Human existence has weaponised the environment

David Wallace – Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future, tells us a truth we must, by now, all understand. He says it is “…the end of normal” because ” we have already exited the state of environmental conditions that allowed the human animal to evolve in the first place…”

Another quote describing the cycle of Nature’s rage against us:

“A warming planet leads to melting Arctic ice, which means less sunlight reflected back to the sun and more absorbed by a planet warming faster still, which means an ocean less able to absorb atmospheric carbon and so a planet warming faster still. A warming planet will also melt Arctic permafrost, which contains 1.8 trillion tons of carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the earth’s atmosphere, and some of which, when it thaws and is released, may evaporate as methane, which is thirty-four times as powerful a greenhouse-gas warming blanket as carbon dioxide when judged on the timescale of a century; when judged on the timescale of two decades, it is eighty-six times as powerful. 80, 81 A hotter planet is, on net, bad for plant life, which means what is called “forest dieback”—the decline and retreat of jungle basins as big as countries and woods that sprawl for so many miles they used to contain whole folklores—which means a dramatic stripping-back of the planet’s natural ability to absorb carbon and turn it into oxygen, which means still hotter temperatures, which means more dieback, and so on. Higher temperatures means more forest fires means fewer trees means less carbon absorption, means more carbon in the atmosphere, means a hotter planet still—and so on.

A warmer planet means more water vapor in the atmosphere, and, water vapor being a greenhouse gas, this brings higher temperatures still—and so on. Warmer oceans can absorb less heat, which means more stays in the air, and contain less oxygen, which is doom for phytoplankton—which does for the ocean what plants do on land, eating carbon and producing oxygen—which leaves us with more carbon, which heats the planet further. And so on. These are the systems climate scientists call “feedbacks”; there are more. 82 Some work in the other direction, moderating climate change. But many more point toward an acceleration of warming, should we trigger them. And just how these complicated, countervailing systems will interact—what effects will be exaggerated and what undermined by feedbacks—is unknown, which pulls a dark cloud of uncertainty over any effort to plan ahead for the climate future. We know what a best-case outcome for climate change looks like, however unrealistic, because it quite closely resembles the world as we live on it today. But we have not yet begun to contemplate those cascades that may bring us to the infernal range of the bell curve.”

You can start reading this book for free: https://amzn.eu/8xz0ylh

Now we are face to face with an impasse. On the one hand, we insist we cannot manage our lives without a dependence on fossil fuels, yet knowing the industrial pollution has resulted in excessive greenhouse gas production; and on the other hand a global energy crisis is forcing us to reduce our usage of fossil fuels, which will cause many to die of cold this winter.

The First World may soon be reduced to a Third World existence. Yet still humanity will not pull together to form a coherent rescue plan for the planet. Instead, brutal wars are still on going, and those making excessive profits from their industries simply plan for growth. The age-old models of ruthless, selfish ‘winner takes all’ philosophy still prevails, and all that remains is a gasping planet, its wondrous beauty diminishing each day.

https://www.eumetsat.int/flooding-russia-due-winter-snow-melt

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/california-fire-homeless.html

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/homelessness-and-climate-crisis

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-doomsday-sudanese-worse.html

https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/more-than-half-of-pakistan-affected-by-floods-millions-homeless-1.90155502

https://caufsociety.com/homelessness-in-africa

The list of links of homelessness caused by excessive and extraordinary natural events is endless. Disease, malnutrition, no clean drinking water, no land on which to grow food, no shelter from further weather events….and on and on.

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Redirecting floodwater into aquifer

For some years now the pattern of drought followed by flooding is experienced in many countries.

Serious reduction in water levels in aquifers causes drinking water shortages.

It is therefore necessary to build a system which directs flood waters into refilling aquifers so as not to waste all the surface water.

There is plenty of research explaining how this could be done.

https://news.stanford.edu/2021/04/21/new-tool-aims-amplify-groundwater-floodwater

An example given is the flooding of vineyards which increased groundwater at the Terranova Ranch, near Fresno, California which diverted water from a full flood-control channel.

An excellent explanation of the action of groundwater is here:

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/groundwater-flows-underground#overview

  • This is an extract:
  • During the rainstorm water soaked into the ground in the hill above the driveway. As happens with water below ground, it started moving along underground layers of soil and rock that are porous enough to allow water to move through it. After a storm, water doesn’t move straight down into the ground, but, rather, it moves both downward and horizontally along permeable layers. The water is moving downhill (“down-gradient”) toward a creek at the bottom of the hill.Normally, the water would just flow underground to the bottom of the hill and seep out of the stream banks into the creek. But here the driveway was dug deep enough into the ground so that it cut into the permeable layer of soil that carries the underground water downhill. Thus, you can see groundwater seepage coming to the surface.By the way, it is seepage such as this that helps keep water flowing in many creeks and streams during periods of drought…….

