Living in a Shitstorm

SUBHEAD: Get over despair. The big problems won't be fixed. A planetary adjustment is at hand.

By Chris Jordan on 17 October 2018 for Huffington Post -
(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/despair-environment-politics_us_5bc5d910e4b0a8f17ee5d240)


Image above: Man hanging onto "Caution" sign as braking storm wave breaks. From internet.

[IB Publisher's note: My advise to the author of this piece... Get over the despair. The big problems won't be fixed. A planetary adjustment is at hand. There is much work to be done by the survivors. Some places will be much safer than others. If you are not in one, find such a spot. Abandon your dependence on "The System" to a degree you never imagined (ditch the car,  the grid, discount retailing and the  information cloud as soon as possible. Hunker down with people you trust and can work or trade with. Entertain each other until the new dawn. P.S. This is the 7,000th post to this blog. Where does the time go?] 

Like all of you, I pay close daily attention to the increasingly grotesque environmental and political shitshow we are witnessing unfold before our astonished eyes. The question is how to respond.

I have never at the same time felt such a strong desire to make a positive difference and less empowered to do so.

In my own psyche, something has shifted on a foundational level.

Most conversations now, even among my wisest and most engaged friends, lead down familiar rabbit holes that end in shrugged shoulders, dumb jokes that mask disempowerment and worn out memes about “solutions” that are infinitesimal in proportion to the scale of the problems.

Ask young people what two words most characterize our future and the response is as instant as it is ubiquitous: “We’re fucked.”

The most relevant internet comment people seem to be able to muster is “vote,” which raises a whole separate conversation, but the crux for me is, “Of course ― and what else?” Politics is an increasing disaster that can be seen as both a cause and a symptom.

I try to step back to a meta-perspective in the hope of achieving a clearer-headed view, but the wide-angle picture becomes even more chaotic. The panopticon turns out to be a Halloween hall of mirrors.

And in this space I find myself steeped in the familiar feeling of dread that I had before going to Midway Island to photograph dead albatrosses whose stomachs are filled with plastic.

To take the next step forward, I know I must face something dark that lies inside of myself, but I can’t quite make out what it is ― something so taken for granted that I don’t see it, like the water we swim in, right in front of our nose but invisible.

Yet its presence is just strong enough to swing the needle of my internal compass in its direction.

The abyss I went to encounter on Midway was grief, which at the time I knew little about and thought was the scariest feeling there is to bear.

Now the form of a new monster emerges through the mist, a hundred times more frightening than grief, a lurking layer in the psyche that possesses the horrible power to drain individual and collective life force. It carries such strong cultural taboos that even naming it risks a kind of social suicide.

But I can no longer deny its residency in my consciousness, like a new roommate who showed up uninvited and now sleeps in my bed next to me and walks with me everywhere I go. I wonder if it accompanies you too. It is that state of mind we call despair.

On uttering the awful term, I realize I know barely anything about it. In my 14 years of individual and group therapy, I don’t recall any of the therapists or clients ever mentioning it, and I have rarely if ever read anything about it or heard discussion of it.

One thing I can observe about it right away is, in the same way I was grief averse, I am exponentially more despair averse. Admitting despair feels like surrendering the game for lost. An abhorrent kind of giving up seems to lie at its core.

At least grief expresses itself in the cathartic flow of tears, with the possibility of moving through to the other side.

Despair presents as an existential energy sink, like bleeding from an artery, a black hole that if approached pulls inescapably toward implosion and emotional collapse.

Acknowledging despair may amplify it, but denying it may feed it even more. The unconscious defense mechanism is avoidance:

Keep up a hopeful facade, say something positive, focus on trivia, talk about solutions, point to some small evidence of improvement somewhere, quote a self-help one-liner, any old cliche will do.

I wonder what it would mean to allow for some measure of despair as a natural response to the ever more fucked-up realities of our world.

Can despair be held and contained as a natural human experience alongside fear, anger, rage, grief, joy, beauty and love?

Or does it somehow diminish or cancel out everything else?

