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Perfect Storm of Environmental and Economic Collapse Closer Than You Think
Green measures have to be at the heart of any financial rescue packages if we are to avoid catastrophe
A "perfect storm" of food shortages, scarce water and high-cost energy will hit the global economy before 2030, said the government's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, last week. Factor in accelerating climate change and this lethal cocktail leads to public unrest, cross-border conflict and mass migration - in other words, an economic and political collapse that will make today's economic recession seem very tame indeed. But though I totally agree with John Beddington's analysis, I think he's got the timing wrong. This "perfect storm" will hit much closer to 2020 than 2030.
It may seem inappropriate - callous even, with unemployment at the two million mark in the UK - to be inviting people to get worked up about some possible economic collapse in the future. But if we are to avoid that ultimate recession, from which there will be no conventional recovery in a normal boom-and-bust cycle, then we have to start thinking about today's recession in a completely different way. Both in terms of our analysis of underlying causes and appropriate remedies.
On the analysis front, people seem blind to the fact that the causes of the economic collapse are exactly the same as those behind today's ecological crisis - and behind accelerating climate change in particular. As Adair Turner's first report as chair of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) demonstrates, the neo-liberal obsession with deregulation has done untold damage to capital markets. But people should understand that the same deregulatory fervour has caused untold damage to the natural environment, all around the world, for the past 20 years or more.
It's exactly the same when one looks at the unholy trinity that has made today's capital markets so spuriously dynamic: mispricing of risk, misallocation of capital, and misalignment of incentives. Catastrophic impacts on markets; catastrophic impacts on the environment.
And then there's the debt issue. Governments have systematically stoked up levels of personal and national debt (including insane asset bubbles in housing, land and property) explicitly to force-feed high levels of economic growth. We will all be paying off those financial debts for decades to come.
On the environment front, as our financial debts have built up, so have our debts to nature - in terms of the unsustainable depletion of natural resources, measured by the loss of topsoil, forests, fresh water and biodiversity. Everybody knows that liquidating capital assets to fuel consumption is crazy but nobody seems to know how to stop it.
There is a simple conclusion here: the self-same abuses of debt-driven "casino capitalism" that have caused the global economy to collapse are what lie behind the impending collapse of the life-support systems on which we all ultimately depend.
As regards appropriate remedies, the link between today's recession and the perfect storm that awaits us in 2020/30 couldn't be clearer: sort out today's calamity by investing in infrastructure and technologies to help avoid tomorrow's infinitely worse calamity. In other words, a massive "green recovery package" along the lines we are now seeing in the US, South Korea and other European countries, focusing on energy efficiency, renewables, smart energy grids, new transportation solutions and so on.
The government is sort of interested in this, with lots of very eloquent words about a new low-carbon industrial strategy. But as the Sustainable Development Commission has pointed out, the percentage of the total recovery-based expenditure devoted in the UK to this kind of "sustainable new deal" to date is derisory. It's about 7% as opposed to 80% in South Korea, for instance. We simply have to ensure that the unsustainable elements in today's recovery package (such as the useless VAT giveaway) do not overwhelm the low-carbon, sustainable elements.
But the commission has gone even further than this by raising the whole issue of economic growth. Is it possible to avoid the "ultimate recession" if all we are doing is trying to get back as fast as possible to the same old "economic growth at all costs"? In a report to be published next week (provocatively entitled Prosperity without growth?), the SDC urges politicians of all parties to get serious about the very real limits to growth we're running up against today - both social and environmental.
Politicians serve us ill by disconnecting their policies for economic recovery from what has to happen very urgently indeed if we are to avoid the horrors of accelerating climate change and the kind of "perfect storm" that the chief scientific adviser is flagging up as inevitable - unless we fundamentally change the rules of the growth game.
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Show AllOkay, People - So we have about 10 years, if that long, to prepare for ecological and societal disasters. Well, all we can really do is pare down our personal use of fossil fuels to next to zero, and press heavily on our respective governments to severely limit their use of fossil fuels, and insist that all others follow these same rules.
Any new building MUST be as close to zero fossil fuel use as POSSIBLE (not what they call "economically feasible"),
It's a bit late but we still need to plant millions of trees of all kinds, especially food trees and hardwoods needed for firewood and clean buildings (I say this as someone who burns wood for heat and cooking in the Maine winters).
