"Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences."

- Robert Louis Stevenson


I have been thinking about how consequences, when delayed, eventually become quite a banquet - as will be articulated all the way at the end of this post (after several detours) in Professor Ugo Bardi's models demonstrating various configurations of the Seneca Cliff.  


First, here is a snippet from an essay about the Occupy Wall Street movement, well worth reading in its entirety, called "No Demand is Big Enough" by Charles Eisenstein:


"Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for its lack of clear demands, but how do we issue demands, when what we really want is nothing less than the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible? No demand is big enough. We could make lists of demands for new public policies: tax the wealthy, raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, end the wars, regulate the banks. While we know these are positive steps, they aren't quite what motivated people to occupy Wall Street. What needs attention is something deeper: the power structures, ideologies, and institutions that prevented these steps from being taken years ago; indeed, that made these steps even necessary."

The Red Cube, with Zuccotti Park beyond, 1st week of OWS

"If politicians are disconnected from the real world of human suffering and ecosystem collapse, all the more disconnected are the financial wizards of Wall Street. Behind their computer screens, they occupy a world of pure symbol, manipulating numbers and computer bits. Occupy Wall Street punctures their bubble of pretense as well, reconnects them with the human consequences of the god they serve, and perhaps with their own consciences and humanity too. Only in a hallucination could someone imagine that the unsustainable can last forever; in puncturing their bubble, we remind them that the money game is nearing its end. It can be perpetuated for a while longer, perhaps, but only at great and growing cost. We, the 99%, are paying that cost right now, and as the environment and the social fabric decay, the 1% will soon feel it too. We want those who operate and serve the financial system to wake up and see before it is too late."


He concludes:


"The truth is dwindling rain forests, spreading deserts, mass tree die-offs on every continent; looted pensions, groaning burdens of student debt, people working two or three dead end jobs; children eating dirt in Haiti, elders choosing between food and medicine... the list is endless, and we will make it no longer possible to hold it in disconnection from the money system. That is why we converge on Wall Street, and anywhere that finance holds sway. You have lulled us into complacency for long enough with illusions and false hopes. We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep."

The Last Nightingale - album cover by Ralph Steadman

Along these lines let me recommend another brilliant rumination, "Rise of the Machines, Why We Keep Coming Back to H.G. Wells' Visions of a Dystopian Future".  It's worth setting aside some time to read the whole fascinating investigation into his life and books, which also has embedded some riveting clips of movie based on his work, and others in the same tradition.  For the purposes of Wit's End though, I'm going to spoil it and just give away the ending:

"By 1946, the year that Wells died, civilization experienced yet another all-nation conflagration — one that included the use of the atomic weapons he had foreseen three decades earlier. Most of us, of course, share few of the aforementioned utopian socialist hopes. What we do take from Wells is the nagging suspicion that we are not in control, that the technologies we so gleefully develop will continuously backfire on us in ever more horrific ways, and that our love of individual freedom is a collective extermination pact.

"In this context, “history,” from now on, is the story of how we as a species repeatedly dodge that mass suicide at the last minute, until at last we don’t. That, not his utopian socialism, is the Wellsian vision of the future that we find so compelling — the version told in his novels and made into movies, to be retold in myriad new forms for as long as we survive."

Hmmm.  "Our love of individual freedom is an extermination pact".  I can read that in the TREE leaves!

This photo supplements a Boston Globe story about tourists who are gratified - oh yeah! - to be distracted from the dismally disappointing display of fall foliage in New England, by the wreckage from the flooding.  The macabre headline reads:

Vermont tourists focus on storm’s aftermath

Leaf-peepers in Vermont enthralled by scenes of deluge’s damage

The leaves, too, are being blamed on Irene - despite the fact that trees far to the west of the path of that hurricane are in the exact same condition!

So I sent the following letter to the reporter and the editor:

Dear Editor and Mr. Abel,

I am writing about the article regarding the aftermath of the flood, and the condition of foliage in Vermont.

Very few people realize that the reason the leaves look drab is actually because of ozone pollution, not Irene.  Leaves are drab where I live in New Jersey, they are drab across the country all the way to California.  They have been exhibiting more symptoms of damage over the past several years, prior to the hurricane.  In fact, trees are dying at a rapidly accelerating rate all over the world, as the background levels of tropospheric ozone are inexorably rising.  Ozone is toxic to all biota.

It's rather ironic that people drive from Texas to look at leaves in New England, since the emissions from their car engine are destroying the beauty they have come to admire...not to mention, that climate change from burning fossil and biofuels is what caused the record-breaking extreme weather events of the past year, including the floods.

Perhaps you could educate your readers on this point.  I publish a blog where there are many links to scientific research about the effects of ozone on vegetation, and photographs of symptoms on leaves, if you are interested in the facts.

Sincerely,

Gail Zawacki

Oldwick, NJ

I can assure you that letter will never be printed.

The Center for Public Integrity published an article titled, "Shelved Ozone Standard Would Have Had Modest Impact on Business, Politics".  So why on earth did Obama tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the mother of an asthmatic, that she couldn't tighten the regulations according to the best available science - a repudiation that reportedly caused her to seriously consider resignation?  The story included this brief description of tropospheric ozone:


"Because of ozone’s adverse impacts on plants and animals, the EPA limits it under the Clean Air Act. Ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, is expensive to reduce because it comes from a wide variety of sources. Compounds in the emissions from power plants, factories, and automobiles react with sunlight to form ozone."


and described the political debacle:

"The ozone standard EPA actually submitted for interagency review in July, following months of haggling with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, was the weakest – and cheapest – option approved by the agency’s independent scientific advisors.

The proposed new limit, which would have lowered the allowable concentration of ozone in the air from 84 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, could have cost $19 billion to $25 billion to implement, according to the EPA’s analysis. But the costs of the proposed 70 parts per billion standard would have been offset, the analysis said, by financial benefits ranging from $11 billion to $31 billion and health benefits that include 4,300 deaths avoided annually.

Opponents of the ozone rule regularly cited a $90 billion price tag, but that figure was only for the most stringent option raised by an EPA advisory board, a standard of 60 parts per billion. That limit was never seriously considered within the agency, said David McKee, a former project manager in the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, who retired in December."

So, currently the standard is 84...the science advisory board recommended 60...and we couldn't even get 70.  The safe level - the natural level that current living species on this planet have evolved to absorb - is essentially ZERO.  The American Lung Association made this clever ad, but it wasn't nearly as potent as the Chamber of Commerce in this White House, apparently.



This was not the least of the distressing things I have come across recently.  Perhaps the one that is most haunting my dreams - because it adheres so closely to my instinctive suspicion that the trajectory of collapse will be insanely rapid, taking all but the most pessimistic doomers by surprise - is the blog post at Cassandra's Legacy, mentioned at the top.

"It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid."  - Lucius Anneaus Seneca

Although that graph speaks volumes, it is of course it is well worth reading the entire analysis...which is quite complex, but here is a sample:

"It seems that, indeed, we are missing an element that, instead, is present in the world models of "The Limits to Growth" study. What we are missing is pollution or, better said, the effects of pollution. In the simple model above, degraded energy is harmlessly dissipated to space; it has no effect on the other elements of the model. But we know that, in the real world, that is not true. Pollution has a cost: money and resources must be spent to fight it; be it water or air poisoning or effects such as global warming."

Lastly, here is another story about the lackluster showing of fall foliage, an MSNBC interview featuring Dr. Reese Halter, a genuine tree hugger who informed the audience that climate change is the primary cause.  I guess not everyone has forgotten that leaves used to turn ecstatically colorful while remaining supple, glossy, and smooth!  Naturally, I wrote him, too - the exchange is below.  (And that will be the last of this post, since I've been chastised by more than one reader for overly long and convoluted entries.  Well, cry me a river!  I can't help it if everything is failing faster and sooner than predicted!  And welcome to my world...)

Dear Dr. Reese,

A friend of mine sent me a clip of your interview on MSNBC about leaves turning fall color late.

From my observation, they are not merely late, they aren't turning normal fall color at all, and this has been an accelerating trend since 2008.  I wonder if you have considered that the main reason leaves are turning brown and shriveling up is that they are being injured by exposure to inexorably rising levels of background tropospheric ozone?

For about a year I thought the underlying issue leaves on trees were wilting, because the damage is so widespread, must be a change in precipitation patterns because of global warming.  However, this explanation turns out to not be satisfactory, because it does not account for the fact that annual tropical plants being watered in pots, and even water plants like lilies and lotus that are always in water, have identically shrunken, singed and stippled foliage.  Thus I eventually concluded that only something about the composition of the atmosphere can fully account for the empirical facts.

Since then (2009) I have been reading everything I can find about the effects of exposure to ozone.  It turns out to have been well researched and demonstrated that air pollution is even more toxic to plantlife than it is to people.  It has also been proven that vegetation that has been compromised by ozone is more likely to succumb to opportunistic attacks from insects, disease and fungus, an extremely interesting fact in regards to bark beetle in the west, as well as the ubiquitous rampages of other species-specific attacks around the world.

This is really quite important and I am writing you because it is critical that someone with authority inform the public that our relentless burning of fuel is going to cause the ecosystem to collapse, which is an existential threat.  It's critical that people understand the only way to survive is to embrace a drastic program of energy conservation.

Another possibly even more urgent issue may be that burning biofuels forms worse and more persistent ozone because of the increase in NOx emissions over fossil fuels.  If this is what underlies the very dramatic and sudden decline in forest health, then it would be much easier to simply stop using biofuels, and return to the slightly slower pace of environmental devastation expected from climate change.

Please contact me if you have any questions or interest in pursuing this topic.  It has been distinctly unpopular with other biologists, foresters, and climate scientists so far.  But I'm hopeful that eventually some professional will be able to think outside the box and see what is actually, rather obvious if you simply examine the evidence.

