It’s spring, finally and I’m busy trying to get seeds into the ground.
I found these critters in the greenhouse:
This ugly sucker was getting ready to pop deadly little babies all over the place.
Looks like they came in with the fertilizer I bought some years back.
I don’t like black widows and they’re not native to this particular area (too cold here), but they survived the winter apparently. In the greenhouse, where it stays a lot warmer then the surroundings. I had tried to let the greenhouse freeze up hard by leaving the doors open for a while, but spiders can create a natural anti-freeze and if it is not really cold enough, they’ll survive.
These two mama’s didn’t. So far, I’ve found four adults. So there is still probably more.
Garden boxes are now all planted – beans, carrots, corn, beets. The high fence is necessary – the deer are major predators here.
I’ve got thirteen of these horse troughs. Somewhere on this blog is the story of how I did this project.
Looks like my strawberries (transplanted last year) made it through our long winter.
Some of the kale, radishes and spinach has sprouted up nicely in the greenhouse. I’ve cut way back on how much the greenhouse gets planted because it’s simply too much.
The pots below are my new replacements (purchased used) from the square “bakery buckets” I used before. They did not last and quickly deteriorated in the sun.
A closer look of the tomato starts, drip irrigation and horse-panel fencing I used for the tables and trellis work.
I still need to do potatoes, and onions but not squash (not a fan).
The soil here is pretty lousy and the growing season is usually short. Even so, I’m a month early planting this year and probably could have planted several weeks ago. Climate change is quite noticeable here.
Food Assets shared a link with me a few days back, Mike Adams: Natural News, “everyone’s favorite über-quack #1 anti-science website”. It’s an interesting read, especially to someone like me, who not only has dealt with this clown before, but has also run into some of his ‘converted’. Adams had thought to also get into the food storage business a while back, which we exposed as a dishonestly advertised product. Typical of Adams however, he has long played a shell-game of three card Monte.
I’ve long known the man to be a fraud and a quack. His associations and claims were always highly questionable. The food storage industry has tended to attract a lot of quacks and dishonesty. Jim Bakker, Alex Jones, even Glen Beck who has made millions and millions in ‘advertising fees’ have all thought to ‘cash in’ with the preparedness industry.
Except it has all backfired now, rather badly. A lot of people have woke up to the fact that these people are simply profiteers who will sell virtually anything to try to make money. The end result is their activity, actions, and bogus claims and outright dishonesty has put the preparedness industry in a bad, bad light. Even the term “survivalists” now has connotation of whacked-out conspiracy nuts with guns.
But it wasn’t always this way. In the 20+ years I was in the business, I ran into some pretty level-headed people. But this began to change as the entire meme became infected with hucksters and propaganda artists like Jones, Rawles, Hodges, Quayle, Loyd, Slavo, Smith, Durden, and many, many others who began to pollute the message of preparedness with conspiracy. Some even preached “aliens among us” conspiracy nonsense. Even Boston T. Party (Kenneth Royce) sold out and became a conspiracy nutter and bible-thumping “true believer”.
Everyone had to have their own “truth” which was anything but the truth. It was all propaganda and bullshit with a cult-of-personality tossed in, a fear-sells approach towards personal and family preparedness. Hundreds if not thousands of book titles were churned out, each breathlessly declaring to portray each particular “truth” by their respective, fear-makes-profit authors.
It is my opinion and experience, that these people have utterly ruined the preparedness industry and anything to do with common sense. It’s not only the bad reputation of these people that have created such distaste for anything to do with personal preparedness, it is the lies they propagated that are still around today. There are now quite a few people, numbering in the millions and millions that have their heads filled with their complete and utter nonsense. And this garbage thought has become generational, the converted are teaching this nonsense to their children.
Buried deep within this entire meme is almost no real truth – and blanket denials of what actually is real. None accept climate science or climate change as reality. All declare themselves better qualified then the real climate science experts. It was this realization that contributed towards my own public departure from this mix of snake-oil salesmen many years ago. I used to spend time writing preparedness articles for free, which were then ripped-off and copied for a profit. Preparedness took on a whole new attitude – how to get rich telling others what to do.
All of these clowns think themselves better experts in matters which they know absolutely nothing about. They’ve got their particular audiences convinced of this deception too. Yet none – not one of their bogus claims and predictions has ever come true, of which there have been many thousands and thousands. This standard test of proof and accuracy however, goes ignored by their brain-dead followers who I wrote off as lost souls long ago and still do.
There is a strange corollary about truth and profits. Truth often dies for a long time and becomes distorted lies for profits. In time, truth is resurrected when it is no longer has immediate relevancy. More profits are then made “finally revealing the real truth” with books, documentaries, interviews and speeches. This is what happens in nearly every meme and is what is underway right now with the preparedness meme – and climate science and climate change movement. The profitable, exploitable “truth” gets the attention, while the real truth is derided and ignored.
