Harquebus at it again…..

I am going to keep this one short today.

It has come down to this; Either we stop this economic and population growth madness or we face the nightmarish consequences of accelerating environmental destruction and climate disruption. That’s it. The politicians and journalists who advocate growth are dangerous idiots as has been proved over and over already.

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” — Ayn Rand

Cheers

Here is my usual list of links for those who I know that do read them. Apologies for the increasing number of links but, things are getting worse faster.

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“In the same way it will be the end of -almost- all traditional political parties, which have ruled their countries for decades and are already today at or near record low support levels (if you’re not clear on what’s going on, look there, look at Europe!)”

“From Bill Clinton and Tony Blair onwards, the center-left embraced the project of a global free market with an enthusiasm as ardent as any on the right. If globalisation was at odds with social cohesion, society had to be re-engineered to become an adjunct of the market. The result was that large sections of the population were left to moulder in stagnation or poverty, some without any prospect of finding a productive place in society.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/14/end-of-growth-sparks-wide-discontent/

“In a globalization controlled by Wall Street’s puppeteer sociopaths, who believe they are the masters of the universe, ordinary people everywhere have become canon fodder and slave labor.”
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2016/10/30/globalization-expressway-to-universal-slavery/

“exploitation of 3rd World people by international capitalists has been ongoing for a long time in many industries”
“What is not grasped or talked about in public discussion for the most part is that the Techno-Cornucopian dream is just that, a DREAM.”
“In 1900 the amount of energy required to keep the average Amerikan alive was a fraction of that required to do the same thing today, and there are many more Amerikans now than in 1900.”
“The question now is just how we will manage this spin down and move our way back to a lower per capita energy future, and a lower population of Homo Saps running around the planet?”
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2016/11/27/modern-slavery/

“atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 450 parts per million (which the world will reach in 2025) would bring about the demise of the reef.”
http://www.outsideonline.com/2112086/obituary-great-barrier-reef-25-million-bc-2016

“Renewable energy sources are often advocated for their low CO2 emissions at point of use, but the overall product lifecycle is often forgotten about completely. In addition, many chemical products are needed in mining operations, leading to severe long-term pollution.”
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2016/09/30/are-renewables-really-environmentally-friendly/

“However, in the Krebs attack, we saw something new: it wasn’t executed by conventional computers, but rather by Internet of Things (IoT) devices – including innocuous things like digital video recorders and security cameras.”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/hacked-by-a-fridge-the-internet-of-things-and-cyberattacks

“Alan Greenspan’s reign was truly the dumbing-down of economics because during it these economists really believed simple, common sense ideas were immaterial.”
http://www.alhambrapartners.com/2016/10/17/yellen-maybe-we-dont-know-what-we-are-doing/

“World’s mammals being eaten into extinction, report warns”
“The researchers said solving the problem of over-hunting will require greater legal protection for the species, empowering local communities to benefit from wildlife conservation, providing alternative foods and better education and family planning to curb population growth.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/19/worlds-mammals-being-eaten-into-extinction-report-warns

“As president, Obama not only funneled trillions of dollars to the banks, he saw to it that not a single leading Wall Street executive faced prosecution for the orgy of speculation and swindling that led to the financial collapse and Great Recession, and he personally intervened to block legislation capping executive pay at bailed-out firms.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/15/wiki-o15.html

“An investigation by Malaysian online news channel The Star has uncovered a “beggar gang” run by Chinese gangsters that specializes in kidnapping children, disfiguring them and forcing them to beg on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.”
http://shanghaiist.com/2016/10/21/malaysia_begging.php

“Most of our estimates for future carbon dioxide levels and climate do not fully take into consideration the various feedbacks involving forests, so current projections likely underestimate the magnitude of carbon dioxide flux to the atmosphere.”
http://phys.org/news/2016-10-ancient-co2-future-climate.html

This article is a heavy read and if you are not seriously into agriculture, systems analysis or big words then, this might not be for you.

