Hot Air

Something to keep in mind…


Adults keep saying:
“We owe it to the young people to give them hope.”
...
But I don’t want your hope.
I don’t want you to be hopeful.
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I want you to panic.
I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.
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And then I want you to act.
I want you to act as you would in a crisis.
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I want you to act as if our house is on fire.
Because it is.
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Greta Thunberg

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Blog Blue Ocean.jpg

CUT THE CORD TO CORPORATE CONTROL

Gating Factors and End Cases

The 1% depend on the 99% for their money, and hence their power. In essence, very rich persons and corporations gain power by leveraging everyone else’s spending. Multinational corporations rely on our spending habits for their very survival. We, the 99%, have been indoctrinated and acculturated to be consumers in order to support the capitalistic system that keeps the 1% afloat.

Consumer spending currently makes up more than 70% of the nation’s economy.

But, consuming ‘stuff’ is killing the planet. And ‘stuff’ is nothing more than a rearrangement of the Earth’s resources - extracted, transported, processed, stored, manipulated, packaged, bottled, repackaged, transported again, marketed and shipped. At each step CO2 is spewed into the atmosphere. Nothing short of a complete economic and social realignment will save our planet.

Stop buying ‘stuff’

A wide-scale consumer revolt could significantly change the way corporations operate and restructure the supply chain to support the Earth, rather than depleting it. Either we change now or pick up the pieces later.

Starve the multinationals

If the average consumer were to ‘cut the cord’ to multinational corporations by limiting consumption, this would have a severe impact on the corporations’ power and reduce their ‘leverage’ and influence over government. Either we stick to the path the multinationals have chosen for us or we take control wherever, however and in all ways it is possible to do so.

Refocus the narrative

Since the advent of Bernays’ efforts to influence public consumption based on trends, propaganda, and marketing, the corporate hold on the general public and the government has only increased. Either we assume responsibility for the future or we mourn for those who live to pick up the pieces.

Moreover, consumption of ‘stuff’ creates false needs and more importantly distracts the public from the larger issues. There is no time for distraction left. Every week another study says things are happening faster than we thought. And the next week another study says, no, it’s actually happening faster than that. And the next week another says once again, the same thing, it's happening faster yet again.

“All the ice does not have to melt, it just needs to be lubricated enough from below and chunks that are holding the front in place need to melt. And then the whole of it will slide into the ocean,” said a friend who is a physicist.

The overarching issue is Climate Breakdown. It is time to take the future into our own hands.
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HOT AIR NEWS ROUNDUP

Global Warming by country 1850 to 2018
Berkley Earth
[video:https://youtu.be/7xTcIJ2fuWw]

Good article…

Arctic Weather Plunges into North America
NASA 1-25-19

A large area of low pressure and extremely cold air usually swirls over the Arctic, with strong counter-clockwise winds that trap the cold around the Pole. But disturbances in the jet stream and the intrusion of warmer mid-latitude air masses can disturb this polar vortex and make it unstable, sending Arctic air south into middle latitudes.

South Australia heatwave smashes record temperatures
PHYSORG 1-24-19

"Remember to check on elderly friends, relatives and neighbors, and those who are unwell," the state emergency services tweeted.

Health authorities were also forced to issue a public warning to avoid contact with hundreds of heat-stressed bats falling from trees in parkland areas.

Authorities in central Australia said they had to cull more than 50 feral horses, after they found 90 dead or dying wild brumbies near a dried-up water hole.

China not 'walking the walk' on methane emissions
EurekAlert! 1-29-19

Chinese regulations on coal mining have not curbed the nation's growing methane emissions over the past five years as intended, says new research.

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The End of Ice • Thom Hartman h/t lookout
Book review with author Dahr Jamail
[video:https://youtu.be/kjOA8qR0-AA]
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Disobedience • 350.org h/t QMS
The history civil disobedience and its role in the Break Free movement.
[video:https://youtu.be/Tdtc7ltYB8E]
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If All the Earth's Ice Melted • Science Insider
If all the ice melted the seas would rise ~240 feet.
[video:https://youtu.be/VbiRNT_gWUQ]
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150 Congressional Republicans Represent Fossil Fuel Companies Instead of Their Communities
Desmog 1-29-19

Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe top the list at $3 million and $2 million in dirty money over their careers, while the lifetime average among the 150 deniers is a scant $455,731 — which certainly sounds low. But that doesn’t include money spent on outside PACs and support.

