Category Archives: News & Editorial

…an attempt to connect the dots, see a larger picture, or explore the odd topic

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 · 7:15 AM

Nuclear war and famine

(News & Editorial/Nuclear war and famine)

A. Nuclear war would ‘end civilization’ with famine: study
10 Dec 2013, Phys.org, by Shaun Tandon
Pasted from: http://phys.org/news/2013-12-nuclear-war-civilization-famine.html

[Indian Army personnel display an Agni-ll nuclear-capable missile during Indias Repbulic Day parade in New Delhi in Janauary 2006 (AFP)
newvision]

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would set off a global famine that could kill two billion people and effectively end human civilization, a study said Tuesday.

Even if limited in scope, a conflict with nuclear weapons would wreak havoc in the atmosphere and devastate crop yields, with the effects multiplied as global food markets went into turmoil, the report said.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility released an initial peer-reviewed study in April 2012 that predicted a nuclear famine could kill more than a billion people.

In a second edition, the groups said they widely underestimated the impact in China and calculated that the world’s most populous country would face severe food insecurity.

“A billion people dead in the developing world is obviously a catastrophe unparalleled in human history. But then if you add to that the possibility of another 1.3 billion people in China being at risk, we are entering something that is clearly the end of civilization,” said Ira Helfand, the report’s author.

Helfand said that the study looked at India and Pakistan due to the longstanding tensions between the nuclear-armed states, which have fought three full-fledged wars since independence and partition in 1947.

But Helfand said that the planet would expect a similar apocalyptic impact from any limited nuclear war. Modern nuclear weapons are far more powerful than the US bombs that killed more than 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

“With a large war between the United States and Russia, we are talking about the possible — not certain, but possible — extinction of the human race.

“In this kind of war, biologically there are going to be people surviving somewhere on the planet but the chaos that would result from this will dwarf anything we’ve ever seen,” Helfand said.

The study said that the black carbon aerosol particles kicked into the atmosphere by a South Asian nuclear war would reduce US corn and soybean production by around 10 percent over a decade.

The particles would also reduce China’s rice production by an average of 21 percent over four years and by another 10 percent over the following six years.

The updated study also found severe effects on China’s wheat, which is vital to the country despite its association with rice.

China’s wheat production would plunge by 50 percent the first year after the nuclear war and would still be 31 percent below baseline a decade later, it said.

The study said it was impossible to estimate the exact impact of nuclear war. He called for further research, voicing alarm that policymakers in nuclear powers were not looking more thoroughly at the idea of a nuclear famine.

But he said, ultimately, the only answer was the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“This is a disaster so massive in scale that really no preparation is possible. We must prevent this,” he said.

President Barack Obama pledged in 2009 to work toward abolition but said that the United States would keep nuclear weapons so long as others exist. Nine countries are believed to possess nuclear weapons, with Russia and the United States holding the vast majority.
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B. Nuclear famine
How a Regional Nuclear War Will Cause Global Mass Starvation
Pasted from: http://ippnweducation.wordpress.com/nuclearfamine/

Climate scientists who worked with the late Carl Sagan in the 1980s to document the threat of nuclear winter have produced disturbing new research about the climate effects of low-yield, regional nuclear war.

Using South Asia as an example, these experts have found that even a limited regional nuclear war on the order of 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons would result in tens of millions of immediate deaths and unprecedented global climate disruption. Smoke from urban firestorms caused by multiple nuclear explosions would rise into the upper troposphere and, due to atmospheric heating, would subsequently be boosted deep into the stratosphere.

The resulting soot cloud would block 7–10% of warming sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, leading to significant cooling and reductions in precipitation lasting for more than a decade. Within 10 days following the explosions, there would be a drop in average surface temperature of 1.25° C. Over the following year, a 10% decline in average global rainfall and a large reduction in the Asian summer monsoon would have a significant impact on agricultural production. These effects would persist over many years. The growing season would be shortened by 10 to 20 days in many of the most important grain producing areas in the world, which might completely eliminate crops that had insufficient time to reach maturity.

There are currently more than 800 million people in the world who are chronically malnourished. Several hundred million more live in countries that depend on imported grain. Even a modest, sudden decline in agricultural production could trigger significant increases in the prices for basic foods, as well as hoarding on a global scale, making food inaccessible to poor people in much of the world. While it is not possible to estimate the precise extent of the global famine that would follow a regional nuclear war, it seems reasonable to anticipate a total global death toll in the range of one billion from starvation alone. Famine on this scale would also lead to major epidemics of infectious diseases, and would create immense potential for mass population movement, civil conflict, and war.

These findings have significant implications for nuclear weapons policy. They are powerful evidence in the case against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and against the modernization of arsenals in the existing nuclear weapon states. Even more important, they argue for a fundamental reassessment of the role of nuclear weapons in the world. If even a relatively small nuclear war, by Cold War standards—within the capacity of eight nuclear-armed states—could trigger a global catastrophe, then the only viable response is the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

Two other issues need to be considered as well. First, there is a very high likelihood that famine on this scale would lead to major epidemics of infectious diseases. Previous famines have been accompanied by major outbreaks of plague, typhus, malaria, dysentery, and cholera. Despite the advances in medical technology of the last half century, a global famine on the anticipated scale would provide the ideal breeding ground for epidemics involving any or all of these illness, especially in the vast megacities of the developing world.

Famine on this scale would also provoke war and civil conflict, including food riots. Competition for limited food resources might well exacerbate ethnic and regional animosities. Armed conflict among nations would escalate as states dependent on imports adopted whatever means were at their disposal to maintain access to food supplies.

C. Regional nuclear war could devastate global climate
11 Dec 2006, EurekAlert.org, see Joseph Blumberg at blumberg@ur.rutgers.edu
Pasted from: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/rtsu-rnw120706.php

[The Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter, August 9, 1945. (Wikipedia)]

NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, university researchers have found.

These powerful conclusions are being presented Dec. 11 during a press conference and a special technical session at the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The research also appears in twin papers posted on Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, an online journal.

A team of scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder); and UCLA conducted the rigorous scientific studies reported.

Against the backdrop of growing tensions in the Middle East and nuclear “saber rattling” elsewhere in Asia, the authors point out that even the smallest nuclear powers today and in the near future may have as many as 50 or more Hiroshima-size (15 kiloton) weapons in their arsenals; all told, about 40 countries possess enough plutonium and/or uranium to construct substantial nuclear arsenals.

Owen “Brian” Toon, chair of the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a member of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU-Boulder, oversaw the analysis of potential fatalities based on an assessment of current nuclear weapons inventories and population densities in large urban complexes. His team focused on scenarios of smoke emissions that urban firestorms could produce.

“The results described in one of the new papers represent the first comprehensive quantitative study of the consequences of a nuclear conflict between smaller nuclear states,” said Toon and his co-authors. “A small country is likely to direct its weapons against population centers to maximize damage and achieve the greatest advantage,” Toon said. Fatality estimates for a plausible regional conflict ranged from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country.

Alan Robock, a professor in the department of environmental sciences and associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers’ Cook College, guided the climate modeling effort using tools he previously employed in assessing volcano-induced climate change. Robock and his Rutgers co-workers, Professor Georgiy Stenchikov and Postdoctoral Associate Luke Oman (now at Johns Hopkins University) generated a series of computer simulations depicting potential climatic anomalies that a small-scale nuclear war could bring about, summarizing their conclusions in the second paper.

“Considering the relatively small number and size of the weapons, the effects are surprisingly large. The potential devastation would be catastrophic and long term,” said Richard Turco, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, and a member and founding director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment. Turco once headed a team including Toon and Carl Sagan that originally defined “nuclear winter.”

While a regional nuclear confrontation among emerging third-world nuclear powers might be geographically constrained, Robock and his colleagues have concluded that the environmental impacts could be worldwide.

“We examined the climatic effects of the smoke produced in a regional conflict in the subtropics between two opposing nations, each using 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons to attack the other’s most populated urban areas,” Robock said. The researchers carried out their simulations using a modern climate model coupled with estimates of smoke emissions provided by Toon and his colleagues, which amounted to as much as five million metric tons of “soot” particles.

“A cooling of several degrees would occur over large areas of North America and Eurasia, including most of the grain-growing regions,” Robock said. “As in the case with earlier nuclear winter calculations, large climatic effects would occur in regions far removed from the target areas or the countries involved in the conflict.”

When Robock and his team applied their climate model to calibrate the recorded response to the 1912 eruptions of Katmai volcano in Alaska, they found that observed temperature anomalies were accurately reproduced. On a grander scale, the 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia – the largest in the last 500 years – was followed by killing frosts throughout New England in 1816, during what has become known as “the year without a summer.” The weather in Europe was reported to be so cold and wet that the harvest failed and people starved. This historical event, according to Robock, perhaps foreshadows the kind of climate disruptions that would follow a regional nuclear conflict.

But the climatic disruption resulting from Tambora lasted for only about one year, the authors note. In their most recent computer simulation, in which carbon particles remain in the stratosphere for up to 10 years, the climatic effects are greater and last longer than those associated with the Tambora eruption.

“With the exchange of 100 15-kiloton weapons as posed in this scenario, the estimated quantities of smoke generated could lead to global climate anomalies exceeding any changes experienced in recorded history,” Robock said. “And that’s just 0.03 percent of the total explosive power of the current world nuclear arsenal.”

[Below, I’ve provided some visual examples of the sort of things you might want to incorporate into your cupboard, pantry, basement and/or under your bed during early 2014, think of it as insurance. Mr. Larry]

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Tagged as climate, crisis, disaster, disease, ecology, EMP, energy, famine, government, investing, martial law, storage, war, water

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 · 12:10 AM

A guide to cushioning system collapse

(News & Editorial/A guide to cushioning system collapse)

A. Crisis Reality: “Within An Hour the Stores Were Emptied”

22 January 2014, The Daily Sheeple, by Mac Slavo at SHTFPlan.com
Pasted from: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/crisis-reality-within-an-hour-the-stores-were-emptied_012014
When toxic chemicals spilled into the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia a couple of weeks ago we got another glimpse into what the world might look like in the aftermath of a major, widespread disaster.

There were several lessons we can take from this regional emergency and all of them are pretty much exactly what you might expect would happen when the water supplies for 300,000 people become suddenly unavailable.

Lesson #1: There will be immediate panic

Studies have suggested that the average person has about three days worth of food in their pantry, after which they would be left with no choice but to scrounge for scraps once their food stores run out. We saw this scenario play out after Hurricane Sandy, when thousands of unprepared people lined up at National Guard operated FEMA tents and temporary camps. That’s what happens when there’s no food.

With water, however, it’s a whole different matter.

Food we can do without for weeks, but lack of water will kill us in a very short time. The events following the Charleston chemical spill highlight just how critical fresh water is to maintaining stability.

A reader at The Prepper Journal web site shared his firsthand account of the events as they played out. In a situation where water supplies are poisoned, whether by accident or on purpose, the anatomy of a breakdown accelerates significantly from three days to mere minutes:

Just yesterday that ban was lifted, but what if this had happened in your town? Would you be able to live comfortably with no water from the tap for 5 days? The news reports that I read stated that there was plenty of water and the stores never ran out. That is in direct contradiction to what Steve tells me:

Immediately after the announcement, the stores in the area were rushed for any bottled water products. Within an hour the stores were emptied. Do not let anyone tell you that everything was nice, peaceful and everyone conducted themselves gracefully. There were fist fights and scuffles for the last of the water.

After the order was issued no one could give any answers as to when drinkable water would be available. Those with water were either hording it or selling it at enormous prices.

48 hours after the ban, water began to be distributed to the everyday person. Hospitals and nursing homes received the first shipments. By the way the hospitals (except one) were not taking any new patients). If you got hurt or injured you were on your own or had to travel an hour away for treatment.

What if the spill was more serious or the supply of water non-existent? Would you have enough water on hand and the means to disinfect new sources to take care of your family? It is news like this that illustrates for anyone paying attention the importance of storing water.

If you live an area affected by a water supply contamination and have no water reserves, this report suggests that you have less than an hour to stock up. And during that hour there will be panic with the potential for violence being highly probable.

Lesson #2: Security forces will be deployed to maintain order This is a no-brainer, but nonetheless worthy of mention.

We saw it after Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina – thousands of troops and militarized police deployed to prevent looting and rioting. The fact is that when the water and food run out people will be left with no choice but to rob and pillage. It becomes a matter of survival. Crowds will unwaveringly stampede to get to the resources they need. They’ll stomp over you if you happen to fall on the ground in a rush, because when the herd starts running nothing will stop it.

Imagine how these people will act when they are desperate for food food and water:

There is a reason the government has been preparing military contingency plans and simulations for events that include economic collapse or a massive natural disaster. They know what will happen if millions of people are left without critical supplies.

In Charleston, after water supplies started being delivered to grocery store chains, local government and the companies themselves brought on hired guards to keep the peace.

The Elk River event was limited in scope, affecting about 300,000 people in an isolated area, thus it was not that difficult of a situation to contain as FEMA and government could throw all of their resources and assets at the problem.

But imagine a scenario that involves multiple large metropolitan areas simultaneously in different regions of the country.

There are simply not enough personnel (or supplies) to respond to such a situation and maintain order.

Lesson #3: Despite hundreds of billions spent, the government is ill-prepared It took emergency responders five days to get water to the Super Dome in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
Following Sandy, FEMA had enough food and water to provide the absolute basic necessities to about 50,000 people.
In Charleston it took at least two days to get water supplies moving.
If this were a massive catastrophe it could be weeks before help arrives.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has itself warned that it is not equipped to handle large-scale emergencies. It’s for this reason that they strongly recommend a minimum two week supply of food and water.

Considering that the majority of Americans have maybe three days worth of supplies, how many millions of mouths would need to be fed three square meals a day if we experienced a multi-city event?

It was recently reported that FEMA has in its possession about 140 million “meals ready to eat.”
In 2011 a FEMA/DHS organized National Level exercise simulated an earthquake on the New Madrid Fault in the Mid West. The simulation revealed that 100,000 people would be killed almost immediately, and another 7 million would be displaced from their homes.
They would only have one place to go – government managed FEMA camps. Those seven million people eating just two MRE’s per day would consume FEMA’s entire emergency food reserve within 10 days.
Then what?
You probably already know the answer.
Prepare now, because the last place you want to be in is in the midst of crisis-driven panic.

B. Report: Supplier Survey & Trend Analysis of Preparedness and Resiliency Provisions
30 Sep 2012, learntoprepare.com, by Denis Korn
Pasted from: http://learntoprepare.com/2012/09/report-supplier-survey-trend-analysis-of-preparedness-and-resiliency-provisions/

Here is my perspective on current trends relating to food products for shelf stable food reserves and resiliency provisions in general.
In the 37 years I have been in the natural foods, outdoor recreation and emergency preparedness industries as a retailer and manufacturer, I have experienced a number of fluctuations and factors that have influenced the availability and pricing of foods and supplies for preparedness. A number of current factors and converging events are affecting the preparedness marketplace today and potentially in the near future.

In addition to my own present-day observations and experience as a retailer of food reserves and preparedness products, I have very recently surveyed a number of suppliers, processors and manufacturers for their assessment of current conditions in the marketplace.

Here are my appraisals, reports, and insights regarding the state of the industry:

The numerous and diverse potential scenarios associated with emergency and disaster preparedness is so pervasive in contemporary culture, that a broad spectrum of citizens have begun to take some form of action. Others are acutely aware of the probable dangers and are waiting for a significant triggering event to act.
If a serious event were to occur, fence sitters and those who have done nothing to prepare would overwhelm preparedness suppliers, manufacturers and normal outlets. Products will be sold out or long lead times will prevail. The nature of the triggering events will determine the availability of preparedness supplies for both the short and long terms.
Preparedness niche companies and their suppliers have a limited supply of goods on hand during normal business activity. At all levels of the supply chain there is a restricted amount of products available. Y2K, hurricanes, international disasters have all been testaments to disruptions in certain product availability. A wide spread and prolonged emergency will have a devastating effect on the availability of goods and services. This is especially true of specialty food processors.
The main stream media will not accurately depict the real state of affairs regarding the current conditions in our society. This relates to politics, the economy, financial issues, government action and inaction, weather effects and anything that would be valuable for citizens to know so that they can prepare in advance for shortages. Information is significantly manipulated, controlled and fabricated. This includes what you hear and what you don’t hear.
The current drought has had some effect on food prices and availability but not a catastrophic one. The increases in costs have already been factored in as it relates to commodity futures. Corn, soy beans and wheat were the crops most affected by the drought, as was potatoes and to a smaller extent other vegetables and fruits.
A record corn crop was initially anticipated, so the effect of the drought could have been worse. NOTE: 40% of the corn crop goes for ethanol.
Currently the price of most beans has dropped some due to good yields in North Dakota where 2/3 of the nation’s beans are grown. Availability of beans and other grains is good.
Rice prices and availability is stable.
Freeze dried food processors are very busy and are experiencing an increasing demand for fruit and vegetables from non preparedness manufacturers. This is causing shortages in some products. The drought has not substantially affected fruit and vegetables.
There has been a shortage in some “ready” or “no cooking required” ingredients that are necessary for entrée and blended recipes. Many of these ingredients use non freeze drying technology to enable a no cooking requirement.
Quality domestic food ingredients are becoming more difficult to source. It is essential that consumers do diligent research to establish trust with reputable manufacturers. Many current preparedness food packers have succumbed to using lower quality imported and processed foods.
Currently, other vital preparedness provisions – electronics, medical, tools, water filters and such, are in adequate supply. Last year at this time there were shortages.
Prices have risen in many sectors due to a multitude of factors such as transportation, packaging (paper prices have seen a steep increase), cost of benefits to employees, fuel, raw materials, regulations unfavorable to small business and lack of credit. Prices are expected to continue to rise, and with any new detrimental financial event they will rise dramatically.
As shortages continue lead times for fulfillment will increase. I see this currently occurring.
The current debilitating state of our nation and the attitudes of despair of our citizens are unprecedented in my lifetime.
I and others see a substantial spike in demand for preparedness food and supplies from possibly right before to definitely after the November election. Negative reaction to the outcome of the election will be momentous – no matter who wins. We will soon know how serious the reaction will be, what form it will take and what governmental actions will be executed.