“Europeans may not be as food secure as they perceive themselves to be.”
“In the face of already observed changing climate, deteriorating natural resources, growing population largely driven by migration as well as many other emerging challenges and uncertainties, there are growing concerns that the European food system is vulnerable and thus unable to withstand disturbances without undesirable outcomes”
“food producers fall into a reinforcing spiral of compensating for the degraded natural resources with the application of external inputs rather than implementation of regenerative practices, which, in turn, further worsens the condition of natural resources. The reinforcing feedback loop driving substitution of natural resources with external inputs to produce food is a vicious circle that locks farmers into dependence on the use of external inputs.”
“As a result, the strong reinforcing feedback loops underlying food production growth have generated numerous unintended negative impacts on human (e.g., reduction of rural employment, loss of knowledge) and natural resources (e.g., loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, pollution of water and air) which themselves are preconditions for food production.”
“However, we now know that the natural resources are finite (or take a lot of time to regenerate) and once they are depleted, food production is not possible anymore, while there will be few (or even no) options for adaptation to this and other disturbances.”
“The result is that food production is based on a continuous reinvestments in engineered stabilizers rather than tacit knowledge and ecosystems resilience (condition of natural resources). Therefore, if for some reasons (e.g., fossil fuels scarcity, geopolitical tensions, economic crisis) external inputs were not available for food producers: first, it will take a long time for an alternative food production paradigm to become effective (because of, for instance, the need to rebuild the stocks of tacit knowledge and natural resources condition) and second, the outcomes could potentially be far more undesirable than that of a system which never used those stabilizers.”
http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/10/971/htm

“genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.”
http://www.nrtoday.com/doubts-about-promised-bounty-of-genetically-modified-crops/article_e18842d1-2f5b-5619-8368-85f4e62d9427.html

“The AngloZionst Empire’s propaganda machine, otherwise known as the corporate media, has had great difficulties deciding what it should say about the Russian naval task force which has been sent to Syria.”
http://thesaker.is/making-sense-of-the-russian-naval-task-force-off-the-coast-of-syria/

“Since the [water] crisis started in June, the municipality has been able to supply water for only one hour twice a week”
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/palestinian-villages-hours-water-week-161023105150024.html

“Whales achieve this by transporting essential sources of iron across layers of water that don’t otherwise mix, by feeding at depth and defecating at the surface. This allows iron and other nutrients to come to the surface waters where phytoplankton live – and more phytoplankton means less carbon dioxide. And so by reducing whale populations, we risk increasing carbon dioxide levels, too.”
https://theconversation.com/how-overfishing-and-shark-finning-could-increase-the-pace-of-climate-change-67664

“Persian pigeon towers are one of the more elegant solutions to the nitrogen-phosphorus problem.”
“no wheels, electricity, or tractor needed: just bricks and a shovel to harvest the droppings, and some maintenance work every couple hundred years.”
http://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/10/pigeon-towers-a-low-tech-alternative-to-synthetic-fertilizers.html

“Most of the crimes committed by migrants are being downplayed by German authorities, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.”
“The evidence points to a nationwide surge in migrant crime: cities and towns in all 16 of Germany’s federal states are affected. In fact, local police in many parts of the country admit that they are stretched to the limit and are unable to maintain law and order.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9229/germany-lawlessness

“We learn from Easter Island or we repeat Easter Island.”
“Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. We are mindlessly repeating Easter Island. Archeologists of the future, if any are left after our self made apocalypse, will wonder how we could be both so smart and so dumb.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/saving-normal/201610/mans-fate

“On October 18, human rights defenders José Ángel Flores and Silmer Dionisio were murdered after they left a meeting of peasant farmers in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras.”
http://www.alternet.org/world/there-epidemic-assassinations-targeting-human-rights-defenders-latin-america

“But not all Caraquenians have enough land to cultivate produce, and water is also in short supply due to a drought.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/01/venezuela-is-telling-hungry-city-dwellers-to-grow-their-own-food/

“A United Nations body is investigating controversial methods to avert runaway climate change by giving humans the go-ahead to re-engineer the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/geoengineering-to-alter-climate-change-moves-closer-to-reality

“Low salaries combined with stagnant wages, jobs going to illegal immigrants and part-time work rising as Obamacare forces fewer companies to retain full-time employees, mean that food is increasingly seen as a luxury. And of those who can still afford food, many have to settle for cheap, nutrition-poor junk foods and foods high in starches, carbohydrates and calories.”
http://banksterbubble.com/food-poverty-49-million-americans-struggle-to-put-food-on-the-table-as-obamas-economic-schemes-collapse/

“Climate sceptics widen their net to claim all science – from medicine to physics to computing – is ‘in deep trouble'”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/global-warming-sceptics-science-in-deep-trouble-fraudulent-climate-change-deniers-medicine-physics-a7389381.html

“Hundreds of millions will die. Horrific meteorological events will bring nations to their knees and catalyze the displacement of nearly a billion lives. Rising temperatures will implode global food security, exacerbating the coming water shortage and leading to substantial violence and unrest.”
“The capitalist world order perpetuates a competitive system wherein there is little incentive to slow the rate of growth or ever impede resource markets.”
“The CEOs, CFOs and big decision makers of less than a hundred companies have collectively put an expiration date on human civilization.”
“We have been rushed into the next mass extinction by a handful of people who wanted more than they ever needed.”
http://psuvanguard.com/an-autopsy-of-planet-earth/

“Indeed, the state has recently attracted much attention – and derision – for the way its policy making elite squandered the wealth generated by the resources boom.”
https://theconversation.com/western-australia-provides-a-masterclass-in-what-not-to-do-with-a-resources-boom-67942

“The world’s oceans, coastal seas, estuaries, and many rivers and lakes are experiencing declines in dissolved oxygen. Long known as an issue associated with sewage discharges and fertilizer runoff, the problem now is exacerbated by climate change, often independent of nutrient loads, and is global in scale.”
“The effects of deoxygenation, which depend on complex sets of interactions in the ocean, will not be evenly spread: the north Atlantic, north Pacific, and Antarctic waters will be particularly affected.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/03/the-oceans-are-suffocating-climate-change-is-causing-low-oxygen-levels_partner/

“Heavy-duty diesel-engine trucks (agricultural, cargo, mining, logging, construction, garbage, cement, 18-wheelers) are the main engines of civilization. Without them, no goods would be delivered, no food planted or harvested, no garbage picked up, no minerals mined, no concrete made, or oil and gas drilled to keep them all rolling. If trucks stopped running, gas stations, grocery stores, factories, pharmacies, and manufacturers would shut down within a week.”
http://energyskeptic.com/2016/diesel-finite-where-are-electric-trucks/

“At that point, the oil industry, and all the other industries that depend on it (and if you think about it, they all do: how do we get raw materials, spare parts, food, or even solar panels without oil-burning trucks and container ships?) are toast.”
http://www.postcarbon.org/the-case-of-the-vanishing-oil-reserves/

“When you control the currency and interest rates; rig the financial markets; buy the politicians; write the laws and regulations; own the corporate propaganda machines known as the mainstream media; operate a high tech surveillance state; create a dumbed down populace through government school indoctrination; and distract the masses with iGadgets, reality TV, hero worship, professional sports, social media, irrelevant cultural issues, and literally thousands of other modern day bread and circuses; you become arrogant and careless.”
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/11/03/civil-war-ii-fourth-turning-intensifying-part-i/

“The demonstrators, who frequently refer to themselves as “water protectors,” have for weeks accused the Obama administration of standing by while local police and private security intimidate and attack them.”
http://inthesetimes.com/article/19586/police-are-still-getting-surplus-military-gearand-theyre-using-it-to-crack

“Since 1970, a staggering 58 per cent of vertebrae populations have died, and by 2020, experts believe that two thirds of fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals will have disappeared.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/727648/MASS-EXTINCTION-dinosaurs-earth-wwf