It won’t always be this way, and it will last as long as it remains profitable to lie. Then a long period of time will pass and the real truth will finally become more publicly accepted.
This is of course a real problem when it comes to climate science and climate change. Nobody gives two-shits about some conspiracy nutter “truth” and their whacked-out connedspiracy that has no meaning, relevancy or importance except in the minds of the deluded, but climate change and how it is affecting the real world, the true habitability of planetary life and our real survival matters quite a lot. The timing of this truth-acceptance is also critical. We can’t afford to let an entire generation of brain-dead idiots poison the real truth and wait for its final acceptance. If we do, it will be far too late to do anything about our survival on this planet.
And that is the problem in a nutshell. The real truth can’t gain acceptance because it is being derided by brain-dead morons (Trumpanzees) who are grabbing the reigns and jerking this train-wreck off the tracks. So that we can follow them…. where? They don’t have a real plan or direction except profits. If you drill down through their propaganda and deceptions and outright lies, you’ll find a pot of gold glittering at the foot of their cross. That’s what it is all about, which they claim is going to make America great again. Money. Profits. Exploit the rest so that THEY can profit and bask in the (temporary) privilege of those profits. While utterly destroying any chance for a future.
I saw one site that was glad Trump cancelled the Meals on Wheels programs for seniors. The justification? “They didn’t make smart life choices”. So letting the elderly starve was “fine by them”. It is this callous disregard for life that disgusts me intensely. And their assumption that they “know everything” about everyone else and how they “should” have lived. Obviously they know almost nothing except their own selfishness and disregard for life. On one hand they will spew out their claims for the sanctity for life and then in the same breath, declare who should die. Ignorant, self-righteous assholes to the bone.
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I spent the weekend away from home, stuck in another damned city. I’m still desperately trying to find a way to make a living. The opportunity gave me a chance to reflect upon everything I’m seeing. People are too distracted to care about anything outside of their immediate lives. Their heads are filled with non-stop propaganda and advertising, there are screens screaming for their attention everywhere, there is no connection to life, nature or the nature world at all, everyone is embracing a “fantasy future” that explodes from every commercial, every advertisement, every movie, replete with success, superheros and super-abilities, their daily lives are super-insulated from the real world, carting themselves about about in glass and steel, everything is plastic-wrapped, cellophaned and perfectly presented, huge portions are the norm. And millions and millions of talking screens everywhere, constantly reminding them all of the “good life” to be had.
Well, it’s all lies. A lot of us are being thrown under the bus and a lot more will be joining us. There is real truth out there but you sure aren’t getting it from the sources you’ve been watching.
It’s kinda scary when you consider how many people are falling for this kind of ‘plan’ for their so-called “preparations”. They’re seriously doomed to fail because they’re simply piling greedy, rich people on top of each other in a survival situation. Not what anyone needs to survive calamity.
I’ve always advocated against this and still do. Armed guards notwithstanding, money and privilege and power doesn’t mean a hell of a lot when a serious crisis arises. They’re just as likely to discover that they’re asses get tossed outside of these hell holes by the owners / guards as soon as it is determined that they’re no longer needed.
But more importantly, other then showing up with a fistful of money, the individuals buying into these hell holes are not equipped to survive. They’re dependent upon everything else being done for them. The “Survive on the Dollar” theme is factually worthless in collapse or any crisis of significance.
There are also many isolationist ideas like this that will also fail when they’re broken down, attacked or suffer internal strife or sickness. This too is the primary “plan” and theme of the “prepper” crowd that is currently in place. Every man, woman and child for himself. It’s a stupid idea and will make for a lot of easy targets, breakdown and failures. The Triple Ought (Grey Nineties) theme (James Rawles) writ large (and wrong).
I’ve come up with something quite different then this, having studied this issue for some time.
The large majority of people from scientists to policy makers addressing the issue of climate change still assert that we can stop global heating by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. But is this a fact or an unsupported assumption?
Why is it reasonable to assume that we can still stop global heating & the resultant climate changes, which some estimate could be the largest climate change event in 50 million years, and will end civilization as we’ve known it even with a 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, let alone 50% by 2050?
To my knowledge, no one has justified that assumption with any argument based in science. It appears to be an article of faith, grounded, perhaps in the view that humans are “in control of the environment”. I doubt that very much, it’s pretty clear we are not in control at all.
There is a small, but increasingly vocal minority of scientists addressing the climate issue using very solid scientific models backed by credible evidence that climate change can no longer be stopped.
If you have not see this yet, you should, it’s buried in the comments here. Peter Wadhams lays it all out quite well. We are facing changes literally beyond our comprehension – and nothing is being done about it.
