Romancing Through Italy
© 2013 Robert J. Connors
Monday, March 4, 2013
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Playing Climate Football
If climate change were a football game, it would be the fourth quarter, and we’re down by two touchdowns. We’re going to need a couple of very big plays.
For more than 20 years scientists, in an ever-louder chorus from the sidelines, have been warning global team leaders that climate change was a looming problem.
Now the preliminary physical impacts are beginning to be felt, in the form of extreme flooding, record droughts, crop failures, and scorching heat that drives wildfires that stress or kills livestock and wildlife.
The United States has been rocked by a serious of weather disasters, ranging from killer tornadoes, to unprecedented flooding, to epic drought and widespread wildfires. The home team is taking a beating.
The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, reports that the past 12 months have been “the warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.” July 2012 was the hottest single month ever recorded. Nearly two-thirds of the nation is in drought even as it bakes under record heat. Yet so far, global temperatures are up less than two degrees on average. What will happen when the more serious effects begin?
Several important North America crops have suffered this year, ranging from Midwestern corn, oats and wheat, to Florida citrus, to California plums. Already, food shortages are emerging. The US Dept. of Agriculture has predicted that grain stocks will soon hit a three-year low.
A few nations, particularly in Africa, are now in famine. Shortages are developing in Asia, and both India and China may need to increase food imports. Wheat and grain crops are also failing in southwestern Asia due to a heat wave and drought. Sparse rain in India has caused a drop of 7.8 million tones of rice production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. The FAO also reported that world food prices climbed six per cent in July.
In the US, corn for livestock has become increasingly scarce and costly, even as part of the crop is diverted to create ethanol fuel. Rising corn prices are helping drive the cost of gasoline higher.
The United States is among the nations who have done least to prevent the crisis. Some other world leaders enacted policies to mitigate the threat, changing their local, regional, and national policies. Dependent upon the largess of big energy and locked by rigid orthodoxy, Congress has remained unable to react, unable to agree on any major issue.
The real problem is even bigger: even if Congress tries to find a solution, there may be none available. The clock is rapidly running down, and we’re out of timeouts. The chemistry of climate change is quite simple. Sunlight that would normally reflect its energy back into space is being absorbed by carbon dioxide, or CO2, which heats the atmosphere.
CO2 is the same common substance that makes your beverage fizz, not that your beverage is the problem. CO2 is released in vast quantities by combustion, which turns oxygen, the stuff we breathe, into more CO2. Humans love to burn stuff. We burn to drive, we burn to heat and cool and light our homes, we burn to obtain, refine, and deliver all the products we use. Ironically, GM sold a record number of cars in July… in China.
Scientist warn that if we continue to burn earth’s fossil fuels we are doomed, yet little is being done to wean our global economy off it. Instead it’s subsidized to make it more affordable. According to some published estimates, our present known reserves of oil, gas, and coal contain at least three times the amount of carbon required to bring about total climate disaster.
Global temperature increases are expected to reach 3 to 4.5 degrees by mid-century, and will surpass 10 degrees if we persist, due to numerous ‘feedback effects’ that will speed the process, and make it unstoppable once it passes an unknown “tipping point,” according to climate scientist James Hansen. “We are pushing the system an order of magnitude faster than any natural changes of climate in the past,” he said recently.
Such a sharp increase has happened before in earth’s history, but would normally occur over thousands or tens of thousands of years. The speed of the present shift, within only a few generations for many species, makes adaptation difficult. Globally, most large animal species face extinction as prairie habitats become deserts, and forests are killed by heat, fire, and invasive insects. A growing appetite for ‘bush meat’ in the face of rising food prices adds more pressure. Adaptable insects will thrive.
As famine spreads, populations become desperate, and governments are destabilized. Scarce resources increase the likelihood of riots and war. Already, rising costs have contributed to social instability in many nations. “Failed states” is becoming a familiar term. The US military has been among the leaders in developing alternative fuels, meanwhile preparing for food crises and urban combat.
Those scientists on the sidelines are still vocal, and perhaps their message is being heard this year. If the voices of suffering citizens are added, perhaps there is still a chance to beat the clock.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Current Mass Extinction Will Shatter Earth's Ecosystems
The 10,000+ years of the Holocene Epoch have ended abruptly, and a new Epoch has begun on the earth: that of the Anthropocene.
Since becoming an utterly dominant species on the planet in the last few hundred years, humans have exploded in numbers. That population boom has had extremely negative effects upon virtually all of our fellow animal species, and many plant species as well. Each of these organisms existed within balanced organic webs we call ecosystems. There are millions of small, localized ecosystems, which link together like the threads of fabric, and in total are vast, even oceanic is scale. They all fit together like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle to sustain life on Earth through biodiversity and inter-dependence.
Because humans have tipped the balance of the scales by transforming the surface, destroying and poisoning habitat, and otherwise hunting or driving thousands of species to extinction, we have initiated a cascading failure in the ecosystem of the planet. Each species that fails weakens the fabric that supports its neighbors. Today the rate of extinctions is estimated to be about 100 times (some sources say over 700 times) the normal background extinction rate.
According to an article published by Jeremy Hsu, Senior Writer for LiveScience.com, the Earth is going to be a far different world in a few short years, as humans have hit the "reset button" for the global ecosystem.
Although the ecosystem seems like a solid, resilient structure, because of the complex inter-dependencies, it is rather self-supporting, not unlike the mechanical design of the World Trade Center. Thousands of species are disappearing, and they will take many thousands more with them in a collapse akin to a house of cards.
The beautiful and significant diversity of our planet is being rapidly replaced by a homogenized version of nature, in which 'invasive species' such as Norway rats and kudzu vines spread far and wide, exterminating competing species. Exotic pests and viruses transported by man have extirpated billions of trees like the North American Elms and Chestnuts that once marked our forest. With them went dependent species, a process that continues. It is impossible to predict the next massive disruption, but thousands of such processes are underway today worldwide.
