Anti-Nuclear and Human Rights Activist Mimi German returns to Nature Bats Last

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 2 Comments

The December 2019 episode of Nature Bats Last featuring Mimi German is embedded here;
Mimi is a houseless advocate focused primarily on houseless neighbors in St. Johns, Oregon. She is known for her anarchistic shutdowns of the Portland City Council for 6 consecutive months over issues concerning houseless people in Portland. She is also the co-founder of Jason Barns Landing, a non-transitional houseless village situated on land JBL took over and occupied from Metro in Portland. Jason Barns Landing is named after a houseless friend who died on the streets of St. Johns while canning for his survival. Click on the embedded link directly above to take you to the Jason Barns Facebook page.

Mimi is also a poet, using her words as witness and as observer for a beauty unseen by most and to allow the darkness of this time to be witnessed in writing to the page. Finally, Mimi is currently helping care for her mother, who is contemplating hospice on the East Coast.
“Studies of Chernobyl and Fukushima also reveal crippling psychological fear of invisible contamination. This fear consumed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and people in Fukushima painfully associated their own experiences with those of people in the atomic-bombed cities. The situation in Fukushima is still far from physically or psychologically stable. This fear also plagues Chernobyl, where there have been large forced movements of populations, and where whole areas poisoned by radiation remain uninhabitable.”
The False promise of Nuclear Energy in a time of climate change;
“A huge cluster of jellyfish forced the Oskarshamn plant, the site of one of the world’s largest nuclear reactors, to shut down by clogging the pipes conducting cool water to the turbines.” Jellyfish clog pipes of Swedish nuclear reactor forcing plant shutdown.

“The revelations come on the heels of a report last week from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the aftermath of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. The report details how a spent fuel fire at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that was crippled by the twin disasters could have released far more radioactivity into the environment.”

The January episode of Nature Bats Last will feature another interview with Stephen Jenkinson author of many books including the best seller “Die Wise”. Stephen’s website is Orphan Wisdom;
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Posted in Mimi German, Nature Bats Last, Nuclear Threats, Stephen Jenkinson

The Insurance Industry, soon to be the first pillar of Capitalism to succumb to Abrupt Climate Change

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 12 Comments

“Climate change could punch a hole through the financial system by making 30-year home mortgages — the lifeblood of the American housing market — effectively unobtainable in entire regions across parts of the U.S.”
“Climate change could end mortgages as we know them”

“Natural disasters are being recorded more frequently than ever before. “Since 1970, the number of disasters worldwide has more than quadrupled to around 400 a year,” and “there are six times more hydrological events now than in 1980,” The 10 Most Costly Natural Disasters of the Century
“There is a logistical hurdle: when a catastrophe bond experiences a so-called loss event, the capital in the investment is suspended until the full cost of a disaster is pinned down. The phenomenon of “loss creep”, where initial estimates of a loss balloon months or even years after the event, has also spooked some investors. The cost of Typhoon Jebi in Japan last year rose from initial expectations of $6bn to $15bn.”
“Over two years, natural catastrophes caused a record $225bn of insured losses”.
Why climate change is the new 9/11 for insurance companies

“For the insurance industry, global warming has advanced from a future ecological challenge to a present financial shock. Together, total losses to the economy from natural catastrophes and “man-made disasters” reached $165 billion in 2018; that followed a 2017 that, at $350 billion, cost more than twice as much. As a result, according to the Swiss Re Institute, the company’s research arm, 2017 and 2018 were for insurers the most-expensive two-year period of such catastrophes on record, requiring them to fork over $219 billion globally in checks.”
Climate Change Is Hitting the Insurance Industry Hard

“Regulators are starting to worry about climate change.”
“Jenkins points out that the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority is leading the way on stress-testing insurers against the risk that the world misses its carbon reduction targets.”

