Tag: climate emergency

The Winter Without Snow

When I got home the other day from work, I went inside, peeled off the work clothes, put on some shorts and a T-shirt and wandered around outside.

Late February in Pittsburgh. That ‘Chinese hoax’ is feeling mighty mild if you ask me.

And it’s been like this all month.

It seems that for the last few years, every winter is warmer and with less snow. So far this year, we’ve had a little over five inches of the white stuff for the entire year and nothing approaching a significant snowfall.

But it’s not just Pittsburgh.

In Sweden, winter never arrived:

. . . the town of Växjö — almost 200 kilometres north of the southernmost tip of the Nordic country — for the first time since its records began in 1858 did not experience winter at all.

From al Jazeera on Feb. 4:

“Denmark has had its warmest January on record, with an average daytime high of 5.4 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit). This eclipsed the previous record of exactly 5C (41F).

“In the past 30 years, January has become 1.6 degrees warmer — and this year, the country has had no snow and very few frosts.

“Similarly, Norway had its warmest January day on record with a high of 19C (66F) in the village of Sunndalsora on January 2 — a massive 25 degrees above average.

“Even the Scottish highlands recorded their hottest December day in 70 years. A weather phenomenon known as the Foehn effect caused temperatures to soar to 16.8C (62F) at 03:00 GMT in northern Scotland.

“Elsewhere, Moscow had its warmest December in 133 years, notching up its warmest day for that month in the process with a high of 5.6C (42F) on December 18. December’s weather was so mild that authorities were forced to bring in artificial snow for the festive period.”

Norway’s skiing industry is gasping for air. Ditto Austria, Switzerland and France.

It’s much the same all around the Northern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer, is broiling with record temps throughout.

Up here, trees are budding, flowers are poking up through the soil, and the backyard animals are confused. A plant in my koi pond has continued to thrive underwater during the winter.

Nobody talks much about it. The climate deniers don’t want to bring attention to it and the climate believers are too worried to try to convince them otherwise. A lot of people are pretending this isn’t happening and many people just seem to think this winter is a bit odd, but hey, why not enjoy it?

If one looks outside of America’s borders, it becomes clear many other parts of the world are on the precipice of disaster. In some areas, re-creations of Biblical plagues are underway.

Gradually, the pressure on the extraction of natural resources and the loss of arable land will push the world’s economies to the brink if the new Coronavirus doesn’t get us there first.

For those that do notice and understand why these things are happening, a new kind of anxiety is finding its way into the offices of therapists: eco- or climate anxiety. And the bad news is, the more you learn about what is happening to our world, the worse the anxiety gets. Perhaps the most comforting thing to me about it, is that I stand a fair chance of being dead before things really get bad.

But then I worry about my adult children.

And then there’s the reinforcing loop of inaction. Despite all we know, despite all the marches and speeches and demands, we are now and will continue to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that we ever have before. In reality, governments and businesses aren’t doing a damn thing and, most likely, won’t.

Because profits.

Look, we got the world we asked for in many ways. For centuries we collectively befouled out planet without a care to long term effects. Only in the 1970s did it seem we learned enough to politely ask the power structure to do something about it. The power structure politely declined while pointing out that all the ‘stuff’ of modern life and rising living standards was predicated on energy extraction and the resulting after-effects of it’s uses.

So, we kicked the can down the road and hoped for technology to save us. Now there is no room to kick the can any longer and it’s likely too late anyway. People scream for solutions without understanding that some issues become intractable and there are no longer any solutions. Real life and the planet are not part of some movie script. Sometimes there are no happy endings. Sometimes we must eat the shit sandwich and it kills us.

So, while you enjoy the early spring with the daffodils in February, the balmy winters and the extended falls, give a thought to the seasons of your youth and remember them fondly, for they are gone forever.

So when one stops on the street to exclaim ‘lovely weather we’re having for this time of year,’ I find it hard to hear anything but a harbinger of doom.

Reality intruding

Now that climate disaster news has moved into the (American) mainstream media, a few caveats are in order.

First, the studies will be soft-pedaled to a degree. If you would read them, and the raw data associated with them, you would get the whole, horrible message. But newspapers and other media in the US can’t go doomer at this point. The problem, as always, is people believe there are solutions to every problem and demand them in articles about climate change. If a solution is not included, it will be dismissed by most readers.