I've been publishing a blog (Wit's End) where I collect links to scientific research at the top on the "Basic Premise" page, and post photographs of the symptoms of plants damaged by ozone.  I've done two comparative studies of fall foliage over time in the same places - one in northern New Jersey, and one in Central Park.  Here is a post that includes information from the FACE experiments about insects and disease increasing as a result of ozone, which didn't impress Jim Bouldin, the resident forester at Real Climate, in the least.  Whoever has the courage to tackle this "intractable problem" - as somebody ultimately will have to, because it is true - will be known as a visionary maverick.  Perhaps that will be you.

Thank you so much for your attention,

Sincerely,

Gail Zawacki

Oldwick, NJ

Good call Gail. The toxicity we are belching into the biosphere is harming/killing all life.

In fact we are spewing so much sulphuric acid into the stratosphere that it, nitric acid and cfcs (hangin around) caused that MASSIVE hole (in conjunction with global warming) in the Arctic ozone layer (never recorded before) this spring.

Believe me when I say I am working night and day to bring these and so many other awful environmental disasters to the publics attention. Beneath is a recent piece from Huffington.

I've got 2 very cool books out shortly on bees and beetles/climate change.

Keep the faith and keep those observations coming (to me).

Best, Dr Reese

Dear Dr. Reese,

Thanks so much for your response! Can I quote you on that?  I also appreciated the links to your books and article in HuffPo.

I do think that it would be extremely useful if experts such as yourself drew a direct line between what you so accurately describe as the "toxicity we are belching" and the imminent death of trees - and distinguish between that and longer term threats such as climate change, and secondary impacts, such as bark beetle infestations, which is to ozone what pneumonia is to AIDS.  As a friend who is a forestry expert noted last week, the damage - such as yellowing needles on California redwoods, which is what we were looking at - is far too uniform to be attributable to isolated outbreaks of insects, disease or fungus. 

If it were solely, or even mainly, temperature and precipitation differences from climate change caused largely by CO2, then we might as well pretty much just give up, because that is more or less permanently baked in the cake - and the CO2 we have already released is going to persist for up to 1,000 years, continuing to warm and destabilize weather.

On the other hand, and it's a hugely relevant distinction, ozone does not persist very long at all.  We could save what is left of the ecosystem, and vastly improve it - we still have living, if struggling, specimens, after all - if we substantially ceased creating ozone precursors.

It is for this reason I would like to see some leadership on this essential aspect and unique consequence of specific greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you again for your attention,

Gail Zawacki

Sure quote me.

There is a direct link.

Sulphuric acid comes from burning coal. We are burning more now than ever before. Warmer temps near the Earth have created colder temps in the upper troposphere, hence the Northern Hemisphere ozone hole. It is all connected Gail.

Dr Reese

But, everything I read says that the sulphur dioxide has been reduced by scrubbers.  Maybe not for China, I don't know.  But there is so much blah blah blah saying that acid rain is a problem that has been solved.

Are you saying that isn't true?  Wouldn't surprise me!  But it's NOT the official version.

Yes scrubbers are removing most but clearly not all of it. We are burning an immense amount of coal to the extent that some 3,000 tons of mercury are entering the biosphere every year from it and mostly winding up in the Arctic, which is melting, and mercury is insidiously infiltrating the entire marine ecosystem, worldwide...

Chris Crispy Creme Christie Crawls out of Bed with the Koch Brothers just long enough to fellate the Mittster

Koch Keeps Killing

Bioremediation of Acid Earth - a Farce in Three Acts (Air, Water and Soil)

Remember that word - bioremediation - because it will be encountered towards the end of this post.  It refers to the preposterous notion that Nature can be further exploited to clean itself of the filth that humans have created.  It's reminiscent of the fairytale that plants are good because they absorb ozone, and we should therefore plant more trees...without ever asking, what happens to the leaves that absorb air pollution?  That's about as clever as observing that human lungs are wonderful, because they absorb ozone too!  Never mind that it causes cancer and heart disease...

This study, one of the few I can find that investigates emissions of biofuels (which I suspect is causing the recently accelerating and widespread tree decline), is titled "Fuel Properties and Nitrogen Oxide Levels of Biodiesel Produced from Animal Fats".  Published in 2005 and funded by the USDA, it compares the emissions of NOx from burning soy-based and various animal fat-based biofuels, concluding that animal fats have potential to release less NOx than vegetable-based biofuels.  Why might this matter?

"Experimental data have shown that the addition of biodiesel to diesel fuel reduces particulate and carbon monoxide emissions but increases nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions (7,8). Pure soy biodiesel (B100) increases NOx emissions by approximately 12% when compared with NOx emission data for petroleum diesel. At the more widely used 20% blend level of biodiesel in petrodiesel, however, the increase in NOx emissions is only on the order of 2–4%. With increasingly strict environmental regulations, even this relatively small increase in NOx can negatively impact the use of biodiesel. Therefore, it may be of benefit to identify other feedstocks for producing a biodiesel that could improve NOx emissions when blended with petroleum diesel."

