Sunday, 13 October 2013
It's a no go for Y.O.L.O....
Some time ago an 'ex' of mine asked me "why didn't you come back?"
As I was wondering what she could possibly mean ( I'd only known her a couple of weeks)
an unbidden memory flooded my mind's eye..... as clear as any remembering I have ever had.
There I was sat under that stunted Birch tree. Facing two young men in clothing straight from a period drama and I was pleading with them to leave. I had no need to look to my gut as I already knew what I would see once my gaze rested there. I was gut ripped and my life was seeping away through the cloth that bound me tight and that had once formed a part of my clothing.
I remembered leaving on a sunny summers day and telling my wife and children I would be back later...... I guess one of those scrappy kids was now the person who just asked why I hadn't kept my word to her.
Am I just blessed with a very quick and vivid imagination or had I really been forced to relive the end of a past life? All I know is it felt very real to me in that moment of time as did the tears it forced me to shed as I felt the deep loss I was feeling as those men did as bid and turned and ran away from me leaving to to bleed out whilst I looked on the small lake in front of me.
I'll tell you one thing I do know .I never want to feel that pain ever again!
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Laugh? I could have cried......
Where was I? Oh yes, Mother N.
I've drifted toward a very 'Lovelockian' view of how our planet and how She regulates herself. Stability and balance appear to be the short term aims of the system with only the longer view showing us just how varied a place it really is.
Our plants and animals seem to reflect this in their evolution. They will change to better fit a new environment but only over time. This adaptation has come about so as to suit the way the planet changes. When change is too fast then the plant/animal fails to adapt quickly enough and becomes extinct (either in that region or across the planet).
To enable this 'short term stability' Mother N. has developed a knack for soaking up change.....to a point. It reminds me of the first law of physics I ever learned, Hooke's Law, " The extension of a spring is directly proportional to the applied load...up until a point... that point being it's 'elastic limit'..." .I see Mother N. working in the same way but instead of having 'Elastic Limit's ' we have 'Tipping Points'. She Beavers away trying to keep things the way they were but if the forcing is all in one direction eventually She will say " Damn it!" and things will lurch upward to a new point of rest. Balance, after all, is the application of the least amount of effort to remain at rest.
What I see in Climate Change is a small ( but growing) forcing in one constant direction. Mother Nature will try and stomp on that forcing ( by her natural Forcing's and feedback's) but eventually she will concede defeat and Climate will, in an instant, switch up to the next closest 'balance point'.
The first of these major Tipping points has been reached and it is only a matter of time before we see a rapid , global, climate shift to a new rest point.
The trigger has not been our puny little GHG forcing but what that forcing has achieved over it's lifetime.
Take a chunk of land and cover it in ice. Over 90% of the energy hitting the land/ice gets bounced straight back into space. Remove the ice and the chunk of land soaks up over 80% of that energy and re-emits it back into the atmosphere above as infra red energy. That is a big change in an energy budget. A jump from 10% to over 80% in just one season.
This is what we are now seeing occur across the Arctic. Archaeologists are having a boon time as ice/snow patches melt away revealing relics from as far back as the end of the last ice age. Perfectly preserved for thousands of years in Mother N.'s fridge they are only now being defrosted as lands once ice/snow covered become bare earth. even the Ocean, once sealed in ice tens of metres thick is now seeing the light of day. We have to also realise that over summer the 'light of day' is 24hrs long there and amounts to a bigger chunk of incoming energy than is received at the equator.
A big change is underway and I fear that mother N. is about to say " hang it all!" and flip up to the next 'stable' place for global climate.
But what then?
Well remember that dormant portion of our Carbon cycle? It's day has come!
Should we have reached this 'Tipping Point' then no matter what we do with future emissions Mother N. is going to release the amount of carbon that used to form our carbon cycle the last time we saw such global temps. Put it another way. We sat at 280ppm CO2 for the longest of times. now we have raised that level to 400ppm CO2. Slowly temps will rise to match this level ( last seen many thousands of years ago with much higher sea levels due to much less land ice) . Much less land ice means 2/3rd's of Greenland's ice and all of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Below this ice lies the old remnants of the portion of the Carbon cycle that kept the planet warm enough to see so little ice around.
So below this ice and locked in the permafrost lies at least 120ppm of CO2 waiting to rejoin the carbon cycle.
Even if we only see half this amount flood back into the system atmospheric CO2 will breach another important climate threshold.
35 Million years ago Global CO2 levels dropped below 450ppm. This saw the start of the glaciation of Antarctica. surely if CO2 levels go over 450ppm the reverse will begin to occur? Surely this will then liberate the portion of the carbon Cycle now dormant below East Antarctica's vast ice sheets?
And then what?.............
I've drifted toward a very 'Lovelockian' view of how our planet and how She regulates herself. Stability and balance appear to be the short term aims of the system with only the longer view showing us just how varied a place it really is.
Our plants and animals seem to reflect this in their evolution. They will change to better fit a new environment but only over time. This adaptation has come about so as to suit the way the planet changes. When change is too fast then the plant/animal fails to adapt quickly enough and becomes extinct (either in that region or across the planet).
To enable this 'short term stability' Mother N. has developed a knack for soaking up change.....to a point. It reminds me of the first law of physics I ever learned, Hooke's Law, " The extension of a spring is directly proportional to the applied load...up until a point... that point being it's 'elastic limit'..." .I see Mother N. working in the same way but instead of having 'Elastic Limit's ' we have 'Tipping Points'. She Beavers away trying to keep things the way they were but if the forcing is all in one direction eventually She will say " Damn it!" and things will lurch upward to a new point of rest. Balance, after all, is the application of the least amount of effort to remain at rest.
What I see in Climate Change is a small ( but growing) forcing in one constant direction. Mother Nature will try and stomp on that forcing ( by her natural Forcing's and feedback's) but eventually she will concede defeat and Climate will, in an instant, switch up to the next closest 'balance point'.
The first of these major Tipping points has been reached and it is only a matter of time before we see a rapid , global, climate shift to a new rest point.
The trigger has not been our puny little GHG forcing but what that forcing has achieved over it's lifetime.
Take a chunk of land and cover it in ice. Over 90% of the energy hitting the land/ice gets bounced straight back into space. Remove the ice and the chunk of land soaks up over 80% of that energy and re-emits it back into the atmosphere above as infra red energy. That is a big change in an energy budget. A jump from 10% to over 80% in just one season.
This is what we are now seeing occur across the Arctic. Archaeologists are having a boon time as ice/snow patches melt away revealing relics from as far back as the end of the last ice age. Perfectly preserved for thousands of years in Mother N.'s fridge they are only now being defrosted as lands once ice/snow covered become bare earth. even the Ocean, once sealed in ice tens of metres thick is now seeing the light of day. We have to also realise that over summer the 'light of day' is 24hrs long there and amounts to a bigger chunk of incoming energy than is received at the equator.
A big change is underway and I fear that mother N. is about to say " hang it all!" and flip up to the next 'stable' place for global climate.
But what then?
Well remember that dormant portion of our Carbon cycle? It's day has come!
Should we have reached this 'Tipping Point' then no matter what we do with future emissions Mother N. is going to release the amount of carbon that used to form our carbon cycle the last time we saw such global temps. Put it another way. We sat at 280ppm CO2 for the longest of times. now we have raised that level to 400ppm CO2. Slowly temps will rise to match this level ( last seen many thousands of years ago with much higher sea levels due to much less land ice) . Much less land ice means 2/3rd's of Greenland's ice and all of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Below this ice lies the old remnants of the portion of the Carbon cycle that kept the planet warm enough to see so little ice around.
So below this ice and locked in the permafrost lies at least 120ppm of CO2 waiting to rejoin the carbon cycle.
