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“The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite…” Jules Verne
“Because of social taboos, despair at the state of our world and fear for our future are rarely acknowledged. The suppression of despair, like that of any deep recurring response, contributes to the numbing of the psyche. Expressions of anguish or outrage are muted, deadened as if a nerve had been cut. This refusal to feel impoverishes our emotional and sensory life. Flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic. We create diversions for ourselves as individuals and as nations, in the fights we pick, the aims we pursue, and the stuff we buy.” The Greatest Danger; Joanna Macy
My ancestors were born on the island called Ireland/Éire, militarily occupied by the British for 800 years, divided for over a 100, by some fluke of chance my darling parents emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand. Had I been born in the war zone, there is zero chance I would have survived my twenties! Adventures of a Member of the Diaspora in Occupied West Belfast
Dad arrived in NZ in 1957, to build the Auckland Harbour Bridge, he was the first person to need the decompression chamber at Devenport Naval Base, in an emergency, his timing to get the Bends whilst constructing the concrete piers on the bridge, was near perfect, the chamber had only just been installed, less than a mile from the construction site! The luck of the Irish huh?
I’ve been reasonably careful as a diver because the ‘old man’ nearly succumbed to the Bends.
Ma arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand with my three of my older siblings two years later in 1959, I arrived on the planet in 1960.
As an adolescent I became fixated on the oceans, mainly through watching Jaques Cousteau, as he explored the ocean depths, I was “Hooked”, pardon the pun!
Fascinatingly, in the above video, Jaques once blew up a reef, it was only later did he understand the implications of what he had done and what could and did happen on an industrial scale!
A wonderful consequence of my addiction was I obtained my yacht skippers ticket, in Gibraltar of all places, and I went on to do 16 ocean passages on small yachts, more than half as skipper. Two of those tales are embedded below! The transit of the Mediterranean detailed below doesn’t count as an ocean passage because the Med’ is considered to be an almost non-tidal, inland sea.
A Conversation Between a French F111 Fighter Jet Pilot, a Kiwi Yacht Skipper and Everything in Between.
Shark Attack at Minerva Reef
Neither of the experiences above nor the other 15 ocean passages would have happened in my life without the inspiration of Jaques Cousteau.
Five years ago, I was interviewed by the late great Michael Dowd, I spoke about how Jaques had changed my life!
More information on the above interview with corroborating links embedded at my blog post: “Post Doom” discussion featuring Michael Dowd and Kevin Hester. Navigating the Perfect Storm
One day after my birthday, on the 11 of March 2011, my worst nightmare came to fruition, with the triple melt downs at Fukushima Daiichi. I had some sleepless nights when I couldn’t stop grieving for the chaos, I had failed to prevent. It was gut wrenching!
The video above and corroborating links are embedded in my blog post titled: Fukushima Daiichi adds Insult to Injury for the Pacific’s Coral Reefs.
There is a multi-decadal lag between emissions and when their full consequences manifest, for massive pulses of carbon, it can take centuries to work its way through the climate system.
“In a recent letter, Ricke and Caldeira (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9 124002) estimated that the timing between an emission and the maximum temperature response is a decade on average. In their analysis, they took into account uncertainties about the carbon cycle, the rate of ocean heat uptake and the climate sensitivity but did not consider one important uncertainty: the size of the emission. Using simulations with an Earth System Model we show that the time lag between a carbon dioxide (CO2) emission pulse and the maximum warming increases for larger pulses. Our results suggest that as CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, the full warming effect of an emission may not be felt for several decades, if not centuries.”
The time lag between a carbon dioxide emission and maximum warming increases with the size of the emission
All the unfolding chaos we are witnessing today, is from emissions from last century and before, effectively this centuries consequences, have yet to manifest! The lag in the climate system is a critical detail!
There is a tsunami of grief building in our human community, especially in our youth, we need to talk about it publicly so that everyone can see that they are not alone.
The Coming Tsunami of Grief
The article below was written by Professor Henry Gee, he is the senior editor at Nature.com one of the most influential peer reviewed journals.