We know how to do this; it's a question of getting the powers that be to do what's needed, and therein lies the difficulty, since corporations are running our countries now, and they know only profit, profit, profit, even if it means death to extant life on Earth.
Only massive outbursts from the populace in many countries can change this course, and I believe it's beginning.
We can still save a lot, but the tide must turn quickly, and that's up to those of us who pay attention. We have, as a friend of mine says, "pre-knowledge" of what's to come IF we allow the profiteers to keep on with more of the same poisoning and destruction of Earth's resources.
Perhaps if we start calling Public Meetings in our towns and invite people to come and express what they think we all do -- we must get the majority public in the decision-making -- and then form large groups to discuss what actions to take, rather like any other movement.
But the key is to BEGIN TO INVOLVE THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN DECISION-MAKING. This is critical.
My words for the moment....I'm writing a small Plan for my local region, and will post it when I can figure out what really are the best things we can do out of so many that need doing.
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Plant a garden, put windows on South side, store food for winter, install composting toilet, etc...we haven't much time to get ready.
Here are some ideas to ponder:
Almost all have seen “An Inconvenient Truth” and noticed or remember the big ice core data chart projected on a wall and viewed from a fork lift. A study of that chart reveals a lot about our predicament.
The chart shows about 6 ice age cycles over the last 650,000 years. Temperature deviation from mean and CO2 rise and fall together. The last 3 cycles show well-defined spikes. We are now at or very near the top of a spike.
Several questions and observations present themselves just from this chart alone:
--Did humans or some other overly-successful mammals cause or merely ride the previous cycles?
--What sort of weather phenomenon defeated and reversed these spikes in such a short time?
--When, where and how does the massive ice that constitutes an ice age form?
--How will the massive excess of GHGs we have added affect the way this cycle will play out?
--Obviously, the ice sheets on neither Greenland nor Antarctica melted entirely off before the reversals occurred, or no ice core data could have been harvested.
--We're getting a lot of melting now.
--The height of the temp reading is very close to what looks to have been the trigger point range for the other cycles.
Gore/IPCC, Hansen and others have concluded that anthropogenic forcings will drive planetary mean temperature to increase, raising the sea to catastrophic levels. Others, Hollywood included, have proposed that changes in the ocean conveyer current drives climate change. I would presume to amend the former to state that we are in and part of a natural climate cycle, but have driven and continue to drive important aspects of the climate (GHGs) out of natural levels into very dangerous territory. I would presume to conjecture about the latter that variations of conveyer currents are phenomena characteristic of a mature or receding glacial period.
But the signature, sudden and long-term reversals of previous spikes strongly suggest another outcome, which is neither less challenging nor requires a different remedial strategy. I think that the temperature rise to tipping point will occur, not gradually, but suddenly, and that sea level will actually fall as water is relocated to the polar latitudes. Simple mechanical actions inline with physical laws will act in concert to drive temperature to the tipping point. It is likely that the timing of such an outcome is linked to the rate of melting of Greenland’s ice sheet.
I theorize that a combination of changing angular momentum of the planet, tectonic plate movement, and under-sea volcanism will provide the last few degrees of heat, and charge the atmosphere with the water vapor and energy necessary to drive the phenomenal weather event(s) which will replace water to the high/mid latitudes as ice /snow, reverse the temperature rise, end the present inter-glacial period, and begin the descent into an ice age.
continued---
Angular momentum is now changing as land-borne ice melts and relocates as liquid to the equatorial bulge of the planet. Angular momentum varies as the square of the distance of the mass from the rotational axis. Ice close to the axis near the poles is melting and relocating as water at the maximum distance from the axis. High latitude ice packs a big punch as low latitude water. Tension on tectonic plates is now increasing as mass moves and momentum changes, as well as from the slow rising of the unburdened land areas. Tidal and slight gravitational forces may play a part. I theorize that these, in combination, will lead to a planet-wide seismic event. Thence, volcanism along tectonic plate boundaries will add heat to the sea. Events associated with seismic activity, such as tsunamis, and, typical but grand storms will soak large areas of land with water which will then be heated by the Sun, raising even more water vapor into the atmosphere. The time span within which this process would occur would necessarily be short---a flash in the pan---weeks, to perhaps a season.
Angular momentum is the missing note in the chord. It is the counter-intuitive, non-linear key to the forcing of the forcings. Whether or not this theory obtains, no doubt, Nature will reveal herself as a complete system, whether I/we understand, agree or not.