“The Prince of Wales, who is president of WWF-UK said: “As a father and  grandfather I worry deeply about the world we are leaving behind for our successors. We are rapidly destroying our means of survival.”
“We are pushing ourselves out of the Holocene, putting our own future on Earth at risk. What we, in this generation, do in the coming 50 years, will probably determine the outcome for humanity on Earth over the coming 10,000 years.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/04/prince-charles-i-worry-deeply-that-the-planet-is-facing-mass-ext/

“Notoriously liberal figures from the UK media queued up to berate him for getting drunk or for even thinking of taking part in any mockery of religion. This in a country in which Monty Python’s Life of Brian is regularly voted the nation’s favourite comic movie.”
“This is the re-entry of blasphemy laws through the back door, where newspapers, daytime chat-shows and sports authorities decide between them that one religion is worthy of particular protection.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9253/europe-blasphemy-courts

“”The overpopulation of the world and carelessness of its inhabitants have caused environmental issues that can’t be ignored.”
http://dailyutahchronicle.com/2016/11/08/earth-angry-reason/”

“clearing rainforests doesn’t pay. Yet that message is not getting through.”
“the industry now claims that monitoring suppliers would be ‘Orwellian’ and excluding those clearing rainforest would be playing ‘supply chain cop.’”
https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/for-the-palm-oil-industry-engagement-means-turning-a-blind-eye-to-deforestation/

“This data from British Columbia, which shows the carbon tax has failed the reduce carbon emissions in the ten years since it was implemented, gives little reason to believe a carbon tax would curb emissions in the U.S. or elsewhere. Meanwhile the oil and gas industry is throwing its support behind carbon taxes, rather than strong regulations to limit emissions, arguing that market solutions are the best way to address climate change.”
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/british-columbia-carbon-tax-failed-experiment-market-based-solutions-climate-change

“West Antarctic ice loss in some places shows signs of becoming “unstoppable.” There’s enough water locked up in West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea region alone to raise the global average sea level by four feet, and it’s the fastest-melting spot on the continent.”
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2016/11/west-antarctica-begins-to-destabilize.html

“This report confirms that the average temperature in 2015 had already reached the 1 degree C mark. We just had the hottest five-year period on record, with 2015 claiming the title of hottest individual year. Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37900400

“That means the record hot summer of 2013 in Australia – when we saw temperatures approaching 50°C in parts of Australia, bushfires striking the Blue Mountains in October, major impacts to our health and infrastructure and a summer that was so hot it became known as the “angry summer” – could be just another average summer season by 2035.”
http://phys.org/news/2016-11-hot-year.html

“”both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years.” Bevins went on: “Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.””
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/democrats-trump-and-the-ongoing-dangerous-refusal-to-learn-the-lesson-of-brexit/

This article advocates nuclear power which I do not. It will suffer from resource depletion just as fossil fuels are. Population reduction is the only viable solution.
“For some reason wind and solar fans never mention that both have huge carbon footprints — a measure of the amount of the CO2 produced from shovel in the ground to power in your outlet — and the harmful effects on the environment created by mining the rare minerals that both require.”
http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/6956267-when-going-green-damages-the-environment/

“Climate change does not care about the law of the land in the U.S. It cares about the laws of physics. Trump can change laws in the U.S. He can’t change them in the atmosphere.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/physics-climate-election-2016-20862

“No matter how you measure it, a mass extinctions has arrived.”
“Humans cannot keep growing in numbers and consuming ever more land, water and natural resources and expect all to be well.”
“We also have to move urgently to slow human population growth, reduce overconsumption and overhunting, save remaining wilderness areas, expand and better protect our nature reserves, invest in conserving critically endangered species, and vote for leaders who make these issues a priority.”
https://theconversation.com/radical-overhaul-needed-to-halt-earths-sixth-great-extinction-event-68221

“So, when we consider that Exxon had to triple its capex spending to maintain production as well as increase dividend payouts to keep shareholders happy, the falling oil price is totally gutting the company from within.”
“For those who continue to be skeptics of the peak oil theory, YOU NEED TO WAKE UP AND LOOK AT THE DATA.”
“the Hills Group and Louis Arnoux forecast that within ten years, 75% of U.S. gas stations will be closed, and the oil industry as we know it, will have disintegrated.”
http://peakoilbarrel.com/big-trouble-at-exxonmobil/