The melting Arctic is revealing caveman-era landscapes
Grist 1-25-19

Scientists studying Baffin Island, Canada — a snowy mountain range rising from the Arctic Sea — have found land that was last ice free when our ancestors were dallying with Neanderthals

If We Don’t Stop Producing Fossil Fuels, We Won’t Make It
Greenpeace 1-10-19

What does stopping oil, coal, and gas at the source look like? It means no new drilling, no new oil and gas pipelines, and no new mining. Proposals for carbon taxes and cap-and-trade have taken up too much climate-solution oxygen in recent years, and so far they have been flimsy half measures porous with loopholes. They come nowhere close to meeting the scale of the crisis. You think Exxon is going to support the whopping $27,000 per ton carbon tax that the IPCC report actually recommends? The most recent carbon tax bill floated last fall proposed a $15 per ton price on carbon if that gives you an idea.

Major northeastern U.S. snowstorms expected to continue with climate change
Science Daily 1-24-19

Even though climate change is expected to reduce the total amount of US snowfall this century, it's unlikely to significantly rein in the most powerful nor'easters that pummel the East Coast, new research indicates.

The Fracking Industry’s Flaring Problem May Be Worse Than We Thought
Desmog 1-29-19

the amount of gas flared in North Dakota in October was enough to heat 4.25 million homes in America. And while the fracking industry in North Dakota is flaring the most gas in the nation, it's not the only place this is a growing issue. Flaring reportedly also doubled in 2018 in the booming Permian Shale in Texas and New Mexico, with an estimated $1 million a day of gas burned off.

Electric cars will not stop rising oil demand, says energy agency chief
Climate Home News 1-22-19

Besides, he said, it was not cars that were driving oil demand – “full stop”.

“Drivers are trucks, the petrochemical industry, planes. Asia is just starting to fly,” he said, referring to the agency’s 2018 energy outlook report that also cites shipping as a major source of oil demand.

Birol also highlighted the problem of powering electric cars when two thirds of global generation comes from fossil fuels.

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PROTESTS • EXTINCTION REBELLION • RESISTANCE

Fridays For Future

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Ten Thousand Students March in Berlin as Global #ClimateStrike Movement Rises
Common Dreams 1-27-19

An estimated ten thousand students took to the freezing cold streets of Berlin, Germany on Friday as they added their voices to the growing youth-led global uprising that is demanding urgent and far-reaching action to address the world's climate crisis.

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Greta Thunberg

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Children's climate rallies gain momentum in Europe
BBC 1-25-19

In the Swiss ski resort Ms Thunberg told business leaders: "Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they've been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money… and I think many of you today belong to that group of people."

…"My message was that most emissions are caused by a few people, the very rich people, who are here in Davos.

As youth anger over climate change mounts, protests spread around the globe
The Washington Post 1-25-19

More than 26,000 students so far have pledged in an online manifesto that they will never work for companies they deem to be heavy polluters, which they hope will shame companies into becoming more forceful players against global warming.

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Extinction Rebellion
JOIN EX USA: on their website

9 arrested for 'die-in' protest at Rockefeller Center ice skating rink in New York City
ABC 1-27-19

The activists, who laid down in the middle of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center around 2:45 p.m., were part of a group called the Extinction Rebellion. The protesters formed an hourglass logo with a circle around it -- the group's logo.

….The protest was part of what the group called a "nationwide day of nonviolent civil disobedience and protest," according to its website.

Great Pictures…

“Extinction Rebellion” Climate Activists Block DC Streets
News2Share 1-26-19

[video:https://www.facebook.com/N2Sreports/videos/2123641937946984/]

In D.C., about 30 people marched on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History — still closed in the government shutdown’s final days — where they held a funeral to mourn the loss of Mother Nature and the “end of natural history on Earth.”

Good read...