Keeping in mind that humanity, such as we are, has survived a previous natural cycle, we are faced with the most serious challenge. Our challenge is to break the inertia of and reverse all aspects of the anthropogenic status quo which are driving planetary GHGs and heat out of historical norms. Should we succeed at that, we would have at least an even chance that recognizable civilization may continue over the next 100,000 years. Should we fail at that, our very survival as a species would be subject to variables we have not faced before. Of course, if the above theory is accurate, all our activities as civilized, rational societies should be re-directed away from petty economic concerns to long term survival in harmony with Nature.
Our response will be the measure of our species.
DoSomething
I'm most impressed by your practical approach.
I've written about what individuals can do
http://www.openfuture.co.nz/depression/personalorg.html
And I make suggestions for community action.
http://www.openfuture.co.nz/depression/communityorg.html
I hope you find that useful.
John
John Stephen Veitch
The Network Ambassador
http://www.openfuture.co.nz/
"There is a simple conclusion here: the self-same abuses of debt-driven "casino capitalism" that have caused the global economy to collapse are what lie behind the impending collapse of the life-support systems on which we all ultimately depend."
Every time I hear some pundit use the term "casino capitalism", I know what they're suggesting. They want us to believe that all of our problems would not be here if capitalism just wasn't so much like capitalism. If we could somehow mandate a better, more equitable, environmentally sustainable capitalism, comprised of capitalists that serve the common good more than their own selfish greedy interests, things would turn around for the better. This outlook is really just a crock of shit and usually espoused just to mislead and maintain the domination of the ruling class.
The only thing that can keep capitalism in check is the rising class struggle of the working class. When capitalism was able to provide a better living standard for the American worker in the 50s and 60s, it was because the working class actively fought for a larger share of the economic pie that they produced. Starting in the 70s, the capitalist class fought a high intensity class war against the working class, essentially rolling back the gains made in those two decades. Capitalism had returned to the way it normally functioned from its inception.
You cannot employ an economic system based on "the profit motive", that pits the interests of one class against another and arrive at equality and sustainability. The system itself forces the capitalist class to constantly seek out ways to increase the exploitation of the working class and the environment because failure to do so will leave an individual capitalist "uncompetitive" and result in his/her demise. When the system itself operates at that level, the choices before us are limited indeed. Although the state can "regulate" the capitalist economy by various degrees, all it can ultimately do is either:
1) lessen the rate of exploitation of workers and the environment, essentially prolonging the cyclical crisis of capitalism, or
2) regulate capitalism itself out of existence.
The second option, which is the only option that can bring about real progressive historical change, will only come about when the working class takes control of the state away from the capitalist class and in so doing, removes the capitalist class itself.
The solution to the environmental crisis is totally integrated with the solution to the class struggle itself - the end of capitalism and the adoption of an alternative economic system we can call "socialism". How the new socialist society operates is yet to be defined, but it starts from the premise that only one class remains within its structure - the working class. It does away with the exploitation of one class by another and is democratically controlled by the overwhelming majority of the people in the interests of the people. It is based on a system where the common good usurps the interests of the individual through its co-operative and communal structures. It rests upon the doing away with the ability of one to exploit the many and in so doing opens the doors not only to an equitable world but also bringing about true environmental sustainability.
We either learn to live together or we all perish. The obstacle to doing this is the present economic system.
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What Is Marxism? - a short primer on a subject the working class needs to know.
http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marxism.html
A key part of making the changes you recommend is understanding the CORPORATION.
Please read Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Protection---the rise of the corporation and the theft of human rights". It is a real eye opener.
Do Something,
Since you have some land and water you will be in better shape than most... You are on the right track and Good Luck.
So the seeds are planted for an authentic revolution by we the people.
The same circumstances unfolded in this country in 1968 when we witnessed mass rioting in cities across the country, and the Democratic National Convention when young people revolted against the status quo Democratic Party perpetuating the Vietnam war without end. Much like Obama's plan to leave 50,000 troops in Iraq as an occupation force. Also take the student slayings at Kent State, and in Mississippi at a couple of black campuses where students lost their lives. When people are forced into survival mode, the rules no longer apply.
elohim wrote: "So the seeds are planted for an authentic revolution by we the people."