"The main implication is that we're really rolling the dice," according to paleobiologist John Alroy, of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. "We don't know which groups will suffer the most, which groups will rebound the most quickly, or which ones will end up with higher or lower long-term equilibrium diversity levels."
This entire scenario of cascading extinctions built solely upon the interdependency of the species, and does not take into account the accelerating effects of global climate change. The expected global temperature increase, predicted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be six to eleven degrees centigrade this century, will add tremendous further stress to most species as it destroys habitats and heats lakes, rivers and oceans.
Ultimately, the species that originated these tremendous changes will be caught up in the avalanche of extinctions as our constantly-rising demands for raw materials speed the destruction of yet more forests for agriculture and development, and push the tentacles of development deep into the thawing arctic in search of the next portable energy fix.
Will mankind awake to the unfolding catastrophe before it runs its course? Will there be a viable reaction that will prevent it from continuing anyway? The answers to those questions clearly seem to be negative.
Certainly the planet will rebound from this round of mass extinctions, as it has from previous catastrophes. In the coming milennia, new species will evolve, and in their development create niches for yet others. Diversity will be regained as it has before. What is most likely is that our species will also be forced to adapt and change, or follow the others into extinction.
Since becoming an utterly dominant species on the planet in the last few hundred years, humans have exploded in numbers. That population boom has had extremely negative effects upon virtually all of our fellow animal species, and many plant species as well. Each of these organisms existed within balanced organic webs we call ecosystems. There are millions of small, localized ecosystems, which link together like the threads of fabric, and in total are vast, even oceanic is scale. They all fit together like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle to sustain life on Earth through biodiversity and inter-dependence.
Because humans have tipped the balance of the scales by transforming the surface, destroying and poisoning habitat, and otherwise hunting or driving thousands of species to extinction, we have initiated a cascading failure in the ecosystem of the planet. Each species that fails weakens the fabric that supports its neighbors. Today the rate of extinctions is estimated to be about 100 times (some sources say over 700 times) the normal background extinction rate.
According to an article published by Jeremy Hsu, Senior Writer for LiveScience.com, the Earth is going to be a far different world in a few short years, as humans have hit the "reset button" for the global ecosystem.
Although the ecosystem seems like a solid, resilient structure, because of the complex inter-dependencies, it is rather self-supporting, not unlike the mechanical design of the World Trade Center. Thousands of species are disappearing, and they will take many thousands more with them in a collapse akin to a house of cards.
The beautiful and significant diversity of our planet is being rapidly replaced by a homogenized version of nature, in which 'invasive species' such as Norway rats and kudzu vines spread far and wide, exterminating competing species. Exotic pests and viruses transported by man have extirpated billions of trees like the North American Elms and Chestnuts that once marked our forest. With them went dependent species, a process that continues. It is impossible to predict the next massive disruption, but thousands of such processes are underway today worldwide.
"The main implication is that we're really rolling the dice," according to paleobiologist John Alroy, of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. "We don't know which groups will suffer the most, which groups will rebound the most quickly, or which ones will end up with higher or lower long-term equilibrium diversity levels."
This entire scenario of cascading extinctions built solely upon the interdependency of the species, and does not take into account the accelerating effects of global climate change. The expected global temperature increase, predicted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be six to eleven degrees centigrade this century, will add tremendous further stress to most species as it destroys habitats and heats lakes, rivers and oceans.
Ultimately, the species that originated these tremendous changes will be caught up in the avalanche of extinctions as our constantly-rising demands for raw materials speed the destruction of yet more forests for agriculture and development, and push the tentacles of development deep into the thawing arctic in search of the next portable energy fix.
Will mankind awake to the unfolding catastrophe before it runs its course? Will there be a viable reaction that will prevent it from continuing anyway? The answers to those questions clearly seem to be negative.
Certainly the planet will rebound from this round of mass extinctions, as it has from previous catastrophes. In the coming milennia, new species will evolve, and in their development create niches for yet others. Diversity will be regained as it has before. What is most likely is that our species will also be forced to adapt and change, or follow the others into extinction.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Of Human Imperatives
Human Imperatives
Each March, perhaps sensing the longer hours of daylight or other, more subtle signs of spring in their tropical winter homes, chimney swifts are stirred to gorge themselves in preparation for their long migration from the jungles of Central America to summer homes far to the north. Leaving their hollow trees and haciendas, they wing their way northward in family groups, the males leaving well ahead of the females.
In late March or early April, one particular group arrives home to my tall chimney in central Florida. Whirling overhead in a chattering pinwheel of exuberance, they announce their arrival, and deftly dive into the small opening and the cool space within. Within a week or two, the females join them, and their combined chittering conversations enliven my early evenings. Soon new hatchlings add their voices, and we listen in the evenings to their faint cheeping that grows louder as the days pass. The adults seem to reply. Who knows what tales they may share in their complex, rapid-fire language.
Although my home is not so old, they have clearly established their proprietary summertime rights to my chimney, returning faithfully to their insect-consuming duties each year for more than two decades. No doubt the birds I watched those many years ago are long dead, having passed their genes and sense of direction to new generations, but their transmitted group knowledge has not let them down.
This migration is one tiny facet of a natural rhythm that governs the unimaginably vast biosphere of our planet, each species fulfilling their steps in a dance of magnificent proportions. The single spawning night of the corals releases hundreds of billions of potential new corals, which are eagerly consumed by the millions of gathered fish, somehow aware of the coming event. Like the salmon returning after years at sea, back to the very pools where they were hatched, becoming the bounty upon which dozens of other species survive the winter. Each species has imperatives that they are driven to fulfill.
For humans, as for every successful species, survival is priority one, and that requires the regular provision of basic needs, such as air, water, and food. Reproduction is the next powerful imperative, for without a new generation, the species ends. Beyond those, however, lie other drives. Humans are not alone in play, and ‘recreational’ activities are common among many other animals. Dolphins, whales, otters, dogs, primates, and many other mammalian species are well know for enjoying games. Several species of birds also exhibit playful actions, as do octopi, and even some fish.