Drought conditions are depriving wildlife of life sustaining water. Many animals have died as a result. Yet water lies beneath the ground, such as the Sahara.

Here is an extract from a report dated 2012:

Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.

They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.

The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.

Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters , they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies.

Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water……

The BBC covered the finding at

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17775211

Why hasn’t the funding been made available to exploit this resource?

Many countries and major cities like Mexico City, are suffering from drought and yet this predicted problem, due to climate change, has not been acted upon to create resilience against this threat to life, to all living things.

In Canada the importance of wetlands in times of drought has been highlighted:

https://fourtownjournal.com/wetlands-and-drought

Here is an extract:

The challenge is to move away from simply responding to crises with aid and instead develop a more proactive resource management approach that identifies risk and targets programs such as wetland protection and restoration to reduce that risk. Building resilience lessens the need for costly crisis-oriented government interventions. We need to conserve wetlands rather than pay billions of dollars for drought aid. We need to put programs and incentives in place to make it worthwhile for farmers to retain those wetlands and safeguard the benefits they provide our watersheds. We need governments promoting wetland protection policies not drainage policies. Sadly, Saskatchewan is still the only Province without a Wetland Protection Policy and WSA continues to develop drainage projects in the face of drought and climate change. We are being “hydro-illogical”. 

For more information about wetlands and watershed stewardship, and the Lower Qu’Appelle Watershed Stewards visit: https://www.lqws.ca

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Power Grid Vulnerabilities

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the power sector accounted for nearly two-thirds of global emissions growth in 2018, with coal use for power generation alone producing 10 Gt of CO 2.

Many countries have ageing nuclear power stations. They are not renewable. France is proud of its history of cheap and clean electricity.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

Wind and solar renewables involve production using rare resources to build them and manufacturing processes which involve fossil fuels extensively.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-materials-are-used-make-wind-turbines

https://www.clean-energy-ideas.com/solar/solar-panels/the-different-materials-used-to-make-solar-panels/

Nuclear fission is a clean energy process but needs electricity from the existing fossil fuel powered grid to create the electric arc which builds the plasma.

https://www.conservationinstitute.org/how-plasma-generator/

Power Grids are vulnerable to natural disasters which happen on a more regular basis due to climate change.

Nuclear Power plants are vulnerable in times of war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/08/how-dangerous-is-the-situation-at-the-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant

As we know, all heavily bombed countries, like Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Tigray, Lebanon, Palestine……. all lose their functioning infrastructure including the vital power grid.

And then there is the thousands of miles of pipelines required for the carbon capture plan……(snake oil hard sell?)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/carbon-capture-is-incredibly-expensive-and-makes-a-difference-only-at-the-edges/ar-AAZNidI

All pipelines are targets in conflicts.

It is additionally egregious to see wind farms destroyed after construction in Africa, as in Tigray, or thermal power plants blown up in Ukraine. When we try to be future proof, we cannot protect from the insanity of war.

But humans do try against the odds to build on what we have always known about carbon capture.

Support indigenous people and read about their rescue and commitment to wetlands previously botched by cattle farmers, now helping with carbon capture:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/australia-wetlands-restoration

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Wildfires and Power Grids: Redesign needed

One definition of fossil fuels:

https://www.britannica.com/science/fossil-fuel

And most of us are acutely aware of these and of our dependency.

Whilst using alternatives for producing energy to power the electricity we need at the most basic level is a priority, we also measure the carbon footprint of production of renewables. There is no scaleable model which can prove zero carbon footprint.

As wildfires threaten electricity infrastructure, the whole networked design also needs a rethink.

https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/testimony/out-control-impact-wildfires-our-power-sector-and-environment

The power grid can also cause wildfires.

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3594389-wildfire-and-electric-grid-crisis-requires-long-term-planning-rather-than-rapid-response/

As wildfires rage, carbon emissions soar.

Where forests are in hilly areas, once they burn down and then rain falls, there is nothing to hold the land and landslides occur. It takes decades, even centuries, to grow forests to retain land, to help the planet breathe. Now once spectacular forests are lost and the land cannot hold against heavy rain.

Consider this:

The World’s Oldest Underground Fire Has Been Burning For 6,000 Years

https://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-oldest-underground-fire-has-been-burning-fo-1539049759

The fire fighters in Gironde, South Western France, have reported fires running underground and igniting miles away from the fires they were fighting. Some 30 or so fires were emerging at the same time.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/13/qlvw-a13.html

We are in a cycle of harm, as usual. We are on the back foot because we did not have the sense to redesign our ageing infrastructure 100 years ago. We are too busy fighting each other for scarce resources, and the fighting produces more carbon footprint, more emissions, more contamination of our precious planet.

