Time Keeps on Slippin' Slippin' Slippin' In From The Past

Time can be odd

How can that be?

Scientists tell us that some things that civilization did 40 years ago, things that impact upon our climate system, are just today manifesting their impact to the damaged Global Climate System.

For example, if 2014 was the warmest year on record, that is because of things done 4 decades ago (1974) in some senses.

Let's take a look at comments about that aspect of the endeavours of Petroleum Civilization for the past 40 years, before we contemplate the next 40 years:

"One of the most frightening aspects of global warming, which few people realize, is that there's a time delay for the consequences of our actions to show up. The really catastrophic effects won't become obvious until it is too late to reverse them. The news media have been completely remiss in explaining this to the public. There are two key points about the science which everyone should know: lags, which delay and disguise the effects of our greenhouse gas emissions, and feedbacks, which magnify the effects when they do occur. Put these two effects together, and the science is clear that a 'wait and see' approach to climate change is an invitation to disaster." - Climate Victory

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"The estimate of 40 years for climate lag, the time between the cause (increased greenhouse gas emissions) and the effect (increased temperatures), has profound negative consequences for humanity. However, if governments can find the will to act, there are positive consequences as well.

With 40 years between cause and effect, it means that average temperatures of the last decade are a result of what we were thoughtlessly putting into the air in the 1960’s. It also means that the true impact of our emissions over the last decade will not be felt until the 2040’s. This thought should send a chill down your spine!" - Skeptical Science

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"There is a 40 year lag on cause and effect. If we stopped all carbon emissions today, we wouldn't see the effect on global warming until we'd gone another 40 years down the timeline." - National Geographic

So, all those people back in 1974 who were driving their petroleum fuelled vehicles to a New Years Eve gala event (which used coal-fired-power-plant generated electricity to ignite bright HAPPY NEW YEAR electric lights) in city after city, may have put the hottest year on record in the bank for us.

Oil-Qaeda's idea of Zoo

"The first 11 months of 2014 was the warmest such period on record" - NOAA.

Yes, tons of green house gases were deposited into an account in our name at the First Global Bank of Climate Catastrophe.

An account that could not be drawn out for another 40 years, an account that we today are making even larger deposits into, targeting our children of the Earth of 2054.

That 1974 account deposit put into the First Global Bank of Climate Catastrophe "on our behalf" is being drawn upon today, automatically, to produce one disaster after another, while currently killing 5 million people a year (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

[A new paper asserts that the way the time lag takes place is an upward slope of

Hypothetical Types of lag: early, uniform, late

increasing percentage, reaching a peak, then a downward slope of decreasing percentage ("Maximum Warming Occurs About One Decade After a Carbon Dioxide Emission", IOP Science).

In other words, the impact of green house gases does not take place 100% at a certain time, or in the exact same percentage of impact over the ~10-40 year time lag as you can see @ the example hypothetical graph just to the upper right;  which also has a link to some graphs in the IOP Science paper mentioned above.]

The Bob Dylan website indicates that the song "All Along The Watchtower", on the album "John Wesley Harding", was first played on Jan 03, 1974 (Bob Dylan Songs):

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”

(All Along The Watchtower). If this state of affairs sounds all crazy, it is probably because it is (The Peak of Sanity - 3).

But do not blame the victims.

No, blame the perps who tricked us into it (Choose Your Trances Carefully - 2).

The idea is to stop doing to the future people of Earth what has already been done to us, for the next 40 years.

What is our New 40 Years resolution?

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Slip into some future ...

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All Along The Watchtower, Neil Young jam version

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Oh My Gah !! Did you say 2015 ??

H

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P

Y

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I said HAPPY NEW YEAR !

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Looking Back on 2014: Posts I Could Not Complete

Hexagon: Inverse of NASA colors (see last image)

There were quite a few posts I wanted to get to but had "writer's block" or blogger's block, and just could not "git 'R dun" for some reason.

So, in surrender, and to get beyond the block, I am providing the names of the posts that were not written, but not the links that were to have been included in those embryonic posts that were never born.

The three graphics shown in today's post are NASA Cassini-Huygens photos of the mysterious hexagon on the planet Saturn's north pole.

I have managed to write about it a time or two in times past (Saturn's Many Mysteries, Saturn - Home of the Hexagon Mystery, cf. Exploded Planet Hypothesis).

Hexagon & 'hot-spot' outlined

Original NASA Colors

There are many things about our planet, our Sun, our solar system, ourselves, and our universe that we do not understand.

