The Wide Gate To Damnation

"The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it."
~ Matthew, 7:13-14

As regular readers of Wit's End must by now suspect, I am very fond of forgotten farms and deserted houses.  I love to take pictures of the peeling, crackled paint, the collapsed roofs, and the rotted sills and sashes.  I find shattered window panes inviting and it delights me to find rusted equipment and vehicles being enveloped by the tendrils of vines.  I wish I could claim the photograph above as my own, since in my estimation it is a triumph of the genre, but I discovered it on a website which itself seems to have been forsaken, myabandonedbuildings.com.  It appears to have been created by a teenager who boldly trespassed into derelict factories, schools and even hospitals, but perhaps has since lost interest.  There are quite a few wonderful images to be seen there, from South Jersey mostly, a few of which I've copied, supplemented later by some of my own.

Before anything else, here is a storm update from the Washington Post, which indicates, curiously, that trees continued to fall even days after the storm had passed.

 "...Sarah Williams had thought she was one of the lucky ones. She and many of her neighbors had power all weekend. That luck seemed to run out just after noon Monday when her home and many others in her neighborhood lost electricity."

"Williams, 52, said she called Pepco and was told that many homes are losing power for several reasons. One reason, she was told, was that Pepco was taking down some areas that had power in order work on blacked-out areas. She said she was also told that trees weakened by the storm have begun to fall, taking power lines down with them."

On the floor of the barn, our intrepid interloper found this stained and faded book - The Fascinating Oil Business - which was published in 1940.  Imagine!  How much has happened since then.  The "fascinating" business has, in partnership with coal, rendered human civilisation ephemeral.

I have been thinking that there must be some way to objectively compare the relative damage done by falling trees and that done directly to property by wind.  A trend towards relatively more tree damage would be a clear indicator of their poor health, but I've tried calling insurance companies before - they're usually not very helpful.  The following story doesn't have any statistics but it's anecdotally amusing.  It was reported in a local paper that a storm last Friday night knocked down trees in Hershey PA, closing the park temporarily.

It was said the trunks of at least fifty pines snapped.

Unless somebody rushed out first thing Saturday morning to hang a basket of petunias on a lamppost, the wind wasn't severe enough to knock it off or even strip the flowers.  And yet the trees broke.

It's quite clear from the trunk lying at the right-hand corner, in the photo above, that at least this particular interior was rotted.

Should winds ferocious enough to knock over huge sturdy trees leave street signs unscathed?

A related article in the same local paper informs us that:

"The National Weather Service in State College said a "strong down burst" of wind hit the Hershey area early Friday morning -- not a tornado.  The strength of the winds was described as similar to tropical storm force winds, about 50 mph to 70 mph, the weather service said."

Why is it news to report not-news?

"Wanda Gomulka said she is unsure whether it was thunderstorm or tornado that knocked down a tree next to her house....as she has never seen damage quite like this....she's happy she invested in new windows yesterday or she might have had a bigger mess to clean up."

This is becoming a familiar refrain, by no means the first time I have encountered it.  People believe there must have been a tornado, or they describe winds as "hurricane-force" even when they're not, because nothing less violent can explain the extreme and unheard-of destruction to trees - and by the way, the house itself exhibits no damage from the "tornado".  I know this doesn't prove anything...but I don't have to prove anything every single time I write a blog post anymore - that's why I wrote the book!

Emboldened by the example of our temeritous host of AbandonedBuildings, I snuck stealthily into this complex of farm outbuildings, brazenly ignoring the prominent "No Trespassing" signs.  Other than some deer that burst, snorting, from the shrubbery and some barn swallows that swooped at my head in irate indignation, no one was to be seen.

Amid all the recent excitement about derechos and heat hazards, I will post just two links to science that indicate, like the hundreds of others catalogued above, that ozone, which increases in proportion to temperature, underlies health threats to both people, animals, insects and plants.

This research, Environmental Oxidant Pollutant Effects on Biologic Systems - A Focus on Micronutrient Antioxidant–Oxidant Interactions, was of interest because I often wonder whether ozone has anything to do with the disappearance of insects.  The paper compares defense mechanisms as manifested in humans, plants, and insects.  It's very technical and I don't pretend to understand much more of the terminology other than "and, if and but".  However, clearly there IS enough of an issue for scientists to explore it.  So I'll just excerpt three sections and leave it to scholars more competent than I who may want to peruse the original.