Don’t drown out the voices of those who have the solutions because their ideas don’t produce a quick investment return. But also beware of snake oil salesmen, and invest in those who can prove sustainable redesign and build projects. Save lives and do no harm.

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The earth cannot take it any more

https://theconversation.com/human-disruption-to-earths-freshwater-cycle-has-exceeded-the-safe-limit-our-research-shows-182562

Please read the above. Learn how each of us can stay informed and help with solutions. We cannot be silent or passive. We can help if we use our 7 billion minds together.

See how young scientists are working on Tech Solutions:

https://www.climatetrace.org/

My notes made some years ago
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Oil Plunder

Virunga National Park, home, to the last mountain gorillas and people of the Congo, has been placed in a deal to auction off the precious territory to countries like the US and UK so they can drill for oil!

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/07/25/world/congo-auction-land-oil-companies

This is a major and significant betrayal of all those posturing leaders who have promoted climate change pledges.

Fossil fuels must be allowed to decline. PLEASE – NO MORE DRILLING FOR NEW OIL SOURCES. WE KNOW WE ARE TIPPING INTO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE ALREADY.

Whatever we do from this day forward to innovate we must first establish with evidence our activities WILL DO NO HARM.

Clearly, DRILLING in new territory oil WILL DO GREAT HARM. We all know the immense poverty of the Congolese will not be changed by this auction. The rich will get richer as always.

https://www.awf.org/pressroom/iucn-africa-protected-areas-congress-culminates-kigali-call-action?ms=B23N01E03M&af=aUGcATiWFTZ2JSL9EEC62qp0uZUvWUEi%2BvVX3FNSQWZuw0kMNZjZm95oD8o5WMbnrucktUqyhaYE4CpVqae59fL%2BfzEWeurUcvV9enbDNN8%3D&spMailingID=27082657&spUserID=MTkyNTk5MjIwNzczS0&spJobID=2244093764&spReportId=MjI0NDA5Mzc2NAS2

Understanding Carbon Credits:

https://www.desmog.com/2022/07/28/murky-world-of-carbon-offsets-faces-greater-scrutiny/

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The Sand is Running Out

This metaphor is so appropriate as we miss deadlines for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, as we plunder finite resources to intensely build renewables and electricity storage technology, thus expanding the greenwashing message.

We cannot unlearn the centuries of intelligent technological development. We rightly pride ourselves in these magnificent achievements and we are still excelling. We love and wonder at our economic miracles based on technology in all spheres. We cannot stop. We will not stop. We will go down with the ship. We are committed.

I recognise my efforts to study how we have evolved to become such a threat to this incredibly wonderful planet has led me to this sad conclusion. The last straw was when I read of another start-up brilliant idea from two young Finnish entrepreneurs – to store electricity using a sand battery.

Sand Battery

It is such a clever idea. Like all solutions it will have to harm the planet immeasurably if it is to be mass produced. I have written of the harm lithium batteries cause, but sand seems so much kinder.

So I asked myself, as I was impressed with the concept, has the Earth enough sand to meet the demand it currently has provided, let alone add to the demand created this new invention?

It didn’t take long to find a blog on the subject.

That blog highlighted a 2019 UN Report on the problem urging global governance of this scarce resource.

Everything we try to do to combat climate change involves us doing what we know best: plunder the remaining resources this Earth can offer to create products which are widely sold to tell us we are using them to combat climate change.

Rivers are the source of the gritty sand which is in demand here.

Builders Sand

The alarming destruction is rarely put before us as the crisis it is. The Guardian tackled the issue here.

From Cambodia to California, industrial-scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die, local trade to wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly valuable resource is unlikely to let up……

Greenpeace has been campaigning on this subject for a long time. But maybe people do not take any notice as they say, ‘well they would, they are Greenpeace’ as if they are bored with their continual efforts to protect our planet.

Combine Fracking with Sand mining and you get appalling ecological harm. In this linked article it says:

The journal Science reported that there have been over 300 earthquakes above magnitude 3 on the Richter scale, which are therefore deemed significant, from 2010 to 2012. This equates to 100 a year – which is compared with a past average of 21 per year.

But there is no protection of any real meaning as the gas obtained has turned around the economy of the US, which in turn is keeping gas supplied to many nations who would otherwise have to seek it from less friendly nations.

Everything we do to keep our endeavors moving forward, in the way we have chosen through technology, is causing immense harm to the planet. We do not appear to have any alternative ideas going by what the corporate world presents to us.

Given the will, emissions can be reduced effectively without adverse consequence: see

https://www.watttime.org/

We can make immediate changes if we use our well documented intelligence. Maybe we are really not that clever? Or are we being led by the nose to inevitable destruction through Greenwashing techniques and investments in destructive processes?

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Agricultural solutions

I have just watched a Euronews coverage of how enterprising solutions have enabled Algerian farmers to utilise the water table below the desert and renewable electricity to grow potatoes and other foods in specially cultivated areas. Watch at:

https://www.euronews.com/2022/06/27/from-sand-to-spuds-how-algeria-galvanised-its-agricultural-sector

This made me think to look for more ideas around the world to help farmers. I will keep looking and adding to this page.

Sustainable farming in a drought without irrigation, California:

https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-august/real-sustainability-dry-farming-in-a-drought

Imperial College, London, pointing out possible nature based solutions when combating the effects of climate change:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232336/nature-based-solutions-mitigate-impact-climate-change

And we can avoid pesticides to clear weeds. Just use goats!

https://www.goatsforweeds.ca/post/why-goats-are-better-than-pesticides

Those who live in poverty in Brazil are gardening their way to healthier eating:

https://m.dw.com/en/the-thriving-gardens-at-the-heart-of-rio-de-janeiros-favelas/a-61377873

Decontaminating soil before growing vegetables:

https://www.thriftyfun.com/Decontaminating-Soil-Before-Growing-Vegetables-1.html

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Does history tell us anything?

I read this recently in Ruth Ben Ghiat’s book, Strongmen:

“The Cold War made Mobutu’s long rule and luxurious lifestyle possible. The age of decolonization marked a shift in the economic order, with the end of European empires bringing the removal of European state capital and the influx of new private and institutional investors. Mobutu’s pro-Western anti-Communism set him up to be a primary recipient of funds from Europeans and Americans who sought to contain the left and continue their influence in a postcolonial age. Over the years his champions and investors included his lobbyists Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, US ambassador to Zaire Sheldon B. Vance, and the family of French president Giscard d’Estaing. In the 1980s, the d’Estaings controlled construction-related businesses that accounted for almost a third of Zaire’s foreign debt. The IMF and the United States Export-Import Bank also lent Mobutu money, even after IMF banker Erwin Blumenthal warned in 1982 that they would likely never recoup their funds. By the time Mobutu was forced into exile in 1997, he had amassed a $5 billion fortune. Zaire lost $12 billion in capital flight and gained $14 billion in debt, with a 699.8 percent average annual rate of inflation and more than 70 percent of the population living in poverty on an average daily wage of $1.4.”

Is your mind connecting the dots? Depending on your personal perspective you may draw different conclusions to me as we now contemplate our present global crises.

Poverty and the associated pain of hunger, disease and shortened lives, seem to me to be linked to manipulations by those who have a psychopathic pleasure in perpetuating outcomes like the above.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains:

“Corruption is a process as well as a set of practices, and the word’s Latin and Old French origins imply a change of state due to decay. As implied by popular sayings like “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” corruption has always been associated with contamination and degradation, whether of physical objects (like fruit and computer files) or the soul. This notion of corruption captures the operation of strongman regimes. They turn the economy into an instrument of leader wealth creation, but also encourage changes in ethical and behavioral norms to make things that were illegal or immoral appear acceptable, whether election fraud, torture, or sexual assault.”

Democratic Republic of Congo was renamed Zaire by Mobutu. It has a long history of being rich in resources but exploited to this day. See

Africa: the suffering of DR Congo peoples

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When we rebuild

Bertrand Piccard says we must develop wisdom and respect. He is collecting 1000 solutions which exist already, but then will promote them to attract greater investments. We can rebuild whilst not recreating the harmful environments of the past centuries.

https://bertrandpiccard.com/articles/the-1000-solutions-call

Look for existing solutions yourself and try to work out how you can apply them wherever you live. For example, I just found this one today:

Hot sun drying up drinking water? This company have the answer (In the US)

https://energy.phoenixlb.com/source-hydropanels

Cleaning up steel industry slag heaps:

https://imtech.imt.fr/en/2021/02/17/decontaminating-and-treating-waste-from-the-steel-industry

Cleaning up contaminants from hazardous industries:

https://www.environmental-expert.com/health-safety/decontamination/companies

Keep track and decontaminate military waste. This is what happens if you do not:

https://redgreenandblue.org/2017/09/29/military-lost-track-hazardous-waste-put-us-risk

When the land is clean and healthy, only build green cities:

https://thegreencities.eu/

When industrial production and it’s waste was transferred to countries where labour was cheap and industrial regulation was weak, rich countries could clean up their environments and promote cleaner living conditions at the expense of poorer nations. The industrial harm worldwide must end.

Clean and safe water and sanitation for the world population is a priority:

https://ourworldindata.org/water-access

Drinking Water ATM

If you experience butter cold winter and heatwaves over summer, yet use gas to power heating, then build in to new homes air pumps which run warm air in winter and cold air in summer.

https://greenbusinesswatch.co.uk/guides/air-source-heat-pumps#:%7E:text=An%20air%20source%20heat%20pump%20works%20very%20much%20like%20a,compressor%20to%20increase%20the%20temperature

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