John Harte has written and spoken extensively to get the message details out to all of us (select video below)

From an Article by Douglas Fischer, Environmental Health News, June 22, 2022

How do you cut through the fog around climate change and get to a solution? Noted ecologist John Harte offers a fresh take on the dire topic of the climate crisis.

John Harte, a physicist-turned-ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, looks first to the mountains, then to the oceans and the ice, and then finally to the optimism that underpins so much political thought and action in the United States.

Speaking before the Humanist Science Committee in tiny Salida, Colorado, earlier this month, Harte used one slide to “demolish” deniers, one slide to show the real stakes—collapse of civilization—and the remainder of his chat to describe impacts he’s seen from a lifetime of research in the Rocky Mountains and where he sees hope.

“There is no question that the course we have been on for the last 60 years will lead to a crash,” he said. “But the alternative future is the careful transition to what we call a soft landing … where we need less than one Earth to support what we do on Earth.”

Global warming: Bad news ~ But first, bad news: Global warming is going to be worse than we thought, Harte said. Various feedbacks related to a warming planet—from increasing wildfires to hotter oceans to thawing permafrost—are not understood well enough to factor into predictive models.

“This is scary. These models are likely significantly underestimating the rise in atmospheric temperature that will likely occur from our current levels of climate-changing pollution.”

Harte, a senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s famed Energy and Resources Group, has spent a lifetime connecting dots — studying flowers in high mountain meadows for evidence of increasing fossil fuel emissions, looking at the “smoke and mirrors” behind geo-engineering and carbon sequestration.

Climate change solutions ~ Solutions, he says, are more politically achievable than most would consider given today’s polarized political environment:

1). Improve efficiency, including upping car mileage standards to 60 miles per gallon of gasoline, up from 35 mpg today, 2.) Expand clean, safe renewable energy, particularly home rooftop solar, 3.) Change personal consumption practices, 4.) Stop destroying forests, and 5.) Support reproductive freedom.

“Who are going to be the economic winners 50 years from now? They’re going to be the countries that made the greatest advances in solar energy and battery storage, in the technology needed to achieve a future without climate change,” Harte said.

“Selfishly, for the sake of our grandchildren and the economy they live under, we should be doing these things.”

The talk clocks in at just over an hour. But it’s a refreshing overview of a problem increasingly staring us all in the face. See the Vimeo video here.

https://vimeo.com/719687216

Kindle electronic edition now available at Amazon.com

From the Publisher’s Weekly Review, Amazon Website, Spring, 2022

As a sequel to “Notes from a Dying Planet, 2004-2006,” Brown’s eye-opening and often terrifying survey explores what has happened to Earth regarding overpopulation, mass extinction, and climate change in the last two decades.

Aiming to provoke action, Brown painstakingly– and unstintingly– lays out the evidence, drawn from hundreds of articles and studies, of what he calls the “planetary death,” detailing the uptick in extreme weather and climate-related catastrophes, the warning signs that too often languish unheeded, and the likely increasingly horrific disasters we can expect in the future. While he never sugarcoats anything, Brown also offers guidance to steps that readers can take to mitigate these compounding dangers — if we as a species really do want to continue living on the planet we call home.

Brown’s core message — that we have very little time to make massive, life-altering changes in order to save life on the planet as we know it — is delivered alongside copious links covering topics that range from media misinformation to political movements. He never shies away from his fears that we have gone too far as a species to be able to reign in the incredible damage already done, which means the book may prove too wrenching for readers who prefer a sunnier outlook.

Brown sounds a resonant alarm about what’s likely to come if immediate action is not taken, and his advice about alternative personal habits and choices that any of us can make are welcome, though some of the recommendations are challenging. Brown suggests humans stop procreating, arguing “there will be enough younger people to carry on due to accidental pregnancies and births,” and he advises an immediate end to mass tourism that results in unaffordable ecological damage. His writing will spark a fear for the future, but readers will walk away empowered to make personal changes to thwart some of the most dire consequences of resource waste and pollution.

Takeaway: A stark analysis of the threats to our planet, with a provocative call to action for environmentally aware readers.