“While the UN report is talking about the effects of robots in the workplace, what’s really at issue is the profit-seeking behaviour of corporations. And in a globalized economy, shifts in labour power aren’t just felt in wealthy nations, but all over the world. In China, for example, factory owners have already used robots and automation as a tool to do away with rabble-rousing workers.”
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/robots-will-take-two-thirds-of-all-jobs-in-the-developing-world-un-says

“Globalization continues to create more discontents than it does billionaires, and this election was very much about the corrosive impact of globalization.”
“Trump promised to return America greatness but hasn’t a hope of doing so, because the era of growth has died.”
thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/11/10/End-of-Growth-Rise-of-Trump/

“A Texas investor group is planning for a doomsday scenario by building a $300 million luxury community replete with underground homes and air-lock blast doors designed for people worried about a dirty bomb or other disaster.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/11/texas-investors-build-community-doomsday-scenario/

“Producing food, whether it be through growing crops or raising cattle for slaughter, is only part of the equation. How the food makes it to your plate also factors into agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuel.”
“However, if we have massive amounts of food production, we will need equal amounts of fertilizer.”
“If we are willing to rethink the way we produce and consume food, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will come naturally.”
http://www.theenergycollective.com/mnichols/2392638/how-agriculture-uses-energy

“But in brief, I think that the business as usual world is headed straight for a collision with the material limits of the finite planet we are living on.”
“The trouble with this is that the old computer programming adage —garbage in, garbage out —applies to politics. If political decisions are based on convenient lies, then the results will not be good.”
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/politics-and-science.html

“We celebrate ignorance. We have replaced political discourse, news, culture and intellectual inquiry with celebrity worship and spectacle.”
“Once societies unplug themselves from reality, those who speak truth become pariahs and enemies of the state.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/its_worse_than_you_think_20161111

“In this tiny feeding frenzy, the algal cells burst and release a distinct-smelling sulfurous compound. The algae use this chemical as a kind of distress call, signaling their bird allies to come eat their predators.”
“Seabird species that followed the scent of the chemical to find food wound up ingesting plastic five times more often than species that did not, the study found.”
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-seabirds-plastic-20161111-story.html

“In this gentleman’s world view, it was not black versus white, rich versus poor, feminism versus patriarchy, illegal versus citizen; rather, it was those who produce nothing believing themselves entitled, without appreciation, to the goods produced by others versus those who actually produce.”
https://therivardreport.com/a-visit-to-trumps-america/

“Food production has multiple impacts both on and off the farm. These can often be negative, such as the pollution of rivers, the emission of greenhouse gases, the spread of antibiotic resistance, the degradation of soil, the rise of obesity and the spread of disease. Yet none of this damage has featured in the balance sheet of farmers using chemical methods.”
“True Cost Accounting has its challenges. Being an issue of immense complexity, spanning the worlds of economics, public health, ecosystems, environment and society, it requires an integrated approach.”
http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/true-cost-food/

“Experts believe there is between three trillion and 23 trillion tonnes of coal buried in the seabed starting from the northeast coast and stretching far out under the sea.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2593032/Coal-fuel-UK-centuries-Vast-deposits-totalling-23trillion-tonnes-North-Sea.html

“Multiply that by countless millions of locales and hundreds of millions of other individuals and organizations doing the same, dependent on that same finite and ever-depleting resource.”
“the facts they and we must accept is that we are now on the downside of conventional crude oil supply”
http://peakoilmatters.com/2016/11/15/peak-oil-system-justification-denial-will-costly/

“Since last 40 years, 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down for commercial purposes and it has been estimated that if it goes on with the same pace, by 2060, the whole rainforest will be destroyed.”
http://askchange.com/deforestation-in-amazon-rainforest.html

 

Harry aka Harquebus
Salisbury North.
South Australia.
harrycebex@hotmail.com