Conclusion:
Currently food products – with increasing lead times – and other supplies are available. However, there are a multitude of very volatile factors that could trigger a substantial increase in demand of preparedness supplies. A very difficult question to answer, although it discussed frequently is: How will a crisis effect fulfillment of essential goods and services?

During Y2K there were specific dates as to a potential problem, and specific remedies that could be addressed and possibly implemented. When citizens realized that problems had been addressed, demand for preparedness goods subsided. It was the unknown consequences of a potential computer calamity and the perceived resolution of those problems, which triggered the fluctuations in demand and supply.

The unknown consequences of the myriad of potentially devastating scenarios being discussed currently are not so easily resolved nor are the timing markers so easily recognized. There is so much uncertainty associated with current events that folks are either in denial or on edge waiting for a significant triggering event before they act. And when they do, preparedness suppliers, warehouse retailers and numerous provision dealers will be inundated.

I and numerous other observers of current events don’t ask if a catastrophe or serious events will happen – but when? Then we ask:

1. How long will it last?
2. How devastating will it be?
3. How will the population cope with a dramatic lifestyle change if scenarios are dramatic?
4. How many will be prepared?
5. What will those who are not prepared do, and who will they rely upon?
6. What repressive and draconian measures will the government implement?
The unknown consequences of the myriad of potentially devastating scenarios being discussed currently are not so easily resolved nor are the timing markers so easily recognized. There is so much uncertainty associated with current events that folks are either in denial or on edge waiting for a significant triggering event before they act. And when they do, preparedness suppliers, warehouse retailers and numerous provision dealers will be inundated.

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C. The #1 Preparedness Question – What’s Your Scenario? (Why?)
13 Oct 2012, learntoprepare.com, by Denis Korn
Pasted from: http://learntoprepare.com/2012/10/the-1-preparedness-question-whats-your-scenario-why/

This is such an important question to answer when engaging in preparedness planning that I felt it necessary to examine it more carefully. It is the first question in my 12 Crucial Questions of Preparedness Planning, listed under 12 Foundational Articles for Preparedness Planning (as you can see I like the number 12).

Before I proceed with this topic I want to share some insights on the current state of fears and concerns I hear people discussing.

It is no secret that the societal, financial and moral issues of our time are wreaking havoc on the lives of most Americans. While at each election, the parties proclaim their election to be the most important of the era, what we currently are experiencing is that this statement is finally true. Not that the outcome will necessarily change the fundamental problems underlying our society and its governance, but that the results will indicate how really difficult true transformation will be. I am very passionate about my concerns for our country and the future for my children and grandchildren. I have never seen such blatant in-your-face displays of revolt, rage and lying by those who are ignorant, self-serving and delusional (a strong word yet in my opinion accurate).

Our leadership, corporate ethics, cultural morality and attitude towards truth, human compassion and right action has been so corrupted and dishonored that it will take a Divine act to significantly transform us and set us on the right path. Earnest prayer is essential! Over the course of the next few months we will see how difficult it will be during the times that lie ahead, and as it relates to this blog site – how can we be prepared?

Steve Wynn, a very successful developer and casino operator, was asked for his assessment of the current business climate. His answer included this statement, “…And I have to tell you, Jon, that every business guy I know in the country is frightened of Barack Obama and the way he thinks.” This response mirrors my experience in talking with many small business owners, and is an exact duplication of the circumstances surrounding the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter, incumbent and Ronald Reagan, challenger. The business climate was terrible (I was in the outdoor recreation and preparedness industry as a business owner at that time), and whatever one’s political viewpoint, the perception of a pro-business and competent President was critical in turning the decline around. This is not a political blog, so I will not dwell on the politics. However, I cannot turn my back on the obvious – too much is at stake.

The perception of the capability and aptitude of our leadership to instigate real change will have a dramatic effect on the course of events in the short term. For the long term, the fundamentals must be transformed.

Let me be frank, I am a small business owner who has owned various businesses for 41 years, and if we don’t elect leadership who will instill confidence and trust and initiate real reform for We The People during these darkest of days – we’re screwed!

Here is the entire question #1 of the 12 Crucial Questions:
What are the circumstances or scenarios you have determined may exist that will require you to rely upon your preparedness supplies?
This is not only the most important and first question to answer, it is often the question most overlooked, or not considered critically enough. While many people find it difficult to honestly assess potential uncomfortable and “fearful” possibilities, wasting time and resources on inadequate and ineffectual provisions can be detrimental to your health or possibly your life. Don’t be caught up in slick advertisements, fraudulent claims or irrelevant personality endorsements. I have seen them all – do your due diligence!

What will be the severity and impact of those circumstances on your life?
Now starts the process of being specific and increasingly focused. Honesty is essential – this is no time for wishful thinking and denial.
Given your potential scenarios, how thoroughly have you researched the available options for food, water, medical, shelter, hygiene, and other categories of critical supplies?
An actual physical list is vital in answering this question. Here you will begin to determine specific provisions you will need. You will have a broader perspective of available items required for your scenarios.
Are you prepared for emergencies during all seasons of the year?
Depending on where you live, temperatures, rain, snow and other weather conditions can vary significantly. Cold weather preparedness is especially important. The anticipated duration of your scenario might require preparing for multiple seasons and conditions.
Is your family more susceptible to certain emergencies?
Depending on where you live or where you might need to relocate will determine unique potential issues. Possible hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, tornadoes, fire, riots, loss of electricity, lack of water, lack of essential medications are just some events that might affect your preparedness planning
How would your scenarios impact you or your family’s daily routine? Work or livelihood?
If you scenarios are relatively minor and isolated, then of course there will be a minimum of inconvenience. If however, your scenarios are more impactful, severe, regional or nationwide and of longer duration, then you are looking at a significant disruption in routine and possibly a substantial lifestyle change.
How will you protect yourself and family against those who might do you harm?
Many folks don’t welcome the notion that a significant emergency or disaster will create a dangerous environment with animals, gangs or groups of ill-intentioned people who can inflict injury. Where you live will determine the degree of concern. Those who are responsible for their own welfare and the protection of their family will need to reflect on this question with seriousness. Protection devices are numerous and diverse, consider the appropriate response for your anticipated scenarios.

D. 9 Survival Items You Should Always Have In Your Car
10 June 2013, OffTheGridNews.com, written by: Travis P- Extreme Survival
Pasted from: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/06/10/9-survival-items-you-should-always-have-in-your-car/

In my home I have over a dozen firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, shelves and shelves of food, enough water to drink for weeks, and a two rucksacks packed to last seventy-two hours should this all be compromised.

Now how useful is all this if I’m not home when things fall apart? It’s no good to me at all if I’m thirty miles away and traffic is halted… or if a hurricane hits and I’m stranded. In addition, if a bridge washes out or I crash in the middle of nowhere, I might need a survival kit. As I discussed in last week’s article, I almost always have either a shotgun or my concealed handgun on me or in my car or truck, but what about other supplies? A lot of things can happen, and my survival gear may not be at hand.

So is the easiest answer to simply throw one of those seventy-two-hour bug-out bags in my car or truck? Well that’s a good idea, but not very practical for riding around with every day. These rucks are pretty big, and they won’t work well with strollers, car seats, work stuff, and trying to fit myself and others in my vehicles, and I can’t toss it in the bed of my truck without worrying someone will swipe it.

So that’s where the “get home bag” comes into play. Some people may see it as a smaller bug out bag, but I much prefer calling it the “get home bag”. The main difference between the get home bag and my bug out bag is size. My two bug out bags will last my family 3 days comfortably and can be stretched to five days if we have a good water source. My get home bag is more customizable in terms of food and water, and how long they need to last.

I’ll address those two first.
Food and water are critical, and the situation will vary on how much you need. So first I put a 24 count case of 20 ounce bottled water in my trunk. It fits perfectly on the floor, under my son’s car seat. That room is wasted anyway since he is rear facing. It doesn’t leave room for the mentioned stroller or tools, but there is enough for the case of water.
I also have a Camelbak hydration system, and a Nalgene bottle. I can fill both up and carry as many additional water bottles as I believe I’ll need for the trip home. I have loved these hydration packs ever since the first time I was issued one in the military. It’s an excellent way to carry water, easy to carry, and leaves your pockets and pack free for other things.

For the food portion, I keep six civilian versions of the military MREs. I have plenty of access to military MREs, but the civilian MREs are much better tasting, last longer [5years as listed at Amazon-Mr Larry], and I know the date of production. They also pack more stomach-friendly foods than the military versions. I field strip the MREs and tape them tightly together with duct tape for compact packages. I also have quite a few bags of sealed beef jerky and high fat protein bars. This all fits in easily with the spare tire in the trunk of the car.

So now that my food and water are in place, I can take or leave whatever I need. Remember this isn’t to last you forever, just enough to get you home. I feel I’ve over-packed, but it fits well so there is no point in taking anything out.

Now, as I write this, I’m building the actual get home bag portion of this. I didn’t buy anything special to build this; I used what I had laying around. I will honestly probably buy a few things for this kit in the future (and drive my wife a little crazier). Most of the items are extras I hang on to, but quality items none the least.

First off, my personal number one rule of survival is to always have a knife, and a good knife at that. I packed a Spyderco Enuff Sheepfoot. The Enuff Sheepfoot is a small fixed blade with a sturdy Kydex holster. I like Spyderco knives, and this little one wasn’t much use in my tool box, so into the bag it went. Next I tossed an extra small, folding knife in the bag (it’s a small, cheap Smith and Wesson folding knife).

Next was twenty feet of paracord, braided to make it more compact. Also known as 550 cord (for its resistance), 550 could also be the number of uses it has. A good strong cord can do anything from make snares to fashioning a lean-to.

Next up was a good strong, metal framed, LED flashlight, and a Gerber headlamp. Neither of these are expensive Surefires, but they’re dependable and water resistant. Along with these are, of course, extra batteries to keep them lasting a few days. I may add a cheap crank flashlight to this mix as well.

One of the most important series of items is the medical supplies. This is a basic individual first aid kit. I packed a compression bandage, two triangle bandages, a cinch tight, some band aids, Betadine solution, gauze, and a burn dressing. I also included a flask of liquor (high proof), for cleaning wounds and if necessary, for starting fires.

Speaking of fires, I packed a good outdoor lighter, water resistant matches, and a cheap fire starter. Three different ways to start a fire is a good place to start. Fire can cook and purify water, as well as act as a signaling device. It’s just as important as water because it will purify water too. On this note I’m also packing a military metal canteen cup in which to boil water. I’m also packing a packet of a dozen Micropur tablets, each capable of purifying a liter of water.

I have a few miscellaneous items to toss in there as well. First are two rolls of tape, one electrical and one duct tape. Tape is another item that has a million uses. I also threw in a D ring, just because you never know. I also tossed in three glow sticks—blue, yellow, and red—that will each last 8 hours. These can be used for signaling as well as lights. {I’d add a few items the author of this article hasn’t mentioned, ie.: cheap thermal blanket, poncho, insect repellant, gloves and stocking cap or brimmed hat, depending on time of year and location. Also more apt to carry a 1/2 lb or larger canister of Bear grade pepper spray, than a gun, for this two hour to over night emergency. Mr. Larry).

Now the last piece of gear I’m bringing is probably the most important—the gun. I had a hard time choosing a weapon; I decided that the weapon needed to be concealable, adaptable, and powerful. I ended up choosing the Taurus Judge. I chose the Judge for a few reasons. First off, it is powerful enough to deal with any man or critter I will encounter. I can also load a variety of different shots for close range snake dispatching and small game hunting. I packed a box of Federal .410 handgun No. 4, a box of number 7, and 15 Winchester .45 colt Winchester PDX, and ten double-aught buck. I have a total of 75 rounds for this weapon. This weapon will compliment my everyday concealed handgun, a .45 acp 1911 Commander, with two eight-round magazines.

Of course I packed my favorite holster, a Blackhawk Serpa, with a paddle attachment. I love the Serpa for the Judge. It holds the weapon high, is easy to conceal, and it also holds the heavy weapon really well.

The actual pack I use is a military surplus “butt” pack. The butt pack was used on 782 gear as a patrol pack to carry food, tarp, or whatever a soldier needed on patrol that day. I rigged mine up with an old two-point sling to act as a messenger bag (aka “man purse”). The butt pack is tough and lightweight, just big enough to fit everything, and still stays small and convenient.

The small get home bag is a pretty handy little bag to keep in any vehicle. The bag is perfect for a short survival situation and cost me nearly nothing to build. It takes up only a small amount of room in my trunk, or behind the seat in my truck. Like my bug out bags, I’ll be changing and upgrading it constantly, and it will become a permanent addition in my vehicle.

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Tagged as crisis, depression, ecology, economy, emergency, food, investing, martial law, storage, water

Wednesday, September 7, 2016 · 12:10 AM

How volcanoes like Tambora and Laki can affect our ecology

(News & Editorial)

The threat of volcanic activity and occasional eruptions seem to be in the news a lot recently, making one wonder, ‘If volcanoes erupt every year, as they always have and always will, what’s the big deal?’
Answer: 1) All volcanoes have not been created equally, 2) never have so many humans been so dependent on such relatively small warehouse storage and, 3) just in time deliveries; 4) never has so much of our world’s population lived concentrated in a dependant city environment, while at the same time, 5) without knowledge of the past, feeling safe and secure in their numbers and looking to their governments to cover any ‘eventuality’.
Let’s step back for a moment to get a feel for the truly prodigious natural forces, capabilities and health estimates of a volcano affecting modern civilization.
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Volcanic eruptions undo all climate change measures
Tuesday 5th July 2011, 6:03AM BST.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/07/05/letter-volcanic-eruptions-undo-all-climate-change-measures/#ixzz1REa3j74b
“Letter: The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just four days, negated every single effort we humans have made in the past five years to control carbon dioxide emissions on our planet.
Of course you know about this gas we are trying to suppress – it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow, and to synthesize into oxygen for all animal life.
The volcanic ash has erased every effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon.
And there are about 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this gas every day.
I don’t really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire time on earth.
Should I mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change?
I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bushfire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone [2011] will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years.”

What have been the truely ‘super eruptions? I don’t mean the smoke and ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano that affected European air service, nor the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa, nor the global cooling event brought by ‘popular’ Mt. Tambora, nor even the Minoan eruption and deluge brought by Mt. Santorini.
The seven ‘big ‘uns’ include:
1) Mt Toba, Indonesia, erupted 74,000 years ago (with a volcanic crater measuring a whopping 62 miles by 21 miles). Obviously not the cartoon image of a cinder cone mountain with a little hole in the top.
2) beautiful Yellowstone (super volcano) National Park, whos caldera (volcanic crater) measures 34 miles by 44 miles
3) Long Valley, and
4) Valles Calderas in the United States
5) Taupo Volcano, North Island, New Zealand;
6) Aira Caldera, Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan;
7) and the Siberian Traps in Russia.
The Siberian Traps are the point of discussion in the next article. This massive eruptive event spanned the Permian-Triassic boundary, about 250 million years ago, and is cited as a possible cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction event. This extinction event, also called the “Great Dying”, affected all life on Earth, and is estimated to have killed 90% of species living at the time. Life on land took 30 million years to recover from the environmental disruptions which may have been caused by the eruption of the Siberian Traps. Super volcanoes erupt very rarely, so are not the main theme of this article compilation.
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The cause of Earth’s largest environmental catastrophe
14-Sep-2011, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, F. Ossing
<ossing@gfz-potsdam.de> and <http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/haog-tco091311.php>
“Siberian traps and their relation to the mass extinction 250 million years ago
The eruption of giant masses of magma in Siberia 250 million years ago led to the Permo-Triassic mass extinction when more than 90 % of all species became extinct. An international team including geodynamic modelers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences together with geochemists from the J. Fourier University of Grenoble, the Max Plank Institute in Mainz, and Vernadsky-, Schmidt- and Sobolev-Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences report on a new idea with respect to the origin of the Siberian eruptions and their relation to the mass extinction in the recent issue of Nature (15.09.2011, vol. 477, p. 312-316).
Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) are huge accumulations of volcanic rock at the Earth’s surface. Within short geological time spans of often less than one million years their eruptions cover areas of several hundred thousand square kilometres with up to 4 kilometers thick lava flows. [Above right: Location of the Siberian Traps volcanoes and their lava flow.]

The Siberian Traps are considered the largest continental LIP.
A widely accepted idea is that LIPs originate through melting within thermal mantle plumes, a term applied to giant mushroom-shaped volumes of plastic mantle material that rise from the base of the mantle to the lithosphere, the Earth’s rigid outer shell. The high buoyancy of purely thermal mantle plumes, however, should cause kilometer-scale uplift of the lithosphere above the plume head, but such uplift is not always present. Moreover, estimates of magmatic degassing from many LIPs are considered insufficient to trigger climatic crises. The team of scientists presents a numerical model and new geochemical data with which unresolved questions can now be answered.
They suggest that the Siberian mantle plume contained a large fraction of about 15 percent of recycled oceanic crust; i.e. the crust that had long before been subducted into the deep mantle and then, through the hot mantle plume, brought back to the Earth’s lithosphere. This recycled oceanic crust was present in the plume as eclogite, a very dense rock which made the hot mantle plume less buoyant. For this reason the impingement of the plume caused negligible uplift of the lithosphere. The recycled crustal material melts at much lower temperatures than the normal mantle material peridotite, and therefore the plume generated exceptionally large amounts of magmas and was able to destroy the thick Siberian lithosphere thermally, chemically and mechanically during a very short period of only a few hundred thousand years. During this process, the recycled crust, being exceptionally rich in volatiles such as CO2 and halogens, degassed and liberated gases that passed through the Earth crust into the atmosphere to trigger the mass extinction. The model predicts that the mass extinction should have occurred before the main magmatic eruptions. Though based on sparse available data, this prediction seems to be valid for many LIPs.”
[Stephan V. Sobolev, Alexander V. Sobolev, Dmitry V. Kuzmin et al., Linking mantle plumes, large igneous provinces and environmental catastrophes, Nature, vol. 477, p. 312-316, 2011]”

Our personal concern is with the near term potential eruption of either a single large volcano, or a hand full of middle size volcanoes. Any combination of which can act in concert to lower Earth’s average surface temperature a few degrees affecting our: ‘comfort (energy costs/energy availability), crops (food supply), economy (global trade> national economy > corporation/company > your family income) and social peace (international – war, neighborhood – crime ).
The terms: “average surface temperature, comfort, crops, economy, and social peace are part of our ecology, a feed back loop and each with its own small loops.
When the planet’s surface temperature is lowered, every thing else become unstable and moves away from its long term norm. Readjustments take time and bring about hurt and hardship, it’s Natures Way. Think of it like bopping one side of a spider web and seeing the whole web shake. Everything is connected across the spider web, same as in our ecology, in our activities, in our happiness and in our well being.
What could a fairly large volcanic eruption in the northwern hemisphere do? Lets look at the next article, Future Iceland Eruptions Could Be Deadly for Europe.