–
REFERENCE~ “NOTES FROM A DEAD PLANET: Please Prove Me Wrong,” by Paul Brown, PhD

We are learning to protect & share this planet

From the PRI Broadcast by Steve Curwood, et al., April 23, 2021

Over the last 30 years human-caused emissions have increased by 60 percent. Today the atmosphere holds the equivalent of about 420 parts per million of CO2. That is not good news. We began the industrial age in 1760 with concentrations of CO2 at about half those levels and we are now living through the hottest decade in modern human history. As a result we are seeing record breaking heat waves and wildfires from California to Siberia, floods, rising sea levels and shrinking Arctic sea ice. Not to mention, record-breaking Atlantic hurricane seasons, searing droughts and massive tornado clusters. And all this climate disruption is a result of just a single degree centigrade rise in average earth surface temperatures since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

But our broadcast today is not simply a look back or lament. We are also looking ahead, to shine a light on some possibilities to head off climate disruption before civilization as we know it becomes untenable. We will consider the possibilities of economics, politics, applied science and technology to address climate disruption, though so far they have fallen short. So, we will look to see what they may be missing.

CURWOOD: Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but there are two striking trends that run parallel to the alarming rise in global warming gases. One is the astonishing growth of economic wealth, and in recent years that increase in wealth in the US has been confined to the very richest. In fact, most families in the US have seen little or no gain, with many losing economic power, as many young adults today can’t afford to buy homes like the ones they grew up in. The other trend is the loss of confidence in government action at the national and local levels and the failure of international rules governing climate change emissions to go beyond the honor system.

The concentration of economic and political power related to those trends has historically thrived on the extraction and burning of fossil resources. Climate policy critics including Van Jones, Kristina Karlsson and Bill McKibben say that has to change, if we are to halt our present march toward climate Armageddon. Kristina Karlsson is a program manager for the climate and economic transformation team at the Roosevelt Institute.

JONES: The first industrial revolution hurt the people and the planet, too. The next industrial revolution has to help the people and the planet.

KARLSSON: Meaningfully addressing climate requires an economic transformation in basically all corners of our economy.

MCKIBBEN: I think we’re reaching a turning point. I think that the political power of the fossil fuel industry has begun to wane after a century or two of waxing. And our job is to accelerate that to push hard for really rapid, rapid change.

CURWOOD: There are plenty of ideas about how to preserve a livable climate. And the conventional answer so far has been to double down on approaches that have yet to work, including unproven technology. To save us many advocates say we need market-based solutions such as pricing carbon and technologies such as renewable electricity from solar, wind and other clean energy sources to power our lives. They say we just need to update the systems of the Industrial Revolution that relied on abundant fossil fuels.

GROSS: We had all this energy available, a huge quantity that had never been available before. And that allowed just a complete revolution in the world: revolutions of transportation and manufacturing, all kinds of things that we just never had been able to do before.

CURWOOD: Samantha Gross was a senior climate and energy official for the Obama Administration. Now at the Brookings Institution, she notes that by the twentieth century, oil had become the most valuable commodity on world markets.
GROSS: If you were to design a fuel to be used for transportation, you really couldn’t do a lot better. It’s very energy dense, it has a lot of energy within it for its weight and its size. It’s easily transportable. It’s a liquid, so it works in an internal combustion engine. It’s really an excellent transportation fuel.

CURWOOD: So, she calls for new technologies to power the world while avoiding more climate disruption.
GROSS: We absolutely need both cleaner energy and more energy. There’s roughly a billion people in the world right now who don’t have access to modern energy services. And so, dealing with climate change, while not providing those people with a better standard of living is no solution at all.

CURWOOD: But even with the advent of electric cars like the Tesla and pricing of solar power well below that of coal, the growing profits of green tech have yet to halt the climate emergency. More is needed, says Kristina Karlsson, program manager for the climate and economic transformation team at the Roosevelt Institute.
KARLSSON: The markets will have to be a part of this, we can’t do this without private money. But focusing on those types of mechanisms alone will not get us anywhere near where we need to be in terms of mitigating climate, and it will also further deepen the unequal structurally racist outcomes that that system has already created.

CURWOOD: She says systemic racism has distorted government policies and spending when it comes to environmental justice and climate justice at home and abroad.
KARLSSON: All fiscal policy, even if it seems completely unrelated to climate will have climate implications. So, it’s, it’s really a framing argument and a sort of a policy development principle that saying, you can’t, you can’t ever be climate blind as you’re making choices.

CURWOOD: And Kristina Karlsson adds that if human rights and fairness guide the conduct of governments and businesses it would have a more positive economic impact in the long run than self-centered free market approaches.
KARLSSON: Climate is already an economic cost and an economic drag on our economy. Not only are we actually spending money to mitigate climate disaster that’s happening now. But we’re also seeding risk in our financial system by not dealing with the issue that we all rely on fossil fuels, you know, so we are actively paying for inaction. And as the more we put it off, the more these economic costs are going to compound over time.

Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected

From an Article by Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Daniel T. Blumstein and Paul Ehrlich, The Conversation, January 13, 2021

Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.

The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.

The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.

Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.

First, we reviewed the extent to which experts grasp the scale of the threats to the biosphere and its lifeforms, including humanity. Alarmingly, the research shows future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than experts currently believe.

This is largely because academics tend to specialize in one discipline, which means they’re in many cases unfamiliar with the complex system in which planetary-scale problems—and their potential solutions—exist.

What’s more, positive change can be impeded by governments rejecting or ignoring scientific advice, and ignorance of human behavior by both technical experts and policymakers.

More broadly, the human optimism bias – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself—means many people underestimate the environmental crisis.

Our research also reviewed the current state of the global environment. While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:

>> A halving of vegetation biomass since the agricultural revolution around 11,000 years ago. Overall, humans have altered almost two-thirds of Earth’s land surface

>> About 1,300 documented species extinctions over the past 500 years, with many more unrecorded. More broadly, population sizes of animal species have declined by more than two-thirds over the last 50 years, suggesting more extinctions are imminent

>> About 1 million plant and animal species globally threatened with extinction. The combined mass of wild mammals today is less than one-quarter the mass before humans started colonizing the planet. Insects are also disappearing rapidly in many regions

>> Some 85% of the global wetland area lost in 300 years, and more than 65% of the oceans compromised to some extent by humans

>> A halving of live coral cover on reefs in less than 200 years and a decrease in seagrass extent by 10% per decade over the last century. About 40% of kelp forests have declined in abundance, and the number of large predatory fishes is fewer than 30% of that a century ago.

The human population has reached 7.8 billion – double what it was in 1970—and is set to reach about 10 billion by 2050. More people equals more food insecurity, soil degradation, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss.

High population densities make pandemics more likely. They also drive overcrowding, unemployment, housing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure, and can spark conflicts leading to insurrections, terrorism, and war.

Essentially, humans have created an ecological Ponzi scheme. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself, has grown from 73% in 1960 to more than 170% today.

High-consuming countries like Australia, Canada and the US use multiple units of fossil-fuel energy to produce one energy unit of food. Energy consumption will therefore increase in the near future, especially as the global middle class grows.

Then there’s climate change. Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly exceed 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the Paris Agreement ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.

Our paper found global policymaking falls far short of addressing these existential threats. Securing Earth’s future requires prudent, long-term decisions. However this is impeded by short-term interests, and an economic system that concentrates wealth among a few individuals.

Right-wing populist leaders with anti-environment agendas are on the rise, and in many countries, environmental protest groups have been labeled “terrorists.” Environmentalism has become weaponised as a political ideology, rather than properly viewed as a universal mode of self-preservation.

Financed disinformation campaigns against climate action and forest protection, for example, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly—while ignoring the broader cost of not acting. By and large, it appears unlikely business investments will shift at sufficient scale to avoid environmental catastrophe.

Fundamental change is required to avoid this ghastly future. Specifically, we and many others suggest:

>> Abolishing the goal of perpetual economic growth
>> Revealing the true cost of products and activities by forcing those who damage the environment to pay for its restoration, such as through carbon pricing
>> Rapidly eliminating fossil fuels
>> Regulating markets by curtailing monopolisation and limiting undue corporate influence on policy
>> Reining in corporate lobbying of political representatives
>> Educating and empowering women around the globe, including giving them control over family planning.

Many organizations and individuals are devoted to achieving these aims. However their messages have not sufficiently penetrated the policy, economic, political and academic realms to make much difference.

Failing to acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of problems facing humanity is not just naïve, it’s dangerous. And science has a big role to play here.

Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.

>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>

See also: What is a ‘mass extinction’ and are we in one now?Frédérik Saltré & Corey Bradshaw, The Conversation, November 12, 2019

For more than 3.5 billion years, living organisms have thrived, multiplied and diversified to occupy every ecosystem on Earth. The flip side to this explosion of new species is that species extinctions have also always been part of the evolutionary life cycle.

But these two processes are not always in step. When the loss of species rapidly outpaces the formation of new species, this balance can be tipped enough to elicit what are known as “mass extinction” events. Five major mass extinctions have been identified in the geological record, and the sixth extinction is now evident.

It’s about time we call this problem what it is .....

From an Article by Andrew Freedman, Washington Post, November 5, 2019

A new report by 11,258 scientists in 153 countries from a broad range of disciplines warns that the planet “clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency,” and provides six broad policy goals that must be met to address it.

