Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Michael]

There does appear to be an oversupply of stupidity in the world currently - certainly of the kind which causes turkeys to vote for Christmas.

[erik]

There does appear to be an oversupply of stupidity in the world currently - certainly of the kind which causes turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Well said!

[erik]

Proud turkeys for Christmas and Thanksgiving!



Analysis and key factors that determined the vote: http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/06/24/brexit-demographic-divide-eu-referendum-results/

[Jahn]

Once the ruler of the World, at least the most successful nation to establish an Empire, with India as the jewel in the Crown.
The first WW actually increased the British Empire, beside older territorial areas, "Britain gained control of Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, parts of Cameroon and Togoland, and Tanganyika. "

With the centuries of the Empire and later "The Commonwealth" came a "von oben attitude" among the British  that never has been cleansed away. Britain - The Queen of Europé. Beside this fabolous history,  it is quite ironic that France (mainly through Charles de Gaulle) refused Britain to join the pre EU, the EEC. Britain applied for membership in the early 1960´s but was stalled more than 10 years before they "got in" 1973.

That EU lose a significant member state in Britain, falls back to the EU super state ambitions. To tell that the British lost so and so many billions of GBP the day after Brexit is quite useless information - the Exit is understood by other parameters.

The EU, that now have defined the minimal percentage of meat in a sausage sold within EU, and also declared that harmless Swedish snuff is forbidden to sell within EU (except in Sweden of course), can now take a day or two together and try to find out - what went wrong with The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), that started in 1951?

[Jahn]

[erik]

Arctic is getting green

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/27/its-official-humans-are-making-the-earth-much-greener/



Earlier this month, NASA scientists provided a visualization of a startling climate change trend — the Earth is getting greener, as viewed from space, especially in its rapidly warming northern regions. And this is presumably occurring as more carbon dioxide in the air, along with warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons, makes plants very, very happy.

Now, new research in Nature Climate Change not only reinforces the reality of this trend — which is already provoking debate about the overall climate consequences of a warming Arctic — but statistically attributes it to human causes, which largely means greenhouse gas emissions (albeit with a mix of other elements as well).

The roughly three-decade greening trend itself is apparent, the study notes, in satellite images of “leaf area index” — defined as “the amount of leaf area per ground area,” as Robert Buitenwerf of Aaarhus University in Denmark explains in a commentary accompanying the study — across most of the northern hemisphere outside of the tropics, a region sometimes defined as the “extratropics.” Granted, there are a few patches in Alaska, Canada and Eurasia where greening has not been seen.

Starting from this set of observations, the researchers, led by Jiafu Mao of Oak Ridge National Laboratory but including 18 others from multiple institutions in the United States, France, and China, conducted what scientists call a “detection and attribution” study. This is an experiment in which differing sets of climate model runs are used to determine whether a particular event or change — ranging from an extreme heat wave, to a coral bleaching event, to a major trend like Arctic greening — is more likely to happen in simulations that include human greenhouse gas emissions, than it is to happen in those that do not.

Sure enough, the greenhouse-gas filled computer simulations looked much more like the satellite observations than did simulations that only included natural variability. The study therefore concludes that “the trend of strengthened northern vegetation greening … can be rigorously attributed, with high statistical confidence, to anthropogenic forcings, particularly to rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.”

[Nichi]

*Sigh. I keep turning away in denial, but we are having racial issues in the US, which I suspect are going to blow up in an  inescapable way. It's been a program running in the background for a long time, but it has recently manifested with police killing more African-American citizens for no good reason, and now there has been return-fire, by snipers, in different parts of the country.  Which has led to more sympathy-protests, which spawn more of the same activity. Reading the news has become more frightening than ever.

[Michael]

 

[erik]

Mankind has destroyed so many habitats that we are not within "safe limits" any more. What do you know!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160714150633.htm
"This is the first time we've quantified the effect of habitat loss on biodiversity globally in such detail and we've found that across most of the world biodiversity loss is no longer within the safe limit suggested by ecologists" explained lead researcher, Dr Tim Newbold from UCL and previously at UNEP-WCMC.

"We know biodiversity loss affects ecosystem function but how it does this is not entirely clear. What we do know is that in many parts of the world, we are approaching a situation where human intervention might be needed to sustain ecosystem function."

The team found that grasslands, savannas and shrublands were most affected by biodiversity loss, followed closely by many of the world's forests and woodlands. They say the ability of biodiversity in these areas to support key ecosystem functions such as growth of living organisms and nutrient cycling has become increasingly uncertain.

The study, published today in Science, led by researchers from UCL, the Natural History Museum and UNEP-WCMC, found that levels of biodiversity loss are so high that if left unchecked, they could undermine efforts towards long-term sustainable development.

