Just One

So often we forget in the midst of the din of denial and accusations that all it takes is for one person to stop and listen and believe to the one voice rising above the chaos that warns of the danger ahead. Listening to that one voice will often spell out the difference between joy and tragedy.

We get so lost in the rush to to get out of the way it's hard to think, hard to see, hard to believe that anything can be different, and so we give up. That is what life is like for so many of us when we are so overwhelmed by whatever assaults our senses, our minds, our spirits. It's easier to stop, drop, and roll into the grave prepared for us.

I spend a lot of time researching, reading, and looking for more clues to the trail I've been following. The clues are hard to see and I miss them sometimes, so I give up for a while. I walk away or move on to something else. I need to take a break and give my mind a rest and so I read something else. Reading is never the problem. It's the flow of information and the onslaught of that juggernaut of doom and gloom bearing down on me that turns my knees to a rubbery mess that will no longer hold me up that forces me back and away because  I need to give in and sit down.

I have been pointing out the dangers of relying on the media to give me the truth. Expecting a service that is paid to lie and cheat and lead me into danger to tell me the truth is like picking up a rabid dog and expecting it not to bite and infect me with its disease. I'm a little smarter than that -- not much, but a little.

Few will thank me for lighting a candle in the darkness and I accept that. Some people resent the rapid change from darkness to even the flickering light of a candle in the wind. Their eyes tear and they feel safer in the dark. After all, the candle won't last forever and they will be in the dark again so why bother?

It's hard to see at first. The eyes burn and tears flood the vision. Wiping them away helps for a second and the eyes still burn and sting. What will they see when the blurriness clears, the tears dry, and they are able to see? Fear sets in. The mind recoils from the possibilities and from the ability to see clearly the deepest nightmares that force them awake with a scream shattering the silence. Not knowing is better. Being unsure of the danger is safer. All that is needed is to go back to sleep, turn away from the images burned onto the retinas, walk away from the light and the knowledge that their world is no longer safe and secure and known . . . even though the world was never known. It has always been a nightmare landscape littered with bloody bodies and shattered lives. Better not to know.

But is it?

Is it better to be unaware that your moments are numbered and you will be a bloody and battered casualty of a war you didn't know you were part of? That is the real nightmare. That is the real cost of following the herd over the cliff onto the jagged rocks below or into the cold embrace of the abyss struggling for just one more breath.

That is what it is to wake up to the reality of the man behind the curtain pulling the strings and creating the fearsome image blazing fit to burn you as you stand shivering before it. There's the initial shock that so small and insignificant a person is the real danger when the curtain is pulled back. First, the shock and then the realization and then the anger. The insignificant man cowers before your rage and betrayal and he inches forward. You are secure in your outrage and never see the thin sharp blade as it slips it's poisoned length into your vitals and slump to the floor amazed that such a nonentity defeats you in the end.

Fear was better. Fear kept you safe. Fear kept you unaware of the danger. The danger would not have struck had you never pulled the curtain, never confronted the puppetmaster, never known. Now that you know, it's too late. Better to have feared.

But is it?

All too often we forget that everything worth having has to be worth fighting for, struggling for, and even dying for. Over 200 years ago, men who lived well ordered lives, often lives of obscurity and peace, decided not having control of their destiny, their business, and their lives was to live as slaves. No, their motives weren't pure, the men who started a revolution that rocked a nation and sounded the clarion call for others. They often obscured their motives and rewrote the books to seem heroes, and in their own minds their actions were justified. They did pave the way for millions, for billions. Some would say their revolution was justified by the freedoms they bought with those lies and the blood of millions. I might say that was true and they deserved their heroes' legacies, but not today because they led us out of enslavement to one master and into eternal enslavement to a master less not willing to let us go, a master able to use our fear and modern methods to keep us enslaved as they changed our very biochemistry and enslaved our minds to an empty ideal that was little more than a hologram carrot on a very real stick with a stiletto hidden in its lure.

Welcome to the pit of hell where every good deed is punished and you walk happily to Lady Guillotine whose bite is swift and painless and sure. Welcome to your worst nightmare. Embrace it. You have been expected and will now serve the greater good as you have served the greater good with your ignorance and belligerence and willingness to be deceived because you couldn't be bothered to give up your precious time to look for the man behind the curtain.

You all will die, and so will the voices almost silenced by the din, but at least they will die knowing they warned you of the dangers and the lies, though you would not listen, As you ponder eternity knowing you had a chance to escape, what will it profit you but shame and regret and the possibility that your children or your children's children -- your legacy -- will escape the ultimate doom. Isn't that enough?

If only you had paid heed to that one voice telling you the truth, to that flickering candle lighting the darkness. If only...

That is all. Disperse.

Warm Glacier, Cold Glacier

 
According to climatologists manmade global warming is proven in the recent calving of a 12 x 24 square foot iceberg from the Pine Island glacier in western Antarctica. Those same scientists cannot account for the continued growth of the glacial ice on the eastern side of Antarctica that has been gaining about 200 billion metric tons per year. Melting on the west and growing on the east. What can it mean? Climatologists don't know. They have no idea why one side of the South Pole has a growing ice shelf while the other side is melting. According to them, it's not relevant and will become clear later.

They hope.

Climatologists speculate that it is an anomaly and eventually the losses on the western side of Antarctica will eventually balance out the increases on the eastern side. They have no proof of their suppositions but feel confident that proof will come in good time.

Nowhere in the articles and papers I've read do climatologists mention the active volcano percolating beneath the Pine Island Glacier nor do they mention anything about an increase in carbon monoxide emissions that volcanologists theorize presage an imminent earthquake and/or volcanic eruption. There is no mention of any outside forces, such as the huge planet (5-10x the size of Earth) bearing down on us or its gravitational forces or the effects of such a massive gravitational pull on the earth. There is no mention of the obvious tilt of the Earth, a fact that is talked about among the Inuit in Alaska and the Arctic or that the moon can be seen with the naked eye as having changed its orbit -- or Earth's orbit has changed, providing night time viewers with a different angle on the moon, a fact that is not lost on astronomers. Yet none of the astronomical data has been figured into the climate models or even mentioned in the data being circulated about the melting of the Antarctic ice shelf.

There is mention of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels -- an obvious result of manmade global warming. There is no mention of the fact that the CO2 levels were much higher during the 16th and 17th centuries after some serious volcanic explosions that, in addition to the Maunder Minimum (low sunspot numbers) that accompanied the mini Ice Age during that time. The data has been logged and climatologists have been tracking the global temperature for a whole century and yet none of that information has been presented in their public reports or their worst case scenario claims.

Nothing was mentioned about sunspot numbers or coronal mass ejections and solar activity, though it that data should be included because the weather and temperature of this planet are part of a much bigger -- and more conclusive -- picture.

Relying only on melting ice and glaciers calving, a natural occurrence since the world began, and CO2 levels provides a dark picture, and one that is missing considerable proof without the inclusion of the other components of a more complete picture.

It's like a child believing that because she stuck her finger in the fish bowl and one of her two fish died, it must be her fault because her finger was dirty or crawling with germs that attacked the fish. It's a natural tendency for people to blame themselves for everything without looking for other factors or considering other issues, like whether or not the bowl had been cleaned recently or the fish had not had enough time to get used to the temperature of the water or using chlorinated water or that the fish had a disease when they were purchased and had gone unnoticed. Or a dozen other factors. The child assumed it was all her fault for sticking her finger in the bowl to pet the fish. There could have been chemicals on the finger or the fish died of fright. There is no telling since the fish ended up being flushed down the toilet or buried in the back yard as the child cried before anyone thought to figure in other factors.

Humans are conditioned to believe everything is their fault. The industrial revolution in the 19th century was a big leap forward for civilization and great gouts of smoke gushed from factories and steam engines and all kinds of newfangled machines. Sure, it made life easier, but it also brought disease and pollution and buildings covered in soot and ash. No one had thought about the ramifications of advanced technology on the land or the people or the cities -- or the planet.

We discovered new chemicals and dumped them into the oceans and rivers and streams killing plants and animals. It was poison to the wildlife -- and to people. How could it not also poison the atmosphere, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat? Of course, it's all our fault.