You might be interested in reading an interview of the Marxist economist John Bellamy Foster here:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20930
Within it he states:
"... real solutions to the contradictions of capitalism lie not in Keynesian economics but in a revolt from below of the population, which holds out the potential for a change in the rules of the game. Joan Robinson said somewhere that a political movement strong enough to reform capitalism would also be strong enough to introduce socialism. Therein lies our hope and their fear."
He points out why, under capitalism, environmental "solutions" are so hard to come by:
"In spending on the environment in a capitalist economy one runs up, like everywhere else, on deeply entrenched class forces of resistance."
And concludes by pointing out why real solutions cannot be found through the economic theories of capitalist economists:
"Keynes can help us understand the flaws of capitalism but he cannot take us very far down the road to meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. His practical suggestions were in the end simply limited to trying to fix what he called "magneto" (or alternator) problems. He avoided directly addressing the larger contradictions or "outstanding faults" of capitalism that he saw. He never got beyond advocating more in capitalist terms, while we live in a world where we need to focus on enough. For this we need not Keynes (or Schumpeter), but the much more revolutionary -- economically, socially, and ecologically -- figure of Marx. (See my Marx's Ecology.) Keynes represented the last great scientific defender of a "rational capitalism" that has now proven to be impossible."
-----------------------------------------
What Is Marxism? - a short primer on a subject the working class needs to know.
http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marxism.html
The "Green Solutions" proposed in the U.S. are not nearly enough. They are designed to make it possible for corporate power to continue to ravage the Earth while pretending to be concerned. We are already seeing a flood of people seeking food from Food Not Bombs and we are starting as many Food Not Lawns gardens as possible. we are reclaiming housing with Homes Not Jails and organizing really really Free Markets and Bikes Not Bombs collectives. We do have solutions but they are found in building community and seeking ways to provide for our basic needs. It is possible that this crisis will provide an opening to a new non-corporate cooperative future.
right on, menu! glad you mentioned the really really free markets!... haven't encountered one yet in my hometown... will have to get off my butt and start one, so thanks for the reminder!... the 'cultural creatives' are not exclusively those well-connected innovators working within the frames of commodity markets and intellectual property rights etc., but are folks willing to think outside the end-of-history monoculture box and get a move-on along that learning curve toward cooperative sharing of resources & diverse ideas and supporting/nurturing a PUBLIC COMMONS, whether it's in the sharing of tools or skills within a household or neighborhood or grassroots organizing of larger community gardening or bike-collective initiatives.... there's so many possibilities... i'm not sure that all corporatists are so soulless as to all be 'pretending to be concerned' either... entrenched and comfortable human beings can and do often behave pretty lumpish until they really feel authentically motivated to change and this perfect storm may well, as you say, provide some of that motivation.
snydly
"Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken.
Communists and capitalists have both been traditionally in favor of constant industrial development; neither Adam Smith nor Carl Marx said much about environmental limits. If your population keeps growing, you cannot have peace or prosperity, or environmental sustainability. Communist countries have had extreme environmental degradation, as have capitalist ones: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez, Three Gorges Dam, ongoing pollution and degradation of air, water, soil . . .
Ah, yes: the working class: human beings are freely expendable when there are so many of them.
All good points.
no matter what happens, the need for water and food is certain...plant plant plant...rip up pavement and plant...
Finally, more people are connecting the dots:
Global Capitalism produces Global Warming.
Global capitalism allows people to feed themselves. If companies pollute, then they should be prosecuted. By the way, the sun causes global warming. National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
Wake up people, global warming from smoke stacks and cow farts is lie - a puch for banks to collect a global tax and rip you off.
Global capitalism does not allow people to feed themselves. Quite the contrary, it impoverishes many people, driving farmers to cities where they live in even dire poverty.
Capitalism is why you are typing this note on your computer. The use of capital in the free market allowed computer technology to expand dynamically and in an unpredictable, but progressive way. The expanding marketplace allows people to "feed themselves" in different ways. Any place where a marketplace is too controlled or inhibited is a place where there is poverty. Capitalism is no more evil or responsible for killing things than a car is evil because people are killed in them - in other words, guns don't kill people, people kill people. This is why we have law. Prosecute the criminals - and leave people free to live their lives. Capitalism allows people to be free in a functioning marketplace. Come on - this is obvious. If you want a farm, then work and save for it.