Play can be very beneficial, relieving stress, and distracting the brain in ways that help it grow and become more creative. Experiential learning is one of the factors that stimulate brain activity. But play is sustainable only to the point that it does not distract from the other needs. Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper, in which the grasshopper fiddles while the ant works, is intended to call attention to the two instincts and their effects upon society.
Humans play, of course, but adult humans often choose play in the form of building. It is a fact of life: the human race creates. Our brain is wired in such a way that drives us to change our environment. One can scarcely imagine a person stranded on a desert island who would not quickly turn to building a shelter, finding food, then perhaps devising a plan to direct water to their needs.
From early constructs of sticks and straw, mankind has developed a myriad of materials for the purpose of shelters, and many other structures. Building is a part of the human instinct, and it has led us to build our defenses from wild animals, our stout castles, our shops and factories, and eventually cities, ships, planes, and rockets to space.
This is not to say that humans are born with the ability to build computers, skyscrapers, or even a backyard shed. Our human abilities come to us because of our larger brains, but in a more significant way because of the inventions and developments of others. We are taught to read, build, operate machinery, and thousands of other skills because the systems that make it all possible were developed by others. Left untaught and unequipped, humans would have no chainsaws, no trucks, no ability to destroy so much, for no single man could build such things without first building the tools, the design of which must take shape and be modified to perform the precise task alongside the thing to be built. Such systems evolve and develop over time, as much as the wings of birds or the tails of fish evolve.
Each successive generation advances the expanse of knowledge, and the refining of those skills. To a thinking person, the development of our systems might therefore appear to be little more than an evolutionary result of our racial imperative.
Nature itself is, of course, a system, having been developed by all species through the repeated and minutely modified actions and interactions of generations of our ancestors with each other and other species of animals and plants. The human system, being also a natural system, is therefore a natural outgrowth of the evolution of the other natural systems of the planet. In this view, the buildings, highways, aircraft, and dams we construct are as much a part of nature as a birds’ nest, or a beaver’s dam.
We have a right to be here. Our continued existence, however, is at risk because our own natural systems are no longer sustainable. Like any animal which has lost its habitat, we could easily be headed toward ultimate extinction.
We continue to follow the instinct to build, even though there is a looming body of evidence that it has fulfilled its biological purpose long ago, and has now become a flaw that will eventually lead to our downfall.
The idea of a species creating its own demise is not far-fetched in nature. Some species of birds, for example, developed such elaborate breeding plumage that they were hindered in flight, in feeding, and became easy targets for predators, including man.
The large human brain gives us an ability, perhaps unique among the animals of the Earth, to look ahead, to consider the future. We plan our families, our lives, and even our deaths. We consider those who will follow, creating documents to govern the distribution of our assets. We look to the ancient past for understanding, but can’t seem to see beyond the veil into the short-term future with any clarity.
Throughout natural history one can find examples of species that became very successful, but no longer exist. Some of them persisted for millions upon millions of years unchanged, almost perfectly attuned and adapted to the stable world in which they lived. Some other species multiplied, consumed the extent of their resources, and quickly became extinct.
Humans, too, have had both results in isolated parts of the Earth. Easter Island occupies a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. It once harbored a strong civilization as evidenced by the hundreds of enormous carved stone heads which remain on the island long after the extensive forests were cut down, the animals consumed, and the population extinguished by the collapse of the island environment.
The Easter Island civilization disappeared because the people used materials designed by others, and performed tasks they would never have undertaken but for the directions of others. Leadership allowed or ordered the destruction of the sustaining forests, just as has occurred in Haiti, Madagascar, Brazil, and numerous other places. Without forests, there was no game, and nothing to prevent the erosion of agricultural soils. The island was turned in a virtual desert, incapable of supporting humans.
Humans across the face of the globe are presently deeply involved in precisely the same sort of activities on a colossal scale. The difference is only the numbers of humans involved, and the terribly efficient tools with which they are performing the job.
One wonders if anyone among the thousands of people who participated in the decimation of the Easter Island environment realized that they were dooming their own civilization. Were voices raised in warning? Arguments made and discarded? Or was the entire process carried forward with an enthusiastic faith that their leaders, gods, or the seeming abundance of what they were destroying would ensure the future?
So our instincts to play and to build remain intact. What is also required is that, because we have become so numerous, we also consider our collective impact upon our island home. We must consider the numbers of people and the available natural resources with which to sustain ourselves. In this task we have failed miserably.
The process of environmental destruction is not limited to that island civilization, but applies equally to the island Earth we inhabit. There are no other handy islands to which we can migrate if things here become intolerable. We will fail along with our life-support systems. We have a well-developed system which is leading us rapidly toward that outcome.
A serious-minded minority of inhabitants are aware of the fact that our world is quickly exhausting its resources. Or, more correctly, that we are consuming the resources at a pace several times faster than can be sustained.
More than seven billion people now share resources that may capably support a billion indefinitely, but will be severely strained to supply the actual near-term future. Some predict resource demand to treble in the next 40 years. The present system will begin to fray, then disintegrate as critical shortages develop in a host of raw materials and food stocks.
In August, the World Bank stated that the world food reserves are already “in the danger zone.” According to climatologists, the recent pattern of crop-decimating weather events will continue or worsen, further straining shrinking reserves. Energy and fertilizer production will also hit limits. Governments have repeatedly destabilized in the face of growing pressures, and ‘failed states’ have become more and more common. If the condition affects more and more nations, trade is weakened, and civilization’s fragile fabric slowly begins to disintegrate. Urgent needs will likely go unmet.
Conditions today in mature industrial economies, due in large part to shortages of energy and raw materials, should be sufficient evidence that the path ahead is perilous. As in the Easter Island culture of hundreds of years ago, the outcome rests in the hand of our political leaders.