Perhaps there is something empowering and transformative that comes from standing in despair’s crucible.

Given we may create the very depression we fear by holding despair at bay, I want to know what happens if we take the risk of looking all the way into that darkness.

Let us consider the possibility that there may be value in exploring the territory of despair together, embracing it not as an exercise in negativity or capitulation but as a liberating doorway we can step through toward the healing of our relationship with each other and the world.

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The worst product ever marketed

SUBHEAD: Eventually we learn what's the good way to do things. Too bad that it is almost always too late.

By Ugo Bardi on 30 July 2017 for Cassandra's Legacy -

(http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2017/07/what-is-worst-product-ever-marketed.html)


Image above: Detail of Bic advertisement celebrating the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the Bic lighter.  From original article.

Greens often exaggerate in inviting people to save energy and be happier by staying in the dark and eating insects. However, it is also true that sometimes wastefulness goes a few notches higher and becomes truly a scandal. It is the case of the ordinary disposable lighter.

Bic alone produces almost a billion lighters per year and has produced some 20 billions of them in the past 30 years. The whole world production is probably of a few billion per year. A good example of a successful product, but is it a good product?

The disposable lighter is surely practical but also, if you think about it, a very bad deal. It contains some 5 cc of butane, that you pay, typically, more than $1. That means around $200 per liter, or $800/gallon.

You wouldn't be happy to pay that kind of money when you refill the tank of your car. And, being powered by a fossil fuel, butane, every time you light up one you add some CO2 to the atmosphere, some of which will stay there for tens of thousands of years.

Then, the disposable lighter doesn't contain just non-renewable fuel but plastics manufactured from fossil fuels and also polluting. Then, it contains metals such as cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praeseodymium and more.

These metals are classified as "rare earths;" they are not so rare as the name seems to imply, but they are not so common, either. And the lighter is thrown away after use and it will never be recycled. The rare earths it contains will be lost forever.

Is all that enough to qualify disposable lighters as "the worst product ever marketed"? Well, everything can be questioned, but if you line up the characteristics of a bad product as;

1. uses rare and non-renewable resources, 
2. is not recycled and not supposed to be recyclable, 
3. is manufactured on a large scale, 
4. it has non-polluting and less expensive alternatives, there are few examples other than lighters for which you can tick all the four boxes.

I can hardly think of anything so wasteful to set something on fire, no matter whether you are a professional arsonist or simply an ordinary smoker.

After all, what was so wrong with using the old matches? Matches contain only recyclable materials: wood, paper, phosphorous, sulfur. I can't see anything that can be done with a lighter that cannot be done with a match, except that a lighter can burn steadily for a longer time.

But if your purpose is to light up a cigarette or a kitchen burner, it makes no difference. And, by all means, there is no way that a lighter would cost less than a match, at least if manufactured on a comparable scale.

So, disposable lighters are all an example of how a combination of financial factors and government regulations can push a bad product to dominate the market. It is, after all, what has happened with fossil fuels, still gathering large government subsidies, despite the damage they are doing to all of us.

In the case of lighter vs. matches, the playing field has been made unfavorable to matches from the beginning, because they have been traditionally taxed by governments (also lighters, in some cases, but not always).

Add to that the rapid expansion of the cigarette market during the past decades, with some six billion cigarettes sold worldwide every year, and growing, some large companies saw their chance.

They engaged in the large scale manufacturing of lighters and they crushed the match manufacturers, mainly small companies that couldn't match (indeed!) the financial power of large corporations.

The advertising power, too, played a big role, with the appeal of colored and fashionable items that could also be collected. And it was world domination for the disposable lighter.

Could we reverse this demonic trend? Maybe there are signs of an inversion of the tendency and, not long ago, I saw again courtesy matchboxes appearing in an Italian Hotel.

Maybe it was because finally (in 2015) the Italian government decided to abolish the tax on matches, a good idea that, unfortunately, arrived at least 50 years too late (the French Government did that in 1999).