The ‘Extinction Rebellion’ Wants You to Wake Up
Rolling Stone 1-28-19

At around 1 p.m. ET in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday, protest puppeteer Elliot Crown twirled a paper mache planet over a bed of flames, playing a silent violin. Around him, a neon-dotted crowd gathered next to the Plaza Hotel to protest the collapse of life on Earth. Numbers soon swelled to around 300, a solid local turnout for the Extinction Rebellion’s first national day of action in the United States. A marching band began to play, and activist performance group Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir hopped around the perimeter of the crowd, harmonizing about the end of the world. “Only so many beautiful days… are le-e-eft!”

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ADAPTION AND RESILIENCE

Novel bio-inspired materials to substitute plastics
The Green Optimist 1-11-19

The resulting fungal-like adhesive material(s) (FLAM) are strong, lightweight and completely sustainable, as no organic solvent or plastic is used in their production. They can be molded or processed using common woodworking techniques, they are lightweight and fully biodegradable.

Climate change: Planet-warming power of cattle urine can be avoided by restoring farmland, study finds
Independent 1-29-19

They found that while the urine inevitably produced greenhouse gases, up to three times as much came from grassland that suffered from overgrazing and low soil quality.

Fault lines are no barrier to safe storage of carbon dioxide below ground
Science Daily 1-25-19

Carbon capture and storage is a reliable way to store carbon dioxide emissions underground, with minimal chance of gas escaping through geological fault lines.

Hemp’s History and its 10K Uses h/t eyo
[video:https://vimeo.com/152329641]

A photo essay by Urban Community Resilience Assessment…

Poor Communities in Surat, India, Take Climate Resilience into Their Own Hands
World Resources Institute 1-22-19

One location we analyzed is Surat, India, a coastal city of 4.5 million people. There, residents deal with frequent flooding, heavy monsoon rains and extreme heat. But they’re also learning to adapt to these extremes by co-building basic infrastructure and planning for emergencies.

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Blog Birds in Sky.jpg

WILDLIFE & THE ENVIRONMENT

Why Energy Researchers Are Interested in a Tiny Wood-Eating Pest You’ve Never Heard Of
Climate Desk 12-6-18

Using gribbles as a model to extract biofuels from wood could prove a game-changer in the quest to turn to alternative energy sources, and not only because the process is cleaner and cheaper than existing industrial techniques.

Bird counts are both up and down depending on the species...

Bye bye blackbird?: RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch marks 40 years
The Guardian 1-25-19

While many of the population trends are caused by forces beyond gardeners’ control, including climate change and an intensification of farming, people can make their backyards and green spaces more bird-friendly. The RSPB recommends keeping gardens chemical-free, allowing bushes and thick hedges to grow, and providing bird food, water and north or east-facing nest boxes.

Shutdown will cast a long shadow over research
Nature 1-18-19 h/t smiley

As the longest-ever government shutdown finishes its fourth week, I keep waking up in the night with thoughts of a fence.

In Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, we’ve planted thousands of saplings with the help of hundreds of volunteers. Those tiny trees are supposed to be part of a decades-long experiment on the critical zone, the life-sustaining region from groundwater to treetops. The only thing that protects the saplings from hungry deer is a thin fence. And the Park Service rangers who protect the fence are furloughed — not working because they’re government employees.

Flounders in the Gulf of Finland
Science Daily 1-25-19

Over the past 40 years, there has been a dramatic decline in fishery landings of an iconic Baltic Sea fish: the flounder. In the 1980s, the landings of the flounder fishery in the Gulf of Finland dropped by 90 per cent. …

Eutrophication and climate change have contributed to the worsening of environmental conditions.

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CLIMATE STUDIES

Study: Climate change reshaping how heat moves around globe
EurekAlert! 1-28-19

… conclude that warming temperatures are driving increased heat transfer in the atmosphere, which is compensated by a reduced heat transfer in the ocean. Additionally, the researchers concluded that the excess oceanic heat is trapped in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic.

Climate Tipping Point Could Occur Sooner Than We Think
ENS 1-23-19

“If soil moisture continues to reduce NBP [net biome productivity] at the current rate, and the rate of carbon uptake by the land starts to decrease by the middle of this century – as we found in the models – we could potentially see a large increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and a corresponding rise in the effects of global warming and climate change.”

Excellent article…

Antarctic ice sheet could suffer a one-two climate punch
PHYSORG 1-14-19

Marine ice sheets are especially sensitive to heat delivered by ocean currents. Fast flowing inland ice streams of the West Antarctic are buttressed by floating ice shelves, which—if diminished or lost—raise the possibility of a runaway flow of West Antarctica's marine ice.