Here are my comments on this video and why it is so important:
This is a good video. Good presentation. Definitely recommended everyone watch it.
“What do you think our chances are to avert to the worst case disaster” – “Our chances are not good”.
“If everyone reduced their own carbon footprint by 20%, then the nation would produce 20% less carbon”. Not true. Individuals produce far less carbon then industry. There would be small drop in industry, but nowhere near 20%. And we need 189.99% carbon reduction (negative emissions, carbon capture from air, water, soil).
“You can’t disagree with climate change when it hits your personal reality”. Sure you can. People do it all the time.
“Even if all humanity stopped ALL carbon emissions, we are still going to get 50% feedbacks which are coming out by themselves”. Yep. We are in unstoppable, runaway climate change already. Nothing will stop this.
“How close do you believe we are to runaway global warming on this planet?” “This 50% is an underestimate. Every feedback in the Arctic is now positive. It might not be humans being who will be able to live on the planet. The feedbacks are all getting worse and happening more rapidly. With sea level rise, we’re doing away with our cities and lots of habitable places.”
“The Arctic is having enormous consequences on food production, just at a time when population is rising rapidly, so there will come a time when a collision between food production and population, that time is not that far off”.
“The collision and feedback effects between climate change that are acceleration, the very least it will produce is a lot of famine, more likely it will produce a lot of warfare, the causes of the war will not be ideological, but survival, land, water, resources, those are climate change related. That’s where we will wipe ourselves out.”
“We’re talking about the fall of civilization itself”.
“Greenland is going doing 300 cubic kilometers per year, Antarctica is going down about 80 cubic kilometers per year”. “I’m quite worried about Antarctica”. Antarctica will contribute much more to sea level rise then Greenland will, so there is much, much more to come.
“It’s a massive abuse of the planet. We have done a very, very frightening thing. There are so many ways that we have may have made it uninhabitable, that we don’t understand yet. Everything we understand looks bad, but there might be more. That’s why I desperately feel why we still have a settled, civilized industrial society, that can make things, do things, the things we must make them do are are devices to get rid of carbon dioxide, it is the enemy of humanity, it is the enemy of the future of the planet. We’re not at the moment doing anything about it. I really feel that is what we must be doing before we do anything else, before any more research. We should be doing research on getting rid of CO₂.”
It is humans that are digging it up and burning it, dumping it into the atmosphere (and we still with with ‘renewables’). Nature has always had a way to deal with it (over immense spans of time). But he’s got a point. We know we have to get rid of it. We know enough now to know we are in serious, serious trouble, an extinction level event.
You read all of this here on this blog before.
This post is NOT to argue that we should end efforts to minimize greenhouse emissions. Quite the contrary, we should minimize carbon emissions immediately, not by 2050, but now even if we cannot stop a large climate change event. Why? Even if we can’t stop it, we might slow it, and we may decrease the time for recovery to a more “normal” climate. However, if we continue to emit gases when climate is already destabilizing, we will surely do more damage.
But if the assumption is not supportable by science, then the way we are addressing this issue needs to change. Specifically, we need to spend at least as much time, money and energy planning for adaptability to a climate shift as trying to slow it.
Some may think this is foolish. Why adapt if we cannot survive? The answer is simple. We will all pass through a period of increasing difficulty (survival). If you do not prepare for this period, then you are going to suffer enormously. Needlessly. And so will your family.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what some defeatist advocate. Don’t even bother yourselves with adaption, or trying. Since we are all going to die anyway, then there is simply no point. This position is worse then foolish. It defies human behavior, which is to say we will try to survive. It is what humans do. We know this period is coming. It makes more sense to prepare now then to wait until you can’t and then belatedly “try”.
Billions will probably choose this path of delay and denial. They’re making it worse for everyone because they will be the very people who will require, nay, demand help. It’s one reason why I truly despise climate denialist. They’re abdicating all sense of responsibility and dumping it on everyone else. Worse, they’re proud of what they’re doing. This makes them worse then useless, they’re freeloaders, lazy, apathetic and indifferent. Bad times ahead mean these people will be pounding on your door and requiring all kinds of help, having failed to help themselves when they could have (now). It will be a bad time for all.
Here are the facts that must be addressed to evaluate the assumption that we can stop global heating and climate destabilization even with 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. One must not focus on any single piece of evidence, but on the whole. What follows is the simplified version of the essay found here (recommended reading, it’s better).
My apologies, I can’t find the original link as I wrote this article over a month ago and didn’t publish this article. But with the new Wadhams interview above, I think I should.
1. Complex systems including climate exist stably in only a limited number of states (e.g., ice ages or interglacial between ice ages, like now, and a hotter state that last existed 55 million years ago called the PETM). However, the climate system will not stabilize between states any more than a brick will stabilize between upright and laying flat, or a human can exist for long between waking and sleeping. You are either awake or asleep, not half way in between.
