.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming
We ARE the Planet
Aug 8th
“Professor Johan Rockström, a co-author of the new paper from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, told BBC News. ‘What we are saying is that when we reach 2C of warming, we may be at a point where we hand over the control mechanism to Planet Earth herself.’”
Carbon Brief Daily | 07/08/2018
I don’t seem to be on the same page here. When did anyone ever dare to think that (1) That we were ever “in control” of Earth’s survival mechanisms and (2) That we have anything to “hand over” to “Planet Earth.” We and all our brethren are first and foremost “Earthlings.” We are not “on” this planet, we ARE the planet – inseparable.
We have not “lost” our connection. That’s impossible. We have either lost consciousness of it or perhaps never were conscious of being part of the, so to speak, eyes, ears, nose and throat of our greater beingness, the marvellous planet Earth.
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
Aug 1st
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-07-30/human-predators-human-prey/
By Richard Heinberg, July 30, 2018
First of three parts
Richard Heinberg is the author of thirteen books including: – Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, co-authored with David Fridley (2016) – Afterburn (2015) – Snake Oil (July 2013) – The End of Growth (August 2011) – The Post Carbon Reader (2010) (editor) – Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last…
The Climate Change Denial Industry
Jul 30th
The Climate Change Denial Industry
“ExxonMobil gave more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial, the Guardian has learned.”
“Last week Ted Nordhaus of The Breakthrough Institute wrote that the Earth’s carrying capacity for humanity is not fixed. Apparently, we’re living in a magical world that is immune to ecological laws.
As you might imagine, I disagree.
My response to his article was published today in Undark Magazine.
https://undark.org/article/ted-nordhaus-carrying-capacity-ecology/
What warning signs would you expect to see if we humans were pressing at the limits of global carrying capacity? Resource depletion? Check. Pollution? Check. Dying oceans? Check.” Richard Heinberg
Sky: Further – The Breakthrough Institute’s Inconvenient History with Al Gore
April 14, 2014, by Paul D. Thacker
“While sometimes functioning as shadow universities, think tanks have been exposed as quasi lobbying organizations, with little funding transparency. Recent research has also pointed out that think tanks suffer from a lack of intellectual rigor. A case in point is the Breakthrough Institute run by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, which describes itself as a “progressive think tank.”
https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/breakthrough-institutes-inconvenient-history-al-gore
Too many businesses are treating the Earth like a huge candy store
Jul 29th
Too many businesses are treating the Earth like a huge candy store
“We’re dealing with ‘a highly degraded ecosystem of forests that just get continuously logged over and over again.’”
Danna Smith of the Dogwood Alliance, a nonprofit organization.
“…trees cut down in the Southeast are usually replanted. But it can take a sapling decades to grow large enough to absorb and store as much carbon as the tree it replaced.”
Ten percent Sahara expansion
Jul 29th
Ten percent Sahara expansion
“The desert (Sahara) has expanded southward during summer by about ten percent, so it’s a fairly significant increase in the desert expanse over this 93-year period that we analyzed. Most people in the region depend on the food they grow on small family farms. So losing farmland could have grave consequences, especially as populations continue to grow.”
“Nigam is a professor at the University of Maryland. He says decreasing rainfall is likely a result of both natural cycles and human-caused global warming.”
So there we have the kernel of the problem. Decreasing small farmland and increasing population.
Notable mentions and omissions of climate change
Jul 29th
MEDIA ANALYSIS 26 July 2018 12:36
Media reaction: The 2018 summer heatwaves and climate change
Carbon Brief
https://www.carbonbrief.org/media-reaction-2018-summer-heatwaves-and-climate-change
Carbon Brief looks back at how the media has reported the extreme weather and how the coverage has – or has not – referenced climate change.
The summary below is split into five sections:
Roundup of the recent spate of extremes.
How the media has reported the UK’s heatwave.
How it has covered other extreme events across the northern hemisphere.
Notable mentions – and omissions – of climate change.
Summary of the comment and opinion articles.
More Lake Effect Snow
Jan 8th
More Lake Effect Snow
8 January, 2018
Weather is a more immediate effect of changes in the climate. You can’t have one without the other. On the other hand, it is foolish to choose a cold day and then say – “there, you see, the Earth is NOT getting warmer.” It is fair to note that extreme weather events are occurring more frequently. Two major changes have occurred over the last 2,000 years. One, the human footprint has expanded almost beyond belief and two, the CO2 content in the air has increased proportionately. Our species has never experienced this level of CO2. Not helpful is that our measuring instruments were designed to measure inanimate objects on an inanimate planet. No wonder we have so little understanding as to how the Earth “works.” Our living planet’s behaviour is unpredictable just like people’s behaviour is unpredictable. We don’t destroy the medical profession because they cannot always accurately predict whether our prescription will “work” or not. Finally, we must take into account that millions of dollars, pounds etc. have been awarded to “scientists?” to falsify statistics and create “fake” news. Is it any wonder that there are so few tears shed over the destruction of Nature?
JANUARY 04, 2018 | 11:40 AM
A ‘PERFECT STORM’: EXTREME WINTER WEATHER, BITTER COLD, AND CLIMATE CHANGE
World-renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains why the bitter cold and snowy conditions gripping the US are “an example of precisely the sort of extreme winter weather we expect because of climate change.”