Each March, perhaps sensing the longer hours of daylight or other, more subtle signs of spring in their tropical winter homes, chimney swifts are stirred to gorge themselves in preparation for their long migration from the jungles of Central America to summer homes far to the north. Leaving their hollow trees and haciendas, they wing their way northward in family groups, the males leaving well ahead of the females.
In late March or early April, one particular group arrives home to my tall chimney in central Florida. Whirling overhead in a chattering pinwheel of exuberance, they announce their arrival, and deftly dive into the small opening and the cool space within. Within a week or two, the females join them, and their combined chittering conversations enliven my early evenings. Soon new hatchlings add their voices, and we listen in the evenings to their faint cheeping that grows louder as the days pass. The adults seem to reply. Who knows what tales they may share in their complex, rapid-fire language.
Although my home is not so old, they have clearly established their proprietary summertime rights to my chimney, returning faithfully to their insect-consuming duties each year for more than two decades. No doubt the birds I watched those many years ago are long dead, having passed their genes and sense of direction to new generations, but their transmitted group knowledge has not let them down.
This migration is one tiny facet of a natural rhythm that governs the unimaginably vast biosphere of our planet, each species fulfilling their steps in a dance of magnificent proportions. The single spawning night of the corals releases hundreds of billions of potential new corals, which are eagerly consumed by the millions of gathered fish, somehow aware of the coming event. Like the salmon returning after years at sea, back to the very pools where they were hatched, becoming the bounty upon which dozens of other species survive the winter. Each species has imperatives that they are driven to fulfill.
For humans, as for every successful species, survival is priority one, and that requires the regular provision of basic needs, such as air, water, and food. Reproduction is the next powerful imperative, for without a new generation, the species ends. Beyond those, however, lie other drives. Humans are not alone in play, and ‘recreational’ activities are common among many other animals. Dolphins, whales, otters, dogs, primates, and many other mammalian species are well know for enjoying games. Several species of birds also exhibit playful actions, as do octopi, and even some fish.
Play can be very beneficial, relieving stress, and distracting the brain in ways that help it grow and become more creative. Experiential learning is one of the factors that stimulate brain activity. But play is sustainable only to the point that it does not distract from the other needs. Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper, in which the grasshopper fiddles while the ant works, is intended to call attention to the two instincts and their effects upon society.
Humans play, of course, but adult humans often choose play in the form of building. It is a fact of life: the human race creates. Our brain is wired in such a way that drives us to change our environment. One can scarcely imagine a person stranded on a desert island who would not quickly turn to building a shelter, finding food, then perhaps devising a plan to direct water to their needs.
From early constructs of sticks and straw, mankind has developed a myriad of materials for the purpose of shelters, and many other structures. Building is a part of the human instinct, and it has led us to build our defenses from wild animals, our stout castles, our shops and factories, and eventually cities, ships, planes, and rockets to space.
This is not to say that humans are born with the ability to build computers, skyscrapers, or even a backyard shed. Our human abilities come to us because of our larger brains, but in a more significant way because of the inventions and developments of others. We are taught to read, build, operate machinery, and thousands of other skills because the systems that make it all possible were developed by others. Left untaught and unequipped, humans would have no chainsaws, no trucks, no ability to destroy so much, for no single man could build such things without first building the tools, the design of which must take shape and be modified to perform the precise task alongside the thing to be built. Such systems evolve and develop over time, as much as the wings of birds or the tails of fish evolve.
Each successive generation advances the expanse of knowledge, and the refining of those skills. To a thinking person, the development of our systems might therefore appear to be little more than an evolutionary result of our racial imperative.
Nature itself is, of course, a system, having been developed by all species through the repeated and minutely modified actions and interactions of generations of our ancestors with each other and other species of animals and plants. The human system, being also a natural system, is therefore a natural outgrowth of the evolution of the other natural systems of the planet. In this view, the buildings, highways, aircraft, and dams we construct are as much a part of nature as a birds’ nest, or a beaver’s dam.
We have a right to be here. Our continued existence, however, is at risk because our own natural systems are no longer sustainable. Like any animal which has lost its habitat, we could easily be headed toward ultimate extinction.
We continue to follow the instinct to build, even though there is a looming body of evidence that it has fulfilled its biological purpose long ago, and has now become a flaw that will eventually lead to our downfall.
The idea of a species creating its own demise is not far-fetched in nature. Some species of birds, for example, developed such elaborate breeding plumage that they were hindered in flight, in feeding, and became easy targets for predators, including man.
The large human brain gives us an ability, perhaps unique among the animals of the Earth, to look ahead, to consider the future. We plan our families, our lives, and even our deaths. We consider those who will follow, creating documents to govern the distribution of our assets. We look to the ancient past for understanding, but can’t seem to see beyond the veil into the short-term future with any clarity.
Throughout natural history one can find examples of species that became very successful, but no longer exist. Some of them persisted for millions upon millions of years unchanged, almost perfectly attuned and adapted to the stable world in which they lived. Some other species multiplied, consumed the extent of their resources, and quickly became extinct.
Humans, too, have had both results in isolated parts of the Earth. Easter Island occupies a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. It once harbored a strong civilization as evidenced by the hundreds of enormous carved stone heads which remain on the island long after the extensive forests were cut down, the animals consumed, and the population extinguished by the collapse of the island environment.
The Easter Island civilization disappeared because the people used materials designed by others, and performed tasks they would never have undertaken but for the directions of others. Leadership allowed or ordered the destruction of the sustaining forests, just as has occurred in Haiti, Madagascar, Brazil, and numerous other places. Without forests, there was no game, and nothing to prevent the erosion of agricultural soils. The island was turned in a virtual desert, incapable of supporting humans.
Humans across the face of the globe are presently deeply involved in precisely the same sort of activities on a colossal scale. The difference is only the numbers of humans involved, and the terribly efficient tools with which they are performing the job.