Note, that the two studies upon which that first statement is based were published in 1998 and 1994 - so our government has known - and ignored, while pushing for mandated use - for years that biofuels increase emissions of NOx.  What does "negatively impact the use" mean?  "even this relatively small increase in NOx can negatively impact the use of biodiesel."


I think it means, that biodiesel shouldn't be used because it increases NOx, and even a "relatively small increase" in NOx is enough reason NOT TO USE biodiesel!  Just how bad is NOx?

One study, published in 2005 in the Journal of Geophysical Research by scientists from Harvard, uses satellite data to look at the ozone resulting from burning biomass, and states at the outset, in the introduction:

Nitrogen oxide radicals (NOx = �NO + NO2) originating from combustion, lightning, and soils largely control tropospheric ozone production [Kasibhatla et al., 1991; Penner et al., 1991; Murphy et al., 1993; Jacob et al., 1996]. Tropospheric ozone plays a key role in determining the oxidizing power of the atmosphere, is an important greenhouse gas, and is toxic to biota.

Oh my, toxic to biota??  All the collective living flora and fauna?  So how come I got raked over the coals at Real Climate for saying ozone is toxic to life?

Movie time!




Even the biodiesel industry's own website admits that NOx admissions increase, which they then attempt to hedge with some completely hypothetical technological mitigations that aren't being employed:

"NOx emissions from biodiesel increase or decrease depending on the engine family and testing procedures. NOx emissions (a contributing factor in the localized formation of smog and
ozone) from pure (100%) biodiesel increase on average by 10 percent."

They base their estimates on an EPA document, a "Comprehensive Analysis of Biodiesel Impacts on Exhaust Emissions" which, while predicting a net loss in efficiency (how's that cleaner energy?), also includes the following chart red-lining NOx emissions - and, parenthetically, this comical caveat:

"We were not able to identify an unambiguous difference in exhaust CO2 emissions between biodiesel and conventional diesel.  However, it should be noted that the CO2 benefits commonly attributed to biodiesel are the result of the renewability of the biodiesel itself, not the comparative exhaust CO2 emissions."

But getting back to reactive nitrogen, The Bangor Daily News reports that up in Maine, they already have what shellfish harvesters call "Dead Mud".  Following is the article, which begins with CO2 acidification, and then moves on to NOx - that other, "biggest environmental disaster you've never heard of":

“There may be controversy surrounding global warming, but there’s no debate about the fact that the ocean is becoming more acidic,” said Paul Dobbins, former oyster farmer and co-founder of the Portland-based kelp grower Ocean Approved LLC. “It doesn’t receive all that much coverage, because it’s not controversial, but [the ocean's acidity is] what has all of us who are working with ocean organisms and shellfish worried.”

Casco Baykeeper Joe Payne said the pH of coastal ocean waters has decreased by 0.02 over the past few decades.

“I’ve had people say to me, ‘Well, that’s just .02, that’s tiny,’” Payne said. “Your blood and seawater are 98 percent the same. If your blood pH changed by .02, you’d be comatose. That’s what it does to the ocean.”

What Payne described as a “major problem” in the form of worldwide ocean acidification, though, isn’t the only problem for Maine’s shellfish flats.

The double whammy

There are no limits now on how much nitrogen can be discharged into Maine waterways.

“If you have a very productive ecosystem, which the Gulf of Maine is, and you add a little nitrogen, it gets even more productive,” said Salisbury.

The environmental advocacy group Friends of Casco Bay, to which Payne belongs, has launched a campaign urging Mainers to keep an eye out for “green slime” — thick carpets of algae covering shallow coastal waters. The green slime is a sign of excess nitrogen, Friends of Casco Bay warns, and excess nitrogen carries a host of consequences for an ecosystem aside from bad aesthetics.

The same nitrogen that causes a freakish bloom in algae causes an explosion in the microscopic phytoplankton populations. Those massive numbers of phytoplankton then die, fall to the mud at the base of the water and decompose, releasing more concentrated carbon dioxide to the fragile mud ecosystem and driving the pH further into acidic territory.

“Only now are we considering the effects on shelled organisms,” Salisbury said. “This is a big concern, and it’s only recently been studied. People have always known about the chemistry, but the effects on the organisms [are just being researched].

“There may be adaptations that some organisms can make, but we do know that things are changing probably faster than most organisms can keep up with,” he continued. “It could be that these factors are conspiring to make survival difficult for commercially valuable shellfish, but really the jury is out.”

Controlling nitrogen

A 2008 resolution of the Legislature, promoted by Friends of Casco Bay, directed the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to develop limits for the amount of nitrogen allowable in Maine waters.

Angela DuBois, who works in the department’s Bureau of Land and Water Quality, is in charge of drafting those numeric limits in time to meet a July 2012 deadline, after which the Legislature will review and consider implementing them.