Systems transition rapidly from one state to another via positive feedback processes at critical thresholds or “tipping points”. Research in recent years has verified that climate can shift from ice age conditions to temperate, interglacial conditions in as little time as a decade. (Heating events happen fast.) Positive feedbacks can amplify even small changes in the system, preventing normal negative feedbacks from stabilizing the system in the current state, causing acceleration of change towards a tipping point. That is, if temperature is increasing, positive feedback will cause temperature to increase faster.
2. CO2 levels are already significantly higher now than in the last 650,000 years. (Normal interglacial levels: 280 ppm; previous high: 300 ppm). Further, CO2 increase is accelerating. Past increases never exceeded 0.03 ppm/year. It is now increasing at 2+ ppm/year. It is increasing now 100X faster than in the past.
3. Excess CO2 in the atmosphere now and any added in the future will remain there for at least a century, potentially much longer. This is referred to as residence time. This is because CO2 must be actively “pumped down” by biological processes notably marine algae which transform CO2 into calcium carbonate shells, which become limestone on their death, removing CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans. Due to ocean heating and acidification, that natural pump down healthiest in an ice age is now extremely stressed. By adding more CO2, we are overwhelming the pump.
4. There is a 50-year lag between stabilization of atmospheric gases & cessation of heating because water heats more slowly than air. That means that even after we stop emissions, we will continue to heat for another 50 years.
5. The poles Arctic and Antarctic have heated more & faster than any other places on Earth. Summer Arctic ice has decreased more than 30% in less than 3 decades. A recent study demonstrates that the extent of sea ice at the end of the summer season 2010 was lower than at any time in the last few thousand years. Further, the winter ice is thinner, allowing faster melting the following year, and break up by storms. Greenland’s ice sheet melting is also accelerating. Loss of ice accelerates warming. Why? Because whereas ice reflects more than 80% of solar radiation, cooling a region, dark ocean water absorbs more than 80% of solar radiation, accelerating ice loss, a positive feedback.
6. Most of the heat trapped during the last few centuries is in the oceans, causing a decrease & poleward redistribution of marine algae (because they don’t like warm water). This is a HUGE problem because they play a MAJOR role in CO2 pump down and sequestration ““ far greater than terrestrial plants ““ and the production of clouds that reflect sunlight which cools the oceans by reflecting sunlight. Thus, loss of phytoplankton is another positive feedback.
7. Methane an important greenhouse gas that threatens to become more important than CO2 is also at a record levels: 2.5 times higher than “normal” interglacial levels. Vast regions of permafrost near the Arctic 20% of Earth’s land area are thawing, releasing huge quantities of methane, some of which has been stored there since the last ice age, some of which is now being produced by anaerobic bacteria that are decomposing organic matter previously frozen. This phenomenon has been called a “sleeping giant”. Vast quantities of methane are also stored on the ocean floor, but will destabilize and be released as gas as oceans warm. We are already seeing significant methane bubbling in the Arctic ocean. Increasing methane will cause more heating, which will produce more methane: another positive feedback.
8. Forest ecosystems especially rain forests in the Amazon that have previously been carbon sinks are now becoming carbon sources as drought and heat waves cause forest die-off, releasing carbon via decomposition and burning. The sizes of forest fires across the Earth have increased notably in size in recent decades. For example, summer, 2010 saw massive wild land fires in Russia. As heating continues, this, too, will become a positive feedback.
9. There are no known negative feedback processes operating to stop these positive feedbacks from slinging Earth’s climate into a new, hotter state.
10. In reality, we are already hotter than we think we are. Why? We are being cooled by sulfur aerosols in the atmosphere, mostly resulting from burning fuels. Under proper conditions ““ an economic decline or ““ paradoxically ““ a reduction of fossil fuel use ““ aerosols would wash out of the atmosphere in weeks, increasing the global average temperature by as much as we heated in the entire 20th century.
In summary, because: 1) climate shifts rapidly from one state to another; 2) CO2 residence time in the atmosphere insures that we will continue to heat for at least a century, probably much longer; and 3) multiple positive feedbacks are accelerating heating towards a new state of the climate, so that, even if humans entirely stop producing CO2 today, a highly unlikely event given economic and political realities, Earths’ climate system will transition to a new hotter state, reminiscent of the state that existed 55 million years ago.
The argument supports the assertion that it is too late to stop global heating. We might be able to slow it by huge reductions in gas emissions, but we can’t stop it. Heating can only be stopped by stopping the multiple, global scale positive feedback processes described above, but no one has yet explained how that can occur.