Future Iceland Eruptions Could Be Deadly for Europe
September 19, 2011, ScienceNow, By Sid Perkins
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/laki-volcano-iceland-eruption-model/
“What if one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recent history happened today? A new study suggests that a blast akin to one that devastated Iceland in the 1780s would waft noxious gases southwestward and kill tens of thousands of people in Europe. And in a modern world that is intimately connected by air traffic and international trade, economic activity across much of Europe, including the production and import of food, could plummet.
From June of 1783 until February of 1784, the Laki volcano in south-central Iceland erupted. Although the event didn’t produce large amounts of volcanic ash, it did spew an estimated 122 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the sky — a volume slightly higher than human industrial activity today produces in the course of a year, says Anja Schmidt, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Historical records suggest that in the 2 years after the Laki eruption, approximately 10,000 Icelanders died — about one-fifth of the population — along with nearly three-quarters of the island’s livestock. Parish records in England reveal that in the summer of 1783, when the event began, death rates were between 10 percent and 20 percent above normal. The Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy reported episodes of decreased visibility, respiratory difficulties, and increased mortality associated with the eruption. According to one study, an estimated 23,000 people died from exposure to the volcanic aerosols in Britain alone. But elsewhere in Europe, it’s difficult to separate deaths triggered by the air pollution from those caused by starvation or disease, which were prominent causes of death at the time.
To assess how such an eruption might affect the densely populated Europe of today, Schmidt and her colleagues plugged a few numbers into a computer simulation. They used weather models to estimate where sulfur dioxide emissions from an 8-month-long eruption that commenced in June would end up. They also estimated the resulting increases in the concentrations of airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers across, the size of aerosols that are most easily drawn into human lungs and that cause cardiopulmonary distress. Then, they used modern medical data to estimate how many people those aerosols would kill.
In the first 3 months after the hypothetical eruption began, the average aerosol concentration over Europe would increase by 120 percent, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number of days during the eruption in which aerosol concentrations exceed air-quality standards would rise to 74, when a normal period that length typically includes only 38. Not surprisingly, the air would become thickest with dangerous particles in areas downwind of the eruption, such as Iceland and northwestern Europe, where aerosol concentrations would more than triple. But aerosol concentrations in southern Europe would also increase dramatically, rising by 60 percent.

[The redder, the deader. An 8-month-long eruption of an Icelandic volcano could send emissions of noxious sulfur dioxide over Europe, significantly boosting cardiopulmonary death rates during the following year in southwestern England, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Credit: A. Schmidt, PNAS Early Edition (2011)]

In the year after the hypothetical eruption commences, the increased air pollution swept from Iceland to Europe would cause massive amounts of heart and lung disease, killing an estimated 142,000 people. Fewer than half that number of Europeans die from seasonal flu each year.
At least four Laki-sized eruptions have occurred in Iceland in the past 1,150 years, Schmidt and her colleagues say. So the new figures are cause for concern.
The team “has done a good job of showing where volcanic aerosols would end up, and the human health response to such aerosols is well understood,” says Brian Toon, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “This is all very solid science.”
Icelandic volcanoes shut down European air traffic for more than a week in April 2010 and for several days in May of this year. But those eruptions are tiny compared with a Laki-sized eruption, which could ground airplanes for 6 months or more, says Alan Robock, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Such an event would have a huge impact on crop yields and, by affecting shipping and air traffic, would also affect Europeans’ ability to import food, he notes. It could even have a dramatic effect on daily life, he says. “If there are sulfur dioxide clouds over Europe, people with respiratory problems can’t do much about it except stay indoors.”
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History’s deadliest volcano comes back to life in Indonesia, sparking panic among villagers
September 19, 2011, Associated Press, Contributers: Robin McDowell and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, and Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/historys-deadliest-volcano-comes-back-to-life-in-indonesia-sparking-panic-among-villagers/2011/09/19/gIQA3WDheK_story.html
“Bold farmers routinely ignore orders to evacuate the slopes of live volcanos in Indonesia, but those on Tambora took no chances when history’s deadliest mountain rumbled ominously this month, Sept., 2011. Villagers like Hasanuddin Sanusi have heard since they were young how the mountain they call home once blew apart in the largest eruption ever recorded — an 1815 event widely forgotten outside their region — killing 90,000 people and blackening skies on the other side of the globe. So, the 45-year-old farmer didn’t wait to hear what experts had to say when Mount Tambora started being rocked by a steady stream of quakes. He grabbed his wife and four young children, packed his belongings and raced down its quivering slopes. “It was like a horror story, growing up,” said Hasanuddin, who joined hundreds of others in refusing to return to their mountainside villages for several days despite assurances they were safe.
“A dragon sleeping inside the crater, that’s what we thought. If we made him angry — were disrespectful to nature, say — he’d wake up spitting flames, destroying all of mankind.”

The April 1815 eruption of Tambora left a crater 7 miles) wide and half a mile deep, spewing an estimated 400 million tons of sulfuric gases into the atmosphere and leading to “the year without summer” in the U.S. and Europe.
It was 10 times more powerful than Indonesia’s much better-known Krakatoa blast of 1883 — history’s second deadliest. But it doesn’t share the same international renown, because the only way news spread across the oceans at the time was by slowboat, said Tambora researcher Indyo Pratomo. In contrast, Krakatoa’s eruption occurred just as the telegraph became popular, turning it into the first truly global news event.

…Little was known about Tambora’s global impact until the 1980s, when Greenland ice core samples — which can be read much like tree rings — revealed an astonishing concentration of sulfur at the layer dating back to 1816, said geologist Jelle de Boer, co-author of “Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruption.”
Gases had combined with water vapor to form fine droplets of acid that remained for years in the atmosphere, circling the earth and reflecting some of the solar radiation back into space.
Temperatures worldwide plummetted, causing crops to fail and leading to massive starvation.
Farmers on the northeastern coast of the U.S. reported snow well into July.
In France, grape harvests were decimated. Daniel Lawton of the wine brokerage Tastet-Lawton said a note in his company’s files remarks that 1816 was a “detestable year” and yielded only a quarter of the crop planted.
Soon after the ice core findings, scientists started studying Tambora in earnest…”
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If an Icelandic volcano erupts, would tragic history repeat?
21 Sep 2011, ars technica, By Scott K. Johnson
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/09/if-iceland-volcano-erupts-would-tragic-history-repeat.ars
“Beginning in 1783, Iceland endured an eight-month-long volcanic eruption that left a seemingly endless haze covering the landscape. The dry fog of microscopic aerosol particles, mostly sulfur oxides, caused the deaths of fully 20 percent of Iceland’s population, along with 75 percent of their livestock.
The effects of the eruption at Laki were not limited to Iceland. In the Netherlands, trees dropped their leaves in June, as if signaling a very early autumn. The number of deaths recorded in England that year was 10-20 percent above average. Reports of deaths and health problems came from as far away as Italy.
The mouthful that was Eyjafjallajökull reminded us in 2010 that volcanoes can easily bring air travel to a grinding halt, but what would happen if an eruption on the scale of Laki occurred today?

[Image right: April 20th, 2010 Smoke and ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano make their way across the landscape in Iceland.]

To estimate the direct impact on human health, a group of researchers first used an atmospheric aerosol model to simulate the eruption of Laki under a range of present-day atmospheric conditions. By doing so, they were able to calculate the resulting concentrations of aerosols over Iceland and continental Europe. They found that average concentrations across Europe would rise to more than double the background average over the first three months of the eruption. The highest concentrations, occurring in northern Europe, would reach more than triple background levels.
Over the course of the eruption, the models estimated that atmospheric aerosol levels would exceed the World Health Organization’s air quality standard for over a month in Europe, and almost 6 months in Iceland.
From there, the researchers used medical studies of the impact of particulate matter to estimate the number of direct fatalities. They found that, in the year of the eruption, volcanic aerosols would cause 50,000 to 230,000 deaths. While that’s certainly a terrible loss of life, it’s actually a significantly smaller percentage of the population than died during the 1783 eruption.

…There have been four “Laki-like” eruptions in Iceland over the past 1,150 years—some bigger, some smaller—which means this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a scenario that we could very well encounter in the near future.”

We don’t want to credit a ‘popular volcano’ future eruptions with its past. Tambora’s next eruption could be very small, Laki could erupt and in a few days become quiet. There are plenty of volcanoes in just Iceland who’s past are known and who’s reawakening may surprise us, for example Hekla and Katla.

.Remember, it’s not just that one very large eruption that can bring global harvests down, but several large volcanoes, or an unusual number of medium size eruptions, or as with Laki, one smaller, long running eruption can do the same.
Comparing climate altering eruptions to – ‘making change for a dollar’. You can pull a dollar bill out of your wallet, or from change in your pocket, select two half dollars, or a half dollar and two quarters, etc. It’s the cumulative amount of volcanic aerosols and dust being pumped into the upper and lower atmosphere that bring about the temperature change, shortened growing season, economic, social and negative health effects.

For more specific information, see my posts in in the Categories:
Survival Manual/1. Disaster/Volcanic winter and
Survival Manual/2. Social Issues/Checklist, 100 things that disappear first
Survival Manual/3. Food and Water/Developing a survival food list
Survival Manual/7. Warehouse/Last minute shopping list

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Tagged as climate, famine, food, storage, volcano

Tuesday, August 2, 2016 · 12:10 AM

The Cloward-Priven strategy is working.

Remember these points:
1. “Nothing in politics happens by chance”. — President Franklin Roosevelt
2. “Strategy is something that happens to you while you are looking the other way”. — President Franklin Roosevelt.
3. “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” –Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty”.

Cloward-Piven Paradise Now?
August 1, 2011, American Thinker, By Jeannie DeAngelis
<http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/cloward-piven_paradise_now.html>
“Combine class warfare, demonizing the rich, getting as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible, and pushing the economic system to collapse and you have a flawless formula for Cloward-Piven 2.0 — and a vehicle that ensures Obama remains in power. Cloward-Piven is a much talked-about strategy proposed in the mid-1960’s by two Columbia University sociology professors named Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The Cloward-Piven approach was sometimes referred to as the “crisis strategy,” which they believed were a means to “end poverty.” The premise of the Cloward-Piven collective/anti-capitalist gospel decried “individual mobility and achievement,” celebrated organized labor, fostered the principle that “if each finally found himself in the same relative economic relationship to his fellows … all were infinitely better off.” The duo taught that if you flooded the welfare rolls and bankrupted the cities and ultimately the nation, it would foster economic collapse, which would lead to political turmoil so severe that socialism would be accepted as a fix to an out-of-control set of circumstances. The idea was that if people were starving and the only way to eat was to accept government cheese, rather than starve, the masses would agree to what they would otherwise reject. In essence, for the socialist-minded, the Cloward-Piven strategy is a simple formula that makes perfect sense; the radical husband-and-wife team had Saul Alinsky as their muse, and they went on to teach his social action principles to a cadre of socialist-leaning community organizers, one of whom was Barack Obama. As the debt crisis continues to worsen, President Obama stands idly by an inferno with his arms crossed, shaking his head, and doing nothing other than kinking the fire hose and closing the spigot. Spectator Obama is complaining that the structure of the American economy is engulfed in flames while accusing the Congress, which is trying desperately to douse the fire, of doing nothing about the problem. Although speculative, if the Cloward-Piven strategy is the basis of the left’s game plan, spearheaded by Alinsky devotee Barack Obama, it certainly explains the President’s inaction and detached attitude.

The greatest nation in the history of the world is teetering on the brink of a catastrophic economic crisis. America was pushed to this point by a rapidly-expanding national debt and a stressed-out entitlement system; in the center of this crisis is the President, who insists on expanding it even further, all in the name “fairness” and “social justice.” As a default date nears and the President threatens seniors that there’s a chance they may not receive their Social Security checks, it has been revealed that the federal government disperses a stunning 80 million checks a month, which means that about a third of the US adult population could be receiving some sort of entitlement. Since the 1960’s when Cloward-Piven presented a socialistic guideline to usher in the type of evenhandedness Obama lauds, America’s entitlement rolls have swelled from eight million to 80 million. If the nation’s ability to disperse handouts were ever disrupted, it’s not hard to see how chaos would erupt should an angry army of millions demand what Cloward-Piven called “the right to income.” Couple the threat of dried-up funds for food stamps, Social Security, unemployment benefits and the like with the Obama administration’s vigorous campaign to turn a tiny upper class of big earners into the enemy, and you have the Cloward-Piven recipe for anarchy and complete collapse. If the worst happened, Saul Alinsky’s biggest fan, whose poll numbers continue to plummet, could use mayhem in the streets to remain firmly ensconced in the White House. Alinsky taught his students a basic principle that community organizer Barack Obama learned well: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Fiscal disintegration coupled with lawlessness would deliver the type of Cloward-Piven/Saul Alinsky trifecta that progressives have worked toward and waited decades for…”

The Cloward/Piven Strategy of Economic Recovery
February 7, 2009, American Thinker, By Nancy Coppock http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/the_clowardpiven_strategy_of_e.html
“Using borrowed money for a band-aid bailout of the economy should seem backwards to most people. However, it likely is a planned strategy to promote radical change. Those naively believing that President Obama is simply rewarding his far-left base, and will then move to the political center, must wise up.

The assumption that Obama will need the nation to prosper in order to protect the 2010 mid-term election incorrectly assumes that he esteems free market capitalism. He does not. Rather than win through superior ideas and policies, the Democrat plan for success in the mid-term elections is to win by destroying political opposition. Obama adheres to the Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals method of politics, which teaches the dark art of destroying political adversaries. However, that text reveals only one front in the radical left’s war against America. The Cloward/Piven Strategy is another method employed by the radical Left to create and manage crisis. This strategy explains Rahm Emanuel’s ominous statement, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The Cloward/Piven Strategy is named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Their goal is to overthrow capitalism by overwhelming the government bureaucracy with entitlement demands. The created crisis provides the impetus to bring about radical political change. According to Discover the Networks.org: Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation…[ Making an already weak economy even worse is the intent of the Cloward/Piven Strategy. It is imperative that we view the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan’s spending on items like food stamps, jobless benefits, and health care through this end goal. This strategy explains why the Democrat plan to “stimulate” the economy involves massive deficit spending projects. It includes billions for ACORN and its subgroups such as SHOP and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Expanding the S-Chip Program through deficit spending in a supposed effort to “save the children” only makes a faltering economy worse. If Congress were to allow a robust economy, parents would be able to provide for their children themselves by earning and keeping more of their own money. Democrats, quick to not waste a crisis, would consider that a lost opportunity…”

Can it be? When you’re in a hurry to get somewhere socio-economically and the combination of Welfare, Food stamps, Medicare, and Social Security aren’t getting you there fast enough, you must additionally provide welfare subsidies for the automobile industry, for the some of the worlds largest Financial Banks and even guarantee the solvency of foreign countries.

The Debt Walkers Strike Back
The Automatic Earth, 2 Dec 2011, by Ilargi
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
“It’s very simple, but maybe that’s the problem. For all I know it’s just too simple for people to see.

There’s a group of people, and it’s tempting to call them the 1%, but they’re not really, since there’s politicians in there too who have no shot at even aspiring to be part of the 1%, and media pundits and economists and what have you, who all together try to save the existing financial system at all cost. A cost that they don’t bear: that cost is being paid for by the 99%.

Theirs is just one particular view, one particular idea, of what it takes to get out of the crisis we’re in. Nothing more, nothing less: just one idea. But one that prevails over any alternatives to such a radical extent that, from an objective point of view, it can’t but boggle the mind.

“If we don’t save the banks and the financial system at large, there’ll be Armageddon to pay”. That’s the endlessly repeated prevailing line.
However, if we keep on spending ever more trillions to prevent Armageddon from arriving, surely we must invite it, by the very act of doing exactly that, to at some point come knocking on the back door. After all, you can’t spend more and more, and then some, without ever being served with the bill for doing so.

So we’ve had all these rescue missions over the past 5 years. Behemoth-sized amounts of taxpayer money and future taxpayer money have been poured into our economies in this alleged attempt to try to save them.

Now, take a step back and tell me what you see. I’ll tell you what I see: a financial system that is in worse shape than ever before during those 5 years. At least half of Europe is flat broke, most banks have lost 50%-80% of their market value, Bank of America, a major bailout

recipient, is fast on its way to becoming a penny stock, China sees shrinkage wherever it looks and Japan is rumored to be awkwardly close to the chopping block.

Evidently, something’s not working the way it’s supposed to.
And here is why: it is becoming clearer by the day that saving the banks is not the same as saving the people, upon whom increasing austerity is unleashed to pay for … saving the banks.

We have a choice to make: either we save the banks, or we save our societies. Which are falling apart as we speak on account of the costs of saving an already deeply bankrupt financial system.

But we’re not even starting to discuss that choice. All choices and decisions are being made -for us- in a one-dimensional vacuum theater by a small group of people who, to a (wo)man, flatly deny that such a choice needs to be made or even exists. Because making that choice doesn’t fit their purposes and careers and fortunes and ego’s.

Merkel, Blankfein, Sarkozy, Jamie Dimon, Obama, David Cameron, Mario Draghi and Timothy Geithner, they are all servants of the existing financial system, of the existing banks, which are broke but try to hide that from us. At our debilitating expense.

Yes, they’ve been able to stave off the inevitable until now. But that has only been possible because they have virtually unlimited access to your money, to the wallets of the 99%.

We should grow up and make these decisions ourselves, instead of letting a group of morally severely challenged suits with very vested interests make them for us any longer.

They’re leading us straight into Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. And last I heard, that’s definitely not a place to raise your kids.”

We intuitively know what the executives of the bailed out Financial Institutuions must feel. After costing the American people 10s if not 100s of billion$ of dollars and trillion$ in derivitive guarantees, they reward themselves with 100,000$ if not million$ in payday bonuses. While they did not share in their largess during times of plenty, yet we were forced to pay their debt.

