Category Archives: Biosphere

Climate change versus Tipping Points

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Everyone with a television or a radio knows the climate is shifting. Typically, scientists and weather broadcasters will cite old weather records that are broken by today’s storms, flooding, drought and heat, inching up in small amounts each year. Generally, the public acknowledges these unusual changes but often dismisses them as part of a slow and probably long-term condition.

Scientists have begun redefining ‘climate change’ as a series of increasingly disastrous events called tipping points. For example, Vermont, a no-news weather area, has had its second 100-year storm in roughly a decade. This likely could not have happened twenty or thirty years ago but the ‘slow creep’ of statistics has reached a point where new conditions permit sudden disruptions in climate that were not previously possible.

Several nations around the world have experienced economic collapse because of new levels of turbulence, drought or flooding. Rather than defining these news events as a gradual increase in the effects of global warming, scientists have recognized them as notable events that were not possible in the past and identify them as ‘tipping points’.

For the past ten years or so, scientists have used annual statistics to predict that turbulent times will occur between 2030 and the end of the century. Today, however, there is a correlation for climate change based on tipping points. In each instance tipping points become more disruptive.

To be metaphoric about it, we are accustomed to watching the weather train go by but that is no longer appropriate. We should be watching cluster bombs explode and consider the circumstances should the cluster bombs become nuclear bombs.

How can we cry “Uncle” to Mother Nature?

Mariner has his sunscreen, hard hat, flippers and an innertube ready to go at his apartment in Chicken Little’s hen house.

Ancient Mariner

About Fabric

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Has the reader noticed that among cloth generally, there are many different fabrics? Each has a unique feel to it. For example, one can clearly tell the difference between silk and denim, or suede and wool, or nylon and hemp. What if, in fact, all cloth felt the same? Would that not really matter? Cloth is cloth and it’s the fashion that is important; it’s usability for whatever; it’s the style that counts; it’s what is popular that matters more.

In virtually every fiction book and film where mariner has observed ‘the future of mankind’, the plot is about humans becoming nondescript, that is, the fabric of life changes. It happens in a piecemeal way. Consider what effect the internal combustion engine had on daily society: Towns no longer had to be only twenty miles apart because that was the limit of a day’s horse ride; agriculture shifted from local market to national market; shared resources among large, stationary families shifted to independent career income no longer bound to the home town or the family.

Even the fabric of riverside cities changed from river shipping to rail, leaving dozens of river towns with dwindling resources. Today local business, the enjoyment of life, the vitality of society is a pale remembrance. Perhaps it could be said these towns lost their fabric.

Readers will quickly challenge loss of fabric versus endless increases in the economy, freedom of new life opportunities, better health services, etc. After all, it’s not about fabric, it’s usability, fashion and style that counts.

Several months ago he read a book, ‘The Way Home – tales from a life without technology’ by Mark Boyle. It is an accounting of Boyle, an economist, who deliberately spent three years without money – zero dollars. The only economy he had was what he could muster with his own hands. What gave him the idea to retreat from industrial society was that he was aware of what it took to pump a glass of water from the ground; it required steel, copper, plastic, dams and endless pipelines including what to do with wastewater. It wasn’t about Mark Boyle being thirsty nor was it about any other individual being thirsty. Individuals were nothing more than a device used to discharge water from a very large, self-important industry.

His key discovery was that the farther away a human is from his core, natural environment, the more damage is done to that environment. His second discovery was that the few families that were close enough to his cabin to interact, were genuinely friendly and willing to help Boyle survive in his stark environment. He and his few neighbors came first instead of last. They had human fabric.

For more philosophical insight into the idea that humans are at the center of life, not abusive corporate trashing of the biosphere, read Gandhi.

Ancient Mariner

 

Does anyone have a plot line?

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By Wiley:

Is it possible that our eager scientists are consumed by the phrase, “I do it because I can”? Is Homo sapiens ready for an automated lifestyle? Is the biosphere ready for Homo sapiens to have an automated lifestyle?

Scientists have created Xenobots, computer cells that can reproduce. Even Steven Hawking predicted this will be the demise of humanity.

Over the millennia, humans have learned to adapt to significant changes in the biosphere status quo; everything from ice ages to rocket ships and nuclear bombs. But each epoch was singular – just one at a time.

It isn’t the same today. There is AI, collapsing nationalism, global warming, social abuse, over-population and the waning of Adam Smith economics.

Can we Homos handle it?