"Oxidative atmospheric pollutants represent a significant source of stress to both terrestrial plants and animals. The biosurfaces of plants and surface-living organisms are directly exposed to these pollutant stresses. These surfaces, including respiratory tract surfaces, contain integrated antioxidant systems that would be expected to provide a primary defense against environmental threats caused by atmospheric reactive oxygen species. When the biosurface antioxidant defenses are overwhelmed, oxidative stress to the cellular components of the exposed biosurfaces can be expected, inducing inflammatory, adaptive, injurious, and reparative processes."

"Studies of mutants and/or transformed plants and insects, with specific alterations in key components of antioxidant defense systems, offer opportunities to dissect the complex systems that maintain surface defenses against environmental oxidants. In this article, we use a comparative approach to consider interactions of atmospheric oxidant pollutants with selected biosystems, with focus on O₃ as the pollutant; plants, flies, skin, and lungs as the exposed biosystems; and nonenzymatic micronutrient antioxidants as significant contributors to overall antioxidant defense strategies of these varied biosystems. Parallelisms among several living organisms, with regard to their protective strategies against environmental atmospheric oxidants, are presented."

"Most biologic systems are equipped with elaborate mechanisms for protection against the toxicity of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Toxicity arising from imbalances of biologic pro-oxidant and antioxidant processes is usually designated as oxidative stress. Prevalent among the oxidative stresses are contributions of cells generating ROS as part of normal aerobic metabolism, the ROS generated secondary to plant and animal responses to injury and invading organisms, and the ROS generated in polluted atmospheres. The environmental oxidant pollutants, including ozone (O₃), oxides of nitrogen, and particulates with chemically active surfaces (e.g., containing redox-cycling substances), represent an important source of oxidative stress to terrestrial plants and invertebrates and to vertebrate organisms including humans."

Slightly more comprehensible to a scientific illiterate like myself is the World Health Organization 2008 report on "Health Risks of Ozone from long-range transboundary air pollution".  While it makes only tangential reference to damaged vegetation, and the main focus is on humans, it certainly makes the point that climate change will increase ozone, which in turn contributes to premature death in heat waves.  I just don't know when people will ever understand that we're nowhere near the fabled "wet bulb" range of intolerable heat and humidity - so when people prematurely die in summer, it's the pollution, not the temperature...for the most part:

Abstract
Ozone is a highly oxidative compound formed in the lower atmosphere from gases (originating to a large extent from anthropogenic sources) by photochemistry driven by solar radiation. Owing to its highly reactive chemical properties, ozone is harmful to vegetation, materials and human health. In the troposphere, ozone is also an efficient greenhouse gas. This report summarizes the results of a multidisciplinary analysis aiming to assess the effects of ozone on health. The analysis indicates that ozone pollution affects the health of most of the populations of Europe, leading to a wide range of health problems. The effects include some 21,000 premature deaths annually in 25 European Union countries on and after days with high ozone levels. Current policies are insufficient to significantly reduce ozone levels in Europe and their impact in the next decade.

The lifetimes of many ozone precursors and their conversion products are sufficiently long to allow them to be transported over long distances in the atmosphere. Consequently, the large-scale ozone “background” level has a strong long range transport component determined by a wide range of emission sources.

 

On the other hand, the aforementioned factors (plumes, titration and deposition) depend strongly on small-scale geographical and meteorological conditions and superimpose local variations on the large-scale background level. Local emissions in urban areas reduce ozone levels close to the source and increase levels in the downwind plume. Local variation in deposition rates is also an important factor affecting the lifetime and local concentration of ozone.

 

Key Messages: 

 •  Ozone is a secondary pollutant formed in photochemical reactions from
nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as
methane and carbon monoxide. The process of ozone formation is complex
and depends on sunlight, geographical factors and the availability of the
precursors.

 

 •  In the vicinity of the source, NOx deplete ozone, leading to lower levels of
ozone in urban areas. Downwind, at a distance from the source, however,
NOx emissions lead to ozone formation. Ozone has a strong hemispheric
component, typically reaching 20–40 ppb (40–80 μg/m3).