The new research suggests that a reduction in sea ice due to climate change would erode the barrier keeping the ice sheet—including the parts of it below sea level—in place.

Study says seas may be rising faster than thought
PHYSORG 1-30-19

Rates of relative sea-level rise obtained from this approach are substantially higher than rates as inferred from tide-gauge data. "We therefore conclude that low-elevation coastal zones may be at higher risk of flooding, and within a shorter time horizon, than previously assumed," Keogh said.

We need to rethink everything we know about global warming - New calculations show scientists have grossly underestimated the effects of air pollution
Science Daily 1-22-19

"If the aerosols indeed cause a greater cooling effect than previously estimated, then the warming effect of the greenhouse gases has also been larger than we thought, enabling greenhouse gas emissions to overcome the cooling effect of aerosols.

Permafrost is warming at a global scale
Nature Communications 1-16-19

Globally, permafrost temperature increased by 0.29 ± 0.12 °C. The observed trend follows the Arctic amplification of air temperature increase in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Equivalencies:
• 1 gigatonne = 1 billion tons
• 1 gigatonne Carbon = 3.67 gigatonnes CO2
• 1 part per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO2 = 7.81 gigatonnes CO2
• 1 part per million of atmospheric carbon = 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon

Global Warnings

QMS: Time to disconnect greed from the welfare of earth, if survival means anything. I like trees.

Paul Beckwith: "I declare a global climate change emergency to claw back up the rock face to attempt to regain system stability, or face an untenable calamity of biblical proportions."

Kevin Hester: "There is no past analogue for the rapidity of what we are baring witness to. There has been a flood of articles ... 2C is no longer attainable and that we are heading for dangerous climate change"

Guy McPherson: "The recent and near-future rises in temperature are occurring and will occur at least an order of magnitude faster than the worst of all prior Mass Extinctions. Habitat for human animals is disappearing throughout the world, and abrupt climate change has barely begun."

Magi Amma: We need to turn on a dime at mach nine!

Enjoy!
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magiamma's picture

the needle is threaded
treadled ready
rising and falling
like the tide
the breath
Earth breaths
moon beats
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzIVO0DQHc4]

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Lookout's picture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkwIfOLqNQ0 (3.5 min)

Weather extremes around Europe, Australia, and South America from the past couple of days.
(10.5 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVeRAaNokfQ]

{edit to add} Just got the XR newsletter. Here's the web version...
https://xrblog.org/category/archived-xr-newsletters/

In the meantime Old tiny hands is spewing his absurdity...

In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!

8:28 PM - Jan 28, 2019

That's why it is important to use the terms climate chaos, or climate collapse, or climate catastrophe, or something similar.

Thanks for keeping us up to date on the frightening data...

Can't figure out how to embed this gif, but here's a link -
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-10/global-warming-gif-shows-how-hot-...

Saw this on a recent clip with Paul B. (30 sec)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGOzHVUQCw0]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

magiamma's picture

@Lookout
Great weather video. Dramatic. The gif was great. Thank you. I think you just imbed the gif as an image. Would have to try it to be sure. Yes, the Beckwith video is, well, great as in content. Have a good one Lol

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

magiamma's picture

@dkmich
Thanks for checking in. You are very welcome. Dare I say misery loves company. Every week is such a surprise.

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Enjoyed this little slice of self reliance shared by Lookout a couple of days ago. This cheery old Canadian fella has published plans to convert a gas powered lawn tractor to electric.

Might give it a try. All kinds of possibilities. For when the 'ecoterrorists' shut down the oil spigots.

Cheers

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magiamma's picture

@QMS
What a cool video. Love those canucks. So down to earth. So he built an electric lawn mower. I like the concept but not sure about lawns being from California. Have a good one.

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detroitmechworks's picture

requesting a little help from anybody who has spent time on ships. When trying to get attention of the crew, is "Ahoy" the proper call to attention, or is there another. I'm worried that I'm going to have to reread Horatio Hornblower and Moby Dick before continuing this story, but I really don't want to go into THAT much detail. Just enough to be accurate.

Oh, I'm writing again. But It's nowhere near something I feel comfortable putting online right now. I make fun of certain things that I KNOW will get me crucified online.