DuBois said setting those limits is “the first step” in a longer process to control nitrogen pollution. When the numbers are set, the DEP will try to maintain them by regulating the amount of nitrogen discharged by identifiable sources, such as sewage treatment plants.

The department also has programs set up to educate the public about controlling “nonpoint sources” of nitrogen pollution, such as residential and farm fertilizers and road runoff. But DuBois acknowledged the nonpoint sources will be “more difficult” to control.

That could leave dischargers such as factories or sewage treatment plants shouldering much of the burden of curbing nitrogen levels.

“Plants our size are looking at [$500,000 to $750,000] to build tertiary treatment chains,” said Christopher Higgins, head of the Boothbay Harbor Sewer District. “That’s going to make an impact on sewer fees, especially when [the cost is spread out] over 1,200 users.”

For his part, Higgins is partnering with Dobbins to experiment using kelp to control nitrogen. The saltwater vegetation absorbs nitrogen from the water, and Higgins has a Department of Marine Resources permit for two kelp beds, one near the the district’s primary treatment plant and another near Bayville.

“A nice benefit of this is that kelp eats nitrogen, and there are places on the Maine coast where there’s excess nitrogen because of runoff and other pollution,” Dobbins said of the sea plant, which is popular in many parts of the world as a food and fuel source. “He’s looking to use nature to take excess nitrogen out of the water — it’s called ‘bioremediation,’ using nature to help clean itself.”

As usual, both of these videos conclude with a token happy "there is a solution" ending, which, whether wedge reductions or bioremediation, is entirely unfounded in reality (since emissions AND population are rising with no reduction in sight) and far out of scale with the scope of the problems they describe.  One paper, newly released by two researchers from the University of Virginia, which assesses the sources and impacts of anthropogenic emissions leading to the global degradation of air, water and soil, calls the results, "Acidification of Earth".  We are starting to understand.

Every now and then it's possible to find a more realistic assessment of how this will be resolved.  Following is background commentary by the creators about their South Park episode "Smug Alert", the full hilarious episode of which can be seen by clicking at that link to South Park Studios.

Where's the Justice?

Catastrophe Map says Goodbye to the HardWired

Doomers Realists everywhere will miss Catastrophe Map, which has permanently closed shop - although you are encouraged to browse their 2020 Foresight Prophesy Service, the second of which is (ta da!):

2. WHAT HAPPENED TO FORESTS 2020: The Collapse of Forest Ecologies World Wide Will Be Irreversible

Actually they are irreversible now, but most people pretend they don’t see the sickness in forests from the American West to Siberia. The beauty is, humans won’t get a chance to cut down the last of the old growth forests: a combination of pollution, climate change, mega wildfires and insect infestation is stressing most of the world’s forests to the breaking point.


By 2020, all of mankind except Republicans and extractive industries will be able to see the evidence and sound the alarm with a great gnashing of teeth. Those that aren’t trying to save the forests will be busy busy busy planting new ones. But they won’t be the same forests at all. They will be crops.

In the farewell, they left us with these words of wisdom in their Free Guide to Enjoying the End Times (with lots of links to colorful illustrations!):

Do Worry About: Whether your favorite Dancing with the Stars contestant is treated fairly. When you watch important TV events, pay close attention to the grassroots ads Clean Coal ads running. Every word is true.

Do Not Worry About: The devastation of Appalachia by mountaintop mining. The hundreds of toxic coal ash “impoundment” ponds leaching arsenic, mercury, concentrated radioactive waste and cadmium into the groundwater. The destruction of valleys and streams by coal companies. The lies about restoring the land to its natural state.

Do Worry About: Your smart phone. Is it really the best model? Does it have cooler features than those of your co-workers? Is Android going to prevail over Apple? Stressful.

Do Not Worry About: Extreme weather. Those unprecedented tornado superoutbreaks, record heat, record cold, record snow, epic floods on all continents, unrelenting drought on all continents, land hurricanes and biblical hail events never before seen? Liberal media conspiracy. It’s all part of a cycle.

Do Worry About: Celebrities

Do Not Worry About: The death of the oceans. The acidification that is killing off coral reefs. The extinction of the great game fish. The 50% decline in phytoplankton levels. Trash gyres the size of Texas, literally choking ocean life to death. The 400 dead zones, large areas where the water contains no oxygen and nothing can live. The collapse of commercial fisheries.

Do Worry About: Your Cable or Satellite Package. Are you getting every single NFL and college game? While you watch the games, make sure to absorb the grassroots ads for natural gas (methane), produced by hydro-fracking. Every word of those ads is true.

Do Not Worry About: Toxins and pollutants in the air, water, food and everywhere else. Is that smog in Wyoming? Where did that come from? Allergies? Autism? Learning Disabilities? Cancer? Funny looking frogs. Funny looking fish. Funny looking people?

Do Worry About: Your Disneyland package. Is the VIP pass included? Will you have to pay extra for mouse ear hats.