 

 •  The majority of ozone precursor emissions originate from anthropogenic
sources. Important human activities that contribute to ozone formation include
transport (especially road vehicles and international maritime shipping),
combustion processes in energy production and industry, solvent use, biomass
burning and agricultural practices.

 

 •  Owing to the presence of stringent emission control legislation, ozone
precursor emissions are expected to decline in the EU over the coming decade.
However, lack of equivalent legislation will not prevent further increases in
precursor emissions in other countries that are Parties to the Convention on
LRTAP. This growth in emissions is expected to increase hemispheric ozone
background concentrations. Furthermore, climate change could lead to higher
biogenic emissions in the future.

 

 •  Methane emissions promote ozone formation and global climate change.

 

 •  Measures to reduce ozone precursor emissions will have many health benefits
in addition to the direct health impacts of lower ozone levels. These measures
will also reduce levels of other hazardous air pollutants and greenhouse
gases and will reduce radiative forcing. At the same time, less ozone in the
atmosphere will result in less damage to vegetation.

 

Health effects are not the only negative effects of ground-level ozone. It also
causes damage to vegetation in forests and natural ecosystems, to agricultural
crops and to materials. Further, ozone acts as a greenhouse gas with the third
largest radiative forcing.

[end of excerpt] 

Climatologists who study ice seem to have a very special and intense clarity of vision about just how bad the situation is.  I'm not certain that's true and if it is, I can only hazard guesses as to why.  Months away from modern cultural distractions?  The certain inexorability and irreversible nature of melting?  The question Desdemona answered my question with ended all my equivocating with an implacable finality - I had asked, doesn't climate change mean we're going to go extinct?  And Des merely replied:  Can you spell ALBEDO EFFECT?  I had to google it.

And so when we see reports like this from NOAA - Greenland Ice Sheet Getting Darker, and illustrations like this:

...plus stunning charts like this from Meltfactor:

 ...it's easier to understand why one of the members of the Arctic Emergency Group described what we can expect "when the sea ice is gone" with the following brutal analysis (take a deep breath):

~ Douglas Spence  

Now 

1. Even with the Arctic ice in the present state increasingly extreme weather is already moving us closer to a point of increasing risk to agricultural output.

2. For the last few years extreme weather has worsened year on year and since we have positive feedback processes in progress we have no reason to suppose this will do anything but accelerate rapidly. 

  

2012-13 

3. I expect significant to majority sea ice loss to occur in either 2012 or 2013, and expect this to dramatically worsen the weather, causing immediate stress to global food supplies. Combined with weak economic conditions we will see stress in countries dependent on food imports or aid triggering more "Arab spring" moments in previously stable regimes. Movement of refugees will cause knock on effects in neighbouring regions. 

4. Modern civilisation is fragile and dependent on global supply chains that can be disrupted both by weather and politics. We will experience an increasing incidence of problems maintaining normal operation in technologically advanced societies. There is the potential for conflict in the Arctic as new resources open up.

 

5. Other positive feedbacks such as methane release and forest burn off will accelerate. 

2014-15 

6. I expect total sea ice loss will occur during summer in either 2014 or 2015. By this time I expect agricultural output to have declined to a point where food supplies are inadequate and famine and conflict are rife. Farmers will not know what to plant or when and even acquiring seed from other climatic regions may be problematic.

 

7. Social conditions will be comparable to the Holomodor. People will try to eat anything and everything - earthworms, insects, each other - even in some cases their own children. Nation states will fragment and reform into smaller and increasingly violent competitive groups fighting over rapidly diminishing resources. Maintaining the supply chains required for the operation of modern technology including agriculture will be largely impossible. 

8. If we see widespread war before nation states fragment there is a possibility of the use of nuclear and genetically enhanced biological weaponry. Whether through war or famine the human population will be in freefall.

 

2016+

9. The climate will continue to worsen as more heat flows into the system and this will become the new threat to survivors as population density becomes too low to sustain conflict. Most survivors will be eliminated, leaving the human race on the brink of extinction. A majority of the planet will cease to be habitable. The deserts will greatly expand, though this will help balance the planets thermal budget. Very few people will live to see the Arctic sea ice entirely gone throughout the year or the ruined cities drowned in the rising sea. 

10. Assuming the collapse is as rapid and severe as I expect – I would expect the human population to collapse below the new carrying capacity of the planet and therefore for resource pressure to lighten once a sufficient number of people die (granted with few useful resources left and uncertainty about precisely which regions would be good prospects).