The analysis is a stark departure from recent scientific assessments of global warming, such as those of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in that it does not couch its conclusions in the language of uncertainties, and it does prescribe policies.

The study, called the “World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency,” marks the first time a large group of scientists has formally come out in favor of labeling climate change an “emergency,” which the study notes is caused by many human trends that are together increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The report, published Tuesday in the journal Bioscience, was spearheaded by the ecologists Bill Ripple and Christopher Wolf of Oregon State University, along with William Moomaw, a Tufts University climate scientist, and researchers in Australia and South Africa.

“Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and have largely failed to address this predicament,” the study states.

The paper bases its conclusions on a set of easy-to-understand indicators that show the human influence on climate, such as 40 years of greenhouse gas emissions, economic trends, population growth rates, per capita meat production, and global tree cover loss, as well as consequences, such as global temperature trends and ocean heat content.

The results are charts that are, at least compared with the climate graphics presented by the IPCC, surprisingly simple, and that help reveal the troubling direction the world is headed.

The study also departs from other major climate assessments in that it directly addresses the politically sensitive subject of population growth. The study notes that the global decline in fertility rates has “substantially slowed” during the past 20 years, and calls for “bold and drastic” changes in economic growth and population policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Such measures would include policies that strengthen human rights, especially for women and girls, and make family-planning services “available to all people,” the paper says.

On energy, the report calls for the world to “implement massive energy efficiency and conservation practices” and cut out fossil fuels in favor of renewable sources of energy, a trend it notes is not happening fast enough. It also calls for remaining fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, to remain in the ground, never to be burned to generate energy, a key goal for many climate activists.

Maria Abate, a signatory of the scientists’ warning and a biology professor at Simmons College in Boston, says she hopes the paper will raise awareness. “Like other organisms we are not adapted to recognize far-reaching environmental threats beyond our immediate surroundings,” she said via email. “The reported vital signs of our global activity and climate responses give us a tangible, evidence-based report card that I hope will help our culture to develop a broader awareness more quickly to slow this climate crisis.”

Other items on the study’s list of policy priorities include quickly cutting emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, such as soot and methane, which could slow short-term warming. The study also calls for a shift to eating mostly plant-based foods and instituting agricultural practices that increase the amount of carbon the soil absorbs.

On the economy, the study states that improving long-term sustainability and reducing inequality should be prioritized over growing wealth, as measured using gross domestic product. The authors also advocate for policies that would curtail biodiversity loss and the destruction of forests, and they recommend prioritizing the preservation of intact forests that store carbon along with other lands that can rapidly bury carbon, thereby reducing global warming.

Ripple, of Oregon State, is no stranger to organizing scientific calls to action, having founded the Alliance of World Scientists and organized scientists’ “Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice” in 2017, which was also published in Bioscience and focused on the urgent need to solve a broad array of environmental problems including climate change and biodiversity loss.

Thousands of scientists issue bleak ‘second notice’ to humanity

“We’re asking for a transformative change for humanity,” Ripple said in an interview. Many of the signatories to the warning do not list themselves as climate scientists but, instead, as biologists, ecologists and other science specialists. Ripple says that is intentional, as the authors sought to assemble the broadest support possible.

“The situation we’re in today with climate change,” he says, “shows that this is an issue that needs to move beyond climate scientists only.”

Moomaw says the paper comes from researchers who are seeing the consequences of a rapidly changing planet, and is in part “a statement of frustration on the part of many in the scientific community.”

“Scientists, and in particular those that are studying what is happening in a changed climate, have become the most alarmed at how rapidly these changes are taking place and the urgency of needing to take far more drastic action,” Moomaw said.

The term “climate emergency” has been championed by climate activists and pro-climate action politicians seeking to add a sense of urgency to the way we respond to what is a long-term problem. The Climate Mobilization, an advocacy group, is seeking to have governments in the United States and elsewhere declare a climate emergency and enact response measures commensurate with such a declaration.

New York’s City Council has declared a climate emergency, as has San Francisco. European cities have also taken this step. Bills labeling global warming as an emergency are pending in both the House and the Senate, endorsed by prominent liberals including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

The youth climate movement, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, has been leading the charge to ratchet up the language used in describing global warming. To date, scientists have been reluctant to use such language. However, this study may change that.

Phil Duffy, a climate researcher and president of the Woods Hole Research Center, who added his name to the paper Monday, said he finds the term fitting, considering the scale of the problem and lack of action so far.