For 58.1% of the world's land surface, which is home to 71.4% of the global population, the level of biodiversity loss is substantial enough to question the ability of ecosystems to support human societies. The loss is due to changes in land use and puts levels of biodiversity beyond the 'safe limit' recently proposed by the planetary boundaries -- an international framework that defines a safe operating space for humanity.

"It's worrying that land use has already pushed biodiversity below the level proposed as a safe limit," said Professor Andy Purvis of the Natural History Museum, London, who also worked on the study. "Decision-makers worry a lot about economic recessions, but an ecological recession could have even worse consequences -- and the biodiversity damage we've had means we're at risk of that happening. Until and unless we can bring biodiversity back up, we're playing ecological roulette."

The team used data from hundreds of scientists across the globe to analyse 2.38 million records for 39,123 species at 18,659 sites where are captured in the database of the PREDICTS project. The analyses were then applied to estimate how biodiversity in every square kilometre land has changed since before humans modified the habitat.

They found that biodiversity hotspots -- those that have seen habitat loss in the past but have a lot of species only found in that area -- are threatened, showing high levels of biodiversity decline. Other high biodiversity areas, such as Amazonia, which have seen no land use change have higher levels of biodiversity and more scope for proactive conservation.

"The greatest changes have happened in those places where most people live, which might affect physical and psychological wellbeing. To address this, we would have to preserve the remaining areas of natural vegetation and restore human-used lands," added Dr Newbold.

The team hope the results will be used to inform conservation policy, nationally and internationally, and to facilitate this, have made the maps from this paper and all of the underlying data publicly available.

[Michael]

The future for our youth is grim.

[erik]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/14/one-in-10-uk-wildlife-species-faces-extinction-major-report-shows
More than one in 10 of the UK’s wildlife species are threatened with extinction and the numbers of the nation’s most endangered creatures have plummeted by two-thirds since 1970, according to a major report.

The abundance of all wildlife has also fallen, with one in six animals, birds, fish and plants having been lost, the State of Nature report found.

Together with historical deforestation and industrialisation, these trends have left the UK “among the most nature-depleted countries in the world”, with most of the country having gone past the threshold at which “ecosystems may no longer reliably meet society’s needs”.

The comprehensive scientific report, compiled by more than 50 conservation organisations, spells out the destructive impact of intensive farming, urbanisation and climate change on habitats from farmland and hills to rivers and the coast. It found that the fall in wildlife over the last four decades cannot be blamed on past harm, but has continued in recent years.

“It wasn’t just all back in 70s and 80s, it is still happening now,” said Mark Eaton, at RSPB and the lead author of the report. “We are getting ever more efficient in our farming. In a way it is something to be celebrated, how good our farming science and technology is, but it does squeeze nature out.”

Eaton said that there were good examples of wildlife and habitat recovery, but such projects were too few to turn the tide, with public funding for biodiversity having fallen by 32% from 2008 to 2015. “The ability to do it is within our grasp, it is just about resources and the willingness,” he said.

[erik]

It looks that we live a golden autumn of mankind that is turning colder and uglier with every passing month.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/great-barrier-reef-pronounced-almost-dead-by-scientists/





A scientist who recently visited the Great Barrier Reef has said "if it was a person, it would be on life support", as researchers strive to highlight the plight of the reef. New images have shown the worrying extent of the damage done to the reef by climate change. Rising water temperatures have damaged the world’s largest reef system, which stretches for over 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia.

In May, researchers found that more than a third of the coral in northern and central parts of the reefs was dead, and 93 per cent of individual reefs had been affected by a condition known as coral bleaching.

Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Australian Climate Council, told ABC: "After the bleaching event in May, 60 per cent of what we saw was bleached very white. "Another 19-20 per cent was covered in sludgy brown algae. Even of what remained healthy, some looked a bit on edge. "When we went back a few weeks ago to see if they  had recovered or died, quite a large proportion had died."

She estimated around half of the bleached corals they visited had died, and that the bleaching had mostly affected delicate corals rather than the stronger 'brain corals'. However, the researchers discovered that fewer species of fish were found on the reef. Professor Tim Flannery, who visited the reef in September, told ABC: "We wanted to see how much repair there'd been, but the coral we saw bleached and in danger a few months back has now mostly died.

"On top of that we've seen a whole lot of new damage, a whole lot of white coral out there that's been killed by Crown of Thorns starfish because it was too weak to defend itself.

[Michael]

But that's not the worst of it. The really bad news is that Australians don't care.

[erik]

But that's not the worst of it. The really bad news is that Australians don't care.

Obituary to the Great Barrier Reef: https://www.outsideonline.com/2112086/obituary-great-barrier-reef-25-million-bc-2016

[Michael]

We are facing a future of global unpredictability and conflict, not seen since the Cold War days. There are many reasons behind this, but one stands above all else - Russia. Putin is pursuing the reassertion of the old Soviet Empire ambitions. He is clever, ruthless and prepared to use military force whenever it suits his goals. He is establishing a permanent Russian military presence in Syria, and has thumbed his nose at the West's human-rights sentiments over bombing of aid convoys and hospitals. Then responded to US outrage and talk of cruise missile deployments with news of Russia's own missile systems in Syria. He has talked up re-establishing missile bases in Cuba and other old Soviet global locations.