"When Corporations Rule the World", by David Korten.
Also, "Unequal Protection", by Thom Hartmann.
"Shock Doctrine", by Naomi Klein.
Would that it was as simple as enforcing the laws.
Capitalism and Corporate Fascism are not the same thing. Naomi Klein is right when she rails against Corporate Fascism, when the govt and big business conspire to rule over the people. But that is not the same thing as Capitalism - When you save money in your pocket, mattress or bank - that is capital. When you have capital, you can spend it the way you want in the free market... within the rule of law. The freer the market, the freer the people. Bad banks or bad business should fail.
Or, "Creates the conditions under which the natural cycle we now face may become unsurvivable".
Same problem. Same solution.
There is only one solution (I say again). Cut the population back to 1 billion or less human beings. If we don't do it voluntarily, mother nature will do it in ugly fashion.
Sterilize every baby born for the next 20 years.
You are a sick and demented person. You obviously do not have a child, weirdo. The earth is abundant. People are not insects.
True. People are not insects; they are much worse than that. In nature, creatures except for humans, do what needs to be done for survival. Humans wreak havoc and destroy their chances for survival.
I don't advocate forced sterilization, but we could advocate limits on an individual's number of children and tax heavily for more. We could provide birth control free.
The "perfect storm" is here already. People are being forced into poverty and out of homes while homes sit empty. One in nine US residences is empty. People in the US are NOT getting medical care or financial help. Food distribution programs are struggling to deal with the increased load. Job losses continue with no end in sight.
Capitalism has sold the products of every farm and field in the world for dozens of years ahead on the assumption that there will never be a bad year and the farmer and the ox don't eat. The capitalists have promised that the farmer can produce five crops per season and then sold those promises to the banks. It's a metaphor but more true than tales of "credit default swaps."
The problem with all of these bailout plans is that they are impossible. Without immediately taking wealth from the top 5 percent and distributing it to the bottom third so that they can get some work done the global economy is DOA.
Everything you see on the news is the equivalent of a paddlewheel riverboat trying to push the shore out of the way. The engines roar, smoke pours out, water flies everywhere but the but isn't going to move.
The wealthy of the world have written checks that the environment cannot cash and attempts to extract payment will only make matters worse. The current system, capitalism and communism included, is dead. Deal with environmental realities or you may be follow.
According to the Mayan calender, the end of time is foreseen by december 2012. That will probably pretty much coincide with the end of the cycle of Ichtus (Christ), the elevation of the humble man, which did not result in communism as predicted by Karl Marx, but simply in the complete and utter destruction of anything we might call human culture. Let us see what Aquarius brings.
djan stated that, "According to the Mayan calender, the end of time is foreseen by december 2012."
Some readers may interpret the above phrase as meaning the complete end of the earth. According to Mayan cosmology there will be a change, but by no means do they predict the end of the world. It is true that the calendar (one of many Mayan calendars) will end, but it will be replaced by a new one. By the way,some evangelical religious groups have misinterpreted and used this Mayan prediction for their own purposes.
Like snydly, I too have been wondering about the effects of nutation and other related factors (tidal forces, disturbances of the mantle, torque factors, Chandler wobble, westward drift, isostatic rebound, etc) and their relevance in these times - and consistent with previous ice ages. If anyone has information regarding such factors, I would be very interested...
I also would like to remind people that the Atlantic conveyor is not solely responsible for moderated weather in certain regions, according to some scientists who study the issue - tectonic movements, mountain ranges, and related changes in wind/weather patterns also offer a reputable alternative explanation. On top of that, we have serious perturbations in magnetic stability - the poles do shift regularly.
That said, when I was in school it was stressed that OVERPOPULATION would be the greatest threat of our times - and it's hard to deny that. This planet simply CANNOT sustain as large a population of humans as we now have, let alone rise to the predictions popular today. Even back then, the growing populations in China, India, and other populous non-industrialized regions suggested a great upheaval was inevitable. (Of course, in the days of Sputnik, science was the preferred career - not 'business' which has doomed us with fascism.
I like the simple life - although I've already had just about everything I ever wanted, in those 'glory years' of the '60s and '70s (and even '80's) when we didn't think that much about how we were impacting the planet (other than littering and pollution.) However, zoning ordinances have made 'living simply' nearly impossible - maybe that's why so many people opted for those 'hobby farms' - which may come in quite handy, after all. Right now, I wish I still had one!