Habitat degradation, low genetic variation and declining fertility are setting Homo sapiens up for collapse.
Humans Are Doomed to Go Extinct
I’m editing into this blog this amazing video about Jaques Cousteau’s adventures and candidly his mistakes of blowing up reefs as part of a science project!
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Jhgj12VF4
A multi-pronged analysis of the meta-crises we face or should I say, don’t face!
WW3 under way in Europe, a regional conflict and 11month old genocide underway in West Asia, the drums of war being beaten in the South China Sea in anticipation of what the late great John Pilger called “The Coming War on China” and its subsequent ecological carnage, and the climate crisis, unravelling from Pole to Pole, from the depths of our oceans to the top of the atmosphere, contemporaneous with a Global Economy that is nothing short of a Ponzi Scheme.
The Apartheid state, in occupied Palestine, in a complex, state orchestrated terrorist act, inserted high explosives into innocuous electric devices, killing and maiming thousands of innocent people and some of their intended targets, or their children sitting nearby.
An Iranian diplomat lost an eye! ”
Iranian ambassador to Lebanon loses eye in explosive pager attack
“Mojtaba Amani was carrying one of pagers that detonated, resulting in loss of one eye and severe injuries to another: his condition critical enough to require transfer back to Iran for further treatment”. Surely Iran will see this as an act of war against their diplomat!
This act of terrorism represents a paradigm shift into more and more overt acts of fascism brutally inflicted on innocent and sometime not so innocent members of the resistance.
I never believed that President Raisi’s death was an ‘accident’, now we hear that he had a pager! Hezbollah Pager Link To Raisi’s Chopper Crash? Iranian Official Makes Bombshell Claim
Killing a nations President is by definition a declaration of war!
It is my contention that everyone in Concentration Camp Gaza is a hostage. On October the 7th 2023 we witnessed those hostages rebelling, as is their revolutionary and parental duty. If you imprison people long enough under pressure cooker stresses, don’t be surprised when they explode and rebel! VIDEO: What really happened on October 7?
Will we soon be stopped from bring phones, tablets etc, onto an airplane/ship, into a busy supermarket, a bus, a taxi, a school, a train on the way to work where many people use that commuting time productively? Has that human right now been extinguished?
This act of terrorism brings a whole new level of stresses to our lives, for people in the occupied territories, no electrical device is now deemed safe, that insecurity will sweep across the war-ravaged planet as “Copy-cat” attacks will surely follow, Mossad has unleashed a monster!
In occupied Ireland the British army and their cohorts in Loyalist terror gangs carried out a policy of “Shoot to Kill”, giving them license to execute people. Two cases in point. “After I left the occupied six counties, I went to Gibraltar to help a friend’s computer company install computers at a new bank.”
“I had to walk over the footpath where Mairead Farell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage were murdered in cold blood by the British SAS on March 6th, 1988. Mairéad was shot in the back along with her comrades Séan Savage and Daniel McCann, as they walked unarmed on a suburban street in Gibraltar. Britain always denied that they had a “Shoot to Kill” policy with us Irish Republicans but the evidence is clear.
Sean was shot 18 times. “Farrell, Watson said, “was hit by five bullets to the face and neck and three in the back. Danny McCann was shot twice in the head and twice in the back.”
I was in Gibraltar doing electrical work and delivering yachts around the Mediterranean. One person told me that the day after our three brave volunteers were executed council workers arrived with pneumatic jack hammers to chip the lead out of bullet impacts on the pavement, from the execution shots fired vertically down into my wounded comrades. They destroyed the evidence in what was clearly a crime scene.
Executed in a public street whilst walking unarmed, when they could have easily been arrested. Not so much as a warning was given, the intention was always assassination, not arrest.
Gone but never forgotten comrades.