Whatever the case, it is high time that someone realizes that some ideas, such as disposable lighters, are evil to the bone. And that the mythical "free market" cannot turn evil into good.

But maybe you think that the old matches are passé? In this case, we have technologies for getting rid of the obsolete propane lighters without having to get back to the somewhat primitive matches. For instance, we have spark lighters that use only electricity.

They are a solid state alternative to propane lighters in the same way as photovoltaic energy is a solid state alternative to fossil energy. In the picture, you see one of these super hi-tech lighters in the hands of my daughter, Donata.


Image above: Donata Bardi holds solid state spark lighter.  From original article.

So, eventually, we learn what's the good way to do things. Too bad that it is almost always too late.

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Truth about Hawaiian bottled water

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (littlewheel808@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.

By Risa Kuroda on 27 July 2017 for Civic Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/07/the-truth-about-hawaiian-bottled-water/)


Image above: Kauai Natural Artesian Water promotional photo showing a waterfall background. That's not where this water comes from. From (http://www.foodsofhawaii.com/author/kauai-natural-artesian-water/).

Quickly trying to gather your things and your peace of mind, you relax your shoulders slightly: you’ve made it through the security checkpoint at Honolulu International Airport.

Since TSA made you empty your Hydro Flask, you decide to look for a drink. The only water fountain in the terminal trickles water so intermittently that it would take ages to fill your bottle.

You considered just getting a sip to quench your thirst but perceived the risk of catching a minor disease or being shot in the face with a random jet stream as you unwillingly pursed your lips as close to the fountainhead as possible. With a defeated sigh you drag yourself to a store to find no shortage of cold, refreshing, pristine, and over-priced Hawaiian bottled water.

Chances are, you recognized maybe one of the three Hawaiian bottled water brands in that airport store. Hawaii bottles an abundance of magical life giving elixirs but for the most part the water in the bottles of Hawaiian Springs, Waiakea or Hawaii Volcanic, to name a few, is not the water that most Hawaii residents drink.

As the state’s second-highest revenue-generating export, Hawaii’s water travels thousands of miles to bring in in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local economy.

Sounds like a good trade off right? Unfortunately the implications of bottled water on our islands may not be as pristine as we hope it to be.

In fact, our bottled water industries gravely contribute to the exacerbation of the global water crisis, which has profoundly negative impacts on our environment and local communities.

The global water crisis is no hoax. Earth is covered in water but only 2.5 percent of it is fresh water.

Of that portion, 70 percent of it is locked in ice and nearly 30 percent is deep underground in aquifers. Just 0.3 percent of all fresh water is surface water, or what is considered “renewable water” within humanity’s conceivable lifespan.

Though agriculture is the main culprit of consumptive, meaning non-renewable, water extraction bottlers like Hawaiian Springs and Hawaii Volcanic’s unscrupulous use of artesian aquifer wells contribute to what political and environmental pundits foresee as eventual cause for future wars.


Image above: A Surfrider poster about the danger to sea birds of floating plastic junk like water bottle caps. From (https://www.b4plastics.com/nl/news/survival-of-the-fittest-plastics-een-evolutie-die-we-uitlokken-of-ondergaan).


Bottled water, and its role in the global water crisis, is also about the bottles, the transportation, the marketing, the profits and the collateral damages that occur both to the environment and to human communities during and after the production of this fetishized commodity.

Though some companies are turning to glass bottling most, including the main bottling companies in Hawaii, still use polyethylene terephthalate plastic. Every PET bottle made requires double the amount of water actually in the bottle to manufacture. Since the average American consumes 36.4 gallons of bottled water per year, we are actually consuming around 72.8 gallons of bottled water.

In the same one-year span, more than 17 million barrels of crude oil is needed to produce the bottles — an amount of oil enough to sustain 1 million vehicles on the road or power approximately 190,000 American homes for one year. In a study done on FIJI Water, the manufacture and transport of one bottle was worth 7.1 gallons of water, 1 liter of fossil fuels and 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.

At what enormous cost does Hawaiian water make its way not to the communities where it came from but to the lobbies of five-star hotels in Hawaii and around the world? It is estimated that solving the water crisis would cost $10 billion.

The price that bottling companies pocket in revenue is $13 billion. We cannot think for one second that Hawaii has nothing to do with perpetuating a crisis.

Plastic bottles also do not biodegrade. The bottled water industry generates as much as 1.5 million pounds of bottles per year and only 13 percent of plastic bottles are actually recycled after being discarded. The rest go to landfills, where they can leach toxic chemicals into the land.

Or better yet, they end up in the ocean: Marine plastic pollution has impacted at least 267 species worldwide, including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all seabird species and 43 percent of all marine mammal species.

Since Hawaii depends on the environment, including the vitality of our marine life, it is incredibly important for us to not turn our islands into a giant, lifeless trash heap. After all, would tourists or even the film industry pay to experience Hawaii’s dead monk seals and turtles?

In addition, though bottling companies can contribute jobs to a neighborhood, when the profit-driven interests of a corporation conflict with the interests of a local community or ecosystem, it is rarely the latter that benefit.
]
Most often, local communities and watersheds are left to deal with negative externalities when bottling companies decide to turn a blind eye.

For example, our state is currently in a period of drought and has just recently bounced back from a period of severe to extreme drought just last year. Given intensifying global warming, it is not prudent to be unscrupulously drawing upon water sources for jobs and capital accumulation. In the end, the communities will be the ones literally left in the dried up dust while bottling corporations’ wallets are lush with green Benjamins.

Bottled water is no environmentally friendly product. It is a prime example of greenwashing, which is an attempt to do ethically or environmentally what should not be done at all.

Under General Comment 15 of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, governments have a responsibility to ensure that its citizens not only have access to but also actually have clean and affordable tap water in accordance with their right to life.

The residents of Hawaii, like those of San Francisco and Concord, Massachusetts, need to take back the tap and push Hawaii lawmakers to wake up to the dirty truth that is Hawaii’s bottled water industry.

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Decision against Kauai Springs
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.


By For Chris Deangelo on 6 October 2014 for the Garden Islands -
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/a-landmark-decision/article_7feed654-4d29-11e4-afca-c7950a559d55.html)


Image above: Label for  a five gallon bottle of Kauai Springs water. The water comes from a diversion of spring water to Grove Farms. From (https://i2.wp.com/kauaisprings.com/images/Kauai-Springs-Label-1.jpg).

In February, the state Supreme Court — in what has been called a landmark decision for Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine — sided with the County of Kauai by striking down a 2008 circuit court ruling that the Kauai Planning Commission “exceeded its jurisdiction” in denying Kauai Springs, Inc. permits for its operation.

Seven months later, and contrary to that ruling, the Koloa-based water bottling and distribution company’s doors remain open.

“They continue to operate,” said Attorney David Minkin, who was hired as special counsel to represent the county in the Kauai Springs case. “Working with the Planning Department, we have sent them a notice of violation telling them that, if they don’t shut down, we will start fining them and turn it over both at the Planning Commission level as well as the prosecutor’s office to go after them for violating the law.”

The notice was sent to Kauai Springs on Tuesday, following a site investigation of the property by the Planning Department a week before. It orders the company to cease and desist all water bottling and distribution activities. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day, as well as criminal prosecution, the letter states.

Kauai Springs has been given until Oct. 14 to respond.

On Wednesday, at the request of Councilman Tim Bynum, Minkin briefed the Kauai County Council’s Planning Committee on the Supreme Court ruling in the case and its application and relevance to the law.

Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine states that, “For the benefit of present and future generations, the state and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaii’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the state … All public natural resources are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the people.”

Minkin said the Supreme Court judge ruled the Planning Commission made the right call in denying the permits.

So what does the ruling mean moving forward?

“It means that, especially when water’s at issue, that every agency that has some duty or responsibility has to take a look at it from the constitutional perspective of the Public Trust Doctrine,” Minkin said. “You just can’t punt it and say, ‘Not my kuleana.’ You have to look at it. You have to evaluate it. You have to get information. And if you’re left with a question in the back of your mind that you don’t have enough information, it’s not the department, in this case the Planning Commission, it’s not their duty to go out and track down and get information.”

Instead, the applicant — in this case, Kauai Springs — must present the appropriate information.

“It basically shifts the burden,” Minkin said of the ruling.

Councilman Mel Rapozo questioned what good the Supreme Court decision is if the county doesn’t act on it. He said it’s time to put teeth behind it and stop Kauai Springs from utilizing the island’s natural resources illegally.

“I think the public needs to know. Are we going to fine them? Are going to just send them letters? I mean, if it’s this landmark decision, we should be prosecuting,” Rapozo said.

Kauai Springs has a long-term agreement with the Knudsen Trust to obtain water from a spring at the base of Mount Kahili. The pipeline, which brings the water to company’s Koloa bottling facility, is owned by Grove Farm.

Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask said the ruling was a substantial document, 107 pages to be exact, and “took a while to digest.”

“We are moving down that avenue,” he said of enforcement, adding that his hope is to reach a resolution without having to expend additional funds or go back to court.

Minkin said recent efforts to work things out with Kauai Springs’ legal counsel proved unsuccessful.

“We’ve resolved it as much as I can, now the next step has to be taken,” he said to Rapozo. “And I’ve made the recommendation, I agree with you — my background is also law enforcement — and I think, yes, this needs to be shut down.”

Kauai Springs owner Jim Satterfield did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

For several years, the case went back and forth, with both sides filing appeals. In 2007, the Planning Commission denied Kauai Springs’ three permit.

Kauai Springs turned around and sued the commission over the denial of the permits.

In 2008, 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe sided with Kauai Springs and ordered the county to issue the permits.

“We felt, and the county felt, that was inappropriate … and we appealed it and we got the initial decision by the intermediate court,” which vacated the circuit court’s final judgement, Minkin said. “Applicant wasn’t happy with that and then it went up to the state Supreme Court, and the state Supreme Court went even further than the intermediate court did, to basically specify what our duties are as the county.”

The county has spent about $111,000, under the budget of $115,000, on the case, including the appeal, according to Minkin.

Bynum said he is proud of the Planning Commission and county for taking the Public Trust Doctrine seriously. While the court case was long, with many ups and downs, it was important for the community, he said. 

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Heatwave melts Arizona

SUBHEAD: Much of the man-made landscape there is petroleum based plastic and now Climate Change is melting it.

By Tyler Durden on 26 June 2017 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-25/epic-pictures-arizonas-heatwave-everything-literally-melting)


Image above: Extreme Heat on 21 June 12017 means the temperature map of Arizona almost runs out of colors on it legend past 120º Fahrenheit. Looks a bit like the surface of Mars. From original article.

Ask any Arizonan whether their summers are more tolerable because "it's a dry heat" and you're likely to be asked to turn your oven to 150 degrees, stick your head inside for 20 minutes and report back as to whether or not the humidity within the oven ever crossed you mind. Probably not.


Image above: Yes, it is so hot that you may need oven mittens to drive around in the sun in Arizona. From original article.

Arizonans have learned to cope with the "dry heat," this summer has been particularly brutal for people living in the Southwest as temperatures have already soared to over 120 degrees in certain areas. What's worse, it's only June.


Image above: A petroleum based mailbox fails in the sun from the weight of mail made up of bills and credit card offers. Note condition of "grass" lawn about to become blowing sand. From original article.


Image above: In Tempe, Arizona a trash bin becomes trash itself due to high temperatures. Ironically, most of the trash appears to be packaging for refrigerated food that exacerbates the heat. From original article.

And while the heatwave may not be that fun for the people living through it, it does making for some amazing pictures of stuff melting.


Image above: Towards sunset the heat damage to the plastic yard fence can be surveyed in this suburban neighborhood. Looks like something out of a horror movie. From original article.

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The missing ocean plastic

SUBHEAD: Newly-evolved microbes may be breaking down ocean plastics more than we know.