Russia is conducting military exercises with Pakistan and China. The US has come through a period of global timidity following the folly of Iraq, and has been lucky that it faced no substantial rival. Obama has been an intelligent and cautious leader in a time when there has been no appetite domestically for US adventurism internationally. He was probably perfect for the times of relative peace, but that is now changing very fast. There were good reasons to vacate the field in the Middle East, especially Syria, as there was no particular reason for the US to become ensnared in another complex conflict. Unfortunately, that left a vacuum into which Putin stepped without any of the moral baggage the US carries into conflict.

This is the first and most serious challenge the West is facing - forget about ISIS or terrorism - they are pimples on the face of a complete shift of global powers endangering the peace and trade landscape we have all enjoyed since WWII. The tasks confronting the next US President are of a level not seen for many decades. If what people say, that Hillary is a Hawk, considering she is most likely to become the next US President, then perhaps that is exactly what the world requires.

But Putin is not the only dark cloud threatening world order. One of the reasons Russia has exploited the vulnerability of IT systems in the US, and passed the results onto Wikileaks, is because Trump is as stupid and manipulable as the Philippines President, Rodrigo Duterte, is for China. Trump may be a loose cannon, but he would never be capable of leading the US into a new global conflict environment. He is domestically focused, as are the US people. And they are not the only ones. All across the world, domestic preoccupation is on matters of cultural, religious and racial tensions. Only China and Russia are looking to exploit this national navel-gazing, by grabbing territory and influence while everyone else has taken their eye off the main game.

Julian Assange is worried about Hillary, because he knows she has no tolerance for his kind of open-world liberalism, and Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president, is not going to contest re-election next year. Frankly, Assange is doing himself and his organisation no service by being used as a Russian pawn. Wikileaks has lost crucial support across the liberal world though this latest one-sided interference in the US election.

But the world is ill-prepared for a new battle of the powerful, not just because its population is switched off to global reality. National leaders have become populist opportunists, completely lacking in the skills and credentials to navigate a new global instability. They are the result of a wave of idiocy that has in turn been the consequence of decades of Neo-Liberal economics and ethics. What we see in the current US elections typifies what has happened across the world. Community values have been replaced by individual values: 'greed is good'. The wealthy have ruthlessly exploited this value-shift and sucked 90% of global growth to its 1% of population. They have fostered a media that saturates the population's mind space with emotional distractions of all kinds, while they syphoned off the cash. When the population realised they had been ripped off, they were left with only confused outrage - they support Trump not because they like him, but because they are want to throw bombs. Thus Brexit in the UK, the rise of far-right politics in the EU, Duterte in the Philippines, Modi in India.

The presence of astute and equipped leaders in many countries is insufficient to navigate global peace through the treacherous waters facing us. And it's not just 'powers' that are treacherous. We are facing increasing global economic instabilities - interest rates have been held at bank-breaking low levels for such a long time, for good reason... things are not going that well. World public debt is at record levels. The China-led trade surge has serious questions constantly surfacing. But most importantly, climate change is a threat to our species survival, and attempts to respond effectively have been insufficient due to Neo-Liberal self-centredness, and political class irresponsibility.

We sit in our living rooms watching our favourite reality-escaping entertainment, reading our spiritual books and feeling a mix of anxiety and superiority, while out there, in the 'real' world, changes are about to crash upon us that will rip our comfort apart. As spiritualised beings, we have an innate obligation to act. And the first act is to become aware - to sit up from the enchantment that has descended upon our species, and look at the streams of force flowing into our collective existence.

Only then can we chart a course through this landscape which actually does reach our intended goal. We live in increasingly vulnerable times, and it is our personal task to use these times to our advantage. While everyone sleeps on social media, we must keep the lookout.

But we are not the only ones keeping the lookout, and striving for a bridge to a brighter future. There are many people in the world who have not been completely enchanted by the waves of ulterior motive that sweep across the astral landscape sucking off the solar plexus's of the multitude. There are some fantastic people who are shouldering the wheel in every conceivable level of life - whether it be researching new antibiotics, caring for the elderly, or creating images of beauty.

Alas, too many are well intentioned yet unaware of the storms and reefs ahead. As shamans, it is our duty to go beyond the closed harbour, and see into the future - be it good or bad. We have the capacity to travel up-stream of life, to see what is coming through the tubes, and thus prepare ourselves, our loved ones, and our community. Being a shaman is not just about meditation and core-realisation. We have a community role, to constantly look for danger when all around us are partying, and to constantly look for doorways into light when all around us are depressed and exhausted.

In that, we earn our awareness post-death.