Ancient Mariner

Amos and Worster

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Mariner was questioned “Who is Amos?” referring to the mention of that name in the last post. Mariner apologizes for having an empty page under the Heading ‘About the Author’ which has been blank for several months. Somehow, it was deleted.

Just a short precis of its contents: Mariner writes his post with the aid of three alter egos: Chicken Little, named for his namesake who thought the sky was falling and always assumed the worst in any situation; Amos, named for his namesake from the Book of Amos in the Old Testament who with earnestness chastised the religious authority of his time until he was assassinated; Guru, named for his namesake in the comic section of the newspapers who is preoccupied with esoteric, intensely intellectual theories of no relevance. Thus, mariner’s posts are assured of clarity, facts, and a comprehensive view of the world.

On to today’s post.

Having read Donald Worster’s book, The Wealth of Nature, mariner has given some thought to Worster’s hope that global society, perhaps through the absence of potable water, perhaps social conflict that collapses global economies, even perhaps the result of nuclear war, it may be that in order to survive, humans will have to return to a respectful relationship with a sparse environment.

Instead of sending humanity down the bottomless hole of AI, imagine that Mother Nature has an equal force on society. Season the next fifty years with the spice of the Maga movement and similar movements across Africa and the Middle East, the growing stress from free-ranging oligarchy, the demise of Ukraine, a collapse of world security by disrupting the Internet, then stir back in the destructive powers of an uncontrolled weather system, impending solar activity and little if any arable land.

Would this concoction be enough to create a throwback in human history? Could humanity be forced to become a member of the Earth’s ecosystem without fossil fuel? Such reversing phenomena have occurred many times as Planet Earth evolved. Consider the restart of the animal kingdom 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period).

By 2100 might it be important to protect arable land for individual survival? Will everyone have to own a couple of ponies?

Ancient Mariner

Pick your worries

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There must be dozens of worries from which to choose. Perhaps start with some of the big ones: A failing democracy, the collapse of religion, war with China, Trump becomes President, Social Security gets chopped, housing for normal Americans gets worse, Health industry collapses, public schools can’t educate anymore.

Mariner opts for the war with Mother Earth – global warming/climate change. The time is approaching when all the other worries will disappear because of extreme disruption to global economics, agriculture, viable living zones and human migration on a scale that has never been experienced. Governments will not be able to pay for wars, although groups of rebels around the world will cause as much destruction. Plutocracy will worsen then collapse as The US runs short on funding.

ProPublica, a much awarded and exceptional news company, published a report titled, “Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment”. One paragraph is presented below:

“The notion of a climate niche is based on work the researchers first published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020, which established that for the past 6,000 years humans have gravitated toward a narrow range of temperatures and precipitation levels that supported agriculture and, later, economic growth. That study warned that warming would make those conditions elusive for growing segments of humankind and found that while just 1% of the earth’s surface is now intolerably hot, nearly 20% could be by 2070.”

 Add to that thought rising oceans wiping out the viability of dozens of nations, even making large areas of land become flooded or submerged. Current tax structures will be changed dramatically as the United States begins to feel social and economic pressures that remind us of World War II America. In the 1930s and 40s, the tax philosophy was to tax the rich so the poor would not have to underwrite government expenses. FDR, for example, put a 100 percent tax on income over $25,000 (about $500,000 today).

One wonders whether the new facemask telephones will matter even though they are one step closer to Matrix reality. The world’s environment is up in arms and that will dictate our pleasures. Can Alexa and Siri keep up?

Ancient Mariner

Mother Earth and humans

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When mariner worked as a project manager, he learned that certain individuals made it difficult to run the project. For many reasons related to power insecurity, bad personality, uncontrolled desire to change objectives and other distracting behaviors, these individuals were overhead that was not helping.

As a necessity to survive and complete the project, he developed a technique that avoided confrontation but indirectly suppressed the person’s interference. He calls it “taking away cards”. Here is a simple example:

You have a chain-smoking relative who prefers not to drive the car so they always ask you to buy cigarettes for them. You are concerned about their heavy smoking. You take away their control card by saying, “I don’t have time right now; I must do something else right now. Why don’t you buy your cigarettes?” Either the relative goes without or must resolve their distaste to drive. You, however, have avoided a face-to-face shout down. With luck, you may have altered a pattern of behavior.