How do the people toward the lower end of the economic spectrum feel?
As a ‘retired person’ living in a retirement community, I see a lot of elderly folks and have heard a lot of hardship stories.
At present, if you are looking toward retirement there is nowhere to put your savings. Money is not safe due to inflation. Banks are not safe. Funds, stocks, bonds…
If you buy gold & silver bullion or US Mint bullion coins, for protection from inflation, and safety from bank and debt collapse, you will be fined with a huge tax. The Federal Government does not want your money placed in bullion since they have no access to using those funds. They don’t want you to have freedom in your old age, they want you on welfare-where you are controlled by the threat of loss.

Everyone sees the national ‘news’ media and interprets the sound bites into the management of their own unique circumstance. What are people at the real grass-roots learning and what are their community social-economic expectations? Don’t laugh at what follows, it is the result of what was discussed in the article above.
Is the Cloward–Piven strategy working yet? Yes, and we’re far along on the road to what Ilargi refers to as ‘Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell’. When the ‘system’ finally breaks, it won’t be paradise, but conditions may make our new minimalistic Socialistic Government subsistence checks look like it.

Mother of 15 Kids: “Somebody Needs to Pay; Somebody Needs to Be Held Accountable”
A woman with 15 kids (and no spouse) complains that people around aren’t doing enough to help her – even though her rent, food and furniture have all been covered by good Samaritans and the government. You have to see this to believe it!
“Somebody needs to be held accountable, and they need to pay,” she said.
Um, maybe that someone should be you?

Paste the following YouTube link in your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bavou_SEj1E

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Professor Cornel West: Battle For Entitlements Will Be “Fought In the Streets”
December 5th, 2011, SHTFplan.com, by Mac Slavo
With the economy on its last leg, poverty stricken Americans at record highs and mass movements against greed and interventionist government policies already organizing in major American cities, Princeton professor Cornel West predicts that the battle for entitlements will be fought in the streets.
[Image at right Professor Cornel West and President Barack Obama.]

“Some of this is going to be fought in the streets. Civil disobedience does make a difference. Because corporate greed now is an issue everybody’s got to talk about. Wealth equality – everybody’s must talk about because of the Occupy movement.” [What did we read in the articles above about the Coward-Priven startegy?- Mr Larry]

[Video link to Professor West’s interview. http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/professor-cornel-west-battle-for-entitlements-will-be-fought-in-the-streets_12052011 ]

Civil disobedience will only work until the people realize nothing has been done – and that nothing can or will be done. When they finally understand that politicians, bureaucrats and corporate interests have completely destroyed their way of life, then we can fully expect violent confrontations and mid-east style, potentially armed, riots in the streets of America. This isn’t going away. In fact, the frustration, anger and desperation will continue to build pressure. Whether its the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street, or other third-party protests, the momentum is gaining speed and strength. When the powder keg finally blows all bets are off. We can only hope for civil disobedience. But considering what we saw happen in the mid-east, where many were protesting exactly the same circumstances – an out of control government, rising food prices and impoverishment of the working class, among other things – we should be preparing, as trend forecaster Gerald Celente has so oft predicted, for the people who have lost everything, and have nothing left to lose, to completely lose it. The government is certainly preparing for this eventuality, because in many circles they know civil unrest is a foregone conclusion.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2016 · 12:10 AM

Precious metals will become currency as the dollar goes bad

(News & Editorial/ Precious metals will become currency as the dollar goes bad)

A. Recent headlines:
1. China-Russia currency agreement further threatens U.S. dollar:
http://www.ibtimes.com/china-russia-currency-agreement-further-threatens-us-dollar-248338#

2. Brazil, China Sign Trade Deal to Bypass Dollars:
http://silverdoctors.com/brazil-china-sign-trade-deal-to-bypass-dollars/

3. China-Australia to Ditch US Dollar…
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t957807/

4. BRICS Nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) signed Local Currency agreement at Summit. They will not trade in U.S. dollars anymore. Agreements around the world between Countries to Drop U.S. dollar for trade (including Australia http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com/2012/03/bric-nations-brazil-russia-india-china.html

5. The Germans Want Their Gold Reserves Back In Germany:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/01/19/the-germans-want-their-gold-reserves-back-in-germany/

6. “Germany wants its gold back, Fed says…eventually, maybe“:
http://www.examiner.com/article/germany-wants-its-gold-back-fed-says-eventually-maybe

7. Texas Wants Its Gold Back From The Fed:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-23/texas-wants-its-gold-back-fed

With the world human population being 7.0 billion, so 30% of the world has moved away from the dollar.
China (1.3 billion population), Russia (143 million), Brazil (194 million), Australia (23 million), India (1.2 billion), South Africa (51 million) = total 2.91 billion population of listed countries.

B. Implications of the loss of the dollar’s reserve status
22 Mar 2009, MarketSkeptics.com, by Eric deCarbonnel
Excerpt pasted from: http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/03/how-big-deal-is-loss-of-dollars-reserve.html

As the dollar loses its reserves status, at least half of the world’s $5,385 billion dollar reserves will be sold off and replaced with other currencies (yuan, euro, khaleeji, gold, rand, etc…). The US, with its $71 foreign reserves, will not be able to do anything to counteract this mass exodus from the dollar. With outflows of this magnitude, the dollar’s value will collapse to a fraction of where it is now. The process of foreign nations extracting themselves from the dollar is not going to be pretty. The likely impacts are:

1) The dollar’s value will plunge as investors see the writing on the wall and jump ship.

2) US credit markets will collapse. As the dollar fall, a mass exodus from credit market will begin. Investors sitting on toxic securities will sell at firesale prices to escape the currency depreciation.

3) The fed’s balance sheet will explode beyond all reason. In response to the mass exodus from credit markets, the fed will buy trillions worth debt in a desperate attempt to hold interest rates down. Unfortunately, the more debt the fed buys, the more quickly the dollar will fall, and the more panicked the credit selloff will become.

4) US interest rates will soar, despite (or because of) the fed’s efforts.

5) Countries around the world will be hurt badly by the dollar’s decline. These countries include:
_A) Nations which are heavily dependent on US exports: Japan, Mexico, etc…
_B) Nations with large dollar reserves: Japan, China, Gulf oil states, etc…
_C) Nations which receive large amount of US foreign aid: Israel, Egypt, etc…
_D) Nations which rely on remittances from citizens working in the US: Mexico, India, etc…
_E) Nations which use dollars as their official currency: Liberia, Panama, etc…
_F) Nations which have large amounts of dollars in circulation: Central and South America (especially Argentina), Eastern Europe, etc…

6) Some nations will see benefits from the dollar’s decline. These countries include:
_A) Nations with large gold reserves: EU zone, Switzerland, etc…
_B) Nations which owe dollar denominated debt will see that debt wiped out: Iceland, African nations, etc…
_C) Nations who stable currencies: EU zone, Switzerland, China, etc…

7) World politics will be greatly altered. There will be considerable anger at the US from nations hurt by dollar’s fall. The US will lose influence to Asia (mainly China).

8) US retailers will get crushed. As the dollar falls, the cost of imports for retailers will increase, but the American consumer will be unable to afford to these higher prices. Competition between desperate retailers will force them the sell inventory at below cost, creating massive losses. Retailers most heavily dependent on imports (ie: Wal-Mart) will be the first to go under. Eventually as more and more retailers go bankrupt, the few survivors will be able to raise prices enough to cover costs, and the sector will stabilize at a fraction of its current size.

9) American lifestyles will change radically. The end of cheap oil, low interest rates, and deficit spending will mean a lower quality of life and higher taxes.

10) The price of gold and other precious metals will explode.

11) US will experience hyperinflation.

C. WHAT IF?
29 May 2013, Gold-Eagle.com, an editorial by Larry LaBorde of http://www.silvertrading.net/ Pasted from: http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_12/laborde052913.html

What if the US lost its world reserve currency status? What might it look like? I suppose the first question is; what does it mean that we have the “world’s reserve currency”?
At the end of WWII the allies met at Bretton Woods and decided to use the US dollar as the official world currency and that it would be backed by gold. All worldwide trade would be priced in dollars and settled in dollars. Food, energy (oil), etc from around the world would be priced and paid for in USD. New York became the financial center for all world trade. Fast-forward to President Nixon in 1971 and the USD was cut loose from the gold standard due to OPEC oil imports and a growing imbalance of trade that was causing gold to flow out of the US in large amounts. Today goods from around the world flow to the US and newly created paper dollars flow out. (Well not really paper dollars, just newly created electronic digits made up on a computer.) In essence we create IOUs that everyone must accept due to the Bretton Woods agreement and they send us their stuff.
Once we completely figured this out we decided in the 1990’s that we would “think” and they would “work”.
The US was going to run as a clean “information society” and all that dirty industry would go somewhere else. Our balance of trade kept getting worse and worse. We imported way more than we exported.
We used to report our imbalance of trade numbers a couple of decades ago with great concern. Now no one seems to care at all since it is so far out of balance that it can never be fixed. (Sort of like an annoying knock in the engine that you fix by turning up the radio.) Ocean going freight containers started to pile up over here because we didn’t have enough goods to send them back fully loaded. For a while we sent hay overseas in freight containers because we had to send empties back to get them refilled so they greatly discounted the freight on the backhaul or return trip.
Many people have started to find creative uses for these freight containers that are building up over here. They are the empty boxes on Christmas morning. Who sends the empty boxes back to the store for more toys? You just get new boxes.
Under the original Bretton Woods agreement if one country imported more goods than they exported the difference was settled up in gold. After a while the lazy country sent so much gold overseas that its currency dropped in value and they could not import as many goods. The lower priced currency made their exported goods more competitive so they began exporting more and the gold flowed back.
When the link to gold was cut this self-regulating mechanism was broken. So now why should the US export anything? Why not import everything and just pay for it all with USD made up from nothing? Works great for the US but everyone else may have a problem with that system. So why does the rest of the world still accept our USD electronic digits?

One reason is the rest of the world can still spend them at the Middle East gasoline station to tank up with oil. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s a deal was cut with the Saudis that so long as they priced their oil in USD and USD only, we would support their family rule with the full force of the US military. So even though we did not export enough goods to soak up all of our exported USD, the Middle East did. The OPEC countries then purchased our US bonds with their excess USD and earned a pretty good interest on their USDs – until now. Whenever someone in North Africa or the Middle East failed to live up to the agreement they were “replaced” with someone who would. The whole system is now broken but still working somewhat. The only reason the rest of the world has not thrown it out altogether is there is not anything else to easily take its place. (Your thoroughbred now is old and swaybacked and stumbles along but it is still better than walking.) The world thought the Euro might offer an alternative to the USD when it was first launched. We all see where that is now leading. Doug Casey famously said, “The dollar is an IOU nothing but the euro is a who owes you nothing.” It seems that the euro is not going to offer the USD any serious competition. The USD is still the prettiest horse at the glue factory. So what is next?

Well the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have started their own development bank. This cuts the World Bank out of the picture in much of the world. The G-20 is talking about alternative currencies to challenge the USD and perhaps replace it one day with something a bit more fair to everyone else. China is cutting trade deals directly with Brazil and Australia outside of USDs. India is cutting deals with Iran outside of USDs. This is in direct violation of the Bretton Woods agreement. However, these countries feel they are exchanging value for value in their trade with each other on a more fair and equitable arrangement.
What would make a new reserve currency attractive? If the country that issued it had a trade surplus or at least balanced trade with the rest of the world a lot of the resentment would disappear. If the new currency were backed by gold once again the self-regulating mechanism would be fixed causing no one country to benefit to the detriment of another. If a basket of currencies were used from several strong countries with both of these attributes then even better. Rumor has it that Russia and China have both been working hard to build up their gold reserves and they are both about 5 times the US gold reserve at its peak. Rumor also has it that the US gold reserve is maybe not as large as reported. What if instead of Greece (or another PIIGS country) pulling out of the European monetary union and reissuing its own currency that something more interesting happened? What if the strong man with the 3rd largest gold reserves and a strong export economy pulled out and reissued its own currency – backed by gold!
What if Germany pulled out leaving the Euro to collapse? Then what if Germany looked east and linked up with Russian and Chinese currencies that were also backed by gold? A new reserve currency made up of a basket of these three currencies (all backed by gold) would be a Eurasian powerhouse. But where would this leave the USD? So long as the Middle East Gasoline Station was still in business and accepting USD it would survive. But what if the Muslim Brotherhood took over Saudi Arabia? What if the house of Saud fell? What if the Chinese would not loan us any more money to mount Gulf War III to save the house of Saud?
There are several “ifs” here but what might happen? If the rest of the world could not spend their USD reserves at the Middle East Gas Station and we are not able to ramp up our exports and sell them something they might want, then what exactly would they do with those USD? Why would anyone else in the world want them? And since 1971 we have been sending them all over the world and they have been piling up in every corner, there are a lot of them out there that suddenly find themselves unloved. I believe that all at once there would be a race to spend them all at the only place where they must be accepted – to the only place where they are legal tender for all debts both public and private – right here within the US. They would buy everything that was not nailed down. Cranes, bulldozers, tractors, trucks, ships and entire factories all to be crated up and carted off. The mad rush of so many dollars would cause these items to be bid up to very high prices in USD. This of course would devalue the USD even further.
All of a sudden all those old ocean containers that have been piling up over here would be filled to capacity hauling assets off as fast as possible. All of those IOUs would come home to roost at the same time. Of course we could default or slap on export taxes of 1,000% or some sort of currency controls for repatriated USD. They could even call all of those USD overseas illicit drug money and seize all of it! But that might lead to a war or several wars. Wars have been fought over issues far less trifling than that. No one likes to get stiffed on an IOU. Especially the largest pile of IOUs in the history of the world.

Assuming that we did the right thing and honored our debts. What would the US look like after the smoke cleared? What few factories remained would be largely owned by foreign interests. With much of the means of production carted off we would have a hard time exporting more than we consumed. Anything imported would be terribly expensive priced in USD. A trip to Wal-Mart would be like going to Neiman Marcus. Since we no longer grow enough food to feed ourselves our imported food would be very expensive. If the welfare state continued the dollar would devalue even more and finally collapse. Everyone would have to accept a much lower standard of living as we worked in factories owned by foreigners. As our dollar finally devalued to a fraction of its former glory the US would become a cheap labor country. Factories would move back to the US for the same reason many moved to Mexico in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Slowly we would rebuild and in a few generations we could be a first world country again.
So what can you do now? Where can you run? When the War Between the States began and the first Battle of Bull Run was fought, Southern General P.T.G. Beauregard set up his headquarters in the home of Mr. Wilmer McLean. Mr. McLean was too old to fight in the Southern army and sought to move his family to safety. He glanced at the map and picked a nice safe place 120 miles further south – in Appomattox. You see the war started in his front yard and ended in his parlor as General Lee surrendered the Army of Virginia to General Grant several years later. The first and last great battles of that war both found Mr. McLean. Sometimes you can run from danger but in the wrong direction. Take some time and carefully think things through for yourself. Make sure you are not jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan. A storm could be coming our way. Build a good storm shelter just in case. Years too early are better than seconds too late.

D. Arizona lawmakers back gold, silver as currency
18 Mar 2013, Yahoo! News, by Cristina Silva/ Associated Press
Pasted from: http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-lawmakers-back-gold-silver-233837866.html

Arizona Republicans want to allow gold, silver to be used as currency

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona lawmakers say the global economy is on the precipice of financial ruin and the U.S. dollar could soon be worth less than the paper used to make it.

These doomsayers are pushing forward legislation that would declare privately minted gold and silver coins legal tender, no different under state law than the U.S. dollar printed by the federal Department of Treasury.

The measure is Arizona’s latest jab at the federal government, which prohibits states from minting their own money. It also reflects a growing distrust of government-backed money.

“The public sees the value in it,” said Republican Rep. Steve Smith, of Maricopa. “This is the type of currency we have had over the history of mankind.”

The bill, which advanced in a 4-2 vote by a House committee Monday, states that gold and silver should be legal currency not subject to tax or regulation as property. The Republican-led Senate gave the bill its blessing in February in a 17-11 partisan vote.

The bill would let people use the precious metals as money as long as businesses agree to take them. If made law, it would take effect in 2014.

Democrats oppose the measure. They say it would be a bureaucratic nightmare because businesses don’t have the equipment to determine the value of gold and silver.

“This should be addressed by the Federal Reserve and not by the state,” said Democratic Rep. Rosanna Gabaldon, of Green Valley.

Keith Weiner, president of the Gold Standard Institute, which supports gold-backed currencies, said he envisions a system where people can pay for goods and services with debit and credit cards backed by gold and silver.

Paper money is a “recipe for worldwide bankruptcy,” Weiner told Arizona lawmakers Monday. “Everybody is going bankrupt on this system so we need a sound and honest money system, such as gold and silver.”

In 2011, Utah became the first state in the country to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. Lawmakers in Minnesota, North Carolina, Idaho, South Carolina, Colorado and other states have debated similar laws in recent years.

Many investors have invested their money in precious metals in recent years as a hedge against the declining value of the dollar. When the value of the dollar declines, gold prices rise.

Gold rose $12, nearly 1 percent, to $1,604.60 per ounce on Monday with news of Europe’s bailout plan for cash-strapped Cyprus. Silver inched slightly higher, up 2.3 cents to $28.874 per ounce.

The dollar was up against the euro, the currency used by 17 European countries, as well as the Japanese yen and the Canadian dollar in February.

Proponents of the switch to gold and silver argue paper money is too vulnerable to government manipulations. When central banks boost the amount of currency in circulation to drive down interest rates, the value of that currency relative to others can decline.

“It’s actually strange to me that we don’t have this already,” said Republican Rep. David Livingston, of Peoria.

Gold-backed money fell out of favor during World War I because the U.S. and many other countries needed to print more cash to pay for the war. In 1971, President Richard Nixon formally abandoned the gold standard.