“In such a scenario, insurers, especially in the U.S. where price increases are restricted by regulators, may find it increasingly unattractive to offer coverage,” he writes. “Greater lay-off of risk to reinsurers is one option. But more restrictive policies or wholesale withdrawal of cover are also possible. At some juncture underwriters will need to remove their blinkers and acknowledge that a world awash with worsening climate change risks is not necessarily just bad for the planet. It could be bad for the insurance industry too. A bit like 9/11.” Climate Change Tops List of World’s ‘Extreme Risks’

“Venice is on its knees,” said Brugnaro. “The damage will run into hundreds of millions of euros.” Flood, fire and plague: climate change blamed for disasters
“Last year, insurance payouts caused by climate-related events totaled $2.4 trillion worldwide.” Can Insurance Companies Weather The Storm? What Climate Change Means For The Industry

Clearly the cost of disasters is on the same Hockey Stick trajectory as our climate crisis yet “Business as Usual” carries on as if nothing has changed. All ponzi schemes eventually implode and this one will be no different except in scale. There is no previous analogue to remotely compare with the coming collapse.

Posted in Abrupt Climate Change, Collapse, Insurance

The Psychological Roller Coaster of Abrupt Climate Change featuring Peter Miller

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 5 Comments

Nature Bats Last co-hosts Kevin Hester and Guy McPherson were joined on this months show by Canadian psychologist Peter Miller. The discussion included our individual psychological responses to abrupt climate change and its outcome. Peter is a parent and combines his professional experience with the emotional, to try and navigate our predicament. As we ride this roller coaster Guy and I want to explore the psychological dichotomy, in this episode we continue that journey;
The latest episode of NBL is embedded here;

During the interview I asked Peter what role his music played in managing his grief. His music, available on Soundcloud is embedded here

Peter has conducted a series of interviews with people navigating this, the perfect storm based on us all being in hospice. They can be found at the Peter Miller You Tube Channel

Jem Bendell the author of the “Deep Adaption” paper that has recently become the most downloaded science paper ever, spoke on the issue of ‘Hope in a time of climate crisis’. Interestingly he hasn’t accepted our imminent extinction and declined an offer to be a guest on Nature Bats Last on The Progressive Radio Network, A commonality is that many people like to say that Professor Guy McPherson and I are alarmists but won’t debate in public with us.
On the subject of ‘Hope’ I’ll quote Chris Hedges from his great documentary American Psychosis; “If hope becomes something you express through illusion then it’s not hope, it’s fantasy.”

Additional material on this aspect of the predicament below;

Grief Ritual with Sobonfu Somé

Navigating Hospice at the edge of extinction

The coming Tsunami of Grief

NBL

Posted in Abrupt Climate Change, Climate Grief, Peter Miller, Uncategorized

Action is the Antidote to Despair – Acceptance Will Set You Free

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 10 Comments

As the climate and extinction crises accelerates our descent into the abyss, many of us are seeking a meaningful existence as we manage our own grief and more importantly that of our youth, which will very soon become our greatest pre-collapse challenge.Don’t get caught lying to them.
My co-host on Nature Bats Last and I are regularly accused of ‘Giving Up’ because we have synthesized and accepted the science that we are now in the non-linear stage of the Sixth Great Extinction. “Giving up” for me equates to co-hosting NBL with Guy, volunteering at the Rakino Island Nursery on a rewilding project for our “Little Slice of Paradise” Rakino Island and working with a group to create a “Marine Protection Area” in the Hauraki Gulf adjacent to my home. It’s important to carry on doing the right thing without being attached to the outcome.
Any cursory, unbiased glance at my and Guy’s actions will immediately dispell the accusation that we have ‘Given Up’.
Why do Guy and I do what we do? We believe that the youth deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. There will be no ‘sugar coating’ of the sixth great extinction on our watch. The youth’s futures have been stolen from them,surely they deserve the truth at least? The cold hard truth is that the real ‘safe’ level of anthropogenic warming was probably only 0.5C, not 1, not 1.5, not 2C.
The recent discovery of enormous methane ‘Pingo’s’ in the Arctic being yet another example of the rapidity the biosphere is unraveling at. The cognitive dissonance being shown by our so called leaders, who within a capitalist paradigm have no clue what to say or do is plain to see. Effectively they are literally behaving like stunned deer in the head lights of a runaway train. Our one and only space ship is about to crash and burn and there is no pilot in the cockpit. Brace for impact.
Here’s an example from the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Watch her squirm whilst criticising XR activists for holding up the traffic. So much for her grandiose declaration that climate change is our ‘Nuclear Free’ moment. Dear Jacinda, this is a Climate Emergency
Because no one in power is prepared to accept the true severity of the unfolding collapse, and the large NGO’s are lying by omission, we are as a society and culture living a lie. Sending young people off to school or university to train as cogs in the wheel of capitalism which is just about to collapse is a dereliction of duty and in my mind equates to child abuse. Check out the work of my friends Oksana and Joey at The Deep Green Bush School for a rare dose of reality in the education sphere. Personally I would scrap the entire school curriculum and teach first aid and survival skills.
The “Extinction Rebellion” movement has successfully motivated many people onto the streets but they are simply begging those same delusional politicians to ‘Act Now on Climate Change’ and do what pray tell ?
The entire paradigm is being controlled and steered to make it look like something is happening when in reality it is deflecting the youth away from the true severity of the predicament we are confronted with. Guilt tripping the youth about their carbon footprints and pretending that activism will right this sinking ship is intellectually and morally bankrupt, much like the culture itself.
Their time would be better spent developing survival skills than painting banners. I’ll quote Jem Bendell of “Deep Adaptation” fame who interestingly turned down our invitation for him to be our guest on NBL: “Getting busy with action can be a distraction from full acceptance of our predicament”.
Guy and I have toured Aotearoa New Zealand twice discussing the severity of the crisis as we see it. Below is a discussion we had at the end of the 2016 tour;