Do Not Worry About: Nukes. Scientists and engineers know exactly what we’re doing. Cooler heads will prevail in Iran, where they believe the return of the Hidden Imam will bring about the End Times. Ha. Dumb ass Islamists! Wrong messiah! Eventually, all of the abandoned mines and contaminated sites around the planet will be cleaned up. As soon as the money frees up.

Do Worry About: Your golf game. It’s not you, it’s your clubs. Keep trying the latest golf technology and you’ll become the Tiger you always knew was in there. Believe.

Do Not Worry About: The global death of the forests. Enjoy those sickly red evergreens and pretend it’s autumn. Sudden Oak death. Wildfires on an unprecedented scale. Pollution, Pine beetles and other once controllable pests laying waste to the western forests.  It’s not like there won’t be forests: they will just be different. More orderly, everything lined up. Easier to hike.

Do Worry About: Jesus and Mohamed. Which was taller?

Do Not Worry About: Food. A supply of healthy, nutritious and tasty food is assured by the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Not for Somalia, but for here. Epic floods and droughts only affect other places. Somewhere on the planet, crops are growing. No matter how many superweeds and pesticide resistant mutant bugs infest their miracle crops, Monsanto and the boys will have a solution. A science solution.  And there will always be fish in the sea. Have some more sushi. Have some Kobe beef. It’s natural.

Do Worry About: How you look. Does your ass look fabulous in those genes? Is it time for more Botox for the forehead wrinkles, lips and elbows?

Don’t Not Worry About: The Sixth Great Extinction. The world is actually a safer place without, like, large mammals.  tigers and lions and bears aren’t just dangerous to Dorothy, they interfere with the building of new resorts and agribusiness installations.  And elephants are more dangerous than people realize. For all you liberal alarmists: we will still have zoos and picture books. What has a large mammal done for YOU lately?

Do Worry About: Homosexuals. They are ruining the institution of marriage. If you are having problems in your marriage, it could be due to homosexuals.

LET THE END TIMES ROLL

Following is their Vision Statement:

The CatMap Editorial Board collectively believes that the evolutionary assets of the humammal species are leading to a cataclysmic and accelerating deterioration of the habitat (Earth) and a precipitous population decline related to that deterioration. At one point in time, destruction of our habitat was avoidable and reversible, but now it appears to be unstoppable.

The Editorial Board would prefer this not be the case. We would love to have maybe just a few wild tigers and elephants alive in 20 years and even delay the Sixth Great Extinction for a while. We would be thrilled simply to maintain what’s left of the astounding and beautiful diversity of flora and fauna on this planet. If we could stop mountains from being leveled, remaining old growth forests from being clear cut and lakes, rivers, and oceans from being used as toilets, that would be super and would most definitely receive the CatMap Editorial Board stamp of Approval.

But this is not what’s going to happen.

Because…For every well meaning citizen conscientiously recycling their bottles, limiting their carbon emissions and trying against all odds to live sustainably, there are a thousand others who are craving Chevy Suburbans, big screens and little gadgets, swigging on vitamin enhanced BPA bottled water and sucking down their chemical enhanced diet cola, dining on antibiotic, pesticide and hormone laden burgers and marshmallow cereals with special prizes inside every box, ignoring Monsanto, Dow and Massey Energy but knowing every detail about the Miami Heat and Chicago Blackhawks, wearing shiny shinies on their ear lobes and car wheels while miners die to get the precious, precious and worrying about whom other people marry but not concerned about whether other people have food to eat, arguing endless about the details of rigid laws issued by deities no one has ever seen while ignoring the extremes of poverty and misery that are unprecedented in scope, destroying thousand year old trees to make toilet paper, spending whatever is necessary to enhance quality of life for their bitchy little designer dogs, murdering whales for national pride, bowing in piety to the deity multiple times a day while flaying those whose facial hair is incorrect, I mean cramming their suburban maws face full of Prozac and Xanax while being simultaneously appalled – yes, appalled – by the moral deficiencies of heroine addicts, sweeping the seas of all life for the pleasure of eating strangely wrapped delicacies, slaughtering the last of the magnificent great cats so hot babes can wear the skins, desecrating the artifacts of native religions while ready to kill in order to protect the sanctity of a cross, obsessing over honor while committing genocide, spending a fortune on dresses for the Bishops who cover up child rape while forbidding women from serving as priests, building crappy new malls while crappy empty malls lie in ruins, spreading cookie cutter starter castles and town homes across the vales and hills while urban cores become battle zones and the war on drugs maintains an infrastructure that no longer exists for its original purpose, ridiculing evolutionary* science while attempting to force Sumerian creation myths into schools, while simultaneously demanding absolute scientific proof that the climate is changing as tornadoes and hailstones pound away at their Oklahoma bunkers, that’s right, I’m talking about the millions who are flying patriotic flags on their dumb Escalade trucks that haul nothing while 19 year olds represent their nationalism to the Taliban, working up outrage over forwarded e-mail accounts of events that never happened while agribusiness and petrochemical pimps sneak out the back door with their tax money, knowingly cashing their pay checks while their employers poison children in the interest of maximizing profits, all the while waiting for God to notice there is a problem, nuking low use population segments in the name of freedom and doing their best to blame it all on illegal aliens, homosexuals and infidels for the ills of the world.