“The term ‘climate emergency’ … I must say, I find it refreshing, really, because you know, I get so impatient with the scientists who are always just waffling and mumbling about uncertainty, blah, blah, blah, and this certainly is, you know, much bolder than that,” he said. “I think it’s right to do that.”

This is a long standing issue in West Virginia

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

It’s an unfortunate fact that one of the most important driving forces of history is self-interest. We like to trade on “democracy,” “freedom,” “natural rights,” “national power,” “national security,” and such, but in fact getting rich drives top individuals running things. They form income boosting groups and sponsor politicians catering to those groups. What comes out of legislative bodies shows that. Surely no one who keeps up with the news can fail to observe.

The history of the Civil War is no exception. It is couched as though there were no economic benefits to be gained or lost, purely a matter of principle, the end of formal slavery. However, it doesn’t take much study to learn the railroads gained huge benefits, as did the new cotton mills in New England, the Northern Banks and anyone gaining from driving the Indians west. Many soldiers were immigrants iust off the ship, and a man could pay someone else to take his place if drafted.

Western Virginians hated the aristocrats who ran the state from the East. But how much did the opportunity to sell the abundant coal to the Union over newly established railroads have in the separation? Coal, oil and gas, timber, glass, chemicals, certainly have been prominent legislation movers since. What the descendants of the German, Scots-Irish, and later Irish and Italian descended folk of the state got was not opportunity to develop their own business, but to work for capitalists from out-of-state in extraction industry.

And what about the new form of slavery that developed after the Civil War: life in extracting coal. Live in the company house, buy from the company store, paid in scrip money good only at the company store, no binding safety laws, not even a place to clean up before going home. Who represented these people? And when they tried to organize, the Pinkertons, the Pinkerton National Detective agency, were hired to infiltrate nascent unions and provide “goon squads” to counter unions. Who represented working people then? Remember the miles long battle line in The Battle of Blair Mountiain? Matewan?

Democracy? For the ultra rich. Of course.

Since West Virginia has seen numerous extraction industries; shallow oil and gas; timbering that still shows its marks in the higher mountains; stripping coal, peaking out in the southern part of the state with the horrors of mountaintop removal and what that does to people. And most recently, “fracking” drilling for gas and oil on steroids, by which the earth is literally crushed with high pressure, to extract the tiny disconnected droplets of product, using gross synthetic chemicals, carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting compounds among them.

And we should mention the industries derived from these extraction industries, too. Early gas wasn’t worth much, it was used for illumination, and soon replaced by the much superior electricity. Piping was expensive, so glass, requiring much labor, burgeoned for a while, then when pipe got better glass moved on, and now offshore to cheap labor overseas. Coal produced two derivatives. First used for heating, it was soon used to run steam engines for power, and then that was turned to generating electricity. In the hundred years of coal generated electricity a marvelous improvement in technology has occurred. It has reached an impassable barrier as more and more coal is used: it produces waste that is changing the natural world.

It is hard for some to realize a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas, carbon dioxide has been released in such volume the earth is getting hotter. But not for me. I stand on these Northern West Virginia hills on a strip job and look to other hills and see a seven foot thick seam of coal extending over much of the surrounding counties, all burned in a few years, and I know of many others seams world wide. From my chemistry I know 12 tons of carbon make 44 tons of carbon dioxide.

The other big derivative of coal is chemicals. This has settled in along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers – big business. Forbes list of worst polluted cities includes worst, Wheeling, WV; second, Parkersburg; third, Huntington; fifth, Charleston; 8th Stubenville, OH.

What about derivative industries of the latest extractive flash-in-the-pan, fracking? Aside from the need for gas storage to provide steady, year around flow, plastics. That’s due to ethane that comes up with methane. IENOS is already shipping ethane to Europe and wants to ship more. The reference is an article titled “IENOS signs second deal to ship more ethane to Europe and orders more ships.” It includes this, “Those ships are currently being built in China.”

Speaking of China, what do you think of the $83.7 billion “to help develop West Virginia’s petrochemical industry,” as Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher put it in this January article. Put that way it sounds like charity, almost. Don’t think that is the way it will work, though. They will get what they need for putting on added value in the product consumed – and leave the environmental damage here. Do you suppose the environmental damage will get paid for? Or even get recognition as a cost? Of course the present “art of the deal” tariff war may have sunk that one, too. If not, bet they get a bargain.

The West Virginia legislature has never been able to bring its self to tax these big sources of income enough to finance state needs. The public excuse has been “We need to compete with other states which have similar resources.” Like the resources were going to run away if they are not extracted now. Like there is no future. It’s not the resources that are going to run away, I think, but the politician’s tenure. Got to get it while you can!

The population of West Virginia was just over 2 million in 1950, but is now under 1.8 million. The ingredients for innovation and growth – good education, infrastructure and available capital – have never been encouraged by legislation and taxes. Result? It is 47th in U. S. News ranking of states over all, and 49th in economy and 50th in infrastructure. True, W. V. ranks 45th in both education and quality of life, but is that anything to brag about? 9.5 percent are veterans (think: economic draft), and the state lost 22,000 in population from 2010 to 2016.

The population is 92 percent white, and only 1.7 percent of West Virginians were born outside the U.S. Just 2.5 percent speak a language other than English in their homes. Some time back I had the opportunity to see a ranking of counties in the U. S. in racial prejudice – uh-oh, bad!

West Virginia is one of the most religious states in the country, with 69 percent of adults saying they are highly religious and 46 percent attending worship services at least weekly.

We are famous for our insularity; people on one side of the hill don’t know the people on the other side. When I was working on my WVU degree, I came across a Master’s Thesis written by Norman Tolley in the 30’s. He had been a principal at Lost Creek High School when I was in grade school. It was located 3 and ½ miles east of where I lived. I had attended the high school at West Milford, named Unidis (for UNIon DIStrict), 1 and ½ miles west. Both schools graduated between 20 and 30 yearly. Mr. Tolley’s conclusion was that there was so much animosity between the two, they could never be successfully integrated. That was still the situation when I graduated Unidis in 1952. However, the herculean task was accomplished in 1965.

Part of the problem is topography, but good roads would help overcome that. When I went to school in the stripping era there was a spot in the road just west of where the South Harrison School now stands where a coal company kept a bulldozer to push trucks and private cars through a particularly bad spot. Scouts honor, that’s the truth!

So how is the West Virginia government implicated? It has to do with grease, as in “grease the skids.” Some more memories. 1. When I was a kid, a legislator in Clarksburg famously said “If I couldn’t make at least $1500 from going to Charleston, I wouldn’t make the trip.” 2. When the strip mine inspector came on the job, the boss always greeted him with a cigar with a $100 dollar bill wrapped around it. (Keep in mind a 1952 dollar is worth $9.30 today.) The hourly wage must have been about a tenth of that. 3. When I taught college, one of the Board Members was known as the “bag man” for the gas corporation. Like in Tom Lehrer’s “The Old Dope Peddler” song, he was “Doing well by doing good.” See the words and music here. The last half of the song is a pretty good parody of how corporate bag men operate.

According to Google, there were 12,719 registered lobbyists in Washington in 2011 and 535 senators and representatives, 23 lobbyists for each member of congress. A rough count of the registered lobbyists in Charleston July 6, 2018 gives 380. There are 100 delegates and 34 senators, so the ratio there is about 2.8 lobbyist per legislator.

Do you suppose lobbyist’s salaries aren’t considered a profit making cost to their employers? Do you suppose these employers wouldn’t allow expenses for “wining and dining’’ legislators? When the legislature is in session there’s good money for everyone, including “ladies of the night.” People are working hard and partying hard, too. Not every lobbyist is a “bag man,” supplying bribes, but some are. In this atmosphere can you imagine laws aren’t set for those that can hire more and better lobbyists?

Who represents the unorganized, small businesses, small farmers, independent laborers? Who represents the non-financial interests of society, such as freedom from pollution, freedom from ugly surroundings and smells; light and sound at night and the like? Who represents the need to keep some things inexpensive, like potable water, health care, quality education as opposed to baby sitting to age 16, transportation and more?

My belief is that West Virginia’s low position among states, in spite of providing vast amounts of the energy needed far beyond it’s borders, is due the mechanism in our government since the founding. The feverish atmosphere, the honor of serving and the pleasure of hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful crowds out of consciousness the needs shared by most citizens. The bottom 90% are assumed to benefit because the wealthy do, and the bottom 30% economically are untouchables, beyond sympathy. Their age, sickness, misfortunes must be ignored to denigrate their worth by characterizing them as lazy, stupid or inept. No charity from society is justified.

West Virginia government is a great social club to be in. It gives self-advancement, sense of importance, and occasionally a sense of benevolence. But it leaves most of its citizens to enjoy the natural beauty that remains but is rapidly fading, and not much else.