Even if we only see half this amount flood back into the system atmospheric CO2 will breach another important climate threshold.
35 Million years ago Global CO2 levels dropped below 450ppm. This saw the start of the glaciation of Antarctica. surely if CO2 levels go over 450ppm the reverse will begin to occur? Surely this will then liberate the portion of the carbon Cycle now dormant below East Antarctica's vast ice sheets?
And then what?.............
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
No Worries..........
So, why a Blog now?
Well mainly because I can no longer 'keep up' with the forum posting I used to vent my angst on.... my poor noggin is just not up to it any more!
There is no disconnect 'twixt mind and body...traffic flows in both directions and so a knackered body impacts the mind just as much as a knackered mind will mess with your physical health.
That said the issues that do give me cause for concern truly do weigh heavily on me these days.
Rapid climate shift is one such concern.
Not that you would think it a 'concern' if you read right wing media or listened to republican rhetoric or were a reader of the disinformation blogs. You'd be quite happily sold on the lie that nobody knows anything about our climate 'for sure' , that the climate has always changed ( why? weren't we under a mile of ice just 20 thousand years ago???) and that anything of concern is merely an attempt by corrupt science teams to secure the next gushing installment of the gravy train on which they ride......
If you are a 'sceptic' , in the fullest sense of the word, you might currently hold a very different opinion on where our planet is headed.
You see even the word 'Sceptic' has been robbed of it's meaning by the Koch Bro.'s endeavour's , a once noble intent is now sullied with the misleaders wish to lie ,cheat, misinform the Developed World into thinking that all we once knew about atmospheric science is tosh and that past records of our planet's climate are all based on guesswork. The fact that their Dollar has been wisely invested can be heard in near every discussion about climate change, about the threats we face and of Global Warming's current 'status'. But then if you had you employed the teams that helped the tobacco industry save Billions on payouts to it's victim's ( by keeping the debate about it's 'health properties' running until most all claims had died with the claimant's ) you can see why?
I am no Scientist and so need content myself with the 'wide view' of climate change.I can look at paleo climates and see how different a world it would be if global temps matched those in past epoch's. I can ask as to why we wouldn't return to such climates if we force the atmosphere's greenhouse Gasses to similar levels? I can see many different periods of higher G.H.G. forcings throughout our recent geological record and each one hosts higher global temps and higher sea levels. To me it is as simple as 'A,B,C'. Do this and this will , over time, result. Raise the Planets capacity to hold onto heat and that is just what the Planet will do. Mother Nature is a great one for balance, she will do Her level best to keep everything in balance so when we change one of the parameters she will, through her inscrutable ways, allow everything else to find the 'new' balance point.
Now this would not be so bad if we were just looking at the extra carbon we have introduced into the system but things are never that simple.
Our planet is on the chilly side of it's being. It's only been recently ( past 35 million years that is) that we have sported permanent ice sheets on the planet. for the longest of times our 'balance point' was one with more G.H.G.'s and so higher global temps and sea levels. When , for one reason and another, we began to cool we not only put on ice but also put into cold storage the part of the Carbon Cycle that had allowed us those higher temps. The old Carbon Cycle did not disappear, it just went into hibernation.
Mankind has now found another source of Carbon to flood the atmosphere with. The remnants of Carbon cycle many tens of millions of years old ( over 200 million for the Carboniferous deposits!) and one that should never ,ever, have been allowed to see the light of day again. Over the millions of years it would either have slowly been drawn back into the planet at plate margins or just been buried ever deeper inside the Continents.
"So what?" you say.
Well more G.H.G.'s mean higher Temp.s ( and sea levels) and this means the global ice sheets will no longer be stable features at their current extents. Under that ice , and making up the permafrost ,is the 'old' portion of the Carbon Cycle that used to keep the planet nice and toasty.