Wow. That’s a little messed up.

And that’s nothin’. Watch as the Chinese and Indians take their turn and quickly surpass the standard of mindless consumerism set by Americans and you will be forced to agree there is little hope that the planet can sustain the plundering of its remaining resources without severe consequences.

Why does the species conduct itself in ways that are clearly antithetical to the best interests of most of its members and to the integrity of its living space? Simple: we are hardwired to behave this way.

On the other hand, don't go down without a fight!!

"Civilization To Hold Off On Having Any More Kids For A While"

Reprinted from the Onion

'Let's Just See How We're Doing In A Few Years' Humanity Decides

PLANET EARTH—Facing what it called "a lot of uncertainty" on all six inhabited continents, the global civilization of the species Homo sapiens released a statement Monday announcing it would be "just sort of holding off on the idea of having any more kids for the time being."

"Having children can be a wonderful thing, but to be honest, we've got our hands pretty full right now as it is," the statement, issued by the entirety of the human race, read in part. "While there's nothing quite like seeing the world anew through the eyes of a child, maybe it's best to give it a few years. See what things look like a few years down the road. We've got a lot on our plate, and let's be realistic: Another couple billion children might not be the best idea at this point."

"It's not necessarily a permanent decision," the statement continued. "We just want to take it slow for now until things are a bit more stable, you know?"

The statement went on to say that, while human civilization is disappointed in some ways about postponing additional childbirths, especially given the fact that all kids are very special and provide a great source of joy, the species agreed that, overall, this decision was for the best.

"Now is our chance to get around to some of those things we had to put on the back burner because of kids," read another section of the carefully worded statement. "You know how we've been meaning to figure out how to keep the international food-distribution system in place and functioning after the nonrenewable fossil fuels run out? Or make sure that enough rain forests remain to keep oxygen in the atmosphere? Or just basically set aside more 'us' time in general?"

Human society added that there was already barely enough time in the day to raise its children while also ensuring basic human rights for the existing population, averting a potential collapse of the international monetary system, and finally getting around to its oft-procrastinated goal of solving the massive climate-change crisis before lots and lots of people die.

"Truth is, with the environment the way it is, we're not even sure what kind of landmasses we're going to be looking at in the next couple centuries," the statement read. "It might actually be a little irresponsible to have more kids now, given the threat of a general collapse into a tribal-barbarian-type second Dark Ages. That wouldn't be fair to us or the kids."

The historic announcement marks a sharp reversal on the part of the human race with regard to its family-planning policy in past epochs. Since first evolving from such earlier hominids as Homo erectus and Australopithecus and emerging from the African veld more than 20 million years ago, humanity has made having children a central part of its goals for the future, even while it simultaneously juggled its long-standing career objective of becoming a mature and culturally interdependent global entity.

Representatives of the species spoke to reporters following the announcement, echoing its sentiments.

"The sum totality of human existence would love to see more little ones running around the planet just as much as the next life form, but there are practicalities to consider," said Mbume Mbigway, 29, of Somalia. "I mean, a lot of us still don't even have running water or, you know, anything to eat. Stuff like that is important if you plan on raising a family."

"Maybe in a few decades," Mbigway added. "We'll talk about it."

photo credits here, here, here and here.

Notes from the Field: Mysterious Riddle; Freak Accident; and Kansas City Occupied

One of these days (maybe) people will be forced to reach the conclusion that trees and other plants are injured and dying from exposure to ozone pollution...and that consequently, the ecosystem is collapsing.  So far though, for most it is still possible to postpone that soul-crushing realization.

I could find the evidence all day!  I'm a bit pressed for time though, so quickly, here are three minor but indicative glimmerings:

1.  "Riddle of the Fallen Giant Sequoias - 245 foot Giants Come Crashing Down in National Forest!" from the Daily Mail:

Mystery:  Forest service officials are now trying to work out why the beasts fell

Standing up to 245 feet tall and with diameters of 18 feet, the sequoia is one of the hugest trees on the planet.

And when they come down, it's best that nothing gets in their way.

Happily, no visitors were in the Trail Of 100 Giants in Sequoia National Forest, in California, when two of the towering trees fell side by side.


A firefighter is dwarfed in pictures taken of the crash scene which show mighty root wads that are three times the size of him.

Mighty: A firefighter stands next to one of two fallen trees that temporarily closed the popular Trail of 100 Giants in Sequoia National Forest, California (Note:  Look carefully to see the firefighter)

The Forest Service has been forced to close the trail after the downed monsters (monsters?) were spotted for the first time.

Officials are still working to determine the ages of the trees and why they fell.

Clearly there is no way the tourist spot can be reopened with even the remote possibility that another of the trees will come down.