Second, in general, people don’t want to believe they and their world are doomed. If they actually did buy off on it, wouldn’t you think many people would cash in their assets, quit their jobs, stop buying all the ridiculous shit that fuels our retail economy and essentially, check out on capitalism? Do you understand what that would do to the markets and the fortunes of those titans of industry who depend on the worker bees to produce and consume?

By the time you see total honesty about climate disaster in the media, someone you know personally is probably already starving or dead from a climate disaster. And even then, you’ll have Fox News blaming people for waiting around for a government handout rather than stalking the neighborhood for dogs and cats to shoot. After all, dem’s good eatin’ when you’re starving? Ain’t that right Kilmeade?

In any case, the fact that the major media is allowing progressively more frightful news, however its couched, into the information sphere, is and will continue contributing to more cases of ‘eco-anxiety’ (ow whatever they’re calling it this week), which is the fastest growing field of psychology.

I’ve even brought it up with my quasi-conservative (likes Trump on Facebook) psychologist myself. I don’t quite remember how we got on the subject, but I wanted to back away from it, but she wanted to know more. I really didn’t want to open her eyes (if that’s possible) since she has a nine-year-old daughter, but remembering that she is a pro-life Trump lover, I decided to let curiosity kill the cat.

I gave her two names to Google: Jem Bendell and Guy McPherson. I told her between the two of them, you’ll get a good introduction to, um, this ‘issue.’

I see her again tomorrow. I wonder how far down the rabbit hole she went?

The doomer groups on Facebook that I’m a member have been talking about this more and more: how do we continue on knowing what we know. As you can imagine, the answer is unique to every person. I’ve said that, in a large part, my own mental illness/personality disorder has provided a shield of sorts from emotional crash and burns. Basically, when you’ve had enough trauma in your life, something like the end of the world doesn’t seem so bad, especially when you’re my age. And besides, being something of a misanthrope, I’d like to like long enough to see Jeff Bezos’ drown in his limousine trying to escape a inundated Seattle.

Then I have no problem going with a smile on my face.

But it’s only when I turn to that other side of me – the sensitive nice guy who appreciates art and beauty, that my iron helmet of denial cracks. When I hear a particularly beautiful piece of music or see a painting or remember a scene from a musical it all is too much. We did create so much beauty, well, one part of our community did. And all these wonderful books, movies, plays, paintings and music will be gone, perhaps consigned to the memories of a handpicked group of survivors, ala ‘Fahrenheit 451.’

How could the same race create such beauty and be stupid and greedy enough to destroy the ecosystem that housed these works? It’s enough to cast my soul into a deep melancholy.

Shrinks will be boning up on treating a different kind of grief if they aren’t already. Grief will be the major issue of our time.

The question then becomes: how does one soak in the beauty that still exists without going to pieces? I have no answer to that. All I know is that we only have so much more time to experience the best of humankind and nature. I want to have some memories playing in my head when I go.

Like Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green:

When the pills stop working

Kaiser Health News: ‘Climate Grief’: Fears About The Planet’s Future Weigh On Americans’ Mental Health

Hopium: The New Deal ‘for generations to come’

I find I have less time or patience with the nonsense (celebrity news) being peddled by mainstream news sources. I am spending more time in climate groups on Facebook (and less time on other parts of Facebook) and Reddit.

My main area of research is the psychological effects of climate change. There’s a lot of nonsense surrounding that subject as well.

I fear that Big Psych is looking at this as a new practice field, or, if you will, a new (short-lived as it may be) revenue stream as if they need one in a nation overtaken by neurosis of all kinds.

This will lead toward a kind of exploitation where therapists will go looking for climate news explanations for symptoms that may have nothing to do with the problem presenting. Suggesting, however, could make it so. That is why I have, as of yet, held back on talking to this with my therapist. I think for now, I will deal with it by myself.

Despite the Gallup poll numbers given in the story above, I do not think that climate psychosis is a major problem in this country yet. There are too many competing neurosis and conditions right now and most people in the US just don’t see it yet. I think in many cases; the poll questions can lead the subject: ‘should I be worried about this? Oh yes, I guess I should; being a good and smart person and all.’

When the realization hits, the sudden 20% spike in grocery prices, the overnight shortages of vegetables and grains, regional power failures lasting days, etc., there will be an anxiety-fueled rush to the shrinks, to the liquor cabinets, the opiate stash, whatever. It’s what Americans do, and I expect nothing less.