18 BULLETS HIT IRA MAN, GIBRALTAR INQUEST TOLD
I sat with Suzanne whilst she told me of the day when her husband Ronnie Bunting and best man at their wedding Noel Little were assassinated and there was no doubt whatsoever in Suzanne’s mind that the assailants were well trained, military hitmen. The Brits smashed their way into the house all dressed in matching black & wearing Balaclava’s, spraying bullets indiscriminately in every direction. After wounding my three IRSP comrades, they systematically went over to Noel and Ronnie’s wounded, bleeding bodies and added execution shots to ensure they were dead, Suzanne witnessed that. They didn’t do the same to Suzanne because part of her face had been effectively blown off and they assumed she was dead. It was the most brutal story I have ever heard, and I heard it from the only surviving witness, with all the facial reconstruction scars to show the horrors of her injuries. The above paragraph from my essay: Grace Gifford and Joseph Mary Plunket – A Love Story like No Other.
I delivered a 49ft Ketch from Gib’ to Greece: ” Myself and one other crewman set sail from Gib’ heading East across the coast of Africa and when we were offshore from Libya I heard a massive ‘explosion’ as a fighter jet broke the sound barrier directly over the boat. I received a VHF ‘call’ from the French Fighter Jet Pilot , as you do!!
Whilst he spoke to me the jet circled my yacht with one wing pointed at the sky and the other at the ocean!” A Conversation Between a French F111 Fighter Jet Pilot, a Kiwi Yacht Skipper and Everything in Between.
The Apartheid state seems to have a ‘leave pass’ to carry out whatever levels of brutality it wants. The large Western Powers are fully behind this genocide by providing financial, logistical, military and political cover for the Apartheid regime! The Vassal states like Aotearoa NZ are too cowardly to speak up because our quisling parliamentarians are either spineless or morally bankrupt and we all know how mendacious and brutal the regime in occupied Palestine can be. They are literally afraid of the monster the West created in occupied Palestine.
The Western Powers are in lock step with the Apartheid state as they were with the former Apartheid state in South Africa. Clearly, Fascism has prevailed.
To quote the late Nelson Mandela “Yasser Arafat, Colonel Gaddafi, Fidel Castro support our struggle to the hilt. They don’t just support us in rhetoric, they are placing resources at our disposal to assist us in winning this struggle”.
I’ve written extensively on the ecological consequences of all this warmongering.
“The US military with 800 offshore military bases and the independent states response to the threat it poses is grinding the living planet into dust.
The article below is five years old so the damage will be much worse than stated. Add the emissions from the war in Ukraine to this already dire prognosis.
“If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal.”
US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries – shrinking this war machine is a must
Additional statistics embedded following: Warmongering and the Climate Crisis
Now to address the basket case of our world economy whose main foundation now is debt. When I was young ‘Quantitative Easing was called “Counterfeiting”, now it’s become the only tool to keep the Ponzi scheme going! All previous Ponzi schemes unraveled; all Fiat currencies failed: “Why Quantitative Easing Should Concern You”
There is also non-Kinetic war underway.
The independent states are more united than they have ever been, in my half a century of observations. The critical weapon is de-dollarization and the emergence of the multi-polar BRICS block.
There’s a new boss, not the same as the old boss. The “Empire of Chaos” what Pepe Escobar calls the NATO block, will fight to the death, of us all, to protect US political and dollar Hegemony!
Many thanks to Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen for their courage and integrity.
Clearly the USA will never be able to pay its debts, the most likely scenario is that the global economy will stagger along bouncing from one ecological catastrophe after another, contemporaneous with one economic crash after another then one day we will wake up to the “Mother of All Crashes” and the Casino Economy will go broke.
The two stark risks that stand out for me is contagion in the banking system that could literally seize up; “As we watch the US banking system totter and begin to collapse, like the proverbial Jenga stack, we need to consider the implications this has for the global financial system and its supply chains.
I’ll begin with the stellar work of David Korowicz published on June 17, 2012
Financial system supply-chain cross contagion – a study in global systemic collapse
Follower of this blog know that I have delved extensively into the issue of collapse, additional links below for the curious, from myself and fellow travelers on the rocky road, down the Seneca Cliff of collapse!
Is Capitalism by Definition an Extinction Event?
Collapse: The Only Realistic Scenario
2030: Our Runaway Train Falls Off the Seneca Cliff
Problems, Predicaments, and Technology
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXIII — Complexity and Sustainability
What Keeps Empires Together?