So, it is fun sometimes to speculate and indulge in some science fiction mixed as always with scientific facts.

The year that begins tomorrow will be another interesting year.

I wrote about one event that will put climate change in the forefront of some minds that have not yet contemplated it fully (Message of Science & Religion - Western - 2).

There are many other events, such as the rising danger of nuclear war, as well as the rising sea levels, that will keep The Dredd Blog System focused on important issues.

Another mystery that was not solved in 2014 is the book written in a language that has not been deciphered yet.

I wrote about it some years ago (Ancient Ecocosmology?).

Anyway, here are the unfinished (shame on me) posts I planned to do, but failed to write, during 2014 --but which I plan to try again to complete in 2015:

Exploded Planet Hypothesis - 3
Ecosystems, Microbes, Viruses, and Virulence
Earth Farming vs. Organic Farming
A Savvy Ecocosmological Earth Calendar - 3
Big Bang Challenges
Wanted: Technology To Save Our Species - 2 (Done)
What Kind of Intelligence is Prescience? - 3
The Little People - 3
A Religious Doctrine For Toxins of Power - 2
Is Specialization a Source of Toxins of Power?
On The Origin of the Toxins of Conspiracy Power
Toxoplasmosis - Sapolsky
Origin of Cats
The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust? - 2
Propaganda In Microbes

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Thanks to all readers from all over the world who read Dredd Blog System posts (Who Reads Dredd Blog).

Petroleum Civilization: The Final Chapter (Confusing Life with Death)

"Oilandia: Capitol of Petroleum Civilization"

Some folks will say anything.

For example, a government website exclaims that: "Renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and water power play an important - and increasing - role in our nation's energy mix. The growth of clean and domestic renewable energy is an important part of addressing climate change and increasing our energy security" (Export Dot Gov)[they 'lost' that page, here is the Wayback Machine Link].

At the same time, on another page, that government website exclaims that: "Oil is the lifeblood of America's economy.  Currently, it supplies more than 40% of our total

Bacteriophage T4: Oilandia's oilwell drilling rigs

energy demands and more than 99% of the fuel we use in our cars and trucks" (Dept. of Energy).

Another government site (DOE) used to proclaim the same thing (The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil), but for some reason they took it down.

Anyway, the definition of the word "lifeblood" is: "the blood, considered as essential to maintain life" (Dictionary).

Using the word, as the .gov does, makes it sound like the U.S. economy, and hence the nation's economy is dead without oil.

Meanwhile, and to the contrary, other government and scientific reports indicate that if we keep using "the lifeblood" we will become dead (Are We Riding Out The Sixth Mass Extinction?, The Real Dangers With Microbes & Viruses, Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 4).

So, is the notion "oil is lifeblood but using oil is destroying us" a conundrum, a predicament, a paradox, or all three?

Petroleum Civilization has to go, but the question we face is "will it take humanity out with it when it goes?"

History gives us one answer we obviously do not like:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown." - A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee

(The Deceit Business - 3). If this is not the answer we like, we will just have to live and die with it, because no one in power in Petroleum Civilization seems to want the human species to pass the test.

Message of Science & Religion - Western - 3

I. Introduction

In today's post I will discuss aspects of a subject matter area where (what seems to be) the majority of scientists and religionists have found substantial agreement.

This development is furtherance of the subject discussed in the first post of this series as follows: "Science and religion both tell us of future catastrophe and a way out" (Message of Science & Religion, cf. Civilization Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying).

II. An Ancient Seed Now Grown Humongous

In terms of religion, "Armageddon" is an ancient notion that has shaped cultural trances down through time all the way to our current culture (Viva Egypt - 2, The Universal Smedley - 2, Choose Your Trances Carefully, The Peak of Sanity - 3).

Regular readers know that in recent posts I have looked at the scientific side of the subject of climate & war catastrophe (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4).

III. The Nitty Gritty

So, in today's post I want to discuss some aspects of the religious side of life, because this subject impacts upon billions of people (List of Religious Populations).

To assist in grasping the issue, for reference I will use the Pope's upcoming official declaration (Edict on Climate Change, Think Progress) as well as the opposition to it by other religionists (Koch Operative Opposes Pope, Koch Operative is of Cornwall Alliance; Note: Eastern Religions also have environmental concerns: What Kind of Intelligence Is Prescience? - 2).