It is imperative for those of us who are on the climate sites on FB and Reddit to be there for these people when the time comes. I have made the statement on these groups not to shame these people now or make them feel ignorant – because when they need a shoulder to cry on they won’t come to you.

The second imperative, and perhaps harder when the time comes, is to resist the temptation to wrap one’s arms around these poor folks and say ‘there, there, we’re all doomed together.’ One part of me says ‘what do they expect to be told – take out a 30-year mortgage, happy days are here again?’ Are we supposed to offer some form of ‘hopium?’

Perhaps the best thing is to treat the coming shattered societal walking wounded with hugs and silence. If they have anything to say, let them say it. If they have questions, be honest, but not cruel. The urge will be to say, ‘I told you so,’ but at that point, it will solve little.

And what will psychology say to these people that would help in any way? ‘Here’s a pill?’ ‘Practice mindfulness? Yoga? Dialectical Behavioral Therapy? Make sure you get enough sleep and exercise, etc.’

There will probably be a stage for all of this soul searching to go down. How long the desperate search for a mental ‘fix’ will last, I do not know – probably until the water shortages hit. Then I suppose most people will leave the psychologists to their DSM V’s and head for the gun stores.

To paraphrase Marley’s ghost, when asked by Scrooge to speak comfort to him, I must give his same reply “I have none to give.”

For now, we live in a twilight world; still filled with the modern conveniences and electronic toys. A hologram of fading civility and civilization even now fraying at the edges. The best advice I can give anyone right now is find your community, enjoy every day, and keep looking at the skies.

Newest You Tube/Podcast up

Where to find climate support and conversation groups online. Why agriculture won’t change it’s methods. Climate change to cause bumpier flights. Germany losing forests and the Rhine is drying up affecting shipping. Florida invasive species – don’t shoot those iguanas. Iguanas falling from trees!

Apple Podcast

You’re the star in your very own end of times movie

  • See that guy reading the paper? That could be you!
    (from ‘Deep Impact’)

How good is your imagination?

When I was a kid, between the abuse I got from my family and the abuse I endured from the nuns at Catholic school, I developed a rich inner world.

Translation: I lived in a vivid fantasy world.

It was my number one coping mechanism. All day long I would ‘daydream’ where I was the hero of the world inside my mind. At night, the wonderful ruminations would continue until I fell asleep, perchance to dream.

What did I dream about? Mostly I’d create scenarios in which girls would like me but also that I would someday be a football hero or a super soldier in some war movie.

As I got older and my mental illnesses coalesced, I would literally tune out. I would begin to disassociate, if the situation I was in was too unbearable.

But of all the scenarios I would construct for myself, daydreams would combine with disassociation and my life would become a movie. Being the star of my own movie was the longest lasting and most popular of all my fantasies. It would get so serious that I would literally be watching my own movie through my eyes.

I would add opening credits, opening music, a soundtrack, etc.

One of my favorite movie genres is apocalyptic or disaster movies. I have watched quite a few of them. Name one and chances are I’ve seen it. My favorite movie of all time is Dr. Strangelove which mixes humor with global thermonuclear war. And copulating like rabbit in mine shafts.

I realize I’ve gone a long way in this essay to get to the point. It’s coming.

So. I always wondered how I would react (or act) in such a movie.

So now, I’ve gotten my perverse wish – I’m a player in a disaster movie; a live action dystopian cinema with a cast of millions. But the movie we’re a part of contains a script that is written solely for us.

I’m in a movie. I’m well aware of the scenario and script. I’m watching it through my own eyes. Every news report, every conversation, every movie I make, I find that I’m reacting as if this all leads to a crisis.

Well, I don’t do this every waking moment (thank goodness), but enough. Surround yourself in climate crisis news long enough and your mind will start playing tricks on you as well.

Many people are looking for coping mechanisms to handle the whole idea of rapid climate change and the end of the world as we know it. This is serious stuff. Immersing oneself in the increasingly depressing realm of climate news are now sending people to psychologists. Some people are having a hard time functioning if they think too much about it.

It’s customary to quote Shakespeare here, so I will.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

— The Bard

This, of course, it literally true. So why not go with it?

In my quest to help people with this issue, I offer this coping action. Into climate activism? You’re playing a part. Into hedonism? You’re playing a part too. You can be the classic ‘method actor.’

A funny thing happened on the way to the library! You’ll never believe it!
(from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’)

Changing your kid’s diaper? Making the bed? Yep – you’re performing ordinary actions in an increasingly disorderly world. You write the script, you play your part, you do your best with your role. Drama is the spice of human existence.