One wonders if anyone among the thousands of people who participated in the decimation of the Easter Island environment realized that they were dooming their own civilization. Were voices raised in warning? Arguments made and discarded? Or was the entire process carried forward with an enthusiastic faith that their leaders, gods, or the seeming abundance of what they were destroying would ensure the future?
So our instincts to play and to build remain intact. What is also required is that, because we have become so numerous, we also consider our collective impact upon our island home. We must consider the numbers of people and the available natural resources with which to sustain ourselves. In this task we have failed miserably.
The process of environmental destruction is not limited to that island civilization, but applies equally to the island Earth we inhabit. There are no other handy islands to which we can migrate if things here become intolerable. We will fail along with our life-support systems. We have a well-developed system which is leading us rapidly toward that outcome.
A serious-minded minority of inhabitants are aware of the fact that our world is quickly exhausting its resources. Or, more correctly, that we are consuming the resources at a pace several times faster than can be sustained.
More than seven billion people now share resources that may capably support a billion indefinitely, but will be severely strained to supply the actual near-term future. Some predict resource demand to treble in the next 40 years. The present system will begin to fray, then disintegrate as critical shortages develop in a host of raw materials and food stocks.
In August, the World Bank stated that the world food reserves are already “in the danger zone.” According to climatologists, the recent pattern of crop-decimating weather events will continue or worsen, further straining shrinking reserves. Energy and fertilizer production will also hit limits. Governments have repeatedly destabilized in the face of growing pressures, and ‘failed states’ have become more and more common. If the condition affects more and more nations, trade is weakened, and civilization’s fragile fabric slowly begins to disintegrate. Urgent needs will likely go unmet.
Conditions today in mature industrial economies, due in large part to shortages of energy and raw materials, should be sufficient evidence that the path ahead is perilous. As in the Easter Island culture of hundreds of years ago, the outcome rests in the hand of our political leaders.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Memories of 9-11 Haunt Florida Resident
Ten years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, one Lake Wales, Florida resident is ready to share his eye-witness memories of the almost-unspeakable horrors of September 11, 2001. He also is careful to point out the ways in which it has changed the world.
"New York changed," Hassan Benjamaa said in a recent interview. "In my building there were people who had lived there for 20 or 30 years, and didn't know who lived next door to them. People began to care, to talk to each other."
Born in the legendary city of Casa Blanca, Morocco, Benjamaa, known to his friends as Sam, has lived a life of adventure that brought him face-to-face with both great beauty, and terrifying brutality. In addition to his native French, he also speaks English, Berber, Moroccan, and Arabic. He has lived, worked and traveled across Europe and the Middle East.
Benjamaa is proud of the nation he adopted 1990, and became a U.S. citizen in 1997. He was saddened by those who blamed the attacks on 'Muslims' as if all Muslims were responsible.
Although he became one of the thousands of 'working heroes' who responded to calls for help, his Muslim faith also made him an object of derision in the aftermath of the attacks.
A life-long food service manager, he had operated a popular restaurant called Le Sange Vert in the Chelsea district of Manhattan for many years. He had sold it earlier that year, and had just returned on September 10 from a trip to visit family in Switzerland.
At the time of the attacks, Benjamaa was living on Christopher Street, in the West Village barely a mile north of the Trade Center's iconic towers. At 107 floors, the twin structures were the tallest buildings in New York, and visible from many areas of the city.
Benjamaa knew many people who worked in the towers. Many of them had been his regular customers at his Chelsea restaurant. “Doctors, judges, lawyers, brokers... if you didn't ever come to Chelsea at night, you weren't a New Yorker,” he said.
“A friend had run a restaurant next to mine for years, but had closed it and opened a new place on the 104th floor. He was very successful...”
Benjamaa pauses for long moments as the memories pile upon him. "It was an experience, not a good one, but an experience of life. I hope that people will remember for a long, long time."
The morning of the attack, he had been sitting at a table in his second floor apartment opening a pile of mail that had accumulated during his just-ended trip to Switzerland. "I heard sirens, but I didn't pay attention, because you always hear sirens in New York," he said.
His first inkling that anything major was up was a call from a friend in Switzerland, who wanted to make sure he was safe. "What do you mean?" he asked, and was told that there had been an explosion, and that it was being televised in Europe. He discounted the news, thinking that it had been a wayward small plane.
"Then I started to hear the sounds of my neighbors running down the stairs from their apartments, and loud voices. I decided to see what was happening," he said.
He walked to join the crowd in the street, and looked up to see the massive column of smoke and flame coming from the closest tower.
"The worst of what still bothers me is when I saw those people jumping. They had no choice," he said. "That's the thing that still hurts."
He was still standing, horror stricken, when the second plane arrived.
"We couldn't see it, we just saw the explosion. Everyone was shouting something, that it was another plane, that it was a gas explosion from the first plane, no one (on the street) knew."
He tried to help the waves of people evacuating the towers, assisting those who were exhausted from climbing down thousands of steps, and helping them to what they believed was safety. He was still there when the first of the towers collapsed, sending an enormous cloud of flying metal and burning debris toward them.
"We ran. Everyone ran, there was nothing else to do" but try to find shelter as windows exploded on neighboring buildings, showering glass upon the crowded streets.
As he ran, he recalls passing others who couldn't move as quickly. "I saw a man across the street, going too slow, and the cloud caught him, and he just disappeared." Sam ran almost two miles to his mother's home in Chelsea. He vowed then never to smoke again, a promise he has kept.
Still in shock that evening, and with lower Manhattan closed, Benjamaa couldn't return to his home. He decided to take his mother to get something to eat. “It wasn't good,” he said. As they walked the long blocks north to a restaurant, they encountered hostile glances and stares due to his mother's long black chador, a traditional dress.
The next morning, Benjamaa saw Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeal for volunteers. Benjamaa made his way to lower Manhattan. There he volunteered to help, and received security clearance to join other volunteers and military personnel unloading barges full of equipment and supplies at the Hudson River marina.