We didn't stop to think of how a volcanic eruption poisons the atmosphere and cuts off the sunlight and poisons the water and the people. We didn't know that the CO2 and methane and CO emissions would sky rocket or that the poisons spewed out along with the lava and pyroclastic flows even as they burned and suffocated people. We knew they happened, especially after Pompeii and Herculaneum and the surrounding countryside that disappeared from view for centuries after the volcano because quiescent again and the towns and life and people were buried beneath millions of tons of ash and lava and time.

It didn't matter. The pollution and warmer temperatures weren't the cause of outside forces or nature, they were our fault. We were to blame.

Must be nice to be powerful enough to destroy a whole planet without even knowing it.

None of the global warming can be charged to the planet warming up after the mini Ice Age as the effects of volcanism, an increase in sunspot activity, or anything natural. How could sunspots and the tilt of the earth and the continuing volcanism have anything to do with what is obviously our fault since the industrial revolution?

By collecting a limited range of data and not factoring in other forces outside of manmade pollution it is no wonder the computer models don't match what is happening on the planet. The answer was to adjust the models and fix the math. That should give climatologists the results that would fix the computer models -- except that even by fudging the data nothing changed. The models changed, but they did not depict what the scientists hoped they would see.

None of the weather tinkering, like spewing heavy metals and chemicals into the atmosphere to make it rain where it as wanted or needed, could possible affect the planet or change the weather elsewhere. Increased gravitational forces pulling on the earth couldn't possibly disturb the various tectonic plates and cause earthquakes or stir up the sleeping volcanoes. The volcanism and CO2 and CO emission increases as a result of earthquakes and erupting or seething volcanoes spewing into the atmosphere have an effect, but it is minimal compared to what people have done in the pursuit of technology. We have to put a stop to all the global warming in spite of the fact seen in the actual temperatures that what has been predicted has not happened.

There are far more factors to be considered and figured in before deciding that the child's finger is the only reason for the fish dying.

I do not dispute that greed has done more to fuel pollution and damage to the atmosphere and the planet, but that is a bucket of water poured into the Pacific Ocean in comparison. There is also Fukushima to consider and nothing has been said and none of the data has been figured into the computer models to add to the dire picture.

Scientists need to look at the bigger picture and take data from far more sources than just CO2 and CO emissions and the warming/cooling of the polar regions. How about factoring in the obvious change in the Earth's tilt, the approaching planetary mass (brown dwarf, galaxy, failed star, massive Uranus sized asteroid, comet) hurtling toward us that can be seen every morning rising in the east before the sun hits the horizon. Factor in sunspot activity and weather control and volcanism and earthquakes and gaseous emissions. Factor in every bit of data instead of the narrow range of numbers currently used, like measuring the temperature.

And also consider that the amount of data currently collected from core ice samples is insignificant compared to the age and life cycle of this planet. We know very little and scientists assume a great deal, rather like extrapolating a history of the world by concocting a story based on a few pottery shards and ruins that have yet to be thoroughly examined.

We know nothing but science has yet to figure that out. Or maybe, like the little boy who saw the future and did not predict the end of the world by super nova until he learned what a super nova was, we will cease to exist because the boy learned about super novas a couple of days before the sun exploded (Twilight Zone episode).

Or consider that everything we think we know is based on lies told to keep people from panicking if they found out we are being -- and have always been -- controlled by outside forces and cabals and beings that treat us like lab rats in a maze.

Until more extensive data comes to light and the scientists and politicians and bankers and whoever else with a stake in this worldwide experiment come clean, I will consider the news of the end of the world if we don't change our ways a small piece of a vast and complex puzzle.

That is all. Disperse.

Perfect Storm of Ignorance

A couple years ago there were blizzards and record snow fall (at least since humans have been keeping records) and there have been hurricanes, like Katrina that decimated New Orleans and the coastal areas in the Gulf, and typhoons, and tornadoes, and all kinds of extreme weather. Everywhere I turn someone is wither howling about the End of Days and the Second Coming being heralded by the weather or creaming at nonbelievers that the extreme weather is the result of global warming and human intervention. It is all a lot of tempests in teapots. Someone is always screaming about the end of the world, either by god's or man's hand. It is inevitable.