 

Finally
Theoretically there will be some isolated and scattered areas where the climate is still habitable, resources are sufficient and some form of agriculture can be practised. If small groups of people make it to these areas, there is a theoretical chance over many generations to recover civilisation, albeit at great disadvantage.

 

Disaster taxa will rapidly proliferate into the empty ecosystem, leaving the return of biodiversity to occur over a few million years, bringing the sixth great mass extinction to a close. 

NB Since we are at a point where weather is a key effect, allow +/- 1 year for (good/bad) luck.

  

These sorts of dire pronouncements about a climate careening from chaotic to annihilative (with which I fully concur, especially because none of them factor in the world-wide death of trees from ozone), naturally makes me wonder if it matters a damn that so many scientists and environmental activists are missing the crucial link between air pollution, forests in decline, and the loss of a major CO2 sink.

Nevertheless, Friedrich Nietzsche said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."   Thus we Ozonists and Ozonistas sequestered in a little niche here at Wit's End persevere, despite the incessant futility of it all and besides, hey, NASA made a new toy especially for us, now beaming information via satellite, and who could ask for more?  It's OMPS - the "Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite"!  In these images, it tracks smoke:

"Fires burning in Siberia recently sent smoke across the Pacific Ocean and into the U.S. and Canada. Suomi NPP satellite's Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite tracked aerosols from the fires taking six days to reach America's shores. These false-colored images make the data stand out. The blue and green colors represent less smoke. Yellows and pink represent more smoke. Smoke density is identified by the level of transparency in the coloration. The less dense the smoke is the more you can see through it, and the more dense it is, the less you can see through it.  Credit: NASA/Suomi NPP/Colin Seftor"

"Seftor says that unlike photographs, satellite data shows researchers the difference between reflections of smoke and dust from those from snow, ice or the tops of clouds. The UV (ultra-violet) aerosol index is helpful because it makes "seeing" dust and smoke easier even when that background is bright. The aerosol index allows him to separate the aerosol signal from the background."

Please don't miss the AMINALS!

Still emerging are ongoing reports about the power outages, which some blame on aging infrastructure, others on incompetent, unprepared electric companies, and still others on climate change.   But it's very clear from this video that the core issue of much-lamented lost air conditioning - and now, far more crucially, lost food - is the falling trees.  Appended afterwards is my usual comment on such stories (for regular readers, skip it - any new folks who are unfamiliar with the demise of trees from air pollution, it states the basics).

 

Naturally as we all know, the weather is violently worse from climate change - but even more important in terms of lost power is that the TREES are different. They are all dying from air pollution, everywhere around the world. It's pretty obvious actually, if you just look at them. Their bark is falling off, they have cankers and holes like tumors, their leaves are small and burnt and shriveled.

The first thing trees do when they absorb ozone (air pollution) is allocate more resources to repairing damage to the leaves or needles. This reduces energy sent to the roots. Shrunken root systems mean the trees are more likely to fall over and also are more vulnerable to drought, which is happening more because of climate change. To top it all off, they lose natural immunity to insects, disease and fungus. Go ask a tree. It will tell you if you listen.

The underlying reason the power is out, and wildfires are uncontrollable, is air pollution. It's as simple and clear a causal connection as smoking tobacco leads to cancer, a truth that has been even more ruthlessly suppressed by the corporate overlords who seek to perpetuate the industrial destruction of nature - until the very last second before she responds to them with her pitchfork. Just ask the authors of "An Appalachian Tragedy".

The USDA has also been trying to develop crops that are genetically resistant to tropospheric ozone, with no luck. Even if they could do it, what good would that do for the trees and other wild vegetation that are dying from absorbing air pollution? It's especially bad because ozone shrinks roots well before damage is visible on leaves, making the plants even more vulnerable to the droughts that are worsening. People should realize the ecosystem is collapsing and we need to stop burning fuel! a book for free: http://www.deadtrees-dyingforests.com/pillage-plunder-pollute-llc/

Injury resulting from ozone has been extensively, in fact exhaustively, demonstrated during decades of scientific research, which has found it is extremely detrimental to vegetation, including annual crops and especially longer-lived trees exposed to cumulative damage.

A blog about the storms, power outages and wildfires here:

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/07/suits-of-woe.html