More Folly Of The Species
Everybody knows that rising sea levels are a “thing” around the world. Cities like Miami, New York, Houston are all under threat from rising seas. There are many, many other cities, towns and areas around the world that face the same problem.
The problem doesn’t come from nature, the problem arose because of two things: human built cities where they shouldn’t have (at, near or even below sea level), and humans rapidly pumped gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, warming up the atmosphere, oceans and planet, causing land-based ice to melt. Sea level rise was simply a foregone conclusion once we dumped that much carbon dioxide (and other gasses) into the atmosphere.
In other words, this is a problem humans did to themselves. There is no disputing this fact.
So why would humans choose to make this problem even worse? Perhaps more importantly, why would they not finally admit that they’re going to keep making it worse?
The folly of the species is exemplified in this article – read it carefully. A $26-Billion Plan to Save the Houston Area From Rising Seas
Houston is a petrochemical nightmare for all life on Earth. The massive infrastructure there contains hundreds of thousands of miles of buried pipe carrying billions of gallons of petroleum products and byproducts. To “save” this infrastructure and industry, somebody got the bright idea that they should build a massive sea wall containing huge gates and miles and miles of sand dunes. All because they built a city where they shouldn’t have and all because they are a primary contributor to rising seas.
The cost is irrelevant, so not going to mention this here. The proposal is insane – a desperate attempt to save a dying industry that created rising seas by building a massive sea wall to protect a enormously destructive industry. The expenditure in resources and additional carbon dioxide trying to “save” Houston and the city of Galveston will be enormous.
This is pure folly – basically business-as-usual and a demonstration of the lip-service States and Governments and industry leaders are given to “combating climate change”. Apparently this term actually means “save the industries that caused it“. Somebody stands to make enormous sums of money from this project.
Everyday I find ample evidence of just how ignorant and selfish and stupid our species really is. We can’t let go of this civilization and will desperately try to do everything humanely possible to hang on to it, all the while making the problem worse and worse.
It should be obvious already that this “plan” would not work. Are they planning for Category 6 storms, which are increasingly likely? What happens when that occurs? Or when sea level easily tops their walls and washes over? Build higher walls? Admit defeat? Finally relocate what is necessary and essential to higher ground like they should have in the beginning?
There is a term called “managed retreat” that doesn’t seem to be used often enough. To fix the planned stupidity of the species, a managed retreat from dangerous ill-conceived locations should be the first consideration, not the last. But humans are pretty stupid and incredibly stubborn, having vested interests in maintaining their profits schemes for as long as possible.
When you realize that these are the very same people who are supposed to save us from deadly climate change, you should know that their folly is often chosen over common sense. Doing the right thing isn’t even a serious consideration in many if not most cases. Abandoning planned folly will ultimately be cheaper, more effective and long lasting, and far, far better for the planet.
Rising seas are virtually unstoppable – why do I have to keep repeating this? We cannot replace the missing ice. We have NO mechanisms to do this. Once the ice melts and enter the oceans, it’s going to be there for a long, long time. Sea level rise is rapidly increasing, and the ridiculous notions that walls will endlessly protect our civilization is really just stupid. We would be far better off to admit we need to work with nature and not against it.
We cannot win this battle. I know that and these planners and engineers should know that.
‘Historic moment’: Legal experts unveil new definition of ecocide
If you get a chance, watch the two videos. Australia is have a conniption fit since they don’t agree with the declaration that the Great Barrier reef is in danger. More examples of the folly of the species.
Spot on, S.A.
Interestingly, the area of eastern England, known traditionally as East Anglia (because the Angles from what is now known as Germany invaded ‘Britannia’ before the Vikings and the Normans invaded,) is very low-lying and is clearly doomed (a word I first started using in connection with this stuff back in the year 2001: people do not like the word ‘doomed’ even though it fits the case perfectly!). The slow retreat already underway will clearly morph into a stampede fairly soon.
Londinium was a great spot for the Romans to build a capital: nice navigable river that lead into the heartland of England. Pity about the rising seas, that have already led to the construction of massive surge gates (that were constructed using fossil fuels and are operated using fossil fuels)
You see, what we now call England was connected to what we now call France not very long ago in geological history because a lot of water was on land in the form of ice sheets. The natural cycle, caused by orbital factors, caused the Earth to begin warming about 13,000, and all would have been fine if industrious industrial humans had not decided to build machines that ran on coal to get more coal from under the ground.