So, WTAF happens when collapse unfolds?
Horrors beyond imagination, we’ll see the best and the worst of human behaviour and most disruptive of all we will lose the Aerosol Masking Effect, what Professor James E Hansen dubbed “Our Faustian Bargain”.
Loss of the AME will mean all major ‘Bread Baskets” will collapse, 450 terrestrial nuclear power plants will be abandoned to their fate, as will their 1200 Spent Fuel Pools, and additionally 100 maritime nuclear vessels will make their way to the bottom of the oceans where they will percolate away for millennia.
Nuclear reactors have powered naval ships since the US Navy lunched the submarine Nautilus in 1955. According to Lloyd’s Register around 100 naval reactors are in use today.
My colleague and dear friend Professor Guy McPherson is a world leader in the field of societal collapse and extinction. He delves into the issue of the loss of Aerosol Masking Effect.
More information and another video featuring Leon Simons who co publishes with Professor James E Hansen embedded here: The Aerosol Masking Effect, a Deep Dive into Our “Faustian Bargain”
“If you were to list out every species that has ever existed on Earth—from the tiniest mold spore to the largest mammal—biologists estimate that somewhere around 99 percent of those species would currently be extinct.”
My dear friend Professor Guy McPherson in the video interview below mentioned the above incredible statistic!
I fact checked that assertion and its bang on, imagine that! source: 99 Percent Of The Species Are Extinct
The Carl Sagan quote “Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception” has always resonated with me.
Carl was warning about Climate Change in his 1985 appearance in front of the US congress.
Three years later Dr James E Hansen did the same in 1988!
How did Congress respond? Crickets.
We’ve more than doubled our emissions since those days.
I have previously interviewed Professor Paul Ehrlich on his book written in conjunction with Geraldo Ceballos, titled “The Annihilation of Nature.” That interview is embedded here:
They discuss the catastrophe in a new interview just released:
The subject of “Extinction Cascades” came up.
Professor McPherson and I interviewed Professor Cory Bradshaw on that topic on Nature Bats Last: Professor Corey Bradshaw explains the unfolding “Extinction Cascades”
Pedal to the metal, full speed ahead!
Woodcut by Nat Morley 2019
This is an absolutely fabulous documentary about The Cretaceous–Paleogene Extinction Event.
” The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the last major extinction event to hit earth took place approximately 66 million years ago. This cataclysmic event that wiped out 75% life on earth, including the dinosaurs. This documentary recalls the events of this major event in world history as it happened.”
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This series is a brilliant dive into the archelogy of how oil evolved and how it became fundamental to this set of living arrangements & how this set of living arrangements can’t function without fossil fuels. There is no “Energy Transition” outside of “Collapse.”
As the kids at the Deep Green Bush School pointed out to me when I spoke to them: “Wind turbines and solar panels require mining too you know”. Those kids are a testament to well-founded alternative schooling when done right!
My readers who are into the “Peak Oil” predicament will find some spectacular slides showing how oil was created in the subsoil strata and how dangerous fracking is, earthquakes are one consequence but the potential for the fracking fluids entering aquifers & poisoning them!
Episode One:
The full script to the episode can be found at Professor Guy McPhersons Substack post where readers can directly engage with Guy: Rocks for Jocks, Part One: A Discussion About Deep Time
Episode two:
Another fascinating dive into the “Carbon Pulse” which hurtled us to total domination of the planet.
Neils slides on coal seams and extraction going back to 1712 reiterate my point that the IPCC using 1880 as a baseline ignores centuries of anthropogenic emissions. Why ignore the Bronze age and Iron age emissions?
M. King Hubbert didn’t get everything right about “Peak Oil” but like Professor Paul Ehrlich and the “Population Bomb” his hypothesis was broadly correct!
This is a really cool series of discussions that are only getting better.
I’ve added the video below to the comments section of my blog post on Peak Oil titled “Global Peak Oil Remains an Existential Threat”
Rocks for Jocks, Part Two: A Discussion About Deep Time
Episode Three:
Imagine burning Whales, Birds and Fish so we can read at night?