What is not inevitable is any sign of reason. Extreme weather has been with us since the beginning when this planet was formed. If you want extreme, you should have been here when the world was nothing but volcanoes and magma and clouds of miles of towering ash clouds that reached to the heavens. That is extreme.

The most devastating Atlantic hurricane in the record books was in 1780 in Puerto Rico when 22,000 people lost their lives. I believe that was before the advent of cars and chemicals spewing into rivers, lakes, and the oceans eating a hole in the ozone. In fact, until fairly recent memory when the hole in the ozone was discovered over Antarctica, I doubt anyone can prove whether there was or wasn't a hole there before it was discovered.

The volcanic eruption from Mt. Tambora on Sumbawa Island in Indonesia in 1805 was more devastating that Krakatoa in 1883 and 52 times more destructive than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Notice that the volcanic eruption was before the time of human technology, cars, and man-made chemicals and was not born in a lab in Manhattan or tested at White Sands.

The devastation from Mt. Tambora had a profound effect on the weather in the United States with frost in the middle of summer and snow in June in New England, Newfoundland, and Labrador half a world away, termed the year without a summer in 1816. No cars, no chemicals, and no global warming, except for the warming trend that followed the nuclear winter which was the result of Mt. Tambora's devastating volcanic display.

Benjamin Franklin wrote a paper about the unusually cool summer of 1783 on the volcanic dust and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere due to the volcanic eruption of Laki in Iceland. Franklin might have blamed it on man if he'd had our technology to track storms and prognosticate about the weather, but all he had was his intellect and the power of observation.

The great famine of 1315-1317 was theorized to be the result of the volcanic eruption of Kaharoa in New Zealand and the effects lasted for 5 years.

Unseasonal weather, crop failures, and famine from 535-536 could have been caused by a comet strike sending a veil of dust that blotted out the sun and cooled the earth, as Procopius wrote, but it is more likely that Rabaul in Papua New Guinea erupting was the cause.

Volcanic winter about 71,000 to 73,000 years ago was probably the result of a super-eruption of Lake Toba in Sumatra that deposited a record amount of sulfuric ash over the following 6 years that has been measured to be the highest level of ash in the past 110,000 years. The result of Mother Nature's temper tantrum at that time significantly deforested Southeast Asia and global temperatures dropped 1° C, reducing the animal and possibly human population and increasing continental glaciation. In plain speak, it was so cold the glaciers advanced across the European continent, making it so cold that animals and humans died in vast numbers.

I could continue with more statistics and history that encompass thousands of years of recorded history of natural disasters and extreme weather. What it all boils down to is that this planet has seen much worse natural disasters than Hurricane Sandy and more devastation that nuclear bombs and man's latest technological and technical innovations to make this world a more habitable place. What we seem to forget is that no place on Earth is safe to live. Where there are volcanoes, coastal shores, lands reclaimed from the sea that are still below sea level, beautiful alpine and forested slopes near dormant or sleeping volcanoes, verdant stretches above earthquake faults, and pastures and mountain tops in ancient paths of glacial advance, there is nowhere that nature cannot find us and destroy us. It is not god's will and it is not manmade global warming, but life on a turbulent planet constantly changing and reforming from within and without. Tornadoes, typhoons, earthquakes, comet and meteor strikes, glacial advance and retreat, and any number of natural disasters, like wildfires, will happen. If we choose to live here on this planet then we will be affected -- effectively destroyed and decimated.

The temperatures rise and they fall. Climate changes and levels of soot, sulfuric acid, volcanic debris, and sunspot activity on our big yellow sun and factors too numerous to count and fully understand will happen. The planet cools and the planet warms. How much humans have added to the mix is insubstantial compared to what has been thrown into the atmosphere from Mother Nature's latest temper tantrum. To claim human intervention as the major cause is understandable since people are too sophisticated to believe that some capricious deity is behind the destruction and upheaval, but that belief is as arrogant and superstitious as the belief that our actions have caused the gods to punish man for not saying his prayers or sleeping with someone else's husband.

We exist on a living planet that grows and changes every day. We may be convinced we know the causes of such extreme weather, but it is more likely we see and understand the tip of a vast iceberg, the bulk of which lies beneath the waters of our ken. All we can do is what humans have done since their first appearance on this world -- live through it and rebuild.