Just feels good to be doing rather than waiting. Been spending too much of the last few years just waiting.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=padBMW652No]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks
no idea what people say to each other on the same vessel.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

detroitmechworks's picture

@UntimelyRippd I know "All Hands on Deck" means get to work, but I don't know what a just general call to attention is.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks As in ahoy matey. Whistles are used to call all sailors to attention, usually blown by the bosun. Various whistle tones alerted the desired groups. All hands on deck, man your stations, and the like are military type orders> Thar she blows, man overboard, abandon ship, etc. probably had there own bell and whistle sounds accompanied by broadcast orders.

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detroitmechworks's picture

@QMS That gives me a lot to work with actually.

I greatly appreciate the lessening of my ignorance on the subject.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks good morning and thanks. Don't know if it helps but I am enjoying reading Log Books over on archive.org, I don't know if you browse there, I didn't look at any of the fiction just searched 19th century ships. cheers

This sixty-second log book of USS Essex contains much interesting information about the daily workings of the ship from January 1, 1919 to June 30, 1919. The log lists the names of officers and crew attached to the US Naval Reserve Forces and the US Navy. Also documented were US Navy vessels and other boats encountered in the course of the working day. Many entries deal with the on-loading of food supplies and armaments. One notable event was the death of former President Theodore Roosevelt, marked by lowering the American flag to half staff on January 6, 1919. During this time period, she was stationed on Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois.

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magiamma's picture

@detroitmechworks
Is a better book for that. Patric O’Brian

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detroitmechworks's picture

@magiamma Will look into it. I have very little experience with 19th century ships, and I need to do some serious research for the few chapters they are in.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks
and ships, consider reading Nathaniel Philbrick's book, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Lots of background detail about life in the Nantucket whaling community, as well as on board the whalers. There's even a brief discussion of the apparently semi-mythical he's-at-home.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

detroitmechworks's picture

@UntimelyRippd Will check at the main branch of the Library tomorrow.

Today's Library trip was incredibly unfulfilling. Librarians were very little help, telling me to "Google it".

Actually, what I'm looking for ideally is shipboard life on American Frigates during the 19th Century. I've found some very interesting information on machines that were used aboard ship during that time period already, but I really want to get in depth.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

magiamma's picture

@detroitmechworks
I accidentally posted my ot yesterday and noticed you had a comment. so, thanks for that even though it went when I unpublished. moving a bit to quickly. heh.

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detroitmechworks's picture

@magiamma Came back to it better and happier. Smile

And now I've got my hopeful post industrial story to work on. (Not quite the Same universe as CNU. CNU assumes that things end well. This story assumes things are less pleasant, but far more exciting.)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

i noticed that my house won't be affected, so, you know, what's the big deal?

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
could be a concern. Especially fire ants.

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@QMS
"Fix this problem, or you're going to sleep with the fire-ants."

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
nothing will change. Maybe they will sell fire ant insurance?

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Lily O Lady's picture

@QMS

they can keep us all safe from creepy pests. They are ready to make tons of money.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

@Lily O Lady
are not our friends. Once the corporata figure out how to put a bounty on our heads, the demons are ready for the harvest. Good bye cruel world...

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Lily O Lady's picture

@QMS

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

magiamma's picture

@UntimelyRippd
Great news. You are so lucky to be up so high above the rising seas. Be sure you take into account the high tide, storm surge, full moon scenario. And check out the new study on increased wave sizes. Want to be sure you are really safe. End cases are soooo important nowadays.

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enhydra lutris's picture

chaotic here at the moment, without any assistance from the climate. I'm not together enough to give it any thorough study, but I'm now, by default, a cusomer of the EBCE - East Bay Community Energy -which replaced PG&E for many of us about a month or so ago. Here's a blurb from their website:

East Bay Community Energy, also known as EBCE, is the new local electricity supplier in Alameda County. EBCE will provide cleaner, greener energy at competitive rates to our customers. EBCE will reinvest earnings back into the community to create local green energy jobs, local programs, and clean power projects.

In Alameda County, we know powerful and lasting change comes from the ground up. That’s why the County and 11 of its cities have come together to create a cleaner, greener energy supply for our communities. EBCE member cities include Albany, Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Oakland, Piedmont, San Leandro, and Union City.