He recalls the masses of flowers and candles that people began to bring to St. Vincent's Hospital, and soon after at Washington Square, where firefighters would escape to take their breaks from the grim task of digging through the twisted ruins. Each quickly became a magnet for those seeking their missing loved ones. “We would go there together and pray for all those missing people,” he said.
The disaster changed Benjamaa. In addition to quitting his smoking habit, he became much more religious and observant in his native faith. He frequently spends time helping elderly people, and faithfully visits sick and dying acquaintances in local hospitals and nursing homes.
“I thought New York would be changed by the attacks, but I was wrong in many ways. The people are strong, and they honor those who died. New York will always be New York.”
Disaster wasn't done being a part of Benjamaa's life after the events in Manhattan. He moved to Lake Wales shortly after the attacks, and opened the Lido restaurant on US 27. It was destroyed by Hurricane Charley in 2004.
"New York changed," Hassan Benjamaa said in a recent interview. "In my building there were people who had lived there for 20 or 30 years, and didn't know who lived next door to them. People began to care, to talk to each other."
Born in the legendary city of Casa Blanca, Morocco, Benjamaa, known to his friends as Sam, has lived a life of adventure that brought him face-to-face with both great beauty, and terrifying brutality. In addition to his native French, he also speaks English, Berber, Moroccan, and Arabic. He has lived, worked and traveled across Europe and the Middle East.
Benjamaa is proud of the nation he adopted 1990, and became a U.S. citizen in 1997. He was saddened by those who blamed the attacks on 'Muslims' as if all Muslims were responsible.
Although he became one of the thousands of 'working heroes' who responded to calls for help, his Muslim faith also made him an object of derision in the aftermath of the attacks.
A life-long food service manager, he had operated a popular restaurant called Le Sange Vert in the Chelsea district of Manhattan for many years. He had sold it earlier that year, and had just returned on September 10 from a trip to visit family in Switzerland.
At the time of the attacks, Benjamaa was living on Christopher Street, in the West Village barely a mile north of the Trade Center's iconic towers. At 107 floors, the twin structures were the tallest buildings in New York, and visible from many areas of the city.
Benjamaa knew many people who worked in the towers. Many of them had been his regular customers at his Chelsea restaurant. “Doctors, judges, lawyers, brokers... if you didn't ever come to Chelsea at night, you weren't a New Yorker,” he said.
“A friend had run a restaurant next to mine for years, but had closed it and opened a new place on the 104th floor. He was very successful...”
Benjamaa pauses for long moments as the memories pile upon him. "It was an experience, not a good one, but an experience of life. I hope that people will remember for a long, long time."
The morning of the attack, he had been sitting at a table in his second floor apartment opening a pile of mail that had accumulated during his just-ended trip to Switzerland. "I heard sirens, but I didn't pay attention, because you always hear sirens in New York," he said.
His first inkling that anything major was up was a call from a friend in Switzerland, who wanted to make sure he was safe. "What do you mean?" he asked, and was told that there had been an explosion, and that it was being televised in Europe. He discounted the news, thinking that it had been a wayward small plane.
"Then I started to hear the sounds of my neighbors running down the stairs from their apartments, and loud voices. I decided to see what was happening," he said.
He walked to join the crowd in the street, and looked up to see the massive column of smoke and flame coming from the closest tower.
"The worst of what still bothers me is when I saw those people jumping. They had no choice," he said. "That's the thing that still hurts."
He was still standing, horror stricken, when the second plane arrived.
"We couldn't see it, we just saw the explosion. Everyone was shouting something, that it was another plane, that it was a gas explosion from the first plane, no one (on the street) knew."
He tried to help the waves of people evacuating the towers, assisting those who were exhausted from climbing down thousands of steps, and helping them to what they believed was safety. He was still there when the first of the towers collapsed, sending an enormous cloud of flying metal and burning debris toward them.
"We ran. Everyone ran, there was nothing else to do" but try to find shelter as windows exploded on neighboring buildings, showering glass upon the crowded streets.
As he ran, he recalls passing others who couldn't move as quickly. "I saw a man across the street, going too slow, and the cloud caught him, and he just disappeared." Sam ran almost two miles to his mother's home in Chelsea. He vowed then never to smoke again, a promise he has kept.
Still in shock that evening, and with lower Manhattan closed, Benjamaa couldn't return to his home. He decided to take his mother to get something to eat. “It wasn't good,” he said. As they walked the long blocks north to a restaurant, they encountered hostile glances and stares due to his mother's long black chador, a traditional dress.
The next morning, Benjamaa saw Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeal for volunteers. Benjamaa made his way to lower Manhattan. There he volunteered to help, and received security clearance to join other volunteers and military personnel unloading barges full of equipment and supplies at the Hudson River marina.
He recalls the masses of flowers and candles that people began to bring to St. Vincent's Hospital, and soon after at Washington Square, where firefighters would escape to take their breaks from the grim task of digging through the twisted ruins. Each quickly became a magnet for those seeking their missing loved ones. “We would go there together and pray for all those missing people,” he said.
The disaster changed Benjamaa. In addition to quitting his smoking habit, he became much more religious and observant in his native faith. He frequently spends time helping elderly people, and faithfully visits sick and dying acquaintances in local hospitals and nursing homes.
“I thought New York would be changed by the attacks, but I was wrong in many ways. The people are strong, and they honor those who died. New York will always be New York.”
Disaster wasn't done being a part of Benjamaa's life after the events in Manhattan. He moved to Lake Wales shortly after the attacks, and opened the Lido restaurant on US 27. It was destroyed by Hurricane Charley in 2004.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Conservatives Disarming America in face of Danger
Did you sleep well last night, knowing that the U.S. military was on guard? Don’t get used to it, because soon, we won’t be able to afford it, and the Chinese are quite aware of the fact.
Can anyone explain why it is that American ’conservatives’ think it is preferable to allow the United States of America to become a bankrupt has-been nation than to tax corporate profits? It amounts to unilateral disarmament in the face of potential enemies. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave. Let’s take a look at where things stand.