The scale, speed and severity of this climate change will threaten civilization as we know it by turning most continents into deserts, preventing agriculture as we know it. Therefore, we should spend equal time, money and effort planning how to adapt to a hotter state with a radically different climate regime that hasn’t existed on Earth for 55 million years that will likely turn oceans and continents outside of the polar regions into deserts.
Why? Simple physics: once ocean surfaces exceed 10C, they stratify, preventing upwelling of nutrients to feed algae. This has already occurred in tropical zones, which is why tropical oceans are so clear. Once soil temperatures exceed 79F, they require daily rainfall (or irrigation) for any but desert-adapted plants.)
Our preparations to increase adaptability should include personal & community planning to facilitate a transition to a new kind of civilization that promotes planetary healing (but not geoengineering) as well as planning for water, food, shelter, health care, energy, transportation and security in a world with a climate that humans have never experienced in our million year history characterized by the words extreme, chaotic, unpredictable and violent.
It should be obvious that geo-engineering will be tried as the hope of last resort. I am not at all hopeful about this working. It will be the “planetary strategy”, but there is need for a personal strategy too. It would be absolutely foolish to put all your eggs into one basket and “hope” that the scientist will fix this. They probably won’t, because we already know it’s going to heat up a lot more and we can make very good estimates now on what happens to civilization when it does.
This blog has covered this topic extensively, so I won’t try once again to tell you what to do – only to point out that you WILL have to do quite a lot. We all will. Nobody is going to escape this. There won’t be any magical rescue or rapture. We are all going through this, together and it is already a certainty that the death rate is going to go up very, very fast, precisely because of delay, denial and disbelief that I’ve railed on so often. But there is more to it then that.
We have also been seriously let down by scientist, policy makers, government agencies and industry. They’ve all known about what is coming but have refused to take meaningful voice and meaningful action. We are in a global emergency and it’s still yet to be declared by these groups. It would be foolish to expect them to save us after this past and still-present experience; when they had the chance, they chose not to, so why expect anything any different going forward? What efforts will we really see? Nobody really knows, but it is sure to be worse now under a climate denial President and Cabinet. So it falls on you to do what you can to help yourself. It always has.
First, another thank you to Gina for supporting this blog!
It’s plainly obvious that American anger is on the rise (exponentially it seems). And with good cause. This country is in severe disarray, a situation that is only getting worse.
I’ve not covered the rising tide of anger much, not wanting to contribute to any of the reactionary reponses taking place. But what’s occuring here is impossible for anyone to ignore.
Hurricane events are scary enough, but there idiotsphere of connedspiracy theorists are performing their usual mucking up of the facts. I won’t honor a single one of them with a link, but they’re claiming the usual suspects: Hurricane Matthew is “intentional” and was “steered” for destruction and death. These claims are stupid beyond belief and lack any credible proof whatsoever. Moreover, they offer nothing in terms of “why” except some half-baked connedspiracy theory.
The video above only depicts wind damages (on a modern house). It’s much, much worse at sea level where storm surge, rain and low quality houses are very common on poor areas. These homes are literally wiped off the map, taking lives, dreams and future with them.
Hot Whopper has been trying for some years to shame the climate denial idiots into reality, but I’m guessing she’s had as limited success as I have. This is definitely a website you should be reading to find credible counter-arguments to the incessant stupidity being spewed by the denialists.
This problem is most acute with Americans, who have chosen stupidstitions and reactionary “experts” for their biased opinions and straw arguments. For those of you that live off-shore from the Land of the Indoctrinated Slaves, it’s like wading chest-deep through a polluted river here, it’s vile and really stinks.
Paul Beckwith (where I found the video above) discusses how climate change really does affect hurricanes, but nobody here is really listening to the scientists or the qualified experts right now.
That does seem to be the real problem. Nobody is really listening. The non-negotiable way of life (exclusive to Americans of course) remains as firmly fixed as ever, hurricanes be damned. The loss of life (primarily elsewhere of course) is acceptable for this unfair exchange of privilege and protection and “exceptionalism”. There’s no connection between our actions and inaction’s and the misfiring synapses in the brains of the idiotic morons that choose ignorance and denial.
I’ve been trying for a while now to get through the thick-skulls of the brain dead zombies that walk this land. From 2008 –
I am of course, talking about much more then climate change or dreadful weather patterns. Much of what I write is designed to make you think about all the other connections in life, because nothing is unconnected. There are threads that connect each and every one of us to everything else. Some call this chaos theory, I just recognize it as being one of those undeniable parts of life on earth.
We don’t want to hold ourselves responsible for the events in this world, so it’s pretty clear if we don’t, then nobody else will either. And if nobody is responsible, then we have absolutely no ability to change anything. Our course would be fixed and irreversible. We’d be on a collision course to the final destination of death and destruction which is the end of all things (entropy).