The Climate Misleaders would want you believe it 'reasonable' that , were G.H.G.'s as dangerous as science paints them, that we should see near instant responses from their increases in the atmosphere.If we don't then Global Warming is nought but a lie purportrated by greedy scientists hungry for funding.......
When you understand that Mankind has flooded the atmosphere with G.H.G.'s up to 100 times faster than Mother N. ever did in the past you can begin to understand why we should not expect this 'instant' change. When past Epoch's showed temp rises taking 1,000's of years to occur you can see why our recent 'hikes' are so anomalous.
The question has to be 'How will Mother N. respond to such instant forcing?'
Maybe the 2007 'mega melt' across the Arctic Basin gives us clues both to how She will attempt to find balance but also of the problems she will find as She allows Temps to rise............
Well mainly because I can no longer 'keep up' with the forum posting I used to vent my angst on.... my poor noggin is just not up to it any more!
There is no disconnect 'twixt mind and body...traffic flows in both directions and so a knackered body impacts the mind just as much as a knackered mind will mess with your physical health.
That said the issues that do give me cause for concern truly do weigh heavily on me these days.
Rapid climate shift is one such concern.
Not that you would think it a 'concern' if you read right wing media or listened to republican rhetoric or were a reader of the disinformation blogs. You'd be quite happily sold on the lie that nobody knows anything about our climate 'for sure' , that the climate has always changed ( why? weren't we under a mile of ice just 20 thousand years ago???) and that anything of concern is merely an attempt by corrupt science teams to secure the next gushing installment of the gravy train on which they ride......
If you are a 'sceptic' , in the fullest sense of the word, you might currently hold a very different opinion on where our planet is headed.
You see even the word 'Sceptic' has been robbed of it's meaning by the Koch Bro.'s endeavour's , a once noble intent is now sullied with the misleaders wish to lie ,cheat, misinform the Developed World into thinking that all we once knew about atmospheric science is tosh and that past records of our planet's climate are all based on guesswork. The fact that their Dollar has been wisely invested can be heard in near every discussion about climate change, about the threats we face and of Global Warming's current 'status'. But then if you had you employed the teams that helped the tobacco industry save Billions on payouts to it's victim's ( by keeping the debate about it's 'health properties' running until most all claims had died with the claimant's ) you can see why?
I am no Scientist and so need content myself with the 'wide view' of climate change.I can look at paleo climates and see how different a world it would be if global temps matched those in past epoch's. I can ask as to why we wouldn't return to such climates if we force the atmosphere's greenhouse Gasses to similar levels? I can see many different periods of higher G.H.G. forcings throughout our recent geological record and each one hosts higher global temps and higher sea levels. To me it is as simple as 'A,B,C'. Do this and this will , over time, result. Raise the Planets capacity to hold onto heat and that is just what the Planet will do. Mother Nature is a great one for balance, she will do Her level best to keep everything in balance so when we change one of the parameters she will, through her inscrutable ways, allow everything else to find the 'new' balance point.
Now this would not be so bad if we were just looking at the extra carbon we have introduced into the system but things are never that simple.
Our planet is on the chilly side of it's being. It's only been recently ( past 35 million years that is) that we have sported permanent ice sheets on the planet. for the longest of times our 'balance point' was one with more G.H.G.'s and so higher global temps and sea levels. When , for one reason and another, we began to cool we not only put on ice but also put into cold storage the part of the Carbon Cycle that had allowed us those higher temps. The old Carbon Cycle did not disappear, it just went into hibernation.
Mankind has now found another source of Carbon to flood the atmosphere with. The remnants of Carbon cycle many tens of millions of years old ( over 200 million for the Carboniferous deposits!) and one that should never ,ever, have been allowed to see the light of day again. Over the millions of years it would either have slowly been drawn back into the planet at plate margins or just been buried ever deeper inside the Continents.
"So what?" you say.