Mother Earth is using this technique with humans. Some examples:

  • If you continue to pollute the air, I’ll stop enforcing dependable weather patterns.
  • If you continue to trash the environment and killing thousands of creatures, I’ll take away your clean water.
  • If you continue to make matters worse, I’ll melt all the ice at the poles and release methane from deep permafrost.
  • If you don’t learn to live within the constraints of your habitat, I’ll remove the habitat.

These are not future threats; they’ve been growing for decades if not centuries. Mother Earth is about to take away our control cards. Someone tell the fossil fuel industry.

Ancient Mariner

As we roll to 2024

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Mariner knows he puts out a lot of negative stuff (if he ever hears of a positive stuff, he’ll headline it). However, this paragraph below from 538, a respected pollster and sports oddsmaker, represents an assignment to each and every democrat and independent individual:

“Today, FiveThirtyEight is launching our national polling average for the 2024 Republican presidential primary. It shows former President Donald Trump receiving 49.3 percent of the national vote and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who has not officially entered the race) receiving 26.2 percent. Former Vice President Mike Pence, another potential candidate, is at 5.8 percent, while declared candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is at 4.3 percent.”

The assignment is this. Participate in local politics; put up a sign; make sure your friends and neighbors know your political position; donate (only) to your preferred local candidate; and, of course, attend the party’s local caucus and vote on election day!! (Congress is important, too – just beating on it doesn’t do any good; ever heard of beating a dead horse? Let’s elect a new young one!)

These are not normal times. In fact, they are a bit scary for every human around the world, not just democrats. 2024 is unique and the future 25 years will role out heavily influenced by the 2024 election.

Perhaps we should get 88 year-old Chuck Grassly (R-IA) and 80 year-old Joe Biden to run against each other in 2024. Then there would be only one theme: “Make America Eden Again”.

Just to prove the pudding, here’s some positive stuff from Science Magazine:

“A novel cancer vaccine tailored to genetic changes in a person’s tumor is showing promise in the clinic. In a study of about 150 people who had surgery for melanoma, a type of skin cancer, those given a personalized vaccine along with an immunotherapy drug were more likely to remain free of cancer 18 months later than patients who did not receive the vaccine.”

Ancient mariner

Odd-lot stuff

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֎ The use of extracted Phosphorus by humans is becoming a serious issue. Every living thing in nature uses Phosphorus to survive but it is in a chemically bound form that exists in nature. It is part of bones, part of plant material, part of rock, part of every known plant and animal.

As early as the 1600s humans learned to concentrate Phosphorus using various forms of composting. Today huge chemical factories extract Phosphorus so pure it bursts into flame if not kept under water. The Phosphorus is rebound with inert fillers which become the second number in garden fertilizers. Agriculture worldwide uses concentrated Phosphorus to grow more productive products. Unfortunately, farming is the source of major amounts of Phosphorus draining into bodies of water.

Nature is not used to having free Phosphorus any more than we are used to having free health care. Extracted, free-form Phosphorus is what causes algae bloom in water and was chemically severe enough to shut down public water drawn from the Great Lakes.

֎ From the other end of the climate change field, local fishing companies along the Atlantic Ocean are being threatened by wind towers. It seems private equity has invested in wind farms and has the money and political power to disregard concerns about local fishing industries. Wind tower property would be off limits to fishing.

֎ A new definition for ‘public health’: Federal Trade Commission announced that it had fined prescription discount site and telehealth provider GoodRx $1.5 million for sharing customer data with Google, Facebook and other firms, then in March hit online therapy provider BetterHelp with a $7.8 million levy for sharing customer data.

֎ Finally, why mariner knows Mother Earth will win the global warming war. From NPR:

“Red States Are Trying To Fight The World On Climate

By Maggie Koerth

State Rep. Jeff Hoverson didn’t want anyone getting in the way of using fossil fuels in North Dakota. Not the United Nations. Not international nonprofits. Certainly not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So he made a law to stop them. In March, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill that Hoverson co-authored with a state senator. It’s short, sweet and to the point: “A climate control-related regulation of an international organization, either directly through the organization or indirectly through law or regulation, is not enforceable on this state.”

Hoverson told me he isn’t sure what that will mean the next time the federal government wants to sign a climate treaty. Frankly, he’d prefer the feds not have that kind of power, anyway. But while his law stands out for the scope of its ambitions, it’s not exactly an outlier in its spirit. Across the country, bills pushing back against climate policy have been a trend this legislative session, with multiple states proposing — and passing — laws that would undermine efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

Ancient Mariner

 

At the front edge

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In case you needed to know, an ant can live up to five years if lucky but the average life span is less than one month.

Recent subjects from the thinking class are that we are amid a protracted inversion of political parties where eventually republicans will endorse discretionary spending for health and other needs and the haughty, wealthy college graduates will become conservatives. This has happened twice in the history of the US but in today’s multitude of conflagrations, it is hard to find a stable place to stand from which to gain perspective.

In the past, legislative manipulation was used to protect special interests. Today, the government is a full-blown plutocracy where the special interests run the government. Another difference is the presence of social media, which can raise angry armies in a few days. The third difference is the international confusion; today, the oceans don’t help isolate the US politic – take Tik-Tok for example.

Interfering with the pace of political change is the current societal transition from the boomers through the retiring millennials to the zee generation.

It used to be a war was a war. Today, there are about 12 major independent wars happening at once and the US is involved in most of them.

As followers of the news know, each of the items listed above is disruptive to a united party, and the social issues of abortion, drugs and sexual variability haven’t been counted. Nor has the biggest player, planet Earth, been considered – we may not have the money for two different parties.

Another think-tank issue is that there is a good chance Florida and Louisiana will not be around in fifty years, nor the Caribbean islands. The scientific fact is that all the new water will move to the Equator more than it will to other parts of the planet. The Earth is a large spinning ball; water will be subject to centrifugal force, sending it to the farthest location from the center of the Earth – near the Equator.

Well, it’s Spring. Get the bike out and pedal around for a while. Gardens are starting to show a lot of color and the breeze is finally warm.

Ancient Mariner

Are humans and the biosphere still in the Pleistocene?

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Traces of Homo genes have been found that existed more than 600,000 years ago but the variation that represents the beginning of humans as we would define them today (Homo sapiens) appeared about 300,000 years ago.

Here is a picture of our Great Grandfather:

Homo heidelbergensis

 

 

 

300,000 years ago is before the Industrial Revolution. It is before the invention of the wheel. It is before the idea of government. It is before rafts. It is before American slavery. It is before George Washington. It is before Texas and New York. It is even so far back that Henry Louis Gates Junior can’t trace ancestors on his “Finding Your Roots” show.

The point is this: We are 99.9 percent the same creature that walked around buck naked in the Pleistocene. The .1 percent that continued to evolve was the ability to have abstract thoughts – thoughts and imaginings that weren’t real. To this day our limbic system is confused and can’t tell what is real. There is no physiological chemistry designed to respond to railroad trains.

How did Homo sapiens relate to the environment? It’s a difficult question to answer. For a long time, Pleistocene folks were classified as herbivores who survived primarily by eating roots and grasses that are still around today. However, recent discoveries at one site showed plenty of bones. Most of the animal bones came from gazelles. Among the other remains were hartebeests, wildebeests, zebras, buffalo, porcupines, hares, tortoises, freshwater mollusks, snakes and ostrich eggshells.

It is unlikely that early man kept gazelles and buffalo in body-sized cages as modern man does. Our ancestors had to chase them down. That is why the limbic system is confused by railroad trains. An interesting footnote to this paragraph is that only 20 percent of water-sourced food remains from averages posted just 50 years ago. Something is happening that is different from the last 300,000 years. Further, arable land is disappearing due to many things from population to industrial consumption to climate change.

Speaking of climate change, it is not coincidental that Homo sapiens has been able to populate the planet in the blink of an eye – given evolutionary timelines. Generally speaking, the planet has been tough on life since the beginning. Consider an ice age that lasted millions of years and in modern times can run 200,000 years without blinking an eye. Volcanic eruptions are another phenomenon that raises its disturbances every so many thousand years. But fortunately, scientists have noted a very still, cooperative and generous period for the last 300,000 years.

But now there is foreboding activity. It is true that modern Pleistocene man has trashed the climate, biosphere and has driven the animal kingdom to extinction – that’s the result of abstract thinking. But Homo is not the only driver of change. Most of the methane comes from deep in the Earth, from a time before rafts were invented. Further, volcanoes seemed disturbed by an unbalanced spinning of the Earth’s core. Scientists already have proven that the planet has entered a stage where the polarity will switch – something that happens over many years but can be disruptive. Will polar bears and penguins have to switch places?

Let’s not add any significance to Donald but doesn’t he look like an old Homo heidelbergensis? Then, so does mariner’s Great Aunt Denise.

Good Luck Zees!

Ancient Mariner