But that’s not how the real world actually works and thus, irresponsibility isn’t actually true. It’s a illusionary fabrication we use to get us out of doing something. Our actions = our consequences. Our inactions = our consequences. Therefore, we cannot escape the consequences no matter what. Prince Charles was hinting at this, as have many others, but they don’t come out and say it. We are going to be stuck with the results of our actions and our inaction’s no matter what. Truth & Climate and The Struggle For Survival
My articles convey too much for the average person. Their too long and too repetitive. They contradict the main stream propaganda, the right wing reactionary and even the liberal way of thinking. All I’ve ever wanted was a habitable future for my children. I know that I’m not going to get it and neither will they. They’re going to be horrible cheated from life. I traced the causes and reasons and thought that somebody should say something about all of it.
Our animalistic nature is only temporarily covered up by all of the confines and structures we have built to govern our base nature. But we’re still animals who will resort to our true nature in a heart beat like these two did in yet another Walmart (a store that seems to attrack the attack). Despite years and years of warnings to prepare for storms like Matthew in advance, people STILL wait for the panic to take hold and then take steps for their own survival. Seriously now, how STUPID can people be? But we’ve not seen anything yet because its very clear that much more destruction and suffering is to come.
What do you think it’s going to be like when back-to-back storms, floods, droughts, deluge and infrastructure / crop collapses happen? We will abandon our rules and standards and cherished beliefs and be again what we always were – predatory animals, increasingly preying on each other (before, during and after we’ve wiped out everything else).
We’ve been setup for a perfect storm of self-destruction. Greed, gluttony, overpopulation, monetization, indifference, apathy and centuries of rampant destruction and pollution have left our race completely incapable now of rational thought and actions. We’re irrevocably committed to protecting and enforcing these attitudes and methods to the death, even if it means our extinction. From a personal perspective, I expect no change from this trajectory at all. We will ride this monstrous ride of human horror right down into the ground when it finally stops and most, if not all of us, are forever gone.
The ism’s, institutions and structures we have designed and built for our (exclusive) use within civilization are not sacred. They will not last the coming storms. Moreover, they are not reality nor do they teach reality. They teach irresponsibility and a insidious denial of reality while promising something else altogether (which is never delivered). This is why I reject them. They are harmful to the human race and the life on this planet. They are manufactured artificial constructs of enforced and governed behavior and attitudes, but they do not coincide with the real world, which is collapsing faster and faster every day, precisely because of the false meme these ism’s and institutions have embraced.
We are all now in an impossible predicament. We do not have the capacity, the will or even the intentions required to change. There is no solution. There won’t be any solution either because we are incapacitated now, too committed to false memes and selfish ambition. There will be many, many, MANY more disasters ahead, eventually culminating in the destruction of our civilization. So I’m not going to suggest hope or hopium, just some common sense advice. Prepare for your survival for as long as you can endure. Everything else is simply a false meme.
I’ve been keeping quiet on here for some time because I’m absolutely disgusted with the escalating levels of unbelievable stupidity being exhibited by Americans. There is no end to it this (s)Election season and if the continuing trend is any indication of the future (and it probably is), we’ve not seen anything yet.
No matter which candidate is (s)Elected in November, it’s going to be a terrible time for America. Even worse however, will be what this will mean for the planet. I’m referring to how America and Americans themselves are going to respond to the new commander in chief and the dictates that will follow. It’s going to be very, very ugly. This will not be a place to be. Leave if you can.
I’m staying, having no place else to go, which is what most will wind up doing too. America will either embrace more war, death and destruction, or a rising tide of incredible stupidity and denial, arrogance, hatred and bigotry. It’s not a “choice” that we are facing that any thinking, intelligent or reasonable person would want to endure. But endure we must, somehow.
Somehow, science has managed to fail in their leadership and conveyance to facts and truth to the American people. This has contributed to the rising tides of stupidity and stupidstitions that have escalating dramatically this year. While I’m not blaming any particular group or party, I’m none too happy about the lost opportunity to knock some sense into the army of absolute idiots that have managed to change the public discourse in this country. Instead of dealing with facts, options and rational discussion, we’re still muck-raking among fools and idiots.
I’ve got better things to do. As do you.
November is fast approaching. Horrible and horrible is somehow the only two options on the menu. I listened to the debate, or at least parts of it, and it’s astounding how easily fooled people were (and all the connedspiracies this generated immediately thereafter). I’m surrounded by utter idiots it seems. Truly STUPID people who haven’t got the intelligence or sense of an ant. Both Hillary and Trump will DEVASTATE what’s left of America but that seems to be inevitable now. So rather just rant and complain, I’ll tell you what I think you should do: Get Ready.