Well more G.H.G.'s mean higher Temp.s ( and sea levels) and this means the global ice sheets will no longer be stable features at their current extents. Under that ice , and making up the permafrost ,is the 'old' portion of the Carbon Cycle that used to keep the planet nice and toasty.
The Climate Misleaders would want you believe it 'reasonable' that , were G.H.G.'s as dangerous as science paints them, that we should see near instant responses from their increases in the atmosphere.If we don't then Global Warming is nought but a lie purportrated by greedy scientists hungry for funding.......
When you understand that Mankind has flooded the atmosphere with G.H.G.'s up to 100 times faster than Mother N. ever did in the past you can begin to understand why we should not expect this 'instant' change. When past Epoch's showed temp rises taking 1,000's of years to occur you can see why our recent 'hikes' are so anomalous.
The question has to be 'How will Mother N. respond to such instant forcing?'
Maybe the 2007 'mega melt' across the Arctic Basin gives us clues both to how She will attempt to find balance but also of the problems she will find as She allows Temps to rise............
Sunday, 6 October 2013
It only hurts when I laugh.....
My Father was right! There is something radically wrong with me.....
I'd had the normal quota of aches and pains over my 50yrs... not bad when you think about what that naughty Ward Sister did to me back in 67' (resulting in 'Volkmann's ischemic contracture' to my right arm and a badly warped right shoulder...) but this is something far more impacting.
It all started in Dec of 2010 ( the 10th I believe?) , not that I noticed as I was lain waste with the worst bout of Flu I've ever suffered from, and it's not really abated since.
Brother Luke, my adopted Son, had picked up a bug from school ( Special schools, like old Folk's Homes, are breeding grounds for some of the weirdest and nastiest bugs man can fall prey to). All those compromised immune systems make it the perfect 'meet and greet' centre for every bug doing the rounds and , as you would expect, some of them fall in love and have bastard offspring.
One such love child had Luke in it's claws so I put us into isolation whilst it burned itself out in him. Sadly it jumped ship before it went down and hauled out into my body.
This is where my troubles began. I would speak more of Luke but the impacts of our virus proved too great a challenge for his frail body and he passed away in Feb of 2011. Unlike me Luke didn't have the luxury of saying 'No' , he was non verbal, he couldn't even show us how slow he'd become in his movements, he was wheelchair bound, he couldn't even tell us he was off his food, he was gastro fed, all he could do was endure a full and active winter term at school whilst his poor broken body, pushed beyond it's capacities failed him.
Had I not been so impacted by my woes I might have had a chance to spot how bad he was faring but, cocooned in my own misery, I noticed nothing.
Winters could be bad for me, one slip and my back was out for the duration and 09'/2010' had been a very 'slippy' winter.2010/11 was headed the same way even before my run in with my nasty visitor so I just slogged on when the going became rough.
By May the 'slogging' was still ongoing and I knew something was not right. We'd lost Luke so I knew I ought be low but not so low! Every joint and sinew screamed with unending aches and pains and every new day merely dovetailed into the exhaustion carried over from the previous evening.
My Dr. was advised of my woes but he seemed to think it par for the course of someone in mourning, it had been a rough couple of years, and so thought a period of anti depressants was all that was needed.
Six months of not giving a shi-ite about how little I was doing or how carp I was feeling I advised my Dr. the happy pills were not working out. What followed was a year of upping my pain control and trying out a plethora of weird and wacky brain numbing ' neural interrupters' and I was exactly where I had been in Dec 2010.
Live this way for any extended period of time and you'll find your marbles slowly disappearing.Memory fails and concentration leaves the building.
My Dr. tells me I have 'Post Viral Syndrome', I ask him what it is and he tells me it's all I'm suffering with...... I ask about cures and he says 'None', you learn to live with it. 'Live'? not really. 'Exist'? better.