E. Arizona’s Hard Currency: How Much Gold Might It Need?
27 Apr 2013, Gold-Eagle.com commentary, contributed by Miguel Perez-Santalla
Pasted from: http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_12/perez-santalla042713.html

How much gold & silver might Arizona, Utah and the other states now involved in hard-currency laws come to need…?
ARIZONA is moving to allow gold and silver coin to be used to pay debts, and – effectively – go shopping. This has already been approved in the state of Utah, and there is an assortment of other states that are moving in this direction as well. However, Utah’s gold currency law has been on the books for more than a year. But it has not yet made any headway into how to manage gold and silver being used as currency. Nor will payees be obliged to accept bullion as payment. As a result, many pundits are pooh-poohing Arizona’s gold idea, acting as obstacles to its possible success.
Though I don’t personally believe that physical gold and silver carried around by persons is the future of our country, I do believe that there will be some structural change to come. The small yet actively progressing action in many states is an indicator of the demand for better controls and justification of the value of our money. Concern that the ability to print money without measure will destroy this country is not only just, but is also warranted.

The Federal Reserve – which is not part of the government – is actively in charge of our currency. By injecting capital to the markets to support the banking sector, which irresponsibly lost billions of Dollars in their management of customers’ funds, they have instituted an invisible tax on all citizens of the United States of America. It is no surprise that many people who pay close attention to these matters are up in arms. Especially, since they don’t participate in the windfall of free capital given by the Federal Reserve to the banks as a safety net.
In essence, every time the government issues money freely and gives it to others it is a promissory note on the ability of the populace to pay, it puts us all more in debt. The people of the United States of America are becoming fed up with the free-flowing funds the government regularly gives away as gifts of supposedly humanitarian aid to foreign countries that are not even considered allies. These gifts in the billions of Dollars are on top of expenses needed to support our infrastructure. This creates a mountain of debt that essentially devalues the US Dollar. Our ability to pay is what the citizens are concerned with.
To avoid this many are turning to silver and gold bullion as a reliable asset or marker of value. Of course when you tie up your money in an asset like gold and silver you want the most easily accessible manner to extract that value whenever needed. This is where the effort to make gold and silver accepted as currency is coming from.
So let’s take a look at what would happen if one state such as Arizona were to convert to a precious metal economy. Arizona’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was roughly $258 billion at last count. As a proportion of the United States’ entire economy, that’s about 1.7%. Which if we apply that number to the total of currency in circulation and bank deposits (known as M2 by the economists) gives Arizona a money supply of somewhere around $180bn. Using today’s market prices, in gold that would represent 126,000 ounces which is nearly 143% of the current annual world production, and it would represent over 945% of the world’s annual silver production. But of course silver is an extremely bulky and difficult metal to handle. No one thinks the entire state of Arizona would go to 100% metal-backed currency. People will of course remain free to use fiat (backed only by faith) money, and most would likely choose the same fiat Dollars and bank-account credits we already have.
But it’s important to understand that – in the proposals as they stand – people could choose to use metal-based currency for all their in-state transactions. So the potential ceiling on the gold or silver needed is much nearer to 100% of that $180bn than it would be under a formal “Gold Standard”. There, with Dollars redeemable for gold, full gold-backing wasn’t necessary.
The Gold Standard instead used precious metals as a standard of value. The last US gold standard was a 25% basis of gold in fact, before it was repealed in 1968. Applying a classical Gold Standard, and using a 25% basis for gold or silver, Arizona’s cash and bank-deposit holdings would occupy 235% of the world’s annual silver production at current prices, or 36% of the world’s annual gold production.
A more logical decision may be a combination of the two, with a 5% silver and 25% gold funding which would represent 30% annual gold production and 39% silver production. This of course would drive the value of the precious metals much higher, as the market adjusted to accommodate Arizona’s impact on global demand. But as we just saw, Arizona’s proposals go far beyond a Gold Standard, making 100% metal-backed banking and currency a possibility, if highly unlikely. Note, this is only for one state – and one where barely 2% of the US population now live. The numbers involved are already stupendous.

You can imagine what would happen to gold and silver prices if all 18 states currently working on similar “hard currency” laws saw only 10% of their citizens move to holding precious-metals. But that being said, I do not believe at this very moment it is the goal of this legislation. The new legislation deems to allow transactions to be negotiable and settled in full using gold or silver if the parties involved agree to it. Hence you can sell your car for 4 ounces of gold or buy a house for 10,000 ounces of silver. But to do so without an official government structure you would have to in effect be your own central banker and invest your currency into your own private gold and silver reserves. Hence when you go to enter into a transaction the value of your asset should have been protected from any central banking or government debt fiascos. Are currencies backed by gold and silver to be the future? This is possible in some form. Had this system not been tried before? The answer to this is yes. But the methods that were used in the 20th century were complicated by the entry of the Federal Reserve System and other Central Bankers. It was prior to central bank machinations that gold and silver brought stability to the financial markets and the economy in general.

With the entry of the central bank models, including the Federal Reserve, free spending of the people’s money became a possibility and is what eroded the gold standard and derailed a more functional system. Unfortunately most of the spending was used to fund wars. Maybe if wars had to be paid in hard assets they may have ended sooner than later with less loss of human life. However, there are arguments on both sides of the fence. As I read and study more and more about our modern-day banking system it is a miracle that it has not failed sooner. Of course this is my personal belief. This is also what is driving the current activity in the states to bring in some correlation of currency to gold and silver as hard assets. The history of the Federal Reserve, which is not a bank, has the US economy since its inception riddled with negative GDP growth. It is peppered with financial calamities. Its primary function was said to be the stabilization of the economy.
It has failed and has not performed better than any other prior system. I don’t have the answers but I know it doesn’t lie in the Federal Reserve System. This is a centralization of power away from capitalism to a form of modern day socialist tendencies of spending without limits within our system. This indicates to me in the event of a serious economic downturn, which seems to be forthcoming since we already did kick the can down the road as far as we can, we will have serious troubles in the union of these United States of America. But for the time being the general public who are able, are happy buying their gold and silver and keeping it in a safe and secure place for when this situation rears its ugly head. Those that do and are in the states where they have legalized its use as currency stand to have a much more secure environment moving forward as the government is not allowed to take away your money without cause. At least, not at the moment.

[Today, we have a price buying opportunity in gold and silver bullion coins. When the SHTF, prices on retail items will rise, inflation will surge, precious metal prices will have risen steadily ahead of events as the global situation deteriorated in ways not understood by the public. When everyone realizes that they need a stable source in which store the value of their rapidly eroding currency (dollars), those precious metal commodities will already be exceptionally expensive in dollar terms. You have to buy the dips while the opportunity exists, as the ancient adage says, “By low. Sell high”. Mr. Larry]

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 · 12:10 AM

Global Cooling

A. Earth heading for ‘mini ice age’ in just 15 years, scientists say
11 July 2015, upi.com, by Doug G. Ware
Pasted from: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/07/11/Earth-heading-for-mini-ice-age-in-just-15-years-scientists-say/2751436649025/

Solar scientists predict that the Earth will enter a “mini ice age” around 2030 due to decreased activity by the sun, which will bring with it frigid cold winters. The last time the Earth experienced a similar situation occurred between 1645 and 1715. Photo: Albina Tiplyashina / Shutterstock

LLANDUDNO, Wales, July 11 (UPI) — Solar scientists, armed with the best data yet regarding the activities of the sun, say the Earth is headed for a “mini ice age” in just 15 years — something that hasn’t happened for three centuries.

Professor Valentina Zharkova, of the University of Northumbria, presented the findings at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales this week, Britain’s Independent reported Saturday.

Researchers, saying they understand solar cycles better than ever, predict that the sun’s normal activity will decrease by 60 percent around 2030 — triggering the “mini ice age” that could last for a decade. The last time the Earth was hit by such a lull in solar activity happened 300 years ago, during the Maunder Minimum, which lasted from 1645 to 1715.

Scientists say there are magnetic waves in the sun’s interior that fluctuate between the body’s northern and southern hemispheres, resulting in various solar conditions over a period of 10 to 12 years. Based on that data, researchers say they are now better able to anticipate the sun’s activity — which has led to the Zharkova team’s prediction.

“Combining both [magnetic] waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent,” Zharkova said. If the “mini ice age” does indeed arrive, scientists say it will be accompanied by bitter cold winters — frigid enough to cause rivers, like the Thames in London, to freeze over.
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B. Ice Core Analysis Shows Fastest Decline in Solar Activity for 10,000 Years
18 January 2014, The Daily Sheeple, by Chris Carrington
Pasted from: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/ice-core-analysis-shows-fastest-decline-in-solar-activity-for-10000-years_012014

Solar physicist Richard Harrison says he has never seen the sun this quiet in more than 30 years of studying it.
“If you want to go back to see when the Sun was this inactive… you’ve got to go back about 100 years,” he says.
At this point in the solar cycle the sun should be a hive of activity, popping off flares and dotted with sunspots.

Professor Mike Lockwood, a space environment physicist at Reading University UK has studied ice cores going back tens of thousands of years. He thinks there’s a very good chance that the Sun is heading for an extremely quiet period. Speaking to the BBC he said that it was
“…an unusually rapid decline. It’s a very active research topic at the present time, but we do think there is a mechanism in place where we should expect more cold winters when solar activity is low.”

He went on to explain how Europe would bear the brunt of the change he believes is afoot.
“There are large meanders in the jet stream, and they’re called blocking events because they block off the normal moist, mild winds we get from the Atlantic, and instead we get cold air being dragged down from the Arctic and from Russia,” he says.

“These are what we call a cold snap… a series of three or four cold snaps in a row adds up to a cold winter. And that’s quite likely what we’ll see as solar activity declines.”

“If we take all the science that we know relating to how the Sun emits heat and light and how that heat and light powers our climate system, and we look at the climate system globally, the difference that it makes even going back into Maunder Minimum conditions is very small.
“I’ve done a number of studies that show at the very most it might buy you about five years before you reach a certain global average temperature level. But that’s not to say, on a more regional basis there aren’t changes to the patterns of our weather that we’ll have to get used to.”

The Maunder Minimum was a period of intensely cold winters during the 1600′s. If Lockwood and his colleagues are right this is yet another indicator that points towards global cooling. Although the effects of the jet stream are predominantly felt in Europe the overall temperature drops caused by a cessation of activity on the Sun will be felt across the Northern Hemisphere.
As the warnings about global cooling and it’s connection to lack of activity on the Sun continue to gather pace, we need to start thinking about a world where the summers are cooler, where growing zone boundaries are changing due to the weather.

The government, backed by their butt buddies at the IPCC are not going to warn us, they are not going to admit that global warming was flawed science at best and an out and out con at the worst.

C. The Number Of Volcanic Eruptions Is Increasing And That Could Lead To An Extremely Cold Winter
16 Sep 2014, theeconomiccollapseblog.com, by Michael Snyder
Pasted from: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-number-of-volcanic-eruptions-is-increasing-and-that-could-lead-to-an-extremely-cold-winter

The number of volcanoes that are erupting continues to rise, and scientists cannot seem to explain why this is happening. In 2013, we witnessed the most volcanic eruptions worldwide that we have ever seen in a single year, and this increased activity has carried over into 2014. In recent months, we have seen major volcanoes roar to life in Russia, Peru, Hawaii, Reunion Island, Indonesia, and all over Alaska. It is highly unusual for so many volcanoes to all be erupting at the same time. According to Volcano Discovery, a whopping 34 volcanoes are erupting around the globe right now. This is sending a massive amount of dust and ash into the upper atmosphere, and it may explain why many parts of the planet are experiencing strangely cold weather at the moment. If this trend continues, we could potentially be facing years of crop failures and widespread famines all over the world.

And what we have witnessed already may just be the beginning. There are several more very large volcanoes around the globe that scientists are extremely concerned about right now.

For example, just check out what is going on in the Philippines…
Mayon Volcano in the province of Albay was placed on “Alert Level 3” on Monday evening, September 15, after showing signs of “relatively high unrest,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said.
In a bulletin issued at 10:00 pm, PHIVOLCS observed 39 rockfall events from 5:00 am to 8:00 pm on September 15, symptoms of the build-up of magma at the summit dome. At least 32 low frequency volcanic earthquakes were also recorded, indicating magma intrusion or volcanic gas activity.
PHIVOLCS-DOST raised the alert status of Mayon Volcano from Alert Level 2 to Alert Level 3 which is equivalent to a “Critical Alert” in the agency’s 5-level alert system. This means that the volcano is exhibiting relatively high unrest, magma is at the crater, and that an eruption is possible within weeks.

But of even greater concern is Bardarbunga. It is the largest volcano system in Iceland, and a major eruption could potentially be absolutely catastrophic…
This time the threat of an eruption – potentially even more powerful than the one in 2010 – is posed by Bardarbunga, the biggest of Iceland’s 30 or so volcanic systems. Located roughly at the country’s centre, the volcano’s 10-kilometre caldera lies several hundred metres beneath Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier by volume.
Scientists are taking the latest rumblings seriously: roughly 8000 years ago, after all, the volcanic leviathan let rip with the largest eruption of the past 10,000 years.
“It is very difficult to predict exactly what will happen with an eruption,” says Monash University vulcanologist Professor Ray Cas, who is president of the International Association for Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth.

Scientists tell us that over the last 10,000 years Bardarbunga has produced “more lava than any other volcano on the planet.”
If we witness a full scale eruption at Bardarbunga, the cancellation of a few thousand flights may be the smallest of our concerns.
The truth is that we might be looking at the coldest winter that any of us have ever seen in the northern hemisphere.

But don’t just take my word for it. The following is from a British newspaper article entitled “Icelandic volcano could trigger Britain’s coldest winter EVER this year”…
Depending on the force of the explosion, minute particles thrust beyond the earth’s atmosphere can trigger DECADES of chaotic weather patterns. Tiny pieces of debris act as billions of shields reflecting the sun’s light away from earth meaning winter temperatures could plunge LOWER THAN EVER before while summer will be devoid of sunshine. The first effect could be a bitterly cold winter to arrive in weeks with thermometers plunging into minus figures and not rising long before next summer.

If this did happen, there is nothing that we could do to change it. We would just have to deal with it.

This is a kind of “climate change” that everyone can agree on. It is well known that volcanic eruptions can substantially lower global temperatures. In fact, some global warming theorists are already blaming increased volcanic activity for why temperatures have not been rising in recent years…
“In the last decade, the amount of volcanic aerosol in the stratosphere has increased, so more sunlight is being reflected back into space,” said lead author Benjamin Santer, climate scientist at Laurence Livermore National Laboratory, in a press release. “This has created a natural cooling of the planet and has partly offset the increase in surface and atmospheric temperatures due to human influence.”

But if Bardarbunga fully erupts, we could be looking at something a lot worse than a little “global cooling”. We could potentially be facing winters that never seem to end. It has happened before in recorded history many times. The following list comes from Wikipedia…
The effects of volcanic eruptions on recent winters are modest in scale, but historically have been significant. Most recently, the 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano in the Philippines, cooled global temperatures for about 2–3 years.
In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa (Krakatau) created volcanic winter-like conditions. The four years following the explosion were unusually cold, and the winter of 1887-1888 included powerful blizzards. Record snowfalls were recorded worldwide The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano in Indonesia, occasioned mid-summer frosts in New York State and June snowfalls in New England and Newfoundland and Labrador in what came to be known as the “Year Without a Summer” of 1816.

A paper written by Benjamin Franklin in 1783 blamed the unusually cool summer of 1783 on volcanic dust coming from Iceland, where the eruption of Laki volcano had released enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide, resulting in the death of much of the island’s livestock and a catastrophic famine which killed a quarter of the Icelandic population. Northern hemisphere temperatures dropped by about 1 °C in the year following the Laki eruption.

In 1600, the Huaynaputina in Peru erupted. Tree ring studies show that 1601 was cold. Russia had its worst famine in 1601-1603. From 1600 to 1602, Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia had exceptionally cold winters. The wine harvest was late in 1601 in France, and in Peru and Germany, wine production collapsed. Peach trees bloomed late in China, and Lake Suwa in Japan froze early.

The possibility of volcanic eruptions substantially cooling our weather is the biggest “climate threat” that we are facing by far.
Without warm summers and plenty of sunshine, our crops will not succeed. And global food supplies are already stretched to the limit. Just this week we learned that one out of every nine people in the world does not have enough food to eat. What would happen if global food production was cut by 10 or 20 percent for a few years?

So keep an eye on Bardarbunga and the other major volcanoes around the planet that are rumbling right now. They may just play a major role in our immediate future.

D. Global Cooling: Is an Ice Age coming?
7 Jan 2014, Scottnet, from YouTube
Pasted from: http://www.sott.net/article/271736-Global-Cooling-Is-an-Ice-Age-coming

Video: Global Cooling: Is an Ice Age Coming?

The climate is changing, but it’s not changing the way the climate change crowd predicted it would. Nature has made a mockery of global warming, so who are the real climate deniers?

E. Heaviest snow in 50 years blankets most of Iran
5 Feb 2014, Posted by EU Times
Pasted from: http://www.eutimes.net/2014/02/heaviest-snow-in-50-years-blankets-most-of-iran/

Rescue operations are underway in different parts of Iran as the heaviest snowstorm in five decades has blanketed the country’s northern provinces, leaving many people without power and running water.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society says teams have rescued over 10,000 people caught in the heavy snow in 18 different provinces.
Rescue operations are also underway in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. Thousands of people are reportedly trapped on the roads of the two provinces.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and army troops have been sent to help people. Water and power supplies were cut off in the remote regions, but reports say electricity is mostly restored. Schools and universities have been shut down because of the heavy snow. There have been no official reports of casualties. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has formed an emergency ministerial team to supervise relief assistance to provinces.

(News & Editorial/ Global Cooling)

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Wednesday, July 29, 2015 · 12:10 AM

Dancing with viral dangers

A. Smallpox: Will Human Error Cause the Next Global Pandemic?
11 July 2014, Viral Global News Reader, posted in Health
Pasted from: http://www.viralglobalnews.com/health/smallpox-will-human-error-cause-next-global-pandemic/11790/

This past week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), revealed that they have discovered containers of smallpox vials in a cold storage room at the Maryland National Institute of Health. This is big (and scary) news in the health field because this National Institute of Health is unauthorized to carry such an infectious disease. The smallpox disease is so dangerous and deadly that nations around the globe have agreed to a mandate that states that only two labs in the world are allowed to possess it. Will human error cause the next global pandemic?

Authorities are not sure why the smallpox vials were in the Maryland facility, and experts were not sure how the smallpox avoided detection for such a long time. This is coming off the heels of a previous CDC announcement in which they revealed that another protocol breach may have resulted in 75 CDC employees being accidentally exposed to anthrax.

The good news is that neither incident has reported any inadvertent exposures to the infections during both accidental events. The bad news is that both incidents have exposed potential hazards and security holes in even the most safe health facilities and labs across the globe.

Many researchers have reported that Americans are quite lucky that accidental exposures and health “slip-ups” like these did not happen with a virus like the flu, but the discovery of the unchecked smallpox virus in Maryland has many asking: will human error cause the next global pandemic? In 1918, there was a strain of influenza that killed around 50 million people. That 1918 strain of the flu, and some other strains as well, are currently being studied and researched in medical research labs in the United States and in various facilities around the world. If any of those labs make a mistake or have a slip-up, the results could be deadly and disastrous.

Current detractors of this type of research are not saying that researching dangerous pathogens is not important – these types of experiments can often provide valuable insight into combating such diseases – but they are saying that the rationale that is used to replicate these dangerous pathogens does not necessarily justify the risk that is taken by creating them.

They mention how scientists have been able to create the vaccines for these pathogens without having to recreate the viruses themselves, meaning that developing new strains of the pathogen is not necessary for protection; and as a result, people in the United States and around the globe will be able rest with a lot more at ease at night,

One of the biggest concerns amongst detractors of the studies is a form of research called “gain of function” studies. In this type of study, researchers and scientists will take a strain of a deadly pathogen that humans do not have immunity to yet and make them even more contagious in an effort to find a vaccine and to see how it transfers itself to mammals. Currently, “gain of function” studies are going on in the Netherlands and in the state of Wisconsin.

Mistakes and slip-ups in medical labs are not just hypothetical situations; they have happened before. Most recently, it happened in 1977 when the H1N1 virus escaped from a lab in China, and an outbreak in China and Russia ensued.

Basic human error can waltz pass even the most strict of security and safety protocols. Yes, it is very unlikely to happen, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. After the smallpox discovery, many are wondering if human error could cause the next global pandemic. If an outbreak like this does happen, humans will be asking themselves, “Was it worth it?”

B. Movie Plagues Not Entirely Claptrap
13 Jul 2014, MedPageToday, by Correspondent, Michael Smith
Pasted from: http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDisease/46735

It’s a recurring theme — a plague threatens to kill us all and a few brave souls work tirelessly to prevent doom.
Think, The Andromeda Strain. Think, Contagion and Outbreak. On the small screen this year, there’s, The Last Ship. And the list could go on.
The consensus among MedPage Today staffers in a morning meeting a few weeks ago was that such fictions are just … well, fiction. Tinseltown trash. Hollywood hokum.
So we decided to ask the experts and found a consensus among infectious disease specialists that is considerably more nuanced. Such stories are overblown, yes. Sensationalist, of course. But nonsense? Not entirely.
We asked if it is even possible that a sudden pathogenic scourge could threaten to kill us all.
The scientific consensus: Yes, although it’s unlikely. But it’s likely enough that highly trained specialists spend their working days worrying about it.

Worst Case Scenario (Really)
We also asked: What’s the worst that could happen, assuming a novel pathogen, easily transmitted, with no pre-existing immunity anywhere?
The scientific consensus: It could kill a lot of people, but probably not everybody.
“Theoretically, such a pathogen is possible,” commented Gail Reid, MD, of Loyola University Health System in Chicago. “It does not need 100% mortality, just close.”
“Although in such a case not all humans would die, societal structure would most certainly be negatively affected,” Reid told MedPage Today.
And assuming a novel, easily transmitted pathogen, “a large portion of the population of the planet could be affected rather quickly,” she said. “Just one plane ride from anywhere in an initially asymptomatic individual has the potential to lead to a pandemic.”

“My Infectious Diseases fellows saw the movie, Contagion several years ago and were very scared. Need I say more?”

Such movies are “fictional, sensationalistic, and raise the specter of extinction events,” said Amesh Adalja, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a specialist in pandemic preparedness.
But “they do reflect the continual threat that humans face from emerging pathogens,” Adalja told MedPage Today.
He, like many other experts, cited HIV, SARS, the 1918 pandemic flu, and the recent flu pandemic as examples of novel diseases jumping to humans in recent times. But, as we all know, none has been uniformly fatal.

Lessons From History
“The popular fictional portrayals are not only possible, they have already occurred, “Adalja said, “and preparing, predicting, and attempting to mitigate the effects of this continual onslaught is of paramount importance.”

The 1918 flu pandemic “was a vivid example that a novel respiratory virus from another species can effectively mutate to evolve into a competent human pathogen with high potential for person-to-person transmission and virulence resulting in catastrophic illness affecting millions worldwide,” said Amar Safdar, MD, of New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City.

That’s just the most dramatic example, Safdar told MedPage Today. The “concern for alarm” comes from repeated epidemics and pandemics in the 90 or so years since then.
To fit its movie role, a novel pathogen would need several characteristics — it would have to be easily transmissible and eventually lethal but with a long incubation period in which the victim was asymptomatic but able to infect many people.
Luckily, we have yet to encounter such a bug.

Robert Holzman, MD, of NYU School of Medicine in New York City, told MedPage Today: “There is no question that infections can have a high death rate and major impact on human and nonhuman populations.”
The question, he said, is how likely such an event is.

“Over a lot of years of human existence we have not yet encountered a human pathogen combining the high fatality rate of, say, rabies and the high transmissibility of, say, norovirus or chicken pox or measles,” he said.

Possible, Yes. Probable, No
Such a bug is not impossible, he said, but it’s “very, very, …, very unlikely.”
“Fortunately,” agreed Talia Swartz, MD, PhD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, “the notion of a scourge that could instantly wipe out humanity is not a likely event.”

Indeed, “it would take an incredibly virulent and contagious pathogen in another species to jump to humans and still be both virulent and contagious,” argued Matthew Sims, MD, PhD, of the Beaumont Health System in the Detroit area.
“The big fear is we will hit a perfect storm of disease where all of the worst possibilities come true,” Sims said.

“It is very, very uncommon that a disease is so lethal that everyone who catches it dies,” commented Jorge Parada, MD, also of Chicago’s Loyola University Health System.

Parada, who was a medical source for the 2011 movie, Contagion, added that “even the devastating 1918 flu pandemic that killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people had a mortality rate only as high as around 20%.”
Indeed, regardless of the pathogen itself, commented Kevin Morano, PhD, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, some of us would be okay.
“In any population there would almost always be a small percentage of immune individuals, based on chance and genetics,” he told MedPage Today. “With a planet of six billion, a 1% survival rate still leaves 60 million.”
However, as Loyola’s Reid noted, that would still have a devastating effect on human society.

It Really Is a Small World, After All
One thing that worries experts is that we travel a lot more these days. As CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, is fond of saying, any pathogen is just a plane ride away.

Since the 1918 flu, medical science has gotten better at treating disease, but “the advent of air travel presents a new dilemma, as communicable diseases can now be spread across continents within days,” said Glenn Wortmann, MD, of MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.

SARS in 2002-2003 “highlighted this risk,” he said — an initial outbreak in southern China spread to 37 countries, eventually causing more than 8,000 cases and more than 700 deaths.
SARS was highly virulent, but not completely so, Sims noted: “It stormed through the population but not everyone was affected even among those exposed.” But it’s very virulence meant that the outbreak burned out relatively quickly.

Put another way, some pathogens “kill so fast that the virus becomes self-limiting, unable to spread faster than it kills,” Morano said.
For SARS, there is still no established antiviral therapy, commented David Perlin, PhD, of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark — the virus was essentially starved of victims by quarantine measures.
(The same is true of the Middle East coronavirus (MERS), incidentally — there is no specific treatment and control is essentially a matter of good quarantine measures. When they fail, as they did this spring, outbreaks can occur.)

The 2009 pandemic flu, Perlin noted, “was not particularly lethal, but CDC estimated that in approximately one year, there were between 43 (and) 89 million cases.”
But a 10% or 20% fatality rate — like SARS or the 1918 flu — “would have killed many millions.”
Not all diseases burn out, of course. HIV spread for years before it was even recognized and has now killed some 36 million people. Luckily, it’s quite hard to catch.
The same is true of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu. It has a case-fatality rate of about 60% — still not enough to kill us all off — but only a few hundred cases have been recorded since the bug was first recognized.

“The major worry for scientists,” Wortmann said, “is that a deadly virus, such as Ebola, would mutate to become more contagious, and then spread internationally through air travel.”
“As there are few effective treatments for viral infections, this would represent a global challenge,” he added.
Ebola, now raging in West Africa, is a pathogen with an alarmingly high case-fatality rate but it needs close contact between a victim and another person for infection to take place.
Importantly, it doesn’t spread through droplets in the air, as do the flu and common colds. And in places like the U.S. with a highly developed healthcare system, simple barrier precautions and isolation would prevent a widespread outbreak.

Worst case scenarios involve either an antibiotic-resistant bacterium that kills quickly or a virus that kills more slowly or has a latency period where it can be transmitted but is not debilitating, argued UT Health’s Morano.
In either case, the rate of infection might be fast enough and the rate of death slow enough that the pathogen could spread by common means of transportation, he said.
It would be even worse if the agent was aerosolized and spread by coughing or sneezing so that many people could be infected by a single patient, Morano added.

The White Knight
But what about the heroes of the tale? What about the brave scientists who track down the pathogen and come up with a cure/vaccine/treatment?
Here the experts are more divided.
Loyola’s Reid said: “I think the most fictitious aspect of this is the rapid ‘cure’ that is developed.”
After all, she added, “we still don’t have a vaccine for HIV or hepatitis C or Ebola virus, and our vaccine for influenza has to be updated yearly.”

On the other hand, Beaumont Health System’s Sims said, “technology has come incredibly far in the last decade or so.”
It took years for investigators to identify HIV, come up with a test for it, and develop treatments (although no cure or vaccine so far), Sims noted. But it took only a month or so to realize that SARS was a new disease, and a few weeks more to identify the agent that caused it.

Research on possible treatments was underway when the disease had begun to burn itself out.
“Unfortunately, the scenario of an intrepid doc or scientist coming up with a cure or vaccine in the span of a few weeks or months is highly unlikely, especially if the infectious agent is poorly studied,” Morano commented.

“These things take a great deal of research, time and money — exactly what we’re doing now in medical centers across the globe.”

(News & Editorial/ Dancing with viral dangers)

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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 · 12:10 AM

Venezuela: Shortages and hyper inflation… How it looks on Main Street

A. Venezuela Enforces Fingerprint Registry to Buy Groceries: What to Do Before Rationing Starts in America 2 April 2014, SHTFplan.com, by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper, http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/venezuela-enforces-fingerprint-registry-to-buy-groceries-what-to-do-before-rationing-starts-in-america-04022014

Pasted from: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/venezuela-enforces-fingerprint-registry-to-buy-groceries-what-to-do-before-rationing-starts-in-america_04022014

Editor’s Note: In recent weeks the country of Venezuela has implemented everything from price controls to rationing in an effort to control the hyperinflation that has gripped the nation. All attempts at controlling demand and ‘hoarding’ have thus far failed, prompting government officials to issue directives requiring biometric verification for the purchase of foodstuffs. What’s happening in Venezuela is a clear example of how government first causes the problem, often leading to panic, and then points the blame at everyone but themselves. Officials claim that unscrupulous merchants (who have been forced to sell goods at prices lower than they have acquired them) and the hoarding of food by individuals is to blame for the shortages.

The solution, of course, is more government, and in this case that means registration of fingerprints and other personal data in exchange for permission to purchase food. Be assured that the same plans are in place right here in the USA. In fact, we already have an electronic mechanism of exchange in the form of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Should the worst happen and the US dollar crashes at some point in the future, those who failed to prepare (or, hoard as the government would suggest) are destined to forced registrations at their local post office or other government entity. Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper explains what’s happening right now in Venezuela, how a similar situation could unfold in the USA, and what you can do to prepare in advance.

For those looking to implement a frugal and highly effective strategy in advance of food shortages or currency crisis we suggest taking a look at Daisy’s book The Pantry Primer: How to Build a One Year Food Supply in Three Months.

(Pictured: Amateur photo: Venezuelans line up for miles in an effort to acquire food during hyperinflationary food shortages – March 2014)

.Venezuela Enforces Fingerprint Registry to Buy Groceries: What to Do Before Rationing Starts in America
By Daisy Luther

What if you were forced to “register” in order to buy groceries? And what if, through that registration, the food you bought could be tracked and quantities could be limited?

That’s exactly the plan in Venezuela right now. The AP reports that in an effort to crack down on “hoarding” that ID cards will be issued to families. These will have to be presented before foodstuffs can be purchased.

President Nicolas Maduro’s administration says the cards to track families’ purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at subsidized prices and then illegally resell them for several times the amount…

Registration began Tuesday at more than 100 government-run supermarkets across the country. Working-class shoppers who sometimes endure hours-long lines at government-run stores to buy groceries at steeply reduced prices are welcoming the plan.

“The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the strings,” said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the government-run Abastos Bicentenario supermarket near downtown Caracas on Monday, and then waited another three hours to check out.

Checkout workers at Abastos Bicentenario were taking down customers’ cellphone numbers Monday, to ensure they couldn’t return for eight days. Shoppers said employees also banned purchases by minors, to stop parents from using their children to engage in hoarding, which the government calls “nervous buying.”

Rodriguez supports both measures.

“People who go shopping every day hurt us all,” he said, drawing approving nods from the friends he made over the course of his afternoon slowly snaking through the aisles with his oversized cart.

Reflecting Maduro’s increasingly militarized discourse against opponents he accuses of waging “economic war,” the government is calling the new program the “system of secure supply.”

Patrons will register with their fingerprints, and the new ID card will be linked to a computer system that monitors purchases. On Tuesday, Food Minister Felix Osorio said the process was off to a smooth start. He says the system will sound an alarm when it detects suspicious purchasing patterns, barring people from buying the same goods every day. But he also says the cards will be voluntary, with incentives like discounts and entry into raffles for homes and cars.

Expressionless men with rifles patrolled the warehouse-size supermarket Monday as shoppers hurried by, focusing on grabbing meat and pantry items before they were gone.

Last year in Venezuela, it became a crime to “hoard” food, and the country’s Attorney General called upon prosecutors to crack down on “hoarders” by imprisoning them for the “crime”.

Some people may read this and think to themselves, “Why on earth do I care about what happens in Venezuela?” You’d better care, because this is our future.

Already the Obama administration has moved the pieces into place on the board to be able to appropriate supplies from anyone, at any time. Mac Slavo of SHTFplan warns: It should be clear from the laws that are already in effect that the government has given itself a legal pretext for confiscating anything they so choose in the midst of an emergency.

Should an emergency befall the United States, the military, national guard, and local police operating under orders from the Department of Homeland Security will have carte blanche to do as they please.

In a widespread emergency where supply lines have been threatened and millions of Americans are without essential resources because they failed to prepare, the government will swoop in an attempt to take complete control.

They will enter our homes and search them without a warrant. They will confiscate contraband. And they will take any ‘excessive resources’ that you may have accumulated. This includes food, toiletries, precious metals and anything else emergency planners and officials deem to be a scarce material.

Just think how much easier it would be to do so if every purchase you make is tracked and documented for future reference.

How Much of a Footprint Are You Leaving?
Now, think about those “loyalty cards” that every grocery store in North America promotes when you go through the checkout. Have you noticed how much more those are being pushed lately? Could there be a nefarious purpose to that? I doubt the person at the cash register thinks twice about it – if these actually are data collection tools, it is something put in place by people far higher up the food chain (pun intended) than the staff of your local supermarket.

I strongly recommend you think twice about collecting “points” – the discounts may not be worth it if it means that your stock-up purchases are in some database, easily accessible to the NSA. If you feel it is imperative to have one of those cards, consider using a pseudonym and false address. You really don’t want to provide an inventory of your stockpile to the government. Some cards, like the one from Target, for example, even take it a step further and link to your credit card or debit account. I can’t even wrap my brain around giving out that type of information to the person who rings up my paper towels and garbage bags.

To take this even further, if you haven’t been convinced yet that you need to begin producing your own food by gardening and raising micro-livestock, this should solidify the importance of not being totally dependent on “the system” for what you eat. Looking at the drought conditions across America’s farmland, is it a stretch of the imagination to think we could soon be facing rationing like that which is currently happening in Venezuela? As the middle class gasps its last breath here in America, we may soon be faced with a situation where only the wealthy can afford to avoid rationing. By becoming independent from the purveyors of food, you can assure that your family will not go hungry at the whims of a government who really doesn’t care.

Plan of Action
Here are a few things that you can do to pre-empt feeling the effects of a system like the one in Venezuela before such a change occurs on our own soil. Start now to leave less of a footprint for the government to follow.

Plant a garden.
Grow food indoors in sunny windows.
Consider an aquaponics set-up in a spare room.
Raise chickens and meat rabbits.
Stock up NOW on long-term staples like grains and beans, before limits are instituted.
Buy heirloom seeds – lots and lots of seeds.
Practice careful OPSEC (OPerational SECurity) when making large purchases.
Store long term food supplies in more than one location. That way if you lose some of your supplies to thugs (government or other varieties), you still have supplies to fall back on.
Learn to preserve food.
Stock up of preservation supplies like lids, jars, etc.
Do NOT use so-called “loyalty cards” or memberships to make large purchases.
When ordering large quantities of supplies, consider having them mailed to some place other than your home.
Use cash or prepaid VISA cards purchased with cash to make large purchases.
Don’t tell others about your supplies and purchases.
Teach your children not to discuss things like food pantries and preparedness.
Don’t store your supplies out in the open for anyone who comes into your home to see. Stash your 5 gallon pails away in closets, under beds, or in the basement.
Disengage from the system by purchasing from small local farmers.
Use the barter system whenever possible. When money was tight and I lived in a place where I couldn’t grow much food, I worked on a farm harvesting vegetables in exchange for produce that I could preserve for my family.
Change the way you eat – go with a local, in-season menu that is far more difficult to track than grocery-store purchased items.
Learn to forage. Even in the city, you might be surprised at how many things can be found growing in your own back yard or falling off of the trees in a local park. My children and I picked up one small bag of walnuts a day at a little park down the street one year, resulting in almost 15 pounds of shelled nuts by the time we were through.

Whatever your plan, don’t delay. We need only to read the many articles predicting a food shortage this year due to poor weather conditions to see the writing on the wall. You must become responsible for your family’s sustenance if you don’t want to suffer at the hands of those in power. I have no intention of standing in line for hours with my “ID card”, only to be allowed to purchase a small amount of highly inflated food.

[Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: How to Build a One Year Food Supply in Three Months. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

B. Price controls and scarcity force Venezuelans to turn to the black market for milk and toilet paper
16 Apr 2015, by Girish Gupta in Caracas
Pasted from: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/apr/16/venezuela-economy-black-market-milk-and-toilet-paper

From those struggling to meet inflated prices for everyday goods, to lawyers turned pasta smugglers, the street economy flourishes under President Maduro

With supermarket shelves empty, buhoneros (street peddlers) hustling everything from coffee to
shampoo are an increasingly common sight across Venezuela’s slums. Photograph: Girish Gupta

In Petare, a giant slum overlooking Caracas from the east, hustlers known as buhoneros sell their goods at a busy intersection. “I’ve got milk, toilet paper, coffee, soap…” said 30-year-old Carmen Rodríguez, pointing to her wares by the side of a road busy with honking motorbikes, cars and buses. “Of course they cost more than the government say they should. We have to queue up to get them or buy them from someone who has done. We’re helping people get the basics.”

Yet, many of the poor simply can’t afford Rodríguez’s basics. In a raw and arguably necessary display of capitalism, she sells them for far more than the government’s legally required “fair prices”. It is ironically because of those government-imposed fair prices that the goods often aren’t available at supermarkets at fair prices as it’s simply not profitable to import them. This is thanks to economic policies dating back more than a decade.

Rodríguez sells each of her products for around 100 bolívares. At the black market currency exchange rate, that’s just 30 pence or so. But at that same exchange rate, the minimum wage in Venezuela is around £15 a month.

A queue for a supermarket in Caracas. Photograph: Girish Gupta

“I can’t live like this, earning the minimum wage. It’s not enough at all,” said Araceli Belaez, 40, lining up for groceries at a supermarket in the Caracas slum of Catia.

Johan Elizandre is a fruit-seller in 23 de enero, a slum on the other side of Caracas. It overlooks the presidential palace and its walls are adorned with murals of leftist heroes such as Che Guevara, Karl Marx and former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. “A kilo of meat costs me 600 bolívares” said Elizandre, who earns 7,000 bolívares a month, around £20 when measured at the black market exchange rate – far more than the minimum wage. “I have sons, aged five and seven. I’d rather give them the food and not eat so much myself.”

Of course my goods cost more than the government say they should. We’re helping people get the basics

The scenes at Petare’s intersection, 23 de enero’s streets and Catia’s supermarkets are manifestations of an economy in tatters: one in which people buy milk, toilet paper and shampoo at inflated prices because supermarkets, with long queues outside, are near empty; in which engineers and lawyers smuggle pasta and petrol across borders to earn many times more than they would carrying out their profession; and in which surgeons complain that people are dying on the operating table because they cannot import medicines and equipment.

There will not be much left in the supermarket for people at the back of this queue Photograph: Girish Gupta

President Nicolás Maduro’s approval ratings are currently in the mid-20s. Annual inflation is at nearly 70% – which doesn’t include goods prices with the hefty premiums charged by the buhoneros like Rodríguez. The currency has fallen some 30% against the US dollar this year on the black market. And the murder rate is one of the world’s worst.

In 2003, Maduro’s predecessor Chávez enacted strict currency controls, pegging the bolívar to the US dollar. The aim was to reduce inflation and curb capital flight though neither has been achieved. Price controls, currency controls and the lack of dollars the government provides mean that importers no longer have the incentive to bring in goods. A thousand bolívares would have bought £30 on the black market when Maduro was elected to power in March 2013; it now buys less than £3. In the meantime, prices have risen rapidly while wages have not kept up.

On the country’s border with Colombia at San Antonio, engineer Jesús Arias, 33, has given up on his profession and smuggles petrol across the border. One of the country’s most costly price controls means that filling an entire tank costs just a couple of cents, converted at black market rates. Over the border, petrol sells for hundreds of times more. “Here petrol is practically a free gift,” Arias said. “A litre of mineral water costs more than a litre of gas.”

Children walk across the bridge to Colombia with Coca-Cola bottles filled with petrolThe subsidy costs the government around $12bn (£8bn) a year and Maduro is very clear that it needs to end – though that would be politically disastrous. Arias fills his 50-litre tank for just a few pence; a few hundred metres across the bridge in Cúcuta, Colombia, he can sell that for around £15. “Doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers we’re all doing it,” he said. “Here on the border, I can earn in three or four days what I earn as a professional in a month.” Children walk across the bridge with Coca-Cola bottles filled with petrol.

Maduro blames the problems on an “economic war” being waged against his government, with help from Washington. He blames smugglers, hoarders and street vendors for causing the problems rather than being a consequence of them.

People are leaving their jobs as they can make more as a black-market vendor. Photograph: Girish Gupta

Last year, the government tried to ban websites which publish the black market exchange rate, leading one blogger to liken the manoeuvre to banning the sale of thermometers to crack down on cold weather.

Yet, the black market, while imperfect, is offering an escape valve for the economy, a means for the poor by whatever means to obtain goods they would otherwise have to do without. “Repressing the black market rate, smuggling or trading is going to deteriorate the economic picture even further,” said Alberto Ramos, a senior analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York. “It will lead to even high inflation and higher levels of goods’ scarcity. The unofficial foreign exchange market and smuggling are to a large extent economic escape valves.”

(News & Editorial/ Venezuela: shortages and hyper inflation. How it looks on Main Street)

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Wednesday, June 17, 2015 · 12:10 AM

Yes, there’s “climate change”, its cooling

A. Sunspots 2015: Year of the decline
4 Jan 2015, Posted by azleader
Pasted from: https://informthepundits.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/sunspots-2015-year-of-the-decline/

Giant solar flare on October 27, 2014. Credit/NASA SDO spacecraft

Solar maximum has passed. What climate effects will come next?
Austin, January 4, 2015 – Solar maximum activity peaked in April 2014 at an exceptionally low 81.9 spots/day. Waning solar activity in 2015 will begin the long, inexorably journey towards solar minimum over the next half decade or so.

If solar physicists are correct, solar activity could be very low for several decades to come. How that will affect climate change is anyone’s guess, but low sunspot activity has already been identified by the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the main causes for the 15+ year “hiatus” from atmospheric global warming.

Solar max arrived in April 2014. Credit/Steve Davidson-SILSO data, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels

The Royal Observatory of Belgium released December’s official monthly international sunspot numbers on January 1, 2015. Sunspots increased again in December, but the 13-month smoothed sunspot number that defines solar maximum declined for the 2nd month in a row. Given that solar maximum is a 13-month running average, no one knows maximum has been reached until at least seven months after the fact.

What does the downturn in solar activity mean for earth’s long-term climate change? One legitimate comparison of the current situation on the sun is to a cold period on earth called the Dalton Minimum. It happened 200 years ago.

Current solar activity is similar to the Dalton Minimum. Credit/Steve Davidson using SILSO data

There were three declining solar cycles leading into the Dalton Minimum, just like now. The third exceptionally weak cycle had a rare higher secondary peak than its first when the Dalton was reached, just like now.

That cycle was followed by a decline to zero spots. The period of zero spots lasted nearly two years before another weak cycle occurred. The match to current activity isn’t exact, but it’s eerily similar. There is modern supporting evidence that the sun will have an exceptionally weak cycle next time, just like the Dalton.

Sunspots are becoming harder to see and weaker. Credit/Dr. Leif Svalgaard Research Page

Umbral intensity is a measure of how black the center of the average sunspot is compared to its surroundings. An intensity of 1 means the sunspot is invisible. Sunspots have been fading away since the late 1990s. In the last 3-4 years, though, the fading has leveled off.

Umbral magnetic field is a measure of the strength of the average sunspot, measured in Gauss. The lower the number, the weaker the sunspot. Strong magnetic fields are what cause giant solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that dramatically affect earth. Sunspots cannot form with a field strength below 1,500 Gauss. In the last 3-4 years the decline in magnetic field strength has leveled off, too.

When this data was first published in 2011 it caused quite a stir among solar physicists. Some predicted sunspots would totally disappear after the current cycle ended. It doesn’t look like that will be the case after all. It looks like the next cycle, Cycle 25, will be another weak one, just like during the Dalton Minimum.

Reliable global temperature data does not extend further back than about 1850, fifty years after the Dalton. However, anecdotal evidence suggests there were very cold winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere during that time period.

The current sunspot cycle most closely matches Cycle 12, which peaked in 1883. That one is within reliable global temperature records.

The current solar cycle is best matched to Cycle 12. Credit/Steve Davidson using SILSO data

Both Cycle 12 and the current cycle have a rare secondary peak higher than the first. That has got to mean something.

According to IPCC data, the period of the 1880s to the early 1900s was characterized by a general decline in earth’s global atmospheric temperature.

1880-1910 cooling trend corresponds to low sunspot activity. Source/IPCC AR5 Report

Cycle 12 and the two cycles following it were exceptionally weak cycles leading into the early 1900s. It corresponded to declining global temperatures. Coincidence? Not likely.

Conclusions
Solar sunspot maximum was reached in April of 2014. That did not become known until recently because solar max is computed as a 13-month running average. You can’t know it has been reached until at least seven months after the fact. There have been two months of decline since then, so it is reasonably certain the maximum was finally reached. As it is, it was over two years later than originally predicted.

If the current cycle follows past solar behavior then 2015 will see a steep decline in solar activity as it progresses toward solar minimum in the next five years or so.
The current cycle (Cycle 24) has strong similarities to both the Dalton Minimum and Cycle 12 that peaked in 1883. Both time periods are associated with cold earth temperatures. Cycle 12 is more meaningful because it is supported by current United Nations IPCC data.
That being the case, it’s time to start thinking about breaking out the cold weather gear.
.

B. New Ice Age to Begin in 2014
23 Feb 2012, IceAgeNow.info, By Robert
Pasted from: http://iceagenow.info/2012/02/ice-age-2014/

“Forecasters predict that a new ice age will begin soon,” says this article on russia-ic.com.

“Habibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist from the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences considers that the sharp drop in temperature will start on the Earth in 2014. “According to the scientist, our planet began to “get cold” in the 1990s. The new ice age will last at least two centuries, with its peak in 2055. “It is interesting, that the same date was chosen by the supporters of the theory of global warming. “The expected decrease in temperature may … become the fifth over the past nine centuries, reports Hydrometeorological Center of Russia. Experts call this phenomenon the “little ice age”, it was observed in the XII, XV, XVII, XIX centuries. This cyclicity makes the theory of upcoming cold weather in XXI century look like truth.” http://russia-ic.com/news/show/13717#.T0Q3Ms7rk9C Thanks to Thomas McHart, Stephanie Relfe for this link

Habibullo Abdussamatov is not just “a scientist.” Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, astrophysicist, is head of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, and head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I
’m inclined to take his forecasts seriously.
I’ve met Dr Abdussamatov, and posted other articles about him here: http://iceagenow.info/2010/05/new-little-ice-age-to-begin-in-2014/
And here: http://iceagenow.info/2011/11/russian-scientists-predict-100-years-cooling/

C. New Little Ice Age ‘to Begin in 2014′
20 May 2010,IceAgeNow.info, by Bob
Pasted from: http://iceagenow.info/2010/05/new-little-ice-age-to-begin-in-2014/

Russian scientist to alarmists: ‘Sun heats Earth!’ 20 May 10 – CHICAGO – Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russia, predicts that a new “Little Ice Age” could begin in just four years.
I sat just ten feet away from Abdussamatov as he made this startling assertion at the Heartland Institute’s 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago just two days ago.
Jerome R. Corsi from World Net Daily covered the proceedings exceedingly well, and I am quoting or paraphrasing him extensively here.
In a two-part video recorded at the conference by WND (link below), Abdussamatov explains that average annual sun activity has experienced an accelerated decrease since the 1990s.

Habibullo Abdussamatov Head of the Russian-Ukrainian project “Astrometria” on the Russian segment of the International Space Station, Abdussamatov’s theory is that “long-term variations in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth are the main and principal reasons driving and defining the whole mechanism of climatic changes from the global warmings to the Little Ice Ages to the big glacial periods.”

In his speech, Abdussamatov took on advocates of the theory of man-caused warming who want to curtail our use of hydrocarbon fuels. He contended, instead, that a reasonable way to combat coming cooling trends would be “to maintain economic growth in order to adapt to the upcoming new Little Ice Age in the middle of the 21st century.”

Sun’s activity determines temperatures
Abdussamatov argues that total sun irradiance, or TSI, is the primary factor responsible for causing climate variations on Earth, not carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is “not guilty,” says Abdussamatov. “As for what lies ahead in the coming decades, it is not catastrophic warming, but a global, and very prolonged temperature drop.”

Abdussamatov pointed to the English astronomer Walter Maunder, who noticed that sunspots had been generally absent from 1645 to 1715. That period coincided with the middle and coldest part of the Little Ice Age (see article D, below), which began around 1650 and extended through 1850.

“There is now an unavoidable advance toward a global decrease, a deep temperature drop comparable to the Maunder minimum,” he wrote. “Already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop.”

“The observed global warming of the climate of the Earth is not caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses, but by extraordinarily high solar intensity that extended over virtually the entire past century.” “Future decrease in global temperature will occur even if anthropogenic ejection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere rises to record levels.

“The implementation of the Kyoto Protocol aimed to rescue the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off at least 150 years.”

I have the utmost respect for the courageous scientists who presented at this convention.

D. The Little Ice Age in Europe
Scott A. Mandia, Professor – Physical Sciences, S.C.C.C., Selden, NY
Excerpts pasted from: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html

Western Europe experienced a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 that brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating effect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea.

Impact on Agriculture
Lamb (1966) points out that the growing season changed by 15 to 20 percent between the warmest and coldest times of the millennium. That is enough to affect almost any type of food production, especially crops highly adapted to use the full-season warm climatic periods. During the coldest times of the LIA, England’s growing season was shortened by one to two months compared to present day values. The availability of varieties of seed today that can withstand extreme cold or warmth, wetness or dryness, was not available in the past. Therefore, climate changes had a much greater impact on agricultural output in the past.

Fig. 16 and 17 show the price of wheat and rye, respectively, in various European countries during the LIA.

Figure 16: Prices of wheat expressed in Dutch guilders per 100 kg. in various countries vs. time. (Source: Lamb, 1995)

Western Europe experienced a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 that brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea.

Impact on Health
The cooler climate during the LIA had a huge impact on the health of Europeans. As mentioned earlier, dearth and famine killed millions and poor nutrition decreased the stature of the Vikings in Greenland and Iceland.

Cool, wet summers led to outbreaks of an illness called St. Anthony’s Fire. Whole villages would suffer convulsions, hallucinations, gangrenous rotting of the extremities, and even death. Grain, if stored in cool, damp conditions, may develop a fungus known as ergot blight and also may ferment just enough to produce a drug similar to LSD. (In fact, some historians claim that the Salem, Massachusetts witch hysteria was the result of ergot blight.)

Malnutrition led to a weakened immunity to a variety of illnesses. In England, malnutrition aggravated an influenza epidemic of 1557-8 in which whole families died. In fact, during most of the 1550’s deaths outnumbered births (Lamb, 1995.) The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) was hastened by malnutrition all over Europe.

One might not expect a typically tropical disease such as malaria to be found during the LIA, but Reiter (2000) has shown that it was an important cause of illness and death in several parts of England. The English word for malaria was ague, a term that remained in common usage until the nineteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) wrote in the Nun’s Priest Tale:

You are so very choleric of complexion. Beware the mounting sun and all dejection, Nor get yourself with sudden humours hot; For if you do, I dare well lay a groat That you shall have the tertian fever’s pain, Or some ague that may well be your bane.

In sixteenth century England, many marshlands were notorious for their ague-stricken populations. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) mentioned ague in eight of his plays. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) died of ague in September 1658, which was one of the coldest years of the LIA.

Five indigenous species of mosquito are capable of transmitting malaria in England where they prefer the brackish water along river estuaries. The anaerobic bacterial flora of saline mud produces a strong sulfur odor that was widely believed to be the cause of agues in salt marsh areas (i.e. Shakespeare’s “unwholesome fens.”) The term malaria comes from the Italian term “mala aria” meaning “bad air.”

Impact on Economics
In addition to increasing grain prices and lower wine production, there were many examples of economic impact by the dramatic cooling of the climate. Due to famine, storms, and growth of glaciers ,many farmsteads were destroyed, which resulted in less tax revenues collected due to decreased value of the properties (Lamb, 1995.)

Cod fishing greatly decreased, especially for the Scottish fisherman, as the cod moved farther south. The cod fishery at the Faeroe Islands began to fail around 1615 and failed altogether for thirty years between 1675 and 1704 (Lamb, 1995.) In the Hohe Tauern mountains of the Austrian Alps, advancing glaciers closed the gold mines of the Archbishop of Salzburg who was one of the wealthiest dukes in the empire. The succession of two or three bad summers where the miners could not rely on work in the mines caused them to find employment elsewhere, which resulted in an abrupt end to the mining operations (Bryson, 1977.)

Not all of the economic impact was bad. The fertile fishing grounds of the present day Newfoundland Banks were thought to have been found by fisherman in the late 1400’s who were looking for the fish stocks that had deserted their former grounds as the result of the movement of colder waters from the north (Lamb, 1995.)

English fisherman benefited by the southern movement of herring normally found in the waters off Norway. This increase in deep-sea fishing helped to build the maritime population and strength of the country (Lamb, 1995.) The failure of crops in Norway between 1680 and 1720 was a prime reason for the great growth of merchant shipping there. Coastal farmers whose crops failed turned to selling their timber and to constructing ships in order to transport these timbers themselves (Lamb, 1995.)

Social Unrest
Conditions during the LIA led to many cases of social unrest. The winter of 1709 killed many people in France. Conditions were so bad, a priest in Angers, in west-central France, wrote: “The cold began on January 6, 1709, and lasted in all its rigor until the twenty-fourth. The crops that had been sewn were all completely destroyed…. Most of the hens had died of cold, as had the beasts in the stables. When any poultry did survive the cold, their combs were seen to freeze and fall off. Many birds, ducks, partidges, woodcock, and blackbirds died and were found on the roads and on the thick ice and frequent snow. Oaks, ashes, and other valley trees split with cold. Two thirds of the vines died…. No grape harvest was gathered at all in Anjou…. I myself did not get enough wine from my vineyard to fill a nutshell.” (Ladurie, 1971) In March the poor rioted in several cities to keep the merchants from selling what little wheat they had left.