One day you’re doing your job as always and – what is that?!
From ‘Deep Impact’

Is this healthy? In the long run, probably not. But as a stopgap measure when things get too much to bear, putting yourself in a state of slightly altered reality will keep your mind occupied. It costs a whole lot less than therapy.

Every day, it’s another gloom and doom report

Meanwhile, the Russian Air Force can’t stop the Arctic from burning

Climate change has us snakebit – The Guardian

When I was in the Army in South Carolina, the advice from our drill sergeants was: leave Jake (the snake) alone. Well, we’re not when we overbuild the South and Jake is striking back. They didn’t even mention Florida being overrun with Burmese Pythons and Iguanas. We’re going to Key West in October – might as well have gone to Australia with all the critters trying to kill us on the way.

Amazon Deforestation Shot Up by 278% Last Month, Satellite Data Show – LiveScience.com

From the story: Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased by 278% in July 2019 compared with July 2018, resulting in the destruction of 870 square miles (2,253 square kilometers) of vegetation, new satellite data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show.

That’s an area about twice the size of the city of Los Angeles. And, while the forest still spans some 2.1 million square miles (5.5 million square km — just a little bit bigger than Mexico), the spike in tree loss is part of a dangerous trend. According to the Associated Press, this is the single biggest surge in rainforest destruction since INPE began monitoring deforestation with its current methodology in 2014.

Bolsonaro – the Amazon belongs to us, not you. We will do what we want with it. Yeah, like genocide against native tribes. Butchers.

US Navy Pulls the Plug on Climate Change Task Force – eenews.com

From the story:

Alice Hill, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former senior director for resilience on the National Security Council under President Obama, said she created a Department of Homeland Security task force modeled on the one created by the Navy.

“They did great work; they were the first task force within the Department of Defense,” Hill said. “We viewed them as a model of how the government should initially focus on the problem of climate change.”

skip

Hill said that while it was important to mainstream the TFCC processes, she remains concerned that ending the task force has more to do with a pattern of climate change denial in President Trump’s administration.

“It’s consistent with the patterns we’ve seen: Efforts with the title ‘climate change’ have either been suspended or renamed,” Hill said.

“By not mentioning climate change, we are signaling the events that we’re experiencing now, the impacts, are not something that immediately needs to be attended to and planned for,” she added.

Nothing to see here, just move right along . . .

And last but certainly not least: Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns And last but certainly not least – NY Times

From the story: A particular danger is that food crises could develop on several continents at once, said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the lead authors of the report. “The potential risk of multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” she said. “All of these things are happening at the same time.”

Huh. I’m surprised the climate change Gestapo in the Trump administration hasn’t gotten around to firing her yet.

More: Planting as many trees as possible would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by about nine gigatons each year, according to Pamela McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University and one of the report’s lead authors. But it would also increase food prices as much as 80 percent by 2050.

Trees will not save us. Neither will corporations and governments making the hard choices to cut profits and manage economies.

Final thoughts: Every day it seems now, I wake up to increasingly dire news on the climate front. In addition, more stories in more mainstream news sources are covering the issue. It would have been nice it they had been covering climate change like this 20 years ago.

But what can one do about it now? As I’ve written, Wall Street and religious fanaticism will effectively check anything that could be done and it’s probably too late anyway.

Again, it’s the little things – being bitten by a snake you’ve never seen before. Invasive species. Dying wildlife. Things . . . missing – like insects. Waiting until early December to change your summer into winter clothes. The prices on food growing steadily higher. Gradually, we begin to notice these things.

Gradually, the noose begins to tighten.

This is our last dance . . . Under Pressure

Tim Bob makes the video I only dreamed of when I thought up this site

If you want to see Guy McPherson’s videos, subscribe to Tim Bob on You Tube. If you want to see a lot of other neat stuff, also subscribe to Tim Bob on You Tube.

The original video to Bowie and Mercury’s ‘Under Pressure,’ was pretty dystopian in its own right with a special guest appearance by Nosferatu. This video takes the original feel of the video and crafts it to climate change/emergency.

If I was good at this sort of thing, this is the video I would have tried to make because the song was the inspiration of this site and my own You Tube channel.

‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

— Songwriters: David Bowie / John Richard Deacon / Brian Harold May / Freddie Mercury / Roger Meddows Taylor