Yes, burning oily fish and birds as a lantern! WTAF? WTH worked that out?
In the days of square rigger ships, the navigators used the stench from Whaling stations in the Pacific to assist in navigation!
A yacht skipper I sailed with hit a whale in his steel yacht just off Great Barrier Island once. The impact killed the whale and sprayed blood & blubber on the yacht, he told me he could smell it months later, despite washing the boat continually!
Then came the “Carbon Pulse” of gasoline becoming an endemic fuel around the planet when it was originally a waste product!
In 2021 we produced 99 million barrels of oil per day, digest that for a second. There is no other addiction on that scale
Incredible to know there were over 600 electric car recharging stations in 1916 in Chicago, over a hundred years later, there’s only about 3500!
This article has some incredible data and slides showing how we got corralled into this mess!
Rocks for Jocks, Part Three: A Discussion About Deep Time
Episode Four:
Another deep dive into the Carbon Pulse, and it’s ecological and societal consequences, with some incredible slides on the refining processes that convert millions of years of sequestered sunshine into the fossil fuels, that have enabled this dystopian civilization to literally “Steam Roller” the entire ecosystem. To quote GMP “Industrial civilization is Grinding the Living Planet into Dust”.
The issue of the Aerosol Masking Effect, what Dr James E Hansen called “Our Faustian Bargain” was discussed and how the reduction of aerosols is having an effect on both Sea Surface Temperatures and the loss of Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice.
There are a few great slides that show bunker fuel being burnt by shipping vessels and Methane being flared from Oil Rigs. Neal made the point that the flared CH4 is just a fraction of what is leaking from the whole process. They flare the gas because it’s cheaper that reticulating it, legalized dumping into the atmosphere, just like dumping the radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi into the nearby Pacific Ocean, is the cheapest option they could find. It’s no coincidence they chose the cheapest option! Diplomatic relations between Japan and China, both Koreas, Vietnam and Cambodia have become ‘stressed’ over this environmental larceny.
On one of my 16 ocean passages on yachts, I saw a huge black ball of pollution form in the sky horizon, as the Oil Tanker progressed across my course, the cloud got bigger and longer. Those aerosols also form clouds, so the loss of aerosols leads to lower pollution and more warming due to more solar radiation hitting the oceans over the shipping lanes and downwind from them
I’ve written to a few Universities and government departments in Japan floating my hypothesis of pumping that radioactive waste into a depleted oil well, rather than my beloved Pacific Ocean. I’ve yet to hear from any of them but would appreciate anyone’s thoughts on using depleted wells to store that radioactive waste. I hate the idea of pumping that waste into Papatuanuku/Mother Earth, but it beats vomiting it into the Pacific Ocean.
Rocks for Jocks, Part Four: A Discussion About Deep Time
All of the above oil and consequences are the result of mining.
As I was doing my research I literally stumbled upon this harrowing link:
“Many hard rock mines across the western United States may require water treatment for hundreds to thousands of years, or “in perpetuity” as a result of acid mine drainage or metals leaching.”
It’s the same predicament as Solar Radiation Management it must be continued for hundreds of thousands of years, years we don’t have!
Acid Mine Drainage
Clearly as the low hanging fruit has already been plucked and or ransacked, we have wars for the last dregs:
Below is a truly magnificent documentary drawing the connections between the Class War and its attendant racism, Unregulated Capitalism and the destruction of the living biome!
“Capital is a mass extinction event.”
“For Land: on the capitalist mass extinction. Part one: Capital as extinction” is a feature length documentary arguing that capitalism is the force behind the sixth mass extinction.”
For the record it’s probably at least our Nineth Mass Extinction event:
” The film traces the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the turn to steam in Britain, the clearances and colonialism to show this.”
“For years, researchers have expressed concern that rising temperatures, drought, and deforestation are reducing the capacity of the world’s largest rainforest to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help offset emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Recent studies have even suggested that some portions of the tropical landscape already may release more carbon than they store.”
First study of all Amazon greenhouse gases suggests the damaged forest is now worsening climate change
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