Their schtick is to acquire renewable energy independent of PG&E and send it through the PG&E distribution lines. It is a non-profit, so any extra cost of obtaining renewables is offset by not paying dividends to shareholders, at least in theory. This could be a model for accelerating the transition to green energy. https://ebce.org/

Thanks for the link to greenoptimist.com.

Have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris thanks, these are interesting times nothing has changed. private profits / public losses

California’s aging electricity grid is in need of a massive overhaul. The complex system needs to adapt as the Golden State aims for lofty environmental goals and faces threats from climate change, cyber attacks and even squirrels. CALmatters environment reporter Julie Cart explains how power gets to the homes and businesses of every person in California.

How California's aging, unstable and fragile electricity grid works

good luck

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo
real solution is local mini and microgrids, resilient and hardened. Getting there is going to be a major undertaking and it will be resisted by multitudes of parasitic middlemen.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

@eyo
went on a tour of it a couple of years ago while hiking and snow shoeing up there.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-10/global-warming-gif-shows-how-hot-...

turbines.jpg

dam.jpg

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@magiamma this is where my bullwinkles come from, I didn't take the tour yet. Sometimes I can feel the small earthquakes. Waste waters injected now because the natural thermos were depleted almost immediately of course:
http://www.calpine.com/

In the Mayacamas Mountains, located north of San Francisco, naturally occurring steam field reservoirs below the earth's surface are being harnessed by Calpine to make clean, green, renewable energy for homes and businesses across Northern California.

The Geysers, comprising 45 square miles along the Sonoma and Lake County border, is the largest complex of geothermal power plants in the world. Calpine, the largest geothermal power producer in the U.S., owns and operates 13 power plants at The Geysers with a net generating capacity of about 725 megawatts of electricity - enough to power 725,000 homes, or a city the size of San Francisco.

speaking of shaky, I live so close to the 101 my loft bed shakes sometimes when a big ass truck flies by, Song of jake brake is not uncommon. Illegal, but not uncommon. I always wave and shout "hi jake!" when they do it. Truck more stuff, now now now! I'm grouchy, blame it on the RangerPro.

https://sonomacleanpower.org/

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Love, Bernays

The city of Cloverdale sprayed herbicide all along the river path a few days ago. Brawndo! ya know because there is six inches of rain forecast this weekend, that's the plan.

degraded waste
downstream alert
don't think wildlife
just don't think

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magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
we have a green alternative to pg&e here. Monterey Bay Community Power: https://www.mbcommunitypower.org/

I looks like it is doing the same thing here. I think everyone was opted and had to choose to opt out. Prices now are competitive. Check out their website when you have time.

Take good care and have a great one...

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enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma
as localized as possible.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

earthling1's picture

Deal in cash only.
Reduce, reuse, repurpose, repair, recycle.
Avoid buying corporate anything.
Garden.
Thanks, Magiamma, for all the updates.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

magiamma's picture

@earthling1
agree with all your suggestions. It is hard to avoid corporate but I keep finding more ways to do so. Thanks for stopping in and have a very good one...

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Everyone should have their morning Greta just to get their head right, that's what I think. She is an aspie, right on! Nice way to use abilities to do good for others, be blunt don't hold back. THANKS. Those young people give me hope, or they just make me feel better I don't know why. Love for mother earth. peace

I followed the grist link to another site that is new to me. Sorry again if it's a repeat, my lint trap isn't big enough. Here is the site: http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/humans-change-world

I like the way it scrolls, from the past down to the present. I paused at year 500:

500
Coffee cultivated in Africa

Woo hoo love thy bean. keep going... or not, it just gets more and more depressing. Kinda like that animation vid up there in the links. thanks a lot It's too hot.


Benefits
By settling down and producing our own food, we created:
- enough food to feed billions of people and respond to catastrophes;
- buildings that protect us from extreme weather;
- technologies that enable us to extend our lives, communicate worldwide, and venture into space;
- time to think, create, play, socialize, and much more.
Costs
By settling down and producing our own food, we created:
- piles of waste that form natural breeding grounds for contagious diseases;
- large concentrations of people, enabling diseases to spread and become epidemics;
- domesticated landscapes that displace wild habitats;
- loss of wild species that depend on natural habitats.