The winter of 1739-40 was also a bad one. After that there was no spring and only a damp, cool summer which spoiled the wheat harvest. The poor rebelled and the governor of Liège told the rich to “fire into the middle of them. That’s the only way to disperse this riffraff, who want nothing but bread and loot.” (Ladurie, 1971)

Lamb (1995) reports the occurrence of cattle raids on the Lowlanders by Highlanders who were stressed by the deteriorating climate. In 1436, King James I of Scotland was murdered while hunting on the edge of the Highland region near Perth. The clan warfare grew so bad that it was decided that no place north of Edinburgh Castle was safe for the king so Edinburgh became the capital of the country.

In England, the effect of starvation and the poor condition of the country encouraged men to enlist during the War of the Roses (1455-1485.) As tillable land was converted to other uses such as sheep rearing, the landlords who organized the conversions became the focus of many hostilities.

One group in particular suffered from the poor conditions – people thought to be witches (Behringer, 1999.) Weather-making was thought to be among the traditional abilities of witches and during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries many saw a great witch conspiracy. Extensive witch hunts took place during the most severe years of the LIA, as people looked for scapegoats to blame for their suffering.

One of history’s most notorious quotes might have been due in part to a rare extremely warm period during the LIA. In northern France in 1788, after an unusually bad winter, May, June, and July were excessively hot, which caused the grain to shrivel. On July 13, just at harvest time, a severe hailstorm (which typically occurs when there is very cold air aloft) destroyed what little crops were left. From that bad harvest of 1788 came the bread riots of 1789 which led to Marie Antoinette’s alleged remark “Let them eat cake,” and the storming of the Bastille.

Art and Literature
Writers and artists were also influenced by the great change in climate. In 1816, “the year without a summer,” many Europeans spent their summers around the fire. Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein, and Polidori, The Vampire. Both authors, together with Byron and Percy Shelley, were in Switzerland, near Lake Geneva where Byron said “We will each write a ghost story.” Percy Shelley also referred to a glacier in his poem “Mont Blanc” when he wrote “…and wall impregnable of beaming ice. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish…”

Neuberger (1970) studied more than 12,000 paintings in 41 art museums in the United States and eight European countries to test his hypothesis that paintings would accurately reveal the climate record. These paintings covered the period from 1400 to 1967. He categorized the blueness of the sky into a three-step scale consisting of pale blue, medium blue, and deep blue. Cloudiness was estimated according to the U.S. airways code: clear (less than 10 percent coverage), scattered (10 to 50 percent), broken (60 to 90 percent), and overcast (more than 90 percent cloud coverage.) In addition, the types of clouds were observed according to four families: high, middle, low, and convective (vertically-developed) clouds. Neuberger separated his data into three epochs. According to the data in Fig. 19 below, during the second epoch when the LIA was at its peak, cloudiness and darkness prevailed.

Figure 19: Epochal changes in various painting features. (Source: Neuberger, 1970)

Neuberger suggests that the similarities between the second and third epochs have more to do with a stylistic change in the third epoch to impressionism which produced hazy atmospheres and also to an increase in industrial pollution.

Frequency of Storms
Fig. 20 shows the number of reported severe sea floods per century in the North Sea region.

Figure 20: Number of reported sea floods per century in the North Sea region. (Source: Lamb, 1995)

During the LIA, there was a high frequency of storms. As the cooler air began to move southward, the polar jet stream strengthened and followed, which directed a higher number of storms into the region. At least four sea floods of the Dutch and German coasts in the thirteenth century were reported to have caused the loss of around 100,000 lives. Sea level was likely increased by the long-term ice melt during the MWP which compounded the flooding. Storms that caused greater than 100,000 deaths were also reported in 1421, 1446, and 1570. Additionally, large hailstorms that wiped out farmland and killed great numbers of livestock occurred over much of Europe due to the very cold air aloft during the warmer months. Due to severe erosion of coastline and high winds, great sand storms developed which destroyed farmlands and reshaped coastal land regions.

(News & Editorial/ Yes there’s “climate change”, it cooling)

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Wednesday, May 13, 2015 · 12:10 AM

The Tragedy of the Commons

(News & Editorial/The Tragedy of the Commons)

What & who we are
(Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens)
“Humans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens (Latin: “wise man” or “knowing man”) in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving members of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the arms for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other species.

Like most higher primates, humans are social by nature. However, humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization.

Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families to nations.

Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society.
Humans have a marked appreciation for beauty and aesthetics which, combined with the human desire for self-expression, has led to cultural innovations such as art, literature and music.

Humans are noted for their desire to understand and influence their environment, seeking to explain and manipulate natural phenomena through science, philosophy, mythology and religion. This natural curiosity has led to the development of advanced tools and skills, which are passed down culturally; humans are the only species known to build fires, cook their food, clothe themselves, and use numerous other technologies…”

“In humans, behavioral innovations are usually passed down culturally from one generation to the next through social learning. For many, the existence of culture in humans is the key adaptation that sets us apart from animals.” However,
.
Humanity’s Archille’s Heel:
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” – Dr. Albert Bartlett, physicist.
All species expand as much as resources allow and predators, parasites, and physical conditions permit. When a species is introduced into a new habitat with abundant resources that accumulated before its arrival, the population expands rapidly until all the resources are used up.” – David Price, Energy and Human Evolution

.The tragedy of the commons
Pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen. This dilemma was first described, in modern times, in an influential article titled “The Tragedy of the Commons,” written by ecologist Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968.

Central to Hardin’s article is an example (See a similar cartoon below in this post. Mr Larry] of a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin’s example, it is in each herder’s interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the quality of the common is damaged for all as a result, through overgrazing. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed, to the detriment of all.

[The behavior of ‘Self interest vs. The Commons’ is a common flaw in Man’s mental abilities and has been with us for thousands of years, if not since our dawn. You can see it today during the recent financial crisis where banks, whom during good times privatized their profits and in bad times spread their losses to the public.]

Thucydides (ca. 460 BC-ca. 395 BC) stated: “They devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.”

Aristotle (384-322 BC) similarly argued against common goods of the polis (city-state) of Athens: “That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few.”

Psychologist Dennis Fox used a number, what is now termed “Dunbar’s number”, to take a new look at the tragedy of the commons. In a 1985 paper titled “Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, & the Commons”, he stated “Edney also argued that long-term solutions will require, among a number of other approaches, breaking down commons into smaller segments. He reviewed experimental data showing that cooperative behavior is indeed more common in smaller groups. After estimating that “the upper limit for a simple, self-contained, sustaining, well-functioning commons may be as low as 150 people”.
[If Fox is right and Dunbar’s number for cooperative behavior in a Commons is around 150, then our global political subdivisions of nation, state and county, municipality, are wholly wrong for long term human sustainability. When was the last time you found any personal democratic power in a group of about 150, or of any larger size. Casting our votes on election day really has little to do, ever, about The Commons which we all inhabit. Mr. Larry]

Cartoon illustrating The Tragedy of the Commons
From http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/info/cartoon_commons1.html

The Tragedy of the Commons, becomes a problem of Exponential Growth
<http://www.webpotential.com/ambiente/exponential_growth.htm>

In America, growth is seen as American as the flag and apple pie. But there is trouble in paradise. The flag that flies for growth is a noose and the apple pie of expansion is laced with cyanide. But it’s not just America that has this unhealthy relationship with growth it’s the majority of the world and its economies. As our populations, economies, and resource use grow exponentially, so do our environmental problems and the potential for collapse of the earth’s ability to sustain human life. Growth as we know it cannot continue.

As the primary proponent of growth worldwide, business must adjust to the reality of the problems created by growth. Because our current systems of business rely upon continuous growth and development they can not survive in their current form. As Paul Hawken writes in, The Ecology of Commerce, “Just as internal contradictions brought down the Marxist and socialist economies, so do a different set of social and biological forces signal our own possible demise. Those forces can no longer be ignored or put aside”. The internal contradictions that Hawken is speaking of are creation of waste, unsustainable uses of resources, environmental degradation, a disparity of wealth, and a plethora of other unsustainable business practices.

The most important foundation of all of these problems is exponential growth in human population and resource use. Hawken states, “The problems to be faced are vast and complex, but come down to this: 5.5 billion people are breeding exponentially [the population is 7 billion now, the article pasted here was written a few years ago. Mr. Larry]. The process of fulfilling their wants and needs is stripping the earth of its biotic capacity to produce life; a climactic bust of consumption by a single species is overwhelming the skies, earth, waters, and fauna”. Hawken relates this to business practices by showing that business relies on and creates unsustainable growth. Hawken seeks to answer, as did the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Task Force on Environment, “What kind of jobs will be possible in a world of depleted resources, poisoned water and foul air, a world where ozone depletion and greenhouse warming make it difficult even to survive.”.

What exactly is exponential growth, and is exponential growth in population and resource use really unsustainable? Much of the public and by many of our policy makers do not understand exponential growth. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding has not keep exponential population growth and resource use from becoming a problem.
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The possible origin of chess shows a striking example of exponential growth.
Legend has it that chess was invented by a mathematician who asked a king for what seemed to the king like a small price for the game. He asked that the king pay him in wheat. He asked the king to place 1 piece of wheat on the first square of the board, two on the second and that he continue to double the grains of wheat for all the squares on the board. The king agreed to pay the price, but it’s quite impossible that he held up his end of the bargain.
The amount of wheat needed is enormous. With 64 squares on a chessboard, the king needed 2⁶³ grains of wheat to pay the mathematician. This is roughly 400 times the 1990 worldwide harvest of wheat, and could be more wheat than has been harvested in the history of humanity! This is exponential growth. The king was probably thinking of linear growth, where the number of grains would grow by one for each square, when he made the deal. Linear growth would give 2048 grains of wheat in total. Enough grain for a few meals perhaps, but nothing compared to the amount of wheat harvested in human history.

Many things other than that cunning mathematician’s grains of wheat grow exponentially. Human population, resource use, and the waste that accompany them are growing exponentially. While many types of resource use are growing at over 5% per year, the human population is growing at about 1.6%. 1.6% does not seem too like an unacceptable rate of growth to many. In economic terms 1.6% growth is downright horrendous. The Japanese declare their economy is in recession if it grows less than 3% per year.
Although 1.6% does not seem like much to some of the kings and economists of the world, applied to human population it can yield huge numbers. While it took 2 million years for us to reach a population of 1 billion, we will add another billion to the earth’s population in just the next 11 years. If we calculate 1.6% growth out another 600 years, we find that there would be one person for each square yard of the dry land surface of earth, and in 1800 years the mass of humans would exceed the mass of the earth. Clearly human population growth will stop. But it’s not just our population that is growing, it’s also our use of natural resources.

Most types of resource use are growing faster than population. Although many associate growth in resource use with population growth, growth in resource use can also be independent of population growth. Resource use can grow even without population growth, although the reverse is hard to imagine. An example of what exponential growth means in resources can be seen with US coal reserves.
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Coal is the US’s most abundant fossil fuel.
In 1991 the US Department of Energy reported that at current rate of use US coal reserves could last almost 500 years. But the caveat here is current rate of use. Between 1971 and 1991 the use of coal grew 2.86%. With this rate of growth US coal could last about 94 years if we could use it all, but more likely 72 years of coal would be.
[That means we could be out of coal by 2063 (1971+72 years), just 30 years after the decline from current Peak Oil has greatly reduced gasoline consuming private automobiles. Mr. Larry. See also the 4dtraveler Post: (News& Editorial/ Exponential Growth)

The lack of understanding of how long coal could last, comes from people’s lack of knowledge of exponential growth. In 1978, Time Magazine reported that there is “enough coal to meet the country’s energy needs for centuries, no matter how much energy consumption may grow. This is clearly untrue. If we look just at the amount of electrical energy the country uses and its historical growth over the last 40 years, we see that coal could meet that need for just 36 years. Remember, coal is our most abundant fossil fuel. This utter lack of understanding of the results of exponential growth isn’t limited to Time — it’s pervasive in our government, media, and general public.

Coal is just one example of the larger issues surrounding resource use. No one knows if we’ll be able to discover enough resources to maintain our level of growth, or if the social, human, and environmental costs of using these resources will be too high to use them if they are found. If one understands the way exponential growth works it becomes clear, as it is to most that study the issue, that population and resource use growth cannot continue. The manner in which these will stop is unknown. We seem to have two basic choices: we can decide how to stop the growth of population and resources use, or we can let nature do it for us.

Petroleum is another example of the larger issues…
http://nymoral.blogspot.com/2009/12/greatest-shortcoming-of-human-race.html
In 1974, Dr Hubbert predicted that the peak of world oil would occur around 1995, so let’s see what’s happened. We have to go to the geology literature and ask the literature,
“What do you think is the total amount of oil we will ever find on this earth?”
The consensus figure in the literature is 2000 billion barrels. Now, that’s quite uncertain, plus or minus maybe 40 or 50%.
That would mean the peak is this year (2004). If I assume there is 50% more than the consensus figure, the peak moves back to 2019. If I assume there’s twice as much as the consensus figure, the peak moves back to 2030.

So no matter how you cut it, in your life expectancy, you are going to see the peak of world oil production. And you’ve got to ask yourself, what is life going to be like when we have a declining world production of petroleum, and we have a growing world population, and we have a growing world per capita demand for oil. Think about it.

[The problem of Mankind dealing with exponential growth leads back to the Tragedy of the Commons. In order to satisfy the needs and appetites of an exponentially growing population, exponential consumption is required, unless we each incrementally accept less and less.
We seek to satisfy our needs, and appetites individually, and on a family scale, meanwhile, considering any resultant problems as being the responsibility of The Commons.
Human beings will not search for, much less reach a consensus on how to equally share the responsibility of The Commons, in a multi-national environment; it’s our Human Nature to continue with new civilizations, with booms and busts.
Unfortunately, the petroleum, coal and commodity fed boom of the 20th Century will lead to a quite stellar bust in the 21st Century. Mr. Larry]

A few words of wisdom
• “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” – Dr. Albert Bartlett, physicist.
• Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?” – Dr. Albert Bartlett, physicist.
• Bartlett’s law will result in the exhaustion of petrochemical resources due to the exponential growth of the world population in line with the Malthusian Growth Model. – Dr. Albert Bartlett, physicist.
• “The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to emotionally comprehend the exponential function.”- Edward Teller, American nuclear physicist, known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb.”
• “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” – Kenneth Boulding, economist, system scientist, educator, author, poet.
• Thomas Jefferson, in a 1787 letter to Peter Carr, made a profound observation about human nature that only now is being verified by neuroscience and behavioral genetics studies. “Man is”, Jefferson wrote, “a social animal and is endowed with a sense of right and wrong. If one would State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor … the former would decide it well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.”

Haiti and the Dominican Republic – comparing potential futures

[Photograph below: The border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right) on the Caribbean island, Hispaniola. Policies that led to deforestation practices in Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic, show that decision making, can and does make a difference in the condition of The Commons.

Centuries of man-made deforestation have reduced forest cover to about 2% in Haiti, and 21% in the Dominican Republic.
The Dominican Republic constructed, dams to generate hydroelectric power. They launched a crash program to spare forest from being use for fuel, by instead importing propane and liquefied natural gas. Haiti’s poverty forced its people to remain dependent on forest-derived charcoal from fuel, thereby accelerating the destruction of its last remaining forests.
Dominicans like the Haitians, have experienced a great deal of corruption and instability, but since 1970 the country has maintained the transition of power through peaceful elections. The continuity of the Dominican government made possible a set of economic reforms in 1990 that led to a decade of steady growth.
In the Dominican Republic, average life expectancy is nearly 74 years, in Haiti, it’s 61 years. [Photograph at right, farm community in the Dominican Republic.]

Haiti provides a dim image of an overpopulated, degraded world, where material things are scarce, where The Commons were ignored until it was too late.

What has come to Haiti in the 200 years, since her colonial days, pre 1804?
The Haitian environment has become a severely degraded ecosystem; her wildlife habitats have been destroyed or seriously damaged, with 25 to 30 watersheds largely degraded or altered. Because most of the trees have being cut, there is increased soil erosion and flood damage from storms, crop losses are greater.

The countryside is already barely able to provide minimal living standards for the people. Those who lose their entire crop often end up living in a shanty in Port-au-Prince.
About three in four Haitians (73%) say there have been times in the past year when they or their families have gone hungry. Globally, only Africans in Chad (76%), Malawi (76%), and Niger (74%) are as likely to say they experienced food deprivation.
A majority of Haitians (57%) say there have been times in the past year when they did not have enough money to provide adequate shelter for themselves.
In Haiti, chronic political instability and corruption have combined with poverty, illiteracy, and racial discrimination to pose insurmountable barriers to modernization.
Meanwhile, Haitians are far more likely than Dominicans to say they’ve been assaulted in the past year. A full 30% of Haitians say they have been assaulted or mugged in the past 12 months, nearly three times the percentage of Dominicans who say the same (11%). In fact, among residents of more than 100 countries surveyed worldwide, only Burundians in central Africa (33%) are more likely than Haitians to say they’ve been attacked in the past year. [Photograph at right, farming community in Haiti.]

Much of the rest on the planet could experience conditions somewhat similar to Haiti – 100 years from 2012. Considering that petroleum and coal resources will have been fully exploited and reduced to exhaustion within about 50 years (but 50 before that hypothetical 100 years has passed). Considering that other easily mined natural resources that we use in our civilization, will have similarly been mostly extracted, it simply defies explanation where the energy will come from. If we do manage to overcome the energy challenge with a technological tour de force, starting immediately, where will the mines and minerals, revitalized carbon depleted farm soil, restocked global fisheries, below ground recharged water aquifers, and new surface fresh water resources come from?

All these problems are of course ‘in the future’ meaning… it’s going to ultimately be someone else’s responsibility… [smile to yourself and think, The Commons]. From your family’s view, the reality of peak oil is arriving now, along with increasing costs from food, medical care, college expenses… add your observations to the list. However, as a society, we’re seeing a decay in public infrastructure; diminishing economic returns; a long term continuing increase in social subsidies, income disparity, sub inflationary wage increases; no interest gained from our savings; political unrest is spreading at home and abroad.
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This then, is the coming of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Mr. Larry

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