The Real Problem
Jul 28th
I totally disagree with this hypothesis. “Like Exxon, Utilities knew about Climate Change risks decades ago” See my post on Facebook yesterday, 27 July. Climate change inaction is caused by: (1) Establishment conditioning views our planet as fodder for the taking with no intelligence, wisdom nor consciousness. (2) This conditioning has been reinforced by Jewish and Christian doctrine according to Genesis 1:26. (3) These two circumstances were exploited by Capitalism and expressed with the commandments; “profit first” and “grow or die” (4) All of the above were supported by the failure of our species to develop an “enoughness” gene. The lack of this ability is expressed by what we call greed revealed as anti-social behaviour bordering on the psychopathic. Lastly, from this state of being in the world, we will not honour and protect that which we do not love and most of the rich and powerful do not view Earth as lovable.
“Climate change is an existential risk that could abruptly end human civilisation because of a catastrophic “failure of imagination” by global leaders to understand and act on the science and evidence before them.”
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-07-26/a-failure-of-imagination-on-climate-risks/
Scientists warn pulling carbon out of the air
May 24th
The Washington Post By Chelsea Harvey May 22, 2017
“But for years, scientists have discussed the idea of going further by using large plantations full of fast-growing, carbon-storing trees to pull extra carbon emissions out of the atmosphere, a strategy sometimes called “afforestation.” But the amount of land and other resources this strategy would require to actually help us meet our global climate goals — namely, keeping global temperatures within at least two degrees of their pre-industrial levels — is completely impractical, according to Boysen’s new study in the journal Earth’s Future, and would require the destruction of huge amounts of natural ecosystems or productive agricultural land.”
“Every year an area of rainforest the size of New Jersey is cut down and destroyed.” Rainforest Information for Kids
In the first place, there are very few, maybe none at all, of Earth’s ecosystems that could be called “natural.” The human footprint is vast and indelible. Of course planting trees will not reverse or “fix” the problem because, obviously, forest destruction has been in progress for a few thousand years. Today, we are just finishing it off. However, mitigating efforts of this kind are sorely needed.
God forbid that we should reforest marginal agricultural land and limit our numbers! We have accepted our need for financial budgets, why not a population budget? Why does the US need to plough up wilderness areas, parks and arid lands for exports? The US exported 5.4 billion dollars’ worth of wheat in 2016. In the US the major food supply channels are entirely under the control of multinationals now and they export the same item with one hand and import it with the other depending on where the greatest profits lie. Forbes reports that the US crude oil exports hit record levels in 2016, despite a decline in U.S. oil production. No wonder the number of billionaires in the world increased by 13% in 2017 and the US is home to most of them.
“Boysen and her colleagues find the land space that would be required for the amount of trees necessary to keep temperatures within a 2-degree threshold under our current climate trajectory could have “dire consequences for food production or the biosphere.” And even under more optimistic scenarios, where future carbon emissions are lower and fewer trees would be necessary, they conclude that “’high inputs of managed water and fertilizers would be needed in order to avoid fierce competition for land — with potentially negative side-effects for climate and society.’”
Obviously human food is limited in a forest. But, where and what is “dire” for the biosphere about substituting a largely mono-cropped and ploughed up ecosystem which favours more humans and almost eliminates other animals with trees? After all, life here on Earth is NOT all about humans, is it? For me, this article suggests that keeping supermarkets in the western world fully stocked is more important than keeping the planet healthy.
“Converting land on this staggering scale would pit climate change responses against food security and biodiversity protection,” they write. “Massively expanding managed land for CDR [carbon dioxide removal] could crash through the planetary boundary for sustainable land use.”
“There are other options,” she said, such as more sustainable agriculture techniques, that can help make a dent in global carbon emissions. “But the most important option is, of course, not to release the CO2 into the atmosphere.”
No, the best option is to cut down on population.
Trees are Vital to our Continued Existence
May 21st
Agony of Mother Earth (I) The Unstoppable Destruction of Forests
By Baher Kamal
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/05/agony-of-mother-earth-i-the-unstoppable-destruction-of-forests/
“This is the first of a two-part series on how humankind has been systematically destroying world’s forests—the real lungs of Mother Earth. Part II will deal with forest depletion for wood-fuel.”
Agony of Mother Earth (II) World’s Forests Depleted for Fuel
By Baher Kamal
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/05/agony-of-mother-earth-ii-worlds-forests-depleted-for-fuel/
“This is the second of a two-part series on how humankind has been systematically destroying world’s forests—the real lungs of Mother Earth. Part I dealt with the relentless destruction of forests.”
It is the destruction of forests and the drying up of Savannah that prevents the Earth from recovering from the exponential increase of greenhouses gasses, especially methane and carbon dioxide. Without a doubt, it is the continuing greed expressed by the corporate Gods of growth and profit that maintains the ethics and laws that reinforce the ecocide and strongly resists efforts to cooperate with the planet’s ability to self-regulate. We are faced with the enemy within that we have so far been unable to subdue. With the US containing 41% of the world’s dollar millionaires and the number of worldwide billionaires increasing by double digits yearly, who can deny that there is little hope? Money talks.