There are a bunch of FACTS listed over there, be careful.
---
A Kingdom from Dust

One of the most dramatic alterations of the earth’s surface in human history took place here. The hillocks that existed back in Yokut Indian days were flattened by a hunk of metal called the Fresno Scraper. Every river busting out of the Sierra was bent sideways, if not backward, by a bulwark of ditches, levees, canals, and dams. The farmer corralled the snowmelt and erased the valley, its desert and marsh. He leveled its hog wallows, denuded its salt brush, and killed the last of its mustang, antelope, and tule elk. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry.

He did this first in the name of wheat and then beef, milk, raisins, cotton, and nuts. Once he finished grabbing the flow of the five rivers that ran across the plain, he used his turbine pumps to seize the water beneath the ground. As he bled the aquifer dry, he called on the government to bring him an even mightier river from afar. Down the great aqueduct, by freight of politics and gravity, came the excess waters of the Sacramento River. The farmer moved the rain. The more water he got, the more crops he planted, and the more crops he planted, the more water he needed to plant more crops, and on and on. One million acres of the valley floor, greater than the size of Rhode Island, are now covered in almond trees.

conserve water
cut off
king resnick
|
|
|
\
... 0
royal flush
dull blade
yellow vest

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magiamma's picture

@eyo
morning eyo. thanks for popping in and all the links. such disturbing stuff.

well, everyone should read this: http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/humans-change-world

food for thought so to speak

but the last link made me want to scream - facts are our friends, they don't talk back, but these facts just knock the air out of me. But do read the whole article. It is extremely well written. fuc resnick!

At age 81, he’s gotten so big, he doesn’t know how big. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. That’s 281 square miles. He is irrigating 121,000 of those acres. This doesn’t count the 21,000 acres of grapefruits and limes he’s growing in Texas and Mexico. He uses more water than any other person in the West. His 15 million trees in the San Joaquin Valley consume more than 400,000 acre-feet of water a year. The city of Los Angeles, by comparison, consumes 587,000 acre-feet.
...
Then I get lucky. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. As he drives off, he throws a clue out the window. Turn onto Twisselman Road off I-5 and continue west until it intersects with the California Aqueduct. There, he tells me, in the shadow of the state’s great concrete vein moving snowmelt north to south, I will find a private, off-the-books pipeline that Stewart Resnick has built to keep his trees from dying. The water is being taken from unsuspecting farmers in an irrigation district in Tulare County more than 40 miles away.

No stranger enters this zone unless it’s to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. Its vastness makes you feel safe and in jeopardy at the same time. I head straight into the glare of the sun shooting over the Coast Range. Through the haze I can see the knoll of the aqueduct come closer. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pull — a gravitational presence on the land and in my own story.

right, and jerry brown and his little dog too. and jerry's twin tunnels/waterfix project with never, thankfully, passed. our water to resnicks trees. meh! now it all makes sense

The twin tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are designed to bypass an aging system of canals that have made it difficult for the state to increase water deliveries from Northern California to the Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California. Proponents say the new infrastructure will make water deliveries more plentiful and reliable and will maintain supplies for dwindling fish populations.

The decade-old plan, known as California WaterFix, was given the go-ahead from environmental regulators this summer, and state water officials had hoped to begin construction as soon as next year. But the financing snag is likely to affect that timeline.

State officials have said if they don’t have enough funding to cover the project, they’ll have to downsize it. That would prompt another long and arduous approval process.

“The takeaway from today’s vote is that the current twin tunnels plan is dying from its own weight,” said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, which has opposed the project because of fears it could harm fish runs. “It’s way too big and expensive, even for the growers in the desert-dry western San Joaquin Valley who need the water the most.”

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smiley7's picture

Another great Hot Air, thank you.

Thought you might enjoy this study from Environmental Research.

Greenspace exposure is associated with wide ranging health benefits across 143 included studies.
Meta-analysis showed statistically significant reductions in diastolic blood pressure, salivary cortisol and heart rate.
Meta-analysis found statistically significant decreases in incidence of diabetes, all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.
A number of meta-analyses were limited by poor study quality and high levels of heterogeneity.
Greenspace and street greenery may form part of a multi-faceted approach to improve a wide range of health outcomes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935118303323

Have a wonderful West Coast Sunset.