Hello Brat.
To add to the reading list:
I've just finished first reading of a 10 yr old book, "The Great Ice Age" by Wilson, J L Chapman, and others, which is very well documented academic/scientific treatment of many of the issues around climate change---incl'g the rise of humanity.
The book is hard to find, got mine on loan from the library after a computer search state-wide. Old info, but we seem to be subject to at least a 10 year lag on any actionable info here on the street.
Also ran into an interesting topic that needs some light: Magnetic Striping, a geo-tectonic process along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge whereby fresh magma solidifies oriented to the prevaling mag field, leaving a perfect mirror image record not only of mag reversals, but also plate-tectonic movement. NO WHERE have I seen a discussion of that as it applies to climate history and change. Who would have that info? Navy? WoodsHole? Oceanic Survey?
James Hansen/NASA also has a great website.
A perspective I'm sure you'd appreciate comes from "Black Elk Speaks" a 1932 book by Neihart. In it B E says, "The only things that work well are the things that work the way Nature works." And in the rote blessings before each medicine ritual he ref to each of the 4 directions---the North is "Where the Great White Giant lives". Word of mouth for 12,000 years!
Thanks for the info! It's been a while since I've heard any talk about magnetic striping - it is also quite evident in the lava beds in Oregon, where I used to live - you can check it out yourself, if you're ambitious enough (There are places where the striping changes in mid-lava flow!) I heard it mentioned once - a long time ago - in relation to global weather changes, but can't remember where I saw it - I used to use the web pretty heavily a few years ago. I think it might have been some Geodesic Survey information... Anyway, it got me thinking about the effect on the atmosphere, since any planet lacking strong magnetic poles cannot maintain an atmosphere - there IS some connection to the weather, which I think I read about a long time ago concerning the possibility of creating a livable atmosphere on a planet such as Mars (it can't be done, as far as I know) or Venus (terra-forming).
The Great Ice Age sounds interesting - my library is pretty good about finding things for me, so I'll ask. I've always been interested in the ice ages - living in the Northwest there is so much evidence of prior catastrophic events - such as Lake Missoula (the Scablands) and various volcanic eruptions due to tectonic forces which are not quite yet explained very well. Plate tectonics didn't even exist a few decades ago, but I've always had suspicions (as did my father, who knew St Helens would be a disaster - we were there when it blew). I don't think the average person looks beyond 'sound bites' - there just isn't the interest in science that once prevailed. Global warming isn't as simple as some people would like for us to believe - including Gore, who is pretty simplistic in his perspective - maybe 'biased' would be a better word.
I'm also a great believer in native legends - there just isn't enough respect for verbal histories, which often are handed down with great seriousness and respect. (Including the one about St Helens) My own family has such tales to tell, albeit on different subjects - and I usually can verify them if I dig deep enough in history. It's all too easy to get swept up in the latest fab - although overpopulation IS a problem (probably THE problem). It doesn't bode well for the future - and just like the economic meltdown, there are no easy pat answers, although there are 'solutions' that are entirely nonsensical.
I don't think the average person realizes how much extrapolation is used to come to any 'conclusions' - how really unscientific some of those theories are when faced with inflexible mathmatical equations. Hell, we don't even know that much about the planetary core - we know certain things happened in the past, but not why. Same goes for ancient weather patterns - ice cores are just one element to tell a story - geology doesn't always follow what would appear to be 'common sense' either. Anyone who has lived out west will know what I mean.
Thanks again - this site isn't the usual place to find people with hard-science interests (or knowledge).
Nanoo
Thanks for the input about the "Black Elk Speaks" and the honor given the four directions. Quite interesting.
The Way is a new (yet ancient) mythology which evokes an ethos of honoring the Earth.
It certainly could be better; for one thing people could be educated or educate themselves about science, history, and especially ecology and psychology so they would recognize spurious arguments and untenable points of view when they read them. Like anti-global climate catastrophe-ism.
For another thing people could be raised more lovingly and surrounded by nature so that they would not suffer from the illusion of separateness that infects conservatives in particular. They would realize how things and beings are all connected and could heal the rage and grief that comes from feeling alone in the world. Those (usually unconscious) feelings are what drives addictions of all kinds--not just to drugs and alcohol but to things, doing, money, (false) security and control, etc.--essentially, modern civilization.