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See also: Gov. Jim Justice accused a natural gas developer of crossing the line on a potential investment with China Energy — Questions hang over Justice’s claims against natural gas developer

http://wvmetronews.com/2018/07/15/281780/

What to do after we bite the apple? Tom Bond

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemist & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

It is remarkable how few of us realize (in more than an academic way) our human dependence on nature. Preagrocultural people lived closer to nature and were more familiar with ups and downs due to weather, crop disease, climate change, invasive species and a host of effects we know about, but seldom have to worry about.

Groups of tribal people were often caused to go extinct. One thinks about the drying of the Sahara early in the movement of modern humans out of Africa, and the near extinction of the Solutrean people in Europe, who narrowly missed becoming extinct in the Ice Age. At one time the entire human population was reduced to 2500 breeding pairs, according to DNA evidence.

The development of agriculture, first cultivation of cereal grains, then other crops and domestic animals, allowed storage and transportation of food and hierarchical government. From 6000 years ago more and more people have been freed from producing food, until today only about 1% of the population is engaged in it. All in advanced society are relatively food secure. Unfortunately, they are intellectually disengaged and emotionally unaware.

Only the poor have to worry about food, mostly those in underdeveloped places and the economically disadvantaged in the developed world, including one-third of United States citizens. Hunger here is a political problem, not an environmental problem.

Our education is poor in this respect. Our individual drive for money and comfort, not to mention social leadership, has lead us to abandon learning about vast areas of the reality of the world we live in. Our ultimate dependence on living matter is lost in the hustle and bustle of the 12, 16, 20 or more years of education we receive. The connection to the rest of the living world is ignored.

We even have a new form of Christianity, invented in the last half-century, which actively emphasizes Genesis 1:26, which mentions “dominion.” It is not in the other creation story in Genesis, but it is attractive to those who want strong leadership, because it justifies social control, too.

The highly developed agriculture of our era is not a permanent fix. Population expansion and resource degradation are on an accelerating course. Many times in the past whole societies have been wiped out or drastically collapsed by soil depletion, extended drought, rise in sea level, volcanoes, and other “acts of Nature.” Sometimes these occur in combination.

Today, we humans have much greater capacity to influence the living world. We now require over 20% of the carbon fixed each year by photosynthesis in part on land and other carbon fixed in the sea. Another authoritative study finds the percent of utilization doubled from 1900 to 2000. This is in spite of the 4-fold increase in human population. Increases of production of food, particularly, but also wood and fiber are due to increased crop yields, and to a much smaller extent decreased use per capita due to substitution of fossil fuels for biofuels. The cost has been degradation of soils, environmental damage, and conversion (loss) of farmland to developed areas.

The Earth is finite. We humans possess the ability to affect the environment of the living world with our modern industry based on vast amounts of energy from fossil fuels. Global warming, transfer of farm land to other uses, contamination of land and water, and most of all, ignorance of our situation all threaten the living world. If we wait until the most successful among us begin to hurt, there is little chance to prevent a collapse of society, and perhaps extinction of humanity and other life forms.

Catastrophic conditions will prevail on Earth

Humanity has 100 years to save itself from doom, says Stephen Hawking

From an Article by Mike Wehner, BGR Blog, New York Post, May 5, 2017

While much of humanity concerns itself with saving the planet from the ravages mankind has inflicted upon it, one of the world’s brightest minds is already warning that we should actually be spending our time planning our ultimate escape. Stephen Hawking — the cosmologist, author, and physicist who holds more awards and honorary titles than should even be allowed — says that we have about 100 years until Earth is a big old pile of gross, and that if we don’t focus our efforts on colonizing other planets, namely Mars, humanity faces complete and total extinction.

Hawking’s warning that humans should start packing their bags comes as a result of the scientist’s belief that endless peril lies ahead thanks to overpopulation, climate change as a result of pollution, and even the threat of mankind building an AI or even a manmade virus capable of destroying us outright. Hawking has said before that mankind is done for, but his latest prediction is his most dire prediction yet.

In a new BBC documentary entitled “Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth,” the 75-year-old Hawking will attempt to prove that his theory isn’t as crazy as it seems. “Professor Stephen Hawking thinks the human species will have to populate a new planet within 100 years if it is to survive,” the BBC says. “With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious.” The documentary will be split into two 60-minute programs and will air on BBC Two before presumably finding its way to American television.

Note:  If we destroy planet Earth in the coming 100 years, there is no point of populating another planet because mankind would mess it over just as fast, if not faster.  DGN

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How long do we have left on Earth?

Comments by Stephen Baxter, British Interplanetary Society, May 9, 2017

We have 100 years to move beyond the Earth or face extinction according to renowned physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking. He thinks humanity needs to become a multi-planetary species within the next century, revising his hopes for our species down from an earlier warning which gave us 1000 years. So why does he feel our time is running out even quicker?