I'm sure the folk I know and love are sick of me being sick. I know my kids are.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that having this 'syndrome' doesn't impact. Light housework leaves me floored. Sitting leaves me exhausted, walking is a no go. The only time I feel close to 'normal' is when I crawl into bed at night as this is the 'correct' time to feel as done in as I do all day.
So , should you be reading this feeling as I do, you are not alone. I believe you when you tell me how you feel. I understand how limiting it is being around those you Love best and knowing they can't appreciate how it is being you these days. I know how destructive knowing 'this is it now' can be. At least we're still here though. Others did not make it this far so we have to count our blessings and hope beyond hope that this thing does burn out over time, that it is not a life sentence.
I'd had the normal quota of aches and pains over my 50yrs... not bad when you think about what that naughty Ward Sister did to me back in 67' (resulting in 'Volkmann's ischemic contracture' to my right arm and a badly warped right shoulder...) but this is something far more impacting.
It all started in Dec of 2010 ( the 10th I believe?) , not that I noticed as I was lain waste with the worst bout of Flu I've ever suffered from, and it's not really abated since.
Brother Luke, my adopted Son, had picked up a bug from school ( Special schools, like old Folk's Homes, are breeding grounds for some of the weirdest and nastiest bugs man can fall prey to). All those compromised immune systems make it the perfect 'meet and greet' centre for every bug doing the rounds and , as you would expect, some of them fall in love and have bastard offspring.
One such love child had Luke in it's claws so I put us into isolation whilst it burned itself out in him. Sadly it jumped ship before it went down and hauled out into my body.
This is where my troubles began. I would speak more of Luke but the impacts of our virus proved too great a challenge for his frail body and he passed away in Feb of 2011. Unlike me Luke didn't have the luxury of saying 'No' , he was non verbal, he couldn't even show us how slow he'd become in his movements, he was wheelchair bound, he couldn't even tell us he was off his food, he was gastro fed, all he could do was endure a full and active winter term at school whilst his poor broken body, pushed beyond it's capacities failed him.
Had I not been so impacted by my woes I might have had a chance to spot how bad he was faring but, cocooned in my own misery, I noticed nothing.
Winters could be bad for me, one slip and my back was out for the duration and 09'/2010' had been a very 'slippy' winter.2010/11 was headed the same way even before my run in with my nasty visitor so I just slogged on when the going became rough.
By May the 'slogging' was still ongoing and I knew something was not right. We'd lost Luke so I knew I ought be low but not so low! Every joint and sinew screamed with unending aches and pains and every new day merely dovetailed into the exhaustion carried over from the previous evening.
My Dr. was advised of my woes but he seemed to think it par for the course of someone in mourning, it had been a rough couple of years, and so thought a period of anti depressants was all that was needed.
Six months of not giving a shi-ite about how little I was doing or how carp I was feeling I advised my Dr. the happy pills were not working out. What followed was a year of upping my pain control and trying out a plethora of weird and wacky brain numbing ' neural interrupters' and I was exactly where I had been in Dec 2010.
Live this way for any extended period of time and you'll find your marbles slowly disappearing.Memory fails and concentration leaves the building.
My Dr. tells me I have 'Post Viral Syndrome', I ask him what it is and he tells me it's all I'm suffering with...... I ask about cures and he says 'None', you learn to live with it. 'Live'? not really. 'Exist'? better.
I'm sure the folk I know and love are sick of me being sick. I know my kids are.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that having this 'syndrome' doesn't impact. Light housework leaves me floored. Sitting leaves me exhausted, walking is a no go. The only time I feel close to 'normal' is when I crawl into bed at night as this is the 'correct' time to feel as done in as I do all day.
So , should you be reading this feeling as I do, you are not alone. I believe you when you tell me how you feel. I understand how limiting it is being around those you Love best and knowing they can't appreciate how it is being you these days. I know how destructive knowing 'this is it now' can be. At least we're still here though. Others did not make it this far so we have to count our blessings and hope beyond hope that this thing does burn out over time, that it is not a life sentence.
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