The rest is history, as they say.
Having pumped gazillions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and oceans, and buggered-up practically everything, the industrious industrial humans plan is to pump a few more gazillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and ensure that the catastrophic sea level rise that is already underway will be mega-catastrophic.
Lunacy is not restricted to the Anglo-Saxon portion of humanity, of course: the Chinese have committed gazillions of Yuan and have incurred a monstrous carbon dioxide debt in the construction of a mega-city not much above sea level at Shanghai; amongst the many attractions is a race track where spectators can watch cars going round and round and round and round and round and round, converting precious, rapidly-declining fossil fuels into carbon dioxide that contributes to dooming the city.
Talking of all that water, here’s another interesting one:
Lake Mead is supposedly at 1070.05, on a scale that goes to 1070.00. Hmm???!!!
http://graphs.water-data.com/lakemead/
And, apparently “everything is collapsing’ in Colombia:
‘Everything is collapsing’: Colombia battles third Covid wave amid unrest
Protest leaders have agreed to pause mass marches as hospital ICUs struggle to cope with surging coronavirus cases…’
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/22/colombia-covid-coronavirus-third-wave-unrest
I am amused (in a kind of black comedy way) that the article comes under the banner ‘; Global Development’.
Could it possibly be that ‘development’ is what got us into this diabolical predicament? (rhetorical question).
Pity the children (a bunch of pre-schoolers have just arrived where I am at the moment: Poor kids have no idea what they are in for; nor do their teachers).
I watch my grandson every day, he’s still a pre-schooler, and I am absolutely terrified for him with NO EXAGGERATION. Anyone who is not terrified isn’t paying attention or is already dead, including the walking zombies that inhabit this planet.
How can you fix civilization when you keep doing everything that broke civilization and the planet too? How can anyone think that perpetuating this heat engine devouring all life on Earth is a good idea? What the FUCK are they going to spend their mega-profits on when there is no habitat left to live on?
This is why I do not care about what it costs, it’s irrelevant. We could do this for ‘free’ by simply ignoring the costs. To get it done (mitigation) we just need to make the right decisions (for starters); provide the essential resources, supplies and locations; while abandoning everything that is no longer safe or good to do. This would free up enormous resources. But building walls that will eventually fail to preserve an industry that SHOULD fail is unbelievably stupid.
If Nature or Earth or God or the fucking Tooth Fairy were given us signs and signals and warnings and flashing red lights telling us that we are in a ‘dangerous territory’ then we should LISTEN. Just because humans ‘could’ do stupid, pollutive, exploitative and deadly industries that would kill the planet doesn’t mean we SHOULD. There has always been available to us a different way to live and form our civilization and society, but as Toynbee points out in his “Mankind and Mother Earth”, we chose to kill that civilization and build this one. Wherever it existed (for THOUSANDS OF YEARS), it had to be eradicated, and then the land beneath their dead feet had to be leveled, mined, harvested, poisoned and polluted.
The replacement civilization? It’s a fucking disaster.
The Kogi Indians believe that they are the stewards of the Earth. Many indigenous tribes believe this, but Westerners certainly don’t. To them, the Earth and everything within it is a cash machine, a enormous ATM that will endlessly spit out whatever humans demand from it. Whatever ‘consequences’ that may arise from their rapacious greed can be dealt with by implementing new technologies and new methods to extract even more from the dying Earth.
It’s absolutely fucking nuts.
In a great deal of pain here from kidney stones trying to pass (I think) so it’s not helping my mood at all. But I’m not wrong.
You are not wrong. The system is rotten to the core, and the people who are running it are lunatics -no, worse than lunatics because they are not physiologically insane, just culturally insane. And stupendously greedy and short-sighted.
Been waiting for more ‘evidence’ to come forward about the Surside condo collapse, and some has surfaced. Seems as they were subjected to ‘coastal flooding’, which is a demonstration of the folly of the species.
Now that hundreds have likely died, this won’t change anything, but it should.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9723841/Map-report-predicting-condo-collapse-reveals-Miami-Beach-spots-risk-collapse.html
The future definitely means more saturated and collapsed buildings (by the thousands). I hope these people are smart enough to move to higher ground and to start abandoning these areas that will only flood worse and worse.
But I doubt it.