>>> Stephen Baxter, the British science fiction author, is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. Amongst his many books is the 2009 novel, Ark, about a desperate evacuation from an Earth in the grip of an environmental catastrophe. What does he make of Professor Hawking’s warnings? Hear the BBC Audio Tape here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p052d6g1

Climate Change Impacts on Global Food Security

Review by S. Tom Bond, Ph.D., Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV, August 20, 2013

FrackCheckWV has referred its readers to the recent issue of Science which has over 50 pages of articles on the changes in natural systems in changing climates.  Being both a farmer and someone who enjoys a good meal encourages me to think about what future possibilities would be.  Food security, the ability of individuals to secure enough of the right kinds of food to sustain them, is also a very important political consideration.  This article is a condensation of “Climate Change Impacts on Global Food Security, appearing on page 508 of the August 2, 2013 issue of Science.

Food security has four factors.  The first is production of sufficient quantities of the right kinds of food.  Each human needs not only energy, but protein and other nutrients.  The second is access.  There must be transportation and distribution to reach the individual, and in some cases this doesn’t exist.  In urban settings it has to be paid for, so the individual must have sufficient  steady income. Third, there must be adequate utilization – facilities to prepare the food, including cooking and clean water for sanitation that are needed so physiological needs can be met.  The fourth is stability of supply, so that an individual can have adequate food at all times. 

Production, access, facilities to prepare and year-round supply.  All are needed by every individual if they are to survive.

It is estimated that  the undernourished in terms of calories has been reduced from 980 million to 850 million in the two decades from 1992 to 2010-12, but judging from under-weight, stunted-growth and health surveys, 2 billion people still suffer from micro-nutrients today.  Moreever, this seems to have been getting worse since 2007 due to pressures from food prices, extreme climate events and forced changes in diet.

Such pressures ae expected to build in the future.  Demand for food is expected to increase by 50% by 2030, as the global population increases.  Climate change could dramatically influence the progress toward reduction of hunger.

Present studies usually think in terms of production only, ignoring the other factors  mentioned above.  Even with sufficient calories, physical and mental factors can be influenced by nutrients, ability to prepare, and daily availability.  Remember the phrase “give us this day our daily bread?” It is very serious business for someone on the edge of starvation.  Data about food availability taken from aggregate reckoning is not adequate to completely understanding of the situation.   Surprisingly, the first analysis even from this limited perspective was not published until 1994.

This study was by Rozenzweig, Parry and others. It showed there is great variation in yields, highest yields the developed North of Europe and America, decreasing across Africa and South America.  Further work has shown that crops are more negatively affected by stress in the tropics, and so coincides with countries that presently have high burden of hunger.  It seems likely that food effects of climate change will be more severe in areas which already have a problem.

Food access is better understood.  For individuals it is largely a mater of income and rights.  Findings in this area show clear linkages between economic development and resilience to climate change.   In other words, if you have to buy food, you are better able to get it when you have more income.  On the other hand, if one’s assets are drawn down, if one must change jobs,  if migrating, etc., one is more vulnerable. 

If global warming changes location of production of biomass, which includes not only food, but also fiber and timber, trade in these commodities will change and consequently prices.  The resources of production , such as land and water access, will increase in value.  Such structural problems will lead to more appropriation of the assets of the poor, such as “land grabs” by external and foreign interests.  (Such is going on now at the fringes of tropical forests, in Africa, Madagascar  and Southeast Asia by Middle East oil potentates, and European, American and Chinese investors.  – Author’s note).

Utilization will be effected by less water in some areas, droughts and floods.  Higher temperatures will increase water-born disease, particularly diarrheal disease, and uptake of microneutrients may decrease.  Pesticides may come into even greater use due to increased abundance of pests.

Global urbanization results in changes in lifestyle, including higher caloric intake, poorer quality diet and relatively low physical activity, leading to obesity and chronic disease, even among the poor.  How this will link with effects of climate change is not known.

However it is clear that small shocks in supply or demand will have great effect on prices, and thus on food supply of the poor. Aggressive bioenergy projects, when applied by the political economy, can have great effect on food supplies.   Ethanol for fuel in the U. S. caused food riots in other countries, because the global price went up.

Finally, “This complex system of risks can assume a variety of of patterns that could potentially collide in catastrophic combinations.”  This author’s conclusion is that food supply can be handled as large scale management concern, or simply left to see who can make the most money from it, the latter being the most likely outcome at this point.