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
Further relevant reading below:
Ocean ecosystems take two million years to recover after mass extinction
“Killing The Ocean” by Robert Hunziker
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
I read Hunziker on counterpunch, which I read pretty much every day (I even give them $25 a year), so I’ve caught most of what he’s published there. Not a speck of what I’ve read in his words gives a flying fart towards the survival much less the continuation of this not-very-civil-ization. That’s just with the catastrophic climate destabilization. Add in 500 meltdowns like Fukushima… oh darn.
Why he lives in LA is beyond me, though! I could have stayed on the beach in OB San Diego in 1987 and kept surfing instead of moving to mountains with my snowboards instead. I just couldn’t take the concrete and asphalt under my feet, or drink the water or breathe the air anymore. Not that shit-hitting-the-frying-pan isn’t going to catch up with me where I am…I just preferred a living biosphere around me. For a while at least.
I really do miss not being able to listen to the conversation you have, Kevin. I just can’t afford anything more than dial-up which does not allow for downloading much.
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We just had the earliest snowstorm in living memory here in the Selkirks at this property’s elevation. That’s from the 80 year olds! I watched it start snowing out the window 28 Sept at 1pm in the afternoon and by dark there was snow covering roofs and fence posts and vehicles. By 29 Sept there was at least half a foot of snow up on my snowboarding hill 49’N, and some idiot had already made a wiggle linked-turn track off the Peak in the snow cam up there. I was kind of jealous to be honest but boarding on 6″ of snow on a steep hill is rather…ummm…stupid?
Down here it rained off by the afternoon on Sunday, and on Monday 30 Sept I was skateboarding in Chewelah (bottom of the valley) where it had rained instead and completely dried off the sidewalks by the time I drove to town.
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I’m reading an old book I snagged out of a donation box to the 2nd hand titled ‘The Final Empire; The Collapse of Civilization’ by Wm. H. Kotke (the ‘o’ has two dots above it) from 1993. Subtitle is the ‘Seed of the Future.’ I wonder what this guy thinks about now with 26 years of absolute disastrous acceleration in every facet of destruction he talks about? I’m in Chapter 2 and what he saw coming…yeah, well.
His book was dedicated to his grandchildren then so…maybe he’s viewing this from a different perspective now…
Book 2 is about small communities surviving…”Creating a Whole New Life.” I don’t think so. He had hopes…
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Funny that you have Robert Scribbler links… he pretty much kicked me off his website for being…not part of the solution when I disagreed with his idea that Hillary Clinton was NOT going to ‘save us.’ He really didn’t like what I started posting (evidence and documentation) and ended up replying with rude, disdainful, and derogatory comments/put-downs before I just quit trying to get through his thick headed used-to-be-a-cop attitude. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about Hillary, eh?
We are so fucked. Do something fun every day, Kevin. The future keeps feeling like it is narrowing down.
sealintheSelkirks
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Hunziker is a reporter. Plain and simple. He’s aware of the issues, sees them accurately, but due to his lack of grasping the subject matter at a deeper level is still in the bargaining phase. We have 2 cliffs facing us. One is the energy cliff that will hit us either way. Once we lose the gains of fracking and ‘cheap’ coal the fossil fuel era and our dependency for our modern world civilizations collapses with it. That ceases our industrial globalized world…permanently.
The aerosol masking effect which keeps that excess solar radiation out will eventually falter and subsequently turns the climate and our environment on a dime.
Even if we could continue fossil fuel extraction than our second cliff of global roasting kicks in soon enough and industrial civilization collapses anyway.
Does Hunziker offer any relevant or tangible solution to that dilemma. I’m not hearing it. Reality is as reality is. Our hopes and desires fall on deaf universal laws of physics ears.
Hope is a religious movement, reality is neither cult nor religion. Reality does not need followers it requires acceptors and those whose actions coincide with its tenets.
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Yup, you’ve summed it up wonderfully. There is no time for ‘Hope’, I rely on what the science tells me and that is that “Collapse is the Only Realistic Scenario”
https://kevinhester.live/2019/09/05/collapse-the-only-realistic-scenario/
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Robert Hunziker’s latest on Biosphere collapse;
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/19/biosphere-collapse/
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This is a link to a 4’C map (article behind a paywall). It may be the same ‘Kottke’ who wrote the ’90s climate catastrophe book I read recently and mentioned.
https://kottke.org/18/02/a-map-of-the-world-after-four-degrees-of-warming
Depressing as Hunziker was today.
