I know I am not serious about this effort at blogging because I can be distracted by life events without notice. For the past week I have been vacationing with Bronwyn in the northwest, refinding her family and my old friends in Alaska. I thought this was going to be a delightful interlude even though it would take me away from the grim demands of my essential Eeyoreness. Little did I know that I was about to be hit upside the head by some harsh effects of climate change.
Before saying more, rest assured that I do know the difference between climate and weather, and yes my recent experiences count as weather, but still… There comes a point when the consistencies of weather begin to provide evidence of climate change. For most of us, the buildup of anomalies in the weather creates that hook in our consciousness where the climate change stories connect. It is my personal experience of those changes which has informed my experience of the past two weeks.
This all started in Portland Oregon, when a family visit was completely disrupted by some of the hottest weather Portland had ever seen. It was 102 when we landed. People said, oh this is awful but don’t worry it always cools down at night. However, it didn’t. Not that night, or the next or the next. It was just hot.. damn hot…. record breaking hot. All anyone could say was: “Portland isn’t really like this.” Uh Huh.
Finally we escaped that heat and flew off to beautiful Juneau Alaska. We landed there in the middle of another heat streak. Well in Juneau, the 80s are hot, but you get the idea. I had been twice before and never really saw the mountains because of the low clouds and rain. This time we saw the mountains and they were gorgeous, that is until the smoke came in.
Monday, we woke up and it looked like pea soup fog. Our friends who have lived here for 30 years said they had never seen fog like this. But it wasn’t fog, it was smoke. Smoke from huge fires burning across the mountains in British Columbia and smoke from half a million acres burning in Fairbanks. Smoke. You can see the difference in the outlook from the pictures below.
Today, we spent the afternoon baking on a beach looking at melting snowfields. Its just weird.
This summer has seem monsoon rains in the northeast, record heat in the northwest, no water in the southwest and blinding smoke in Alaska. Maybe it is just weather, but it sure seems like changes that a greater and deeper. I feel like the complex machine which is our abundant economy is melting down, burning up and trashing about. Perhaps the whole thing is just way too complex.
For a while, I have been fascinated with the concept of complexity theory and the work of Joseph Tainter who basically says that complex societies tend to get more complex until they can no longer manage things, whence they collapse. The Oil Drum has an interesting post in that regard Excerpts from "Peak Civilization: The Fall of the Roman Empire" Posted by Excerpts from "Peak Civilization: The Fall of the Roman Empire" Posted by Ugo Bardi In this exploration he cites Tainter’s work and the old Club of Rome, Limits to Growth ideas. The poor Club of Rome, because they weren’t right about the limits being felt in the 80s, their work was discounted forever. Looks like we are now getting a cultural lesson in the downsides of unfettered growth. The damn machine gets overheated, and we all fry.
Meanwhile, I am happy to note that my good friend Michael Nystrom has gone back to posting the best set of links to the dark side over at Bull Not Bull. Michael and I have a luncheon discussion every couple of weeks about the challenges of our collective visions. He is a “Libertarian” while I am the “progressive”. Yet, at the heart level we are both scared of the same currents washing down the river in which we all swim. Its good to see him back scanning the news.
In the “Told ya” corner, I must admit that I am a bit miffed at the Times this week. In my last post, I shared with you this nice letter I sent them suggesting that they had missed the lead on the Goldman software theft and how they didn’t even bother to thank me. Then, whaddaya know, last week they run a reported piece about the questionable practices of High Frequency trading. They didn’t even give me a footnote. Oh well, at least they covered it, sort of. They still won’t come out and say that Goldman Sachs is a crooked company.
But hey, I was still a week ahead of Jim Kuntsler on this. His blog this week on Syndicated Evil also notes that Goldman Sachs is guilty of stealing customer data and profiting from the theft. It seems to me that it would be nice if Eric Holder were to notice this as well. But that would mean that there could be a snapback on Larry Summers and Tim Giethner, so I won’t hold my breath. Kuntsler seems to echo my feelings about the thing when he muses that if Obama doesn’t do something about this soon he is going to be considered complicit in a much bigger melt down. And, like me, he doesn’t like draw the increasingly obvious conculsions
Readers of this blog know I'm allergic to conspiracy theories. But surveying the scene out there, it is hard to not conclude that Goldman Sachs has become the "front-runner" of a criminal syndicate defrauding US taxpayers.
Anyway, here it is, another hot day in Alaska. The smoke continues to pour over the mountains from British Columbia. I guess we will all just have to get used to it.
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