IV. The Opposing Views

The scientists are very unified in their discoveries concerning global warming induced climate change, with about 97% of scientists verifying its human origin, but with about 3% not agreeing that it is of human origin.

Religionists argue that "God would not have created creatures or a creation so weak that they would suffer their own extinction" while dominating nature as they multiplied as commanded:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

(MEV Bible, Genesis 1, emphasis added). The Pope has said that these Bible verses are not a license to destroy or pollute the Earth:

Pope Francis made the religious case for tackling climate change on Wednesday, calling on his fellow Christians to become “Custodians of Creation” and issuing a dire warning about the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change.

Speaking to a massive crowd in Rome, the first Argentinian pope delivered a short address in which he argued that respect for the “beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos” is a Christian value, noting that failure to care for the planet risks apocalyptic consequences.

“Safeguard Creation,” he said. “Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”

The pope centered his environmentalist theology around the biblical creation story in the book of Genesis, where God is said to have created the world, declared it “good,” and charged humanity with its care. Francis also made reference to his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was a famous lover of

"Oilah Akbar" vs. "God is Great"

animals, and appeared to tie the ongoing environmental crisis to economic concerns — namely, instances where a wealthy minority exploits the planet at the expense of the poor.

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Francis said.

Francis also said that humanity’s destruction of the planet is a sinful act, likening it to self-idolatry.

(Climate Progress). The Pope's detractors, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, take exception:

Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance, a Religious Right group that specializes in promoting pollution, has been well-paid by the Kochs and other polluters to say things like this:

[to believe in climate change] "really is an insult to God ... and it will eventually lead to tyranny."

Here's what he gave the Guardian for "balance":

Francis will also be opposed by the powerful US evangelical movement, said Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the conservative Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which has declared the US environmental movement to be “un-biblical” and a false religion.

“The pope should back off,” he said. “The Catholic church is correct on the ethical principles but has been misled on the science. It follows that the policies the Vatican is promoting are incorrect. Our position reflects the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US.”

This is interesting on several levels.

1) Beisner is not Catholic, so why would a reporter ask him about the Pope? Other than that he is sure to return your email/call, since that's his job.

2) Beisner's grift is getting polluters to fund his propagandizing of white conservative evangelical Protestants like himself. Preaching to the conservative choir is a solid meal ticket these days. But it's not a Catholic choir in this case.

3) A minority of US Catholics are right-wing conservatives, and some of them have lots of media cred. Were none of them available (on presumably short notice) to espouse climate change denial?

4) Why would Francis care what "millions of evangelical Christians in the US" think about his endorsing the climate change consensus? If he thinks it's the right thing to do, he will do it, even if millions of American Catholics oppose him.

5) The "false religion" bit is ironic, since that's a charge evangelical Protestants have been aiming at the Catholic Church for 500 years.

Besides the encyclical, Francis plans to convene a summit of world religious leaders and speak to the United Nations General Assembly, all with the goal of influencing a major UN meeting on climate change in Paris next year.

Climate change will become a much bigger story next year, in good part due to Pope Francis.

(Daily Kos). This boils down to the reality that the science based warnings from government (Government Climate Change Report, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) are accepted by the Pope.

It is also an issue of religious hermeneutics, i.e., interpreting the meaning of religious text (e.g. Wikipedia: Hermeneutics, Hermeneutics For The Blogosphere).

V. Future Developments

That the Pope is anti-Qil-Qaeda is not a problem with Oil-Qaeda operatives, but when the Pope publishes his edict, that will trouble Oil-Qaeda and its cohorts.

Oil-Qaeda has controlled governments for a century and does not intend to give up without a fight (The Peak of the Oil Lies, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

In the U.S. where fundamentalism is strong, the Pope is likely to be portrayed as a "false Christ" by some (Cranky: Who is Mystery Babylon, Not so Cranky: Who is Mystery Babylon the Great?), but not so by other non-Catholics (Well Reasoned: Who is Babylon?).

So, expect a religious war of words in the form of Oil-Qaeda propaganda, as well as resistance to it.

VI. Conclusion

As pointed out by the links above (e.g. Viva Egypt - 2, The Universal Smedley - 2) the Armageddon doctrine of religionists has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The onslaught of climate change around the world, brought on by the terrorist organization ideology of big oil is to be resisted.

It does not matter who resists ... religionist or scientist ... because the catastrophe being produced by dirty fossil fuel advocates endangers us all.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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"Sympathy for the Devil", by The Rolling Stones

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