Snowing outside at 49’N latitude since last night, started up again at dark. Snow levels expected to rapidly rise to 5,000 ft by the weekend turning all this freshie stuff into muck and probably freezing at night. Going to be many people falling on it, crashing vehicles if it does do this. End of December rains at my elevation as OZ burns to death…
sealintheSelkirks
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Great to hear Robert Hunziker our former guest on Nature Bats Last calling out Michael Mann for his contention that warming would stop if emissions were halted. That’s patently false knowing the feedback loops we have already triggered.
Bravo to John Doyle bringing up the issue of how we navigate this storm.
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Calling out Mann, eh? I didn’t read anything about that anywhere! But it’s a matter of keeping one’s academic privileges I guess; don’t want to lose those perks and standing by being too…outre, eh? If you scream Doom! from the rooftops, they ARE going to take your grants and next your office will be a broom closet and after that the phone gets turned off and someone comes and takes the carpet and then puts a new name on your parking place sign…and who you identify as suddenly isn’t who you’ve become. That rips the foundations out from under people pretty hard. Seems like Mann may just be trying to survive in comfort as long as he can by ‘go along to get along’ while just ruffling the surface of the bad shit happening. Who knows what’s in his mind? Denial takes many forms I’m thinking.
Hunziker’s rant a few days ago was rather sad, actually.
An Exhausted Planet Limps Into 2021
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/12/an-exhausted-planet-limps-into-2021/
Mainly because none of the suggestions by the Alliance for World Scientists are going to be implemented. It just isn’t in the economic interests of the wealthy elite, ya know…then he puts up this one:
Complex Life Threatened
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/22/complex-life-threatened/
And don’t get me going on Biden and his ‘new’ saying for this country. I mean, “Class, define, as precisely as you can, how Biden’s “Restore American Greatness” (RAG) is thematically different from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA)? Ahahahahahaha-choke! Bluntly, what fucking moron on his ‘team’ came up with that one I wonder? That quote came from this:
Roaming Charges: New Days, Old Ways
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/22/roaming-charges-new-days-old-ways/
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I really do wish I had high speed to be able to actually listen to some of these intelligent videos you post, Kevin. I don’t even know what most of these people voices sound like…
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Weather in the lower Selkirk Range:
Nothing but brilliantly blue sky days with plenty of sunshine all week, very cold overnight and mornings with my thermometers reading mostly -12’C or colder when the dogs and I go out. Starfields above my head at night have been incredible, though, very clear air. A covering of snow across most of the property, thin and extremely icy with the sun by afternoon turning the dirt areas into a sticky mud layer. Ground keeps defrosting, too, and re-freezing at night. Even the dogs are having a hard time walking on it. Snow levels are extremely high above me, the mountains are freaking bare here. Not kidding!
My book:
It’s been selling, and I’ve been getting extremely complimentary emails from people who’ve bought and read it along with words from those who don’t know me but took the chance and bought it from one of two local shops I’ve got them in here. Most have used the term ‘heavy’ to describe it, and that’s not due to its weight! Sold 15 last week on my website, almost all are people connected to the Hog Farm and the NorCal concert scene of course. And I’ve been contacted by the Shaman I worked with back then, Red Bear, after not hearing from him for over a decade which was a very good email to read! I’ve also been hearing about how many people I worked with down there have died in the intervening 15 years…a lot of friends have stepped through the curtain. People who are in my memories smiling and alive, aren’t anymore. Some younger than me, others older. The wheel of linear time keeps rotating, doesn’t it?
I’ve started writing the next one, putting down remembered stories and ideas so I can go back and fill them in later. Tales from a Concert Security Rover is probably going to be the title. Or something like that. Much more of a ‘fun’ book than Massacre Sites and there are so many laughing incidents (and some not) over the years at all those 3-day outdoor shows that it will probably be larger than the one you’ve got. See how it goes. Maybe I’ll get it out before the balloon pops over all of us, eh?
Best,
sealintheSelkirks
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