When will we learn

It is difficult to pick the worst problem in the world today, at least it should be. The cost of living grows out of control, the inequity of the rich and the poor widens, people are starving, wars rage, and in many cases the people who aren't being killed can't leave, they have no place to go, and they can't stay because it is an unlivable hell. Which is worst?

And then you realize we are walking toward an extinction event of our own making. Climate change, and the end of humanity. Our world is warming, the proof is undeniable. And yet we still have people who deny it. President Trump used the theory that climate change was a hoax by the Chinese to great effect. All the while the world got warmer.

As it warms more of that warmth is absorbed by the oceans. More than 90% of the heat is absorbed by the oceans, leading to melting polar ice, and rising sea levels. But, it also serves to keep the temperature climbing. Which leads to the release of carbon dioxide as the permafrost thaws.

More greenhouse gas traps more warmth in the atmosphere. The temperature continues to rise and the atmosphere becomes increasingly unstable. Storms become more frequent and severe, death tolls climb and the cost to rebuild becomes unsustainable.

Warmer temperatures bring tropical diseases farther north. Malaria, dengue fever are both moving north.

But, it is agriculture that will suffer the most. While the growing season will be longer, the droughts, radical weather changes and shrinking water table will doom most crops. If they survive the extreme weather the pests and diseases once held in check by the cold winters will almost certainly lay them to waste.



A clear picture begins to form. I could go on, but it probably isn't necessary, if you are not worried by now nothing I could add will convince you. It is easy, after all to pick out the biggest problem, but, it is also the most easily ignored, because to solve the problem, if that is still possible, will be so difficult.

So, in the words of the Grateful Dead

"We can leave this place an empty stone,
Or the shining ball we can call our home."

#MakeAmericaDeadAgain.

A New Day,

Yesterday we looked back.,Today we look forward.

 In these five simple characters is an entire universe of information. But, we are going to focus on the enormous destructive implications. Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second, square that number and you have something indescribable to a layperson.  Working backward it becomes obvious that it doesn’t take much mass to create a lot of energy.

Burning a 5 pound piece of wood would yield, if you could capture the energy given off as heat, light and the gasses in the smoke, five pounds. A simple chemical conversion, fuel turned to energy, E=m. Even a chemical explosion is governed by the same laws. In the explosion the energy is just released very quickly. A chemical reaction can only yield as much energy as the mass involved. It is the release of the atom that changes everything. 


There is a tremendous amount of energy holding atoms together. The building blocks of the  universe. Breaking the nuclei apart or forcing them together (fission, or fusion) releases energies on an enormous scale, the power of time and space. 

At the center of a nuclear explosion temperatures can reach 100,000,000° Celsius, the same as the center of the sun.  Within seven-tenths of one millisecond from the detonation, the fireball from a 1-megaton weapon is about 440 feet across, and this increases to 5,700 feet in 10 seconds.

Shock waves travel out, smashing buildings, trees, crushing people, turning the area into finely shredded kindling. Soon the entire area is burning. Dust from the blast combine with smoke and soot from the resulting fires and rise into the atmosphere. 

Since the infrastructure has been destroyed, most of the population killed and those unfortunate survivors are being painfully consumed by radiation poisoning there is no hope of containing the fires. So, they grow, and consume everything in their path.

Before long the clouds block the sun’s rays and the temperature begins to Plummet. Computer models suggest it could remain below freezing for over six months. Fortunately, we have yet to test the accuracy of the predictions.  But, even if they prove to be less drastic, and we can only hope we don't find out, the radiation and prolonged cold and dark would interfere with photosynthesis killing much of the food crop.

Before long many of the plants and animals would die. Following closely are the already weakened survivors who are battling exposure, at least some radiation poisoning and starvation. And those are the “lucky” ones who weren’t close enough to be killed instantly. There will be no survivors, not really. Even if a person lasted through that would they still be human in any way except shape?

When you consider the end does it really matter who fired first, or who was “right?” Probably not. But, those in charge still assume they have the right to make that decision. I'm not so sure. So, I am starting a movement, #MakeAmericaDeadAgain. Join me, together we can make a difference. You don't have to be a Grateful Dead fan to join, but it would give us something pleasant to talk about when the apocalypse gets too heavy.