Get ready to defend yourselves from the growing horde of idiots that plague this country. The race-bating, hate-filled, bigots, idiots and morons. If the (s)Election goes the other way, then get yourselves ready to go to war (here). Hillary seems hell-bent on ensuring we engage in another decade of senseless slaughter which is going to backfire this time (I suspect). I honestly cannot believe the (s)Election has come down to these two truly horrible “candidates” except for the fact that it really, really has. What a goddamned fucking mess this is for every decent human being on the entire planet.
And we let this happen. Seriously now, how did America and Americans let this happen? How could they be so fucking stupid? Well, I know that we’re not all that dumb, I’m sure not and so are many of my past readers. But I also know that we had really no say in the matter, so this is just a rhetorical rant. The entire candidate (s)Election process has been highly orchestrated and manipulated from the beginning. So now, just one month out, it’s come down to these two choices – bad and worse. I’ll let you decide which one you think is worse. I’m not sure it even matters now. Trump is far too stupid and arrogant to NOT do something fatal for the country. And Hillary fully INTENDS to do so. So take your pick. If it were me, I’d head to parts far, far away if I could. But I can’t. So get ready to endure eight years or more of pure hell and escalating misery.
It’s not just the candidate (s)Election that disgusts me, it’s the sheer stupidity of my “fellow Americans” that have fallen, hook, line and sinker for the propaganda that is being vomited forth now. I doubt we’ve seen the end of this yet, but what I’ve seen and read so far is unbelievable. It’s like a bad script where Dumb and Dumber vie for the prize of Dumbest Of All. The movie credits are rolling and everyone is hoping for a glimpse of their name. They want to be a part of it. Not me. I’m staying far away from this insanity. It’s a dangerous time to be online. An even more dangerous time to express your opinions. It can now get you killed, something that I warned about long ago.
Check out this “poll” for an example of stupid (read the comments for truly asinine idiocy). There seems to be competition for “who can be the stupidest of all”. Facts and reality are ignored, while conjecture, straw arguments and imaginary beings replace reality. The news on the climate front is still getting worse (hotter and hotter) while wildlife is dying off and going extinct faster and faster. But no, we are not responsible for any of this according to the morons that infect this country.
Seriously, I often find myself wishing that there was some other place to go where stupidity and stupidstitions didn’t ruin it for everyone else. Or better yet, let the Rapture happen and take all these idiots away. I’ve had to fight another battle here locally that runs along the same lines, it’s taken up a fair share of my time. Intelligence seems to be going backwards now, reverting to the reactionary response of 12-year old bullies. It belies the notion or claims that humans are “advancing” at all. I doubt it – we’ve yet to grow up and accept our responsibilities. We can’t even grasp reality.
So either believe me or not, but this is your warning. Get ready. You are going to have to endure a rising tide of reactionary stupidity and belligerence that will get very ugly. Find a quiet place to be and lock the gate. Stay home and stay away from crowds, malls, shopping centers and any place where groups will gather. Don’t even go any place alone where you do not feel 100% safe. I would caution you also on your online activity. Be smart and play it cool.
If you haven’t made home preparations, you’re seriously, seriously overdue. Food, water, weapons, medical supplies, fuel and the ability to endure long power-outages. You will need some cash on hand (but not gold or silver, this is a false meme as I’ve shared often before). Stay close to home (no long trips) if you can. America is about to explode.
Most people should be aware of the huge fires at Ft. McMurry, Alberta and the evacuation of an entire city. Unfortunately, mega-fires are going to become the norm for most locations.
You read that right – most locations. You don’t have to be in the middle of a forest to be effected by higher temperatures and drought conditions. You just need to be anywhere there is flammable fuel and that applies to every city and town in the world.
In Prepare For Climate Collapse – Part II (September, 2015), I pointed out the fire and water would be the two greatest threats “to infrastructure, property and lives.” People around the world are suffering through both types of these disasters every single day now. But they’re also facing starvation.
Droughts and fires destroy food production, and can also destroy or impact all food processing facilities (farms, trains, factories, warehouses, stores, even jobs), and so can water. Workers in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas have seen drought destroy cattle herds and hay production, losing their jobs – and their ability to feed themselves. Factories or stores destroyed by floods or rising seas displace workers, jobs and food production. When the money runs out, the unemployed lose their ability to stay (becoming a climate refugee in reality). Moving is required in order to stay alive. A return to employment is also required.
This is how most people feed themselves today, by working and exchanging their time and labor for money, which is then exchanged for factory processed foods. Without employment, most Americans would starve to death (and in short order). In any disaster area, and for any cause, the ability to find food swiftly becomes an emergency (mere hours, not days).
But what happens when entire regions are stricken with disaster? Without outside support, they collapse in rioting and competition for essential survival needs (food, water, shelter, fuel, security) and stay that way until these essential needs are restored.