During the present recession, corporate profits have bulged from merely enormous, to bloated, to positively obscene. Yet the so-called ‘Tea Party’ elements of the Republican Party protest that taxing corporations will hurt the economy because they are the “job creators.” Hooey.
Most jobs in America are created by small businesses and American ingenuity. Innovation gives us the products that the rest of the world wants to buy. It gave us the creative designs and patents that led to our once-strong economy.
Innovation and creativity are products of a strong education system. Americans have long been perceived as smarter and more productive because our public education system and universities have produced generations of smart young people.
Now, because of budget restraints, education funding has been cut nationwide. America is on a downward spiral which may be difficult to halt. Without new revenue, it will be impossible.
Waiting in the wings is China. Already the largest holder of US Treasury debt, China enjoys an enormous trade surplus with us, and grows fatter each day. Many of the products they make and sell to us were invented here. Corporations choose to make them there only because they can be made more cheaply, and sold at greater profits. Yet we hesitate to tax those profits that flow from sales right here at home. This is absolute nonsense.
In May alone, China exported more than $32 billion worth of goods to the US, and purchased less than $7 billion from the United States. Last year, we bought $365 billon worth of goods and services from China, and sold them $92 billion. That is more than $250 billion is wealth that hemorrhaged directly from the U.S. economy just to that one nation. We may have once been the wealthiest nation on earth, but we can’t do that forever. Our total trade deficit last year was over $500 billion. We haven’t enjoyed a surplus year since 1975.
All of those goods and services generate enormous profits for tens of thousands of corporations, large and small. Most are owned by investors around the world. Some are owned by foreign governments. Many of them pay nothing for the privilege of accessing the U.S. market. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Cutting corporate taxes doesn’t encourage them to create jobs. In fact, business expansion and hiring are done partly to shelter profits from taxes.
Big corporations are expert at avoiding taxes. Most have hundreds of accountants doing nothing else. Off-shore tax shelters are hiding billions, if not trillions, of dollars in corporate profits that should rightfully be taxable. An official report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee indicates that over 12,000 U.S. companies maintain a post office box in a single five story building in the Cayman Islands, and pay no taxes on business conducted through them. There are thousands of other similar tax shelters.
We all pay taxes. If you work a basic job delivering pizza, you pay taxes. Yet corporations escape through loopholes, created by their congressional puppets, whom they keep well supplied with re-election funds. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten in on the action, ruling that corporations, many predominantly foreign-owned, can directly fund political advertising here. Free speech to protect their interests? Their interest is in keeping their friends and protectors in office.
If America is to drag itself back from the brink, it must first wake up to the fact that it has been fed a line of hog-wash. Some citizens have swallowed it so completely that they think all taxes are bad. They are dead wrong.
The only way that our nation can continue to sustain the military that protects us, along with our systems of transportation, education, and social security that make us strong, is to pay for these things. The only way is through taxes. Our working people have been pushed to the brink. They cannot afford to fill the gap. It’s time to staunch the flow of dollars leaving this country, and put some of them directly into our treasury, to invest in sustaining the things that made the United States of America a great nation.
Can anyone explain why it is that American ’conservatives’ think it is preferable to allow the United States of America to become a bankrupt has-been nation than to tax corporate profits? It amounts to unilateral disarmament in the face of potential enemies. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave. Let’s take a look at where things stand.
During the present recession, corporate profits have bulged from merely enormous, to bloated, to positively obscene. Yet the so-called ‘Tea Party’ elements of the Republican Party protest that taxing corporations will hurt the economy because they are the “job creators.” Hooey.
Most jobs in America are created by small businesses and American ingenuity. Innovation gives us the products that the rest of the world wants to buy. It gave us the creative designs and patents that led to our once-strong economy.
Innovation and creativity are products of a strong education system. Americans have long been perceived as smarter and more productive because our public education system and universities have produced generations of smart young people.
Now, because of budget restraints, education funding has been cut nationwide. America is on a downward spiral which may be difficult to halt. Without new revenue, it will be impossible.
Waiting in the wings is China. Already the largest holder of US Treasury debt, China enjoys an enormous trade surplus with us, and grows fatter each day. Many of the products they make and sell to us were invented here. Corporations choose to make them there only because they can be made more cheaply, and sold at greater profits. Yet we hesitate to tax those profits that flow from sales right here at home. This is absolute nonsense.
In May alone, China exported more than $32 billion worth of goods to the US, and purchased less than $7 billion from the United States. Last year, we bought $365 billon worth of goods and services from China, and sold them $92 billion. That is more than $250 billion is wealth that hemorrhaged directly from the U.S. economy just to that one nation. We may have once been the wealthiest nation on earth, but we can’t do that forever. Our total trade deficit last year was over $500 billion. We haven’t enjoyed a surplus year since 1975.
All of those goods and services generate enormous profits for tens of thousands of corporations, large and small. Most are owned by investors around the world. Some are owned by foreign governments. Many of them pay nothing for the privilege of accessing the U.S. market. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Cutting corporate taxes doesn’t encourage them to create jobs. In fact, business expansion and hiring are done partly to shelter profits from taxes.
Big corporations are expert at avoiding taxes. Most have hundreds of accountants doing nothing else. Off-shore tax shelters are hiding billions, if not trillions, of dollars in corporate profits that should rightfully be taxable. An official report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee indicates that over 12,000 U.S. companies maintain a post office box in a single five story building in the Cayman Islands, and pay no taxes on business conducted through them. There are thousands of other similar tax shelters.
We all pay taxes. If you work a basic job delivering pizza, you pay taxes. Yet corporations escape through loopholes, created by their congressional puppets, whom they keep well supplied with re-election funds. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten in on the action, ruling that corporations, many predominantly foreign-owned, can directly fund political advertising here. Free speech to protect their interests? Their interest is in keeping their friends and protectors in office.