2.  And now for that "freak accident":

A 52-year-old resident of Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood has died in a freak accident on a New Buffalo golf course.

The Berrien County sheriff’s office said the victim was walking between the course’s first and second holes about 8:30 a.m. Friday when a large tree toppled and struck his head.

His body was found by other club members at the Dunes Club and Golf Course, about 100 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.

3.  Of course, I am following the spread of Occupy Wall Street events across the nation, and so I came across a youtube of Occupy Kansas City.   Following are some screen shots from their video, which was uploaded September 30 and is embedded below.  The trees are losing their leaves ahead of turning fall color there too...just imagine!

There are lots more dying trees in the background of the video, which is kind of fun to watch anyway.  Don't forget to follow the livestream of today's march in NYC, which is going to be HUGE!  OccupyTogether has links to demonstrations in other locations.

#OccupyEverywhere

Going, going...gone...

Here's a Blingee I made of a graphic from The New York Times, which ran this story, about the Deaths of Forests, wherein there is the following quote:

“A lot of ecologists like me are starting to think all these agents, like insects and fires, are just the proximate cause, and the real culprit is water stress caused by climate change,” said Robert L. Crabtree, head of a center studying the Yellowstone region. “It doesn’t really matter what kills the trees — they’re on their way out. The big question is, Are they going to regrow? If they don’t, we could very well catastrophically lose our forests.”

Dr. Crabtree (love the name!) is one of a handful of experts I know of to admit that trees are dying - ALL the trees.  The other dozens I have contacted deny there is a universal decline.  Although I would disagree - I think it DOES SO matter what is killing the trees, since if it is ozone - especially from biofuels - we CAN STOP IT, I sent in the following comment (which I believe did not make it through moderation):

At last researchers are starting to understand that the death of trees around the world has a common link, and that the insects, disease and fungus generally blamed for the decline are only the secondary cause, much as pneumonia is only the secondary cause of death for a victim of AIDS who has a fundamentally compromised immune system.

The questions then becomes, what is the primary reason?  When I first realized trees everywhere are dying, I too thought the only explanation for such a widespread and universal phenomena had to be gradually increasing evaporation from increasing temperatures due to a warming climate.  But then I had to acknowledge that this explanation does not account for the readily available, empirical evidence, which is that trees that are being irrigated in nurseries, in enriched soil, have the identical foliar damage that well-established trees have, whether in city, town, or national park,  Furthermore, leaves of annual plants being watered in pots, and even lilies and lotus always in water, exhibit the same stippling, singeing, and chlorosis.

The only explanation - and one which, by the way, has been well-known to scientific researchers for decades - is that the background level of tropospheric ozone is inexorably rising due to unregulated increased emissions of reactive Nitrogen.

The destruction is most analogous to the acidification of the ocean and consequent bleaching of coral reefs, and is accelerating rapidly.

It's no secret that ozone is highly toxic to people, causing cancer, emphysema, asthma, allergies, Alzheimer's, heart disease and other maladies - all epidemics.  What is less well known is that vegetation is even MORE sensitive.  The US Dept. of Ag. estimates losses in yield and quality to annual crops in the billions of dollars, and the Forest Service knows the air in even remote parks is killing trees.  

This remains the biggest environmental disaster you've never heard of because it is what scientists call an "intractable problem" - in other words, the only way to solve it is to drastically curtain burning fuel.  The possibility remains that biofuel emissions are the worst because the emissions of VOC's persist longer in the atmosphere.

Since early 2009 I have been documenting with the characteristic symptoms of ozone exposure from Cape Cod to Seattle, to California, and Costa Rica on a blog, here:  http://witsendnj.blogspot has photos and have also posted links scientific research and reports on this topic on the page Basic Premise at the top of the page.

Losing trees is a travesty that must be stopped.  With them will go the entire ecosystem dependent upon them for shelter, food, shade, and all the delicately intertwined complexities of life that took imaginably long periods of time to evolve.  Perhaps if people understood the existential threat that ozone poses through destroying plant life which is ultimately our source of food, the transition to clean sources of energy - and the interim sacrifices necessary to conserve and reduce consumption and population - might seem less onerous.

The alternative is to let Nature take her revenge and that will be far more ugly than voluntary actions. 

Sincerely,

Gail Zawacki

Following is a video of trees in New Jersey taken Thursday, the day before I left for California (to visit youngest daughter who is having all her wisdom teeth removed next week).  It's not very good, because I did it in a hurry...but I wanted to document how trees looked in September, when they should still have had a full complement of green leaves, gradually turning fall colors...but instead have damaged foliage which is, most importantly, true for every age, even seedlings, of every single species (included here are oak, maple, willow, sycamore, ash, and others) - and thus is not due to specific insects, diseases, or fungus, or past seasons of drought.  I had hoped to shoot from the vantage of a hot air balloon, but the weather wasn't cooperating.  Maybe when I get back, after next week.  In the meantime, expect some ghoulish scenery from the Bay Area which, I know from last year, is like walking through a soulless Land of the Dead.