Here’s the meaning of this: When a disaster strikes an area, the affected region can “last” only as long as it can provide food, water, shelter, fuel and security for its citizens. Once that is gone – or any part of this is gone – chaos reigns. This might be suppressed temporarily by the internal resources within the affected region, but without outside help to replenish dwindling supplies, keeping the peace will not succeed.
The importance of this should be clear – humans can only cope with limited scale disasters – and only as long as we keep helping the afflicted – and only as long as we can provide or obtain the essentials.
Climate change means something far, far bigger then this. As a global disaster, climate change accelerates and fosters regional and local disasters, eventually affecting the entire world. By way of drought, flood, fire or extreme weather conditions and events, climate change represents a future of unending disasters which will encompass the whole world.
This will challenge the assumption that humans will always receive the help they need in order to survive. This is false. They already don’t in many parts of the world and this will worsen as more and more people (billions) are affected. Even bigger disasters will make for even less help.
There is a lot of hopium about the future that is affecting people, politics, policy and planning. I want to dispel all of this as the false hope that it is, because none of this can change the physics at work. The natural variability and composition of the atmosphere is forever changed as far as humanity is concerned, and is not subject to any hope, plans or policy that we may yet undertake. Therefore, taking what we already know into account about climate and what this new composition actually means for the future, the hopium being expressed that we can escape unending climate-related disasters is utterly false.
Astute observers would have already noticed that nobody on the planet has escaped the changes in the world’s climate. Nobody ever will either. Therefore, the only and obvious thing to do is to prepare for climate collapse. And this is exactly what is not happening. The stubborn assumption that people don’t need to prepare for their own survival is still here. This attitude is also still prevalent among countries and nations, who are dependent upon outside resources for their survival (just like every human does).
As the fires of Ft. Mac reveal, and as did Hurricane Katrina and many other disasters reveal, don’t expect government to protect you, feed you or even save you when a disaster strikes your area. Government and politicians and empty promises offer no protection whatsoever against climate change and never will. You WILL be affected by either drought, flood, fire, extreme weather and higher temperatures at some point in the future – there is absolutely no escaping this. Ultimately, if YOU don’t prepare for climate collapse, you’re in denial about your own peril and what climate change really means.
A growing number of reports predict massive starvation ahead as world food supplies decline. Water will only increase in competition and demand. The stability of civilization depends on these two things more then any other. This is why every American and every human on the planet should be prepared with these essentials for survival. It’s terribly naive to assume that government or business will always be able to provide access to these things, when disaster strikes, they often don’t and can’t.
Individuals, families and businesses, even large corporations need to prepare as quickly as possible, because nobody knows the timing of when they will be in need, or by what means disaster will strike. We only know some of them, some which are a certain as the rising sun such as climate change and how it will affect the world’s food supply, our ability to avoid lethal wet-bulb temperatures and all the related water and fire issues. We already know that this is going to happen (a certainty). You have to prepare in advance, it’s too late to deal with this after a disaster strikes. Therefore, now is the time to do this.
As we swing into another hotter summer then ever before, and a hotter year then any time in human history, and as scientist watch the ice melt and predict a “blue ocean event” as early as this fall, realize that climate change is utterly indifferent to opinions, beliefs, denials or desires. What’s happening to the world’s climate is unstoppable now and it will affect every single human on the planet. Your only choice, your only option now is to prepare for this.
I’ve been harping on the ‘false narrative’ off and on for a while now. But what is a false narrative?
A narrative is a story – and like most stories it contains a cast of characters, events, circumstances and a story line. Events that either will (future tense) or have (past tense) taken place. But like all stories, a narrative isn’t the real thing (real life). It’s fiction, the ‘telling‘ of the parts of the story the author wants to share.
The false narrative is a combination of these fictions and non-fictions, truth and deception, inaccuracies or omissions in the story, but it is not the real thing. A narrative is almost always passed off as the real thing, and almost as often, accepted as the real thing, but this isn’t true. A narrative is the ‘telling’ – and a false narrative is also the ‘telling’ inaccurately (omissions).Continue reading »
The level of skill in knowing the materials, manipulating in forge, anvil and hammer and shaping this into a useful tool is amazing.
I’ve known a few knife makers, one who created signature knife blades that looked just like black obsidian. It was hard to tell the difference unless you picked it up. Years ago, I took a picture series of his work while he created a knife right in front of me from scrap metal files. I could definitely appreciate his skill and craftsmanship.
I own a collection of knives, all chosen for their particular use and design. However, none are hand-forged, which are usually works of art, expensive and reserved for those owners that don’t destroy things (I do). Everything I own is a ‘tool’ to me, I use it and replace it if I have to (except for my wife and kids).
Too cold here (a whopping 7 degrees) to do this here, but this is something I practiced many years ago when I was a teenager. It was fun, but I had only junk to throw around:
