A Cold Day In Hell (Heh, My Operation Today)

Today, the surgeon will try to fix my broken Achilles tendon.  When I was a child and read about poor Achilles whose only weak spot was where his mother gripped him on the ankle to dunk him in the magic power brew, I thought it was very odd that being hurt there would lead to him being killed.  Well, doing anything with a severely damaged Achilles tendon is nearly impossible!  No wonder the poor guy couldn’t even limp away from his attackers!  

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One thing I have noticed as it got harder to get around, when people see me using crutches or those nice electric wheel chair shopping carts, the vast majority of people are quite helpful and nice.  The inherent niceness most people display is very touching.  I try helping out people who are disabled but seeing it from the other side is most interesting.  Readers of my blog probably notice that I never call people ‘sheeple’ for example.  I find that usage to be quite inappropriate since all of us are ‘sheeple’ in the first place so why call someone that?  All we are doing is putting them personally down and feeling oh-so-superior.

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During the last month I have been occasionally using a wheelchair both because I sometimes cannot walk at all or because I am figuring out how to configure the house better to accommodate a disabled person.  I usually post stories at least once a day here for years but in the last two months, I have been busy refitting my house so that I can do many things while sitting in a wheelchair.  There are many things designed in houses to NOT accommodate someone in a wheelchair.  So it is unnecessarily difficult to do simple things which small alterations can fix but fashion likes to do things its own way so there is no universal push to manufacture and make fashionable, things that are good for people in wheelchairs.

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One thing I did do years ago due to ease of use was to put almost all my plugs ‘higher’ by putting in power strips.  The main reason was due to lightning: these protect my appliances from power surges.  The strips are screwed into the wall at waist level so they are so very easy to access.    I also designed and built my kitchen counters so they are at several levels instead of all at one level and the lower sections are easier to use when in a wheelchair.

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Despite this, I still had many things to do.  For example, moving from the main house into the various sunrooms which are a step lower due to heat rising, this encourages heat to move into the main rooms, I had to build ramps so I can wheel into the sun rooms.  My husband is disabled and has been unable to shovel snow so my children bought us an electric snowblower since I am the sole person who removes snow in winter.

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This brings me to a perennial point I try to make about global warming: a HUGE hunk of over-the-top work I had to do this fall while in great pain and limping around with a cane was to cut, chop and stack 4 cords of firewood for myself and 2 cords for my father-in-law.  People who live in warm places have no idea the huge amounts of labor those of us who live in the cold Ice Age sectors must do to stay alive.  I can’t afford any form of heat bought commercially anymore due to raging inflation which has ravaged people on fixed incomes!

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People living in warm climates might be uncomfortable if they can’t afford air conditioning.  But you die if you don’t have heat up here where it goes way, way below zero a lot in winter.  Just yesterday, we had a taste of the super-cold to come.  It dropped to 7 degrees above zero.  Here is a fine example of how we are being programmed to minimize the difficulties and horrors of extreme cold by making this lovely instead of destructively dangerous:  Antarctica: the beautiful south | Travel | The Observer

The amazing land wildlife there is exactly one creature and one creature only: the Emperor penguin.  To any sane observer, this sounds like a dire environment that is hostile to nearly all forms of life.  To anyone who knows the history of poor Antarctica, once upon a time there lived many animals there including a wide array of marsupials and many plants.  We know pretty much what was there during the Eocene and up until a mere 4 million years ago because we see these plants and animals in Australia which used to be a hunk of Antarctica not all that long ago.

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THAT was a ‘paradise’.  The present place is a hellhole.  The reporter, in her story, notes that most of the people on tour with her ‘have an agenda’.  That is, they are scientists who want to study this place.  We should study Antarctica closely because this is our future!  As all the continents on earth move towards each other with the Atlantic widening but the Pacific being crowded out, much of this movement is northwards!  Only poor, lonely Antarctica will remain on the opposite pole, all by itself.

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In this week’s news is the story about a Stranded Russian ship receiving NZ air drop supplies because it was suddenly trapped by ice floes.  Many explorers in the past have died trying to find ways to navigate in icy waters and this is because ice is a challenge, not a pretty artifact. It is dangerous just like typhoons and hurricanes are dangerous.  Nature is full of dangers.  One of the most dangerous sciences is the study of volcanoes.  That is, scientists monitoring eruptions are often killed while doing this.  Studying Ice Age sections of the planet is very dangerous, too.

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The picture above is what New York harbor looked like a million years ago.  During the majority of time since 2.5 million years ago, NY was under a mile of ice as was significant parts of the US and Europe.  During previous interglacials, Ice Age animals would move in to graze on the lands ravaged by glaciers and then retreat when the deathly grip of perpetual winter resumed.  Recently, the NYT had a story about how we would not have moose here if it got warmer.  Naturally, the article didn’t point out the obvious that we would have different animals come here.  And the truth is, when things warm up in the north, we get MORE animals and plants, not fewer.  A point that global warming people don’t make.

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Warming Arctic Permafrost Fuels Climate Change Worries – NYTimes.com

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Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the lake from the decay of plant debris. These plants last saw the light of day 30,000 years ago and have been locked in a deep freeze — until now…For now, scientists have many more questions than answers. Preliminary computer analyses, made only recently, suggest that the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions could eventually become an annual source of carbon equal to 15 percent or so of today’s yearly emissions from human activities.

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But those calculations were deliberately cautious. A recent survey drew on the expertise of 41 permafrost scientists to offer more informal projections. They estimated that if human fossil-fuel burning remained high and the planet warmed sharply, the gases from permafrost could eventually equal 35 percent of today’s annual human emissions…

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…In the minds of most experts, the chief worry is not that the carbon in the permafrost will break down quickly — typical estimates say that will take more than a century, perhaps several — but that once the decomposition starts, it will be impossible to stop.

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How bizarre is this story?  Well, hate to tell people this, but the ‘permafrost’ of this latest interglacial has been melting for a long time now! Much of Europe, nearly all of Canada and Russia were ‘permafrost’ or buried under glaciers 85% of the last 2.5 million years!  And when this latest melting happened, oodles of gases trapped in ice entered the atmosphere!  We are so LUCKY!

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This article is artfully dishonest by pretending that this release of gasses is something new that started recently.  During the recent ‘Little Ice Age’ there was more, not less permafrost and glaciers grew.  We may even suggest most urgently that the only reason this didn’t accelerate into a new Ice Age was due to humans beginning to burn coal around 1600.  In previous ‘little Ice Ages’ the humans simply migrated out of the colder areas.  But in 1600, the technology for heating homes due to the invention of the chimney flues rather than letting the fire burn in the middle of the floor and the smoke going through roof vents meant warmer homes during the dire cold nights of winter.

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So, the burning of fuels increased due to the cold realm populations rising far beyond what it used to be during cold eras.  Even so, during the Little Ice Age which global warming fanatics want to erase from the climate history of our planet, the poor farmers of Switzerland were so stressed by this plunge, a number of them farmed themselves out in the most dangerous of professions: military mercenaries.  They then worked in warmer places like Italy or France and to this day, we see ‘Swiss guards’ at the Vatican wearing clothing from this time.

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The sudden eruption of Vikings from the far north was due to a similar cooling period from 600-900 AD.  During the Medieval Warming, the Vikings moved into once-colder places like Iceland and Greenland.  But during the Little Ice Age, they lost the Greenland colonies and Inuit from Siberia invaded the polar regions, killing off or driving away the natives who eked a living in these areas.  Climate change in ANY direction redirects immigration movements and the ecosystems such as, migrations of animals.  From the Times article above:

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The essential question scientists need to answer is whether the many factors they do not yet understand could speed the release of carbon from permafrost — or, possibly, slow it more than they expect. For instance, nutrients released from thawing permafrost could spur denser plant growth in the Arctic, and the plants would take up some carbon dioxide. Conversely, should fires like the one at Anaktuvuk River race across warming northern landscapes, immense amounts of organic material in vegetation, soils, peat deposits and thawed permafrost could burn.

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Edward A. G. Schuur, a University of Florida researcher who has done extensive field work in Alaska, is worried by the changes he already sees, including the discovery that carbon buried since before the dawn of civilization is now escaping. “To me, it’s a spine-tingling feeling, if it’s really old carbon that hasn’t been in the air for a long time, and now it’s entering the air,” Dr. Schuur said. “That’s the fingerprint of a major disruption, and we aren’t going to be able to turn it off someday.”

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Note how the scientists hint there is around a 100% chance that there will be MORE plants, MORE wildlife in Alaska and Siberia, not less.  Of course, they never say this fact.  They hint at it as if it is scary and not joyous.  I can easily imagine them talking darkly about trees returning to Antarctic.  Or the horrