Nature Is Going To Win
The South West region of the United States is currently experience another heat wave, with extreme temperatures and power reductions being experienced. This is the battle against nature, provide human comfort (and survival) in a region that will soon become uninhabitable.
Humans believe that they can do anything that they want, with no consequences attached. Build houses in parched regions. Build entire industries, golf courses, swimming pools. Redirect water from thousands of miles and away and use up every last drop. Plant green lawns and orchards to “green” the desert. Build mega-cities and urban sprawl everywhere. Install water fountains and gambling casinos. Attract millions of tourists and turn the dusty into the flooded. Erect huge concrete dams and water catchment, build diversion canals and consume gigantic quantities of cement. Rip up the ground with hundreds of thousands of miles of pipes, pave over the surfaces with concrete and asphalt. Grow enormous quantities of food and fodder, to be shipped all over the world. Overpopulate the world with billions that can only survive and exist because of the massive overproduction of food that is entirely dependent upon cheap energy.
And this is just a few mentions of what is happening in the deserts.
This is happening all over the world, with the oceans being stripped-mined of all life, the sea floor dredged for minerals and elements, the forests being razed to the ground, monoculture plantations replacing biodiversity and rain forests, entire mountains being completely leveled, massive holes bored into the Earth, terraforming over half of the Earth’s surface all for the exclusive use of mankind, all to the detriment of a billion other species which die from pesticides, insecticides, disease, starvation, habitat destruction, “harvesting”, and heat.
The Earth is being ruined, rapidly, faster and faster while idiot people whine and cry that their lawns are drying up, their houses are hot, their power and water bill is too high, and their toys are stuck sitting in the garage unable to float or be driven because somewhere, someone put a stop to the trampling and the destruction, albeit temporarily, asking these idiot humans to give nature a chance, a bit of a break before the cycle starts up again.
Civilization as we know it is both a heat engine and a highly destructive force that has brought the entire Earth to the brink of disaster and it is getting worse, literally by the minute. Many regions are now utterly devoid of life, wasted, polluted, poisoned and dead. The trees are gone, the fish are gone, the water is gone, all that remains is the barren death. But that does not stop man from deviously devising new strategies if he can to exploit and develop and take and consume whatever he can, wherever he can. His insatiable greed, apathy and callous indifference knows no bounds. If there are profits to be made, then there are “opportunities” to be had.
It is a sick, sad, pathetic way to live as a human on this planet. But that’s just me. Demanding a constant stream of resources imported from thousands of miles away to sustain your very life was bound to hit “limits” sooner or later. The Earth is literally reeling from the gigantic footprint of humankind and droughts and extreme weather and deadly climate change are the direct results of our wasteful, irresponsible and pollutive ways.
The Arctic will soon be summer ice free, resulting in a massive temperature “adjustment” to a new “normal” the likes of which humankind has never seen. The South West will achieve the impossible – non-survivability as wet-bulb temperatures exceed human and plant respiration rates. Everyone keeps pretending this won’t happen but it is simply physics now, as the laws of nature dictate what happens despite humans denial. No amount of air-conditioning, imported energy and trucked in water will turn this around. Millions will be forced to flee their own homeland and head towards cooler temperatures. The “migration to come” will dwarf anything the world has ever experienced as the lower latitudes become literally, hot as hell for too long over the course of a single year.
Oddly, the deserts have never been considered “unconquerable”, but that was always the hubris of man. You can view the satellite photos of dead and dry regions springing with life as the aquifers are pumped out to green the deserts. But you can also check the same photos taken later and see them revert back to the desert death as the same aquifers dry up and are abandoned. Water that took tens of thousands of years to accumulate is being consumed in just a few dozen. Like oil, fresh water represents enormous geological time that humanity has gobbled up and devoured as fast as humanely possible. This is the “good life”, the pinnacle of our insane civilization that is now teetering on resource collapse, environmental collapse, climate collapse and even population collapse as the essential goods, services, food, water and energy cascades ever-downwards.
Most people don’t yet realize humanity is fucked. I do. Technology cannot fix what doesn’t exist, be it all the missing ice, the temperature gradient, the Jet Stream, the ocean currents, the locked up methane and carbon dioxide in the permafrost, the empty aquifers, or remove the stupendously large levels of pollution in the atmosphere, water and soils. Nature needs a break from humanity and whether we like it or not, and no matter how much we will try (which we will), nature is going to “win” this battle for survival. What’s left will be unrecognizable and largely unfit for mammals.
So enjoy what you have, it is definitely not going to last. We are driving our own species towards extinction (and all others) and we will fail to stop this. Greed, hubris, apathy and consumption built a civilization that was bound to learn the finite limits of the Earth the “hard way”. This attitude is still found in every publication, every report, every scientific assessment, every proposal, every legislative act, every demand being made upon the natural environment which once sustained us all. Root problems are still being completely ignored and unaddressed as “Band-Aid” solutions are proposed. None come even remotely close to resolving the human issue. All that is wrong with the Earth is our fault. Nature will win, ultimately, because we have categorically refused to wise up and accept reality and live within specific limits of growth, consumption and even greed.
Slightly dated, but still relevant: https://www.ecowatch.com/megadroughts-2031955357.html
Nicely said, S.A.
I cannot dispute anything you have written. Nor would i want to. It is the unvarnished truth, the reality of the unsolvable mega predicament that one particular sector of humanity -the bankers, the industrialists, the neoliberal economists and their bought-and-paid-for politicians- have put humanity into via innumerable deceits over many decades.
And even as the ‘patient’ shows very clear indications of ‘dying from both blood poisoning and blood loss’, the band of aforementioned maniacs demand that the patient be ‘injected with more poisons’ and that ‘more leeches be applied’.
All I can say is, it need not have been this way. If the bankers, the industrialists, the neoliberal economists and the self-serving, bought-and-paid-for politicians had not stamped out the ‘Limits to Growth’ narrative that emerged in the late 1960s we would not be in this mess now.
If so-called Christian nations had followed any of the teachings of Jesus -especially “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”- we would not be in this mess now.
But, as some of us have discovered, anything that is official is almost certainly fake (including Christianity and all the churches it spawned).
The Luddites -who opposed the industrialisation of England in the early 1800s (and were crushed by ‘the authorities’) were absolutely right. They protested against the loss of craft industries and the construction of ‘satanic mills’ and the horrific levels of local pollution that were manifesting; they protested against the ‘infernal machines’. And they lost to the great clobbering machine.
The natives of the Americas fought long and hard to halt the ‘progress’ that railroads brought. And they lost to the great clobbering machine.
Even as the planet goes into meltdown, the last vestiges of human living as we should fight the incursion of industrialism into their ancestral lands, and are loosing to the great clobbering machine
Of course, one of the most evil characters in the very long list of evil characters was Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud. Uncle Sigmund refused to use his discoveries about human nature for commercial purposes. Bernays was all to keen to exploit people around him and to exploit society as a whole, and used what he gleaned from his uncle to persuade people to do things that were bad for them and to buy products they didn’t need and that actually caused them harm. “Those are not filthy cigarettes that will ruin your health, they are ‘torches of freedom'”.
What is interesting about the mega-drought that is affecting about 55 million people in the southwest US is that when the first survey teams were sent into the region to investigate the potential for ‘development’ (in the early 1900s, I believe), the answer they gave was the ‘wrong’ answer: “too dry; not suitable for development.”
And so the madness went into hyperdrive, constructing dams and pipelines and roads and highways and eventually mega-cities, just as you, S.A. have highlighted.
My ‘hero’, Albert Bartlett, said it all decades ago in ‘Arithmetic, Population and Energy’. And was ignored by the great clobbering machine.
So now the great clobbering machine is about to get clobbered….by nature, and mathematics, physics and chemistry!
‘Megadrought Could Force California’s Lake Oroville Hydroelectric Power Plant To Shut Down’
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/megadrought-could-force-californias-lake-oroville-hydroelectric-power-plant-shut-down
RAPE of MOTHER EARTH .… Nature Inheriting the Stupidity of Men! …
This article is just another indicator of how fucked everything is:
‘Depleted Gas Stocks Force Europe To Use More Coal
By Tsvetana Paraskova – Jun 15, 2021, 2:00 PM CDT
With power demand recovering from the pandemic, European utilities are using more coal as natural gas inventories are unusually low for this time of the year due to a cold snap in late winter and early spring.
This year, despite the record-high carbon price in Europe, the use of coal for power generation has jumped by up to 15 percent, Andy Sommer, team leader of fundamental analysis and modeling at Swiss trader Axpo Solutions, told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.
“Gas storage is so low now that Europe cannot afford to run extra power generation with the fuel,” Sommer told Bloomberg.
Natural gas stockpiles are some 25 percent below the five-year average, and with such a right gas market, utilities run more coal-fired power generation, analysts say.
Europe had already started to restock with natural gas following a harsh winter that drained inventories when a cold snap in April caused unusual additional withdrawals from storage.
“A cold snap in April caused a counter-seasonal net withdrawal of inventory, worsening the storage situation which for several months has been running below seasonal averages,” Wood Mackenzie said in its Q2 LNG short-term trade and price outlook at the end of May.
Related: The Worst Setback For The Solar Boom In A Decade
As a result of the low levels of natural gas in storage, the price of the Dutch TTF gas, the European benchmark, has rallied by over 50 percent so far in 2021. Prices are close to the highest level for late spring since 2008, according to Bloomberg estimates.
With the ultra-tight gas market, power generation from coal is rising in Europe, despite the record-high EU carbon price, which exceeded US$60.50 (50 euro) per ton in early May.
The current situation with the power mix in Europe is indicative of the challenges the continent and the European Union face in their push to make the grids greener.
Coal use in power generation is also on the rise in the United States, where the price rally in natural gas is discouraging parts of gas-fired electricity generation and is set to give coal a short-term boost this summer.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Depleted-Gas-Stocks-Force-Europe-To-Use-More-Coal.html
Over 1 Million People Died in 2017 From Fossil Fuels Being Burned, Study Finds
This is of course, not enough dead to persuade the overlords from continuing to perpetuate this insanity.
Assuming that this 1 million figure could be applied to the last several decades, that’s roughly 24 million dead. Obviously, still to low a number to get humans to change their ways.
The “cost of business” and perpetuating the status-quo to enrich the plantation owners continues, despite “the dead”. Your life is factually worthless in other words, no different then the ants we step on or the fish we murder or the caged animals we slaughter.
It makes little difference where you live, it’s going to get you some time:
‘A tornado ripped through Papatoetoe and Wiri yesterday morning, damaging 1200 homes, 60 of which are uninhabitable. A worker at a container freight hub in Wiri died in the high winds and two others were injured.’
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/tornadoes-hit-too-fast-to-predict-meteorologist/ar-AALdLzF?ocid=msedgntp
How common are tornadoes in NZ? I have no idea.
Tornadoes used to be rather uncommon, and were usually very small, affecting just a few properties in a short duration event.
It is noticeable that the frequency and size has increased over the past couple of decades. Small by America standards -entire towns flattened- but still a ‘headwind for people struggling to survive in a nation that has been stripped of everything that it could be stripped of.
Could it be superheated oceans and heat shifting to the atmosphere that is causing the increased intensity and frequency of ‘weather events? (Rhetorical question.)
Methinks we are in for an ‘interesting’ few days (or weeks) in the South Island: land that has not recovered from the recent severe flooding is being subjected to continuous heavy rain.
Meanwhile, the eastern portion of the North Island is ‘a mess’.
‘Parts of Gisborne and East Cape have been inundated with areas of flash flooding as wild weather, which wreaked havoc in south Auckland on Saturday, moves down country.
Earlier on Sunday, a part of State Highway 35 between Tolaga Bay and Gisborne was completely underwater, and a number of roads in the area remain closed due to flooding.
Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz said she was “happy to report” that river levels were now going down and a heavy rain warning in the area had been lifted. She also said SH35 north and south of Tokomaru Bay was now open after having been closed earlier today.
“We have had huge amounts of rain,” she told Newshub, adding that some residents decided to self-evacuate from their homes during the wild weather.
MetService meteorologist Mmathapelo Makgabutlane said more than 100mm of rain had fallen in some parts of northern Gisborne over the past 12 hours.
She said some places had recorded over 30mm of rain in one hour, which is “quite a downpour”.
“That’s quite a lot of rain to fall in such a short period of time.”
Most of the rain fell when a front moving southwards down the North Island hit the area around 7-9am on Sunday morning, she said.
Earlier on Sunday, Tokomaru Bay local Gina Pewhairangi told Newshub the situation was “quite bad” though the rain had now subsided.
“[There’s] a lot of floating vehicles gone out to sea, a few caravans – but no casualties so far,” she said.
Stoltz said she had not heard any reports of vehicles floating away.
According to Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, State Highway 35 at Potaka, near the intersection with Lottin Point Rd, remained closed due to a slip, and Stoltz said it would probably take a day or two to clear the slip.
She urged anyone who could put off their travel to do so.
“If you don’t have to travel on State Highway 35 today please don’t.”
Gisborne District Councillor Bill Burdett said there was “quite a bit of damage” in Ruatoria.
“There’s water everywhere,” he said. “It’s quite a mess.
“I can’t tell you what it’s like on the other side of Ruatoria but from all accounts it’s pretty rough.”
He said it was still too early for residents to begin thinking about cleaning up and urged them to “stay home, be safe and keep the family alongside [you]”.
“Once this settles, and it looks like it’s starting to settle, then we can see how much damage has been done.”
The wet weather comes after a suspected tornado hit south Auckland yesterday damaging hundreds of homes and killing one person.’
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/it-s-a-mess-wild-weather-causes-flooding-slips-in-gisborne-east-cape/ar-AALdOdo?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
This deserves widespread publicity:
‘The Paradox of “Clean” EVs and the “Dirty” Lithium Mining Business’
‘Electrical vehicles (EVs) are commonly hailed as something of a panacea to combating the issue of climate change. By dispensing with “dirty” and polluting combustion engines, these all-electric modes of transport are, so it is claimed, just the ticket for a greener, more sustainable future.
But, is this really true?
To answer this, let’s take a long hard look at the validity of EV’s “green credentials.” …..
What is the environmental impact of EVs?
https://interestingengineering.com/clean-evs-and-dirty-lithium-mining-business
Good article.
Ultimately, there is no such thing as a free lunch (or green energy, EV, etc.).
I always question the notion that “more technology” will solve human-created problems. It rarely works out that way. Energy consumption still goes up; waste streams (pollution) still increases; and dangerous byproducts are still released, inevitably (air, water, soil) affecting human health and pretty much every species known and unknown to mankind.
Just because we “can” develop a new technology doesn’t mean we should or that we will understand the effects until much later (and often, too late). The constant demand for more energy and allegedly, “cheaper” alternatives always winds up having terminal side-effects. Basically, the industries ALWAYS lie about these dangers and act like they’re a non-issue, when the exact opposite proves to be true, every time.