Our quote for today comes from Mohamed ElBaradei

"I think one country with nuclear weapons is one country too many."

Extremes and Humanity, It Never Changes.

"Not one of them has the least thing to blame himself for. Not one has any guilt. One might believe that everything was for the best, even though a few million men lie under the ground. ...and the end and aim of it all is to have the war over again, the next war that draws nearer and nearer, and it will be a good deal more horrible than the last. All that is perfectly clear and simple. Any one could comprehend it and reach the same conclusion after a moment's reflection. But nobody wants to. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world's confusion and wickedness—look you, nobody wants to do that. And so there's no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands upon thousands day by day."

From ; Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse

It Gets Worse

The quote above was from a passage where Harry Haller was explaining to the lovely and mysterious Hermine why he was so universally despised. Since the novel was published in 1927 it is safe to assume he was making a reference to World War I and World War II. And he was certainly accurate. It was much worse, for everybody.

Hesse was an intellectual with a keen grasp of human frailty, and the undeniable thirst for the absolute. And certainly, being a European he understood the way wars could grow beyond any relation to the origin.

It Always Gets Worse

Take, for example, the Thirty Year War. Brought to you by competing faiths. Catholics and Protestants who were intent on destroying each other, or at least claiming victory and thereby proving
that God, did, indeed like them best.  But, when it was done churning over the nation of Germany at least 20 percent of the population had perished. Civilian casualties would not be matched until World War II. Unspeakable atrocities had been common. It was an awful chapter in the history of man.

But, it was a long time ago, we have learned so much.

What happens if we change the labels. Let's start with a classic, something older, less fashionable, but still relevant, Capitalist and Socialist. If you are in the mood for something more current and in vogue you can choose Christian and Muslim. Patterns expose themselves, nothing ever changes. We pretend that it is new, and important, but it is only the same movie with new actors. To quote Bob Dylan, "The game is the same, it's just on a different level."

Imagine what Harry Haller would say about this. Maybe his words are just as good today.

And A Quote To End

Today we are going to close with something from Albert Einstein.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

#MakeAmericaDeadAgain.

A look back and a look forward, they look so similar.

A Look Back;

In keeping with the politically free theme, and our #MakeAmericaDeadAgain movement we have decided to study human needs, mostly the need for power. The need for power beyond 

And, if you want to talk about power a great place to start is the ancient Assyrians. They had some power, and were uninhibited as all hell about its use and potential. 

According to historian Will Durant;

"If we should admit the imperial principle – that it is good, for the sake of spreading law, security, commerce and peace, that many states should be brought, by persuasion or force, under the authority of one government – then we should have to concede to Assyria the distinction of having established in western Asia a larger measure and area of order and prosperity than that region of the earth had ever, to our knowledge, enjoyed before."

Of course, that kind of peace and security come with a price. In the case of Babylon the cost was absolute destruction. According to Sennacherib, King of Assyria 705 to 681 bce. Here is how security was achieved in Babylon;

 “I levelled the city and its houses from the foundations to the top, I destroyed them, and I consumed them with fire. I tore down and removed the outer and inner walls, the temples and ziggurats built of brick, and dumped the rubble in the Arahtu canal. And after I destroyed Babylon, smashed its gods and massacred its population, I tore up its soil and threw it into the Euphrates so that it was carried by the river down to the sea.”

A Look At Today;

 It isn’t much different than what is happening in Syria today, I guess. It was much more difficult and required a lot more labor, but the results are more or less the same.  But, what happened to Babylon took place a long time ago, and the crisis in Syria is so far away. And I was never very good at history, or geography.

Looking at the world today makes me wish I would have paid more attention to both, though. And it certainly makes me wish world leaders would have learned a little more from the past. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, right? Only when they repeat it with today’s arms and abilities the whole world will end up like Babylon, or Jerusalem, or Carthage.

Oddly enough, (or maybe not odd at all) they always had a reason for every barbarous act of annihilation. Today, they are just interesting bits of information on Google. Nobody ever thinks, "man we haven’t changed," we still find a reason, and still pretend it makes sense.

#MakeAmericaDeadAgain

I think we will end with some more Grateful Dead today;

“If the game is lost then we're all the same
No one left to place or take the blame
We will leave this place an empty stone
Or that shining ball of blue we can call our home”