at 250 degrees (F) for 45 minutes - take out and stir every 15 minutes while baking.

*season salt - 1/2t salt, 1/4t black pepper, 1/8t paprika, pinch garlic and onion powder.

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What is on your mind today?

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Comments

The Wampanoag is a local tribe hereabouts.
Many stories linking the English deviousness in
taking native lands prevail.

inspired by a warped interpretation of that first harvest feast

Abenaki and Patuxet are still very real influences.

5c3b3f36-db1e-4509-8721-07b52b37f812-AP22216481258929.jpg

Visited the Mashantucket Pequot Museum recently.

https://www.pequotmuseum.org

funded by the casino development Foxwoods in CT.

https://www.newportri.com/story/news/history/2022/11/21/narragansetts-pe...

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1 user has voted.