If America is to drag itself back from the brink, it must first wake up to the fact that it has been fed a line of hog-wash. Some citizens have swallowed it so completely that they think all taxes are bad. They are dead wrong.
The only way that our nation can continue to sustain the military that protects us, along with our systems of transportation, education, and social security that make us strong, is to pay for these things. The only way is through taxes. Our working people have been pushed to the brink. They cannot afford to fill the gap. It’s time to staunch the flow of dollars leaving this country, and put some of them directly into our treasury, to invest in sustaining the things that made the United States of America a great nation.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
You Were Born Wealthy, And No One Told You!
The following is purely opinion, and is offered only for a bit of wry perspective on our world.
Imagine that you were born fabulously wealthy. As an infant you had no idea that there was a great treasure at your disposal, and relied upon others to provide for your every need. As you grew, you began to hear mentions of the wonderful inheritance that was yours, a thing of fabulous value, and wondered about what it could be.
Always you were blessed with a delicious variety of foods, and provided with a comfortable home, and education.
The years flew by, and you were provided with a great variety of wonderful gifts that you took largely for granted: a magic vehicle that carried you effortlessly to faraway places while you rested in comfort, without need to walk; devices that allowed you to see events occurring far away, and others that allowed you to speak with friends and family across vast distances. Yet still you wondered, what was the great inheritance that awaited you, and when would it actually be bestowed upon you?
Eventually you became an adult, perhaps married and raised a family of your own, and built a life for yourself. Yet you always wondered, what was the great treasure that you would eventually receive?
Eventually, through the long days of your life, you began to appreciate the simpler pleasures of life: the warmth of a summer night, the stars that shone above, the sound of waves lapping the shore, the sight of leaves quivering at the touch of the breeze.
Ultimately, you also perceived the dangers that threatened you and the things you held dear, things that threatened the your future, that of your children, and the wonderful world that you shared. Pollution that endangered your health and the wonderful nature of your world.
Then it dawned on you: this was your great inheritance, the thing of fabulous value that you were promised as a child. This magnificent world, this green planet, this blue water, this clear expanse of sky. And then, when you thought about your treasure a bit more, you began to become just a bit angry, knowing how your inheritance, and that of your children, had been abused. You resolved to take a stand, to take up a sacred task, and begin to work, to fight if necessary, for the things you love.
Today your inheritance and mine is under the most extreme threat imaginable. The 'minor' impact of a virtual plague of nearly seven billion humans burning wood, coal, oil, and gas, not to mention plastics, chemicals, and other substances, is both warming the planet directly, and building a layer of ultra-violet-absorbing gases in our atmosphere that keep the excess heat from radiating away.
Now we have begun to melt the permafrost and warm the oceans, initiating the release of trillions of tons of frozen methane, which will cause the Earth's temperature to rise beyond survivable levels. If this process is not stopped, humans and the vast majority of other species on the planet are doomed to extinction, or conditions under which extinction might seem preferable.
Despite the obvious facts and the simple science of our situation, we are completely hobbled, at least in the United States, by a small number of lobbyists pedaling dis-information so that their sponsors, mostly dirty-energy and chemical companies, can continue to make obscene profits for a few more years before they collapse and die along with everything else we love.
The most amazing part of this situation is that humans are considered an intelligent species, and yet have laid, and sprung, a trap for themselves that virtually guarantees a very short future.
Imagine that you were born fabulously wealthy. As an infant you had no idea that there was a great treasure at your disposal, and relied upon others to provide for your every need. As you grew, you began to hear mentions of the wonderful inheritance that was yours, a thing of fabulous value, and wondered about what it could be.
Always you were blessed with a delicious variety of foods, and provided with a comfortable home, and education.
The years flew by, and you were provided with a great variety of wonderful gifts that you took largely for granted: a magic vehicle that carried you effortlessly to faraway places while you rested in comfort, without need to walk; devices that allowed you to see events occurring far away, and others that allowed you to speak with friends and family across vast distances. Yet still you wondered, what was the great inheritance that awaited you, and when would it actually be bestowed upon you?
Eventually you became an adult, perhaps married and raised a family of your own, and built a life for yourself. Yet you always wondered, what was the great treasure that you would eventually receive?
Eventually, through the long days of your life, you began to appreciate the simpler pleasures of life: the warmth of a summer night, the stars that shone above, the sound of waves lapping the shore, the sight of leaves quivering at the touch of the breeze.
Ultimately, you also perceived the dangers that threatened you and the things you held dear, things that threatened the your future, that of your children, and the wonderful world that you shared. Pollution that endangered your health and the wonderful nature of your world.
Then it dawned on you: this was your great inheritance, the thing of fabulous value that you were promised as a child. This magnificent world, this green planet, this blue water, this clear expanse of sky. And then, when you thought about your treasure a bit more, you began to become just a bit angry, knowing how your inheritance, and that of your children, had been abused. You resolved to take a stand, to take up a sacred task, and begin to work, to fight if necessary, for the things you love.
Today your inheritance and mine is under the most extreme threat imaginable. The 'minor' impact of a virtual plague of nearly seven billion humans burning wood, coal, oil, and gas, not to mention plastics, chemicals, and other substances, is both warming the planet directly, and building a layer of ultra-violet-absorbing gases in our atmosphere that keep the excess heat from radiating away.
Now we have begun to melt the permafrost and warm the oceans, initiating the release of trillions of tons of frozen methane, which will cause the Earth's temperature to rise beyond survivable levels. If this process is not stopped, humans and the vast majority of other species on the planet are doomed to extinction, or conditions under which extinction might seem preferable.
Despite the obvious facts and the simple science of our situation, we are completely hobbled, at least in the United States, by a small number of lobbyists pedaling dis-information so that their sponsors, mostly dirty-energy and chemical companies, can continue to make obscene profits for a few more years before they collapse and die along with everything else we love.
The most amazing part of this situation is that humans are considered an intelligent species, and yet have laid, and sprung, a trap for themselves that virtually guarantees a very short future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)