My recent interview on Waiheke Radio discussing my activism and actions as we face collapse is embedded here
Rakino

The photo above is of Rakino Island taken from the North. Photo credit Scott Peters.
Additional reading on this theme;

We’re About to Become People Fighting Desperately Fighting For Survival on a Dying Planet, and It’s Not Going to Be Pretty
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change

Extinction Foretold, Extinction Ignored

If you want to go down fighting as I do, tell the truth, surely the youth deserve that and the right to decide what to do with the little time that is left for them.

Posted in Climate Grief, Extinction Rebellion, Methane, Nature Bats Last, The Sixth Great Extinction

Irreversible Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Unfolding Now. Not long off in the future.

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 38 Comments

In the last few days articles have been appearing in the corporate media detailing methane releases in the Arctic with the East Siberian Arctic shelf which is close to many of our hearts and minds due to it’s shallowness and vulnerability to destabilisation of the carbon and methane clathrate reserves reported on by Dr Natalia Shakova and her colleague Dr Igor Semiletov and by the worlds leading expert Dr Peter Wadhams.
“There are large uncertainties about tipping points that may be ahead of us, but for some systems, especially biological evidence in the oceans, we have already evidence that the tipping point has been passed.”
“Professor Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said the report had failed to mention the “very serious threat” of methane rising from the seabed of the Arctic continental shelf as its permafrost thaws, potentially contributing large amounts of extra greenhouse gas.”

Methane Fire

Methane Bubbles

Professor McPherson and I covered “Tipping Points” in the August episode our NBL interview with Andrew Glikson from The Australian National University

I take one exception with this paragraph in The Telegraph article ; “The planet has warmed to 1C above pre-industrial temperatures, and around 90 per cent of that excess heat has been absorbed by the oceans, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.” That is simply not true and down plays the severity of the crisis in real time. The IPCC is playing fast and loose with baseline dates that have beed covered on this blog previously and by my esteemed colleague Sam Carana from The Arctic News Blog who had us at 1.73C above the 1750 baseline in April 2018

“Unveiling the latest report in Monaco on Wednesday, panel-member Valerie Masson-Delmotte, said: “Climate change is already irreversible due to the heat uptake in the ocean.”

“We can’t go back, whatever we do with our emissions.”

“According to the new forecasts, approximately 70 per cent of the world’s permafrost will thaw if emissions continue to rise. This in turn could free up “tens to hundreds of billions of tonnes” of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, further heating the planet.”

“Scientists in Siberia have discovered an area of sea that is “boiling” with methane, with bubbles that can be scooped from the water with buckets. Researchers on an expedition to the East Siberian Sea said the “methane fountain” was unlike anything they had seen before, with concentrations of the gas in the region to be six to seven times higher than the global average.”
The primary significance of this response form Igor Semiletov saying the discharges were “unlike anything they had seen before” is a very, very disturbing development. Very few scientist have his level of field research.