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magiamma's picture

@smiley7
thanks for that study. trees are good for our health. who knew. what a great site. many good articles. open access. cool. looks like we will have a great sunset tonight on the left coast. hope you are feeling much better and even getting some skiing in. take good care and have a lovely evening. Lol

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A few things caught my eye. Greta, of course. She has a fresh outlook from her generation's perspective. She tells it like it is and pulls no punches. We should all be embarrassed. We are so used to working within a societal framework that we can't see the forest from the trees (well that makes sense since 30-50% of all pre-civilization forest land has been cleared). Amazingly about 30% of the CO2 in the air came directly from clearing and burning those forests.

CO2 geologic sequestration has a problem. It has to do with the state diagram of CO2. At one atmosphere it exists only as a gas or solid (dry ice). You need more than 5 atmospheres of pressure and -55 deg C to keep it in liquid form. Why is this important? Because a barrel of crude oil expands to 1,500 barrels of CO2 gas when burned. ugh! So we do have places to sequester it as a gas, old gas wells, other geologic formations and drilled holes in some rock types. The problem is that we need a massive amount of storage, if we store it as a gas. The better prospect is to convert it to a higher molecular weight liquid, and that can be done with heat, water and a catalyst. If we store it as CO2 liquid then we will need to keep it under pressure and cold.

I'm beginning to be struck by the lifestyle consequences of all of this. Up to now we strive for a wealthy lifestyle with immense use of natural resources. So my question is - What do we really need for a high quality of life? I'm thinking about the Communist Soviet Union for hints. Everyone had housing, food, education, clothing and health care. But you had limited freedoms in some areas and you lived in a stifling, doctrinaire society. Resource use was limited, by necessity. Just how do ex Soviet citizens view their lifestyle during that period? From what I have heard, it's mixed. The kids loved it, since it was more communal. The adults were frustrated in seeing a path to a better lifestyle, for instance a private apartment. But what does that mean? I got the feeling from older Soviet citizens that there is a longing for that simple, honest, fair lifestyle. They were all in it together, and now we are all in it together to survive the Climate/Habitat Crisis. We need to change everything and therefore we had better figure out where we need to go. We need to look at counter examples to figure this out.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

magiamma's picture

@The Wizard
thanks as always for all your insights.

Amazingly about 30% of the CO2 in the air came directly from clearing and burning those forests.

really! 30% of the c02 comes directly from clearing and burning forests. Amazing indeed! And they are clearing the Boreal forests to make paper products as I type. wow!

1:1,500 ratio of liquid oil to CO2 gas - ugh is right. my response was "whoa" even before I read the ugh! bit. That's a lot of expansion.

a barrel of crude oil expands to 1,500 barrels of CO2 gas when burned

so, I thought Climeworks was doing more than just putting CO2 gas into tanks. I think it was their factory in ?Iceland where they are sequestering it in ?rocks deep in the Earth's mantel. This article says they are turning the free CO2 into carbonate minerals in Switzerland. My hope is that technology is being developed to sort this out now or in the near future. http://www.climeworks.com/climeworks-and-carbfix2-the-worlds-first-carbo...

also this...

I'm beginning to be struck by the lifestyle consequences of all of this. Up to now we strive for a wealthy lifestyle with immense use of natural resources.

yes, I said upstream that a complete social and economic realignment is needed. the soviet union had some things right. I lived in Berlin for a while and the old Soviet apartments were still there out at the end of one of the train lines. people lived in them. huge, ugly, but housing for a great number of people. we could learn something from that time. the challenge is shifting paradigms. hard to get one's head around. or something like the people's revolution? there are useful things to be learned from it. can we pick and choose the good stuff, the practical stuff? there is a good book about it - “GRACE: An American Woman in China: 1934–1974” ISBN 1 - 56947 - 350 - 1. book review here: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56947-314-6

I was struck by what Grace said about the very beginning of the revolution when the revolutionaries came in and cleaned the streets and started schools.

Grace was one of a handful of Westerners to watch semicolonial China melt away and, later, to see all things Western or "bourgeois" purged under Mao. When her husband died in 1955, she supported herself by teaching English at Nankai University,

in any case, a huge shift is needed. and we need to figure out how to adapt asap. can we even?

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