By Michael LePage on 25 May 2017 for new Scientist -
(https://www.newscientist.com/article/2132650-newly-evolved-microbes-may-be-breaking-down-ocean-plastics/)


Image above: Plastic simply continues to evolve into new ecosystems. From (http://www.techtimes.com/articles/9538/20140702/plastic-debris-covers-88-percent-of-worlds-oceans-much-lower-than-expected-say-scientists.htm).

Plastic. There should be hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the stuff floating around in our oceans. But we are finding less than expected – perhaps because living organisms are evolving the ability to break it down.

Plastic production is rising exponentially, so ever more of it should be ending up in the oceans, says Ricard Sole, who studies complex systems at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

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But surveys of areas where floating plastic accumulates, such as the North Atlantic gyre, are not finding nearly as much plastic as expected.

Mystery of the missing plastics

In fact, there’s only a tenth to a hundredth as much plastic as expected – and the amount of floating plastic does not appear to be increasing. “The trend should be there,” Sole says.

This lack of trend cannot be explained by physical processes, according to his team’s mathematical models. Instead, they propose that there has been a population boom in microbes that have evolved the ability to biodegrade plastic.

Other researchers agree that surveys are finding far less plastic in the oceans than expected. However, they say there are several other possible explanations for this “missing plastic”.

Surprisingly, even if ocean plastic is being degraded much faster than thought, it is not clear that this is a good thing. “It is difficult to say,” says Matthew Cole of Exeter University in the UK.

For instance, biodegradation could be speeding up the breakdown of large pieces of plastic into lots of very tiny pieces, which might have a greater overall impact.

Plastic also contains various additives that could get released and enter the food chain if the plastic part biodegrades, says environmental chemist Alexandra Ter Halle of the Laboratoire des IMRCP in France.

“To really tackle the plastic problem, we need to stop it getting into the oceans in the first place,” Cole says.

The ‘platisphere’

In theory it is possible that some microbes have evolved the ability to break down plastics. Studies by Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research show that the microbes colonizing floating plastic are quite distinct from those in the surrounding water, and suggest some are feeding on pollutants.

In effect, the plastic is creating a whole new ecosystem that Amaral-Zettler and colleagues call “the plastisphere”.

But when Ter Halle looked at the DNA of the organisms on floating plastic in the North Atlantic, she didn’t find any microbes known to be capable of breaking down plastic. That could be because they have not yet been discovered of course – there could be millions of unknown microbes still.

Amaral-Zettler and Ter Halle think it is more likely that floating plastic is simply sinking to the seafloor as colonising organisms weigh it down, or breaking into such microscopic pieces that it is not being caught in the nets of research vessels. It could also be being swallowed by living organisms, or carried by currents to unexpected parts of the ocean.

The sinking explanation might also be compatible with his findings, says Sole. His study does not prove that microbes are metabolising plastic, but the lack of an upward trend can only be explained by a biological response that can increase in proportion to the amount of plastic.

If a physical process was responsible, there would still be an upward trend, he says.

It is possible that some plastic is being biodegraded, Amaral-Zettler says, but it could be over too long time-scale – a hundred years, say – to explain the missing plastic. And even if it is happening much faster, there would still be a problem.

Plastics are polluting every part of the ocean, from the beaches of remote islands to the deepest parts of the sea. Large pieces of plastic can accumulate in the stomach of animals such as turtles, which then starve to death.

While there may be less than expected, large amounts of floating plastic are found in the subtropical gyres where surface waters circle.

While terms such as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” conjure up visions of litter-covered seas, much of the floating plastic in the ocean consists of tiny pieces just a few millimetres wide or smaller, which are not obvious to the naked eye at all. Its impact on marine life is not clear, either.

Various schemes have been proposed to remove this plastic from the oceans, but trying to clean up the oceans is impractical, says Amaral-Zettler. “We need to look at prevention and reduction at the start.”

Journal reference: Biorxiv, DOI: 10.1101/135582

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