“The team, led by Igor Semiletov, from Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia, traveled to an area of the Eastern Arctic previously known to produce methane fountains. They were studying the environmental consequences of permafrost thawing beneath the ocean.”
For those of us researchers following the seminal work of Dr’s Natalia Shakova and Igor Semiletov this latest data whilst not being surprising is terrifying in it’s implications.
Have a listen to this seminal presentation from DR Shakova;

Finally this sailor will give you an indication of how large there methane plumes can be;
“A TRAWLER found at the bottom of the North Sea may have sunk after being trapped in a giant gas bubble.”
“Scientists from the University of Sunderland discovered the fishing boat off Aberdeen, 450ft below the surface, on a patch of sea bed known as Witch’s Hole. They think the crew were the victims of a rare and terrifying phenomenon.” Read more ›

Posted in Abrupt Climate Change, Arctic Sea Ice, Early Stage Runaway, Feedback loops, Methane

Abrupt Climate Change,the Nuclear Threat, Methane in the ESAS: Robert Hunziker interviewed on Nature Bats Last

Posted on October 3, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 3 Comments

The October episode of Nature Bats Last featured a discussion between NBL co-hosts Professor Guy McPherson, Kevin Hester and US independent journalist Robert Hunziker.

The show is embedded here;

Robert discussed non-linearity in the climate system which he has covered in an article published on October 2nd, 2017 titled The Great Acceleration Death Trap
“If I take 35 linear steps, I’ll barely reach the coffee stand outside of this room. What happens if I take 35 exponential steps? I’d reach Copenhagen after 21 steps. Three more steps, I’m in New York. Another two steps and I encircle the entire planet. And, if I add another nine steps to my 35, I reach planet Mars.”
Not understanding or worse still willfully ignoring the nonlinear nature of our predicament ensures the failure of any and all remediation or preparation undertaken. This is a major issue I take with Greenpeace, 350.ORG and the main ‘Green Parties”, willfully ignoring this aspect of the predicament is morally and scientifically bankrupt.

Robert discussed at length the never ending nightmare that is Fukushima Daiichi.
One of Roberts numerous articles on the single worst industrial disaster of all time is embedded here; “Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Crisis

I quoted Jem Bendell in the interview,
“Getting busy with action can be a distraction from full acceptance of our predicament”. I respectively think Jem’s having his own struggle with ‘acceptance’.
Jem discusses the issue of nuclear power plants after collapse unfolds here

Robert has written previously about The Dangerous Methane Mystery most especially in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Watch the interview with Dr Natalia Shakova who Robert mentioned here; Methane Hydrates extended interview with Dr Natalia Shakova

Methane Bubbles

NBL Read more ›

Posted in Abrupt Climate Change, Nuclear Threats, Robert Hunziker

The “Belt and Road Initiative”and much more.Paving the Road to Collapse and Hospice.

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Kevin Hester — 3 Comments

There is no slowing down this juggernaut. We’re already off the cliff and they still have their pedal to the metal.
“The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) simply blows out of the water anything else that’s been attempted in human history.”
“As currently planned, it will involve some 7,000 separate infrastructure or extractive industry projects scattered across 70-odd nations, with a total price-tag of $8 trillion. It’ll span half the planet — from Asia to Africa, Europe and the South Pacific. It’ll affect every facet of human endeavor, in one way or another.”
It will be business as usual on steroids. Covered previously on this blog below;

Buckle Up and Cut the Crap, we’re on the ‘Belt Road’ to Armageddon.

Chris the Natural Progressive and I discuss the Belt and Road Initiative and the role it will play in the ongoing collapse of the biosphere in the video below. I don’t believe much of this project will get very far before collapse unfolds. My main point being that capitalism and the dominant culture will carry on pedal to the metal, full steam ahead. In the August episode of Nature Bats Last we interviewed Arthur Keller about the coming collapse here; “Collapse the Only Realistic Scenario”>

Chris and I discussed the issue of Hospice. I’ve previously written about Hospice here;
More information about the rapid stratospheric warming and destabilisation I mentioned is embedded here;
The Roger Hallam from Extinction Rebellion interview we mentioned is embedded here

Think for a moment about what life is like for the people of The Bahamas, the trauma for those who survived, the ecological chaos of the pollutants in the flood waters poisoning wells, aquifers, rivers and the adjacent oceans and all the flooded flat lands. The other animals affected.
Their fate, is all our fate, seize the moment.

Posted in Abrupt Climate Change, Climate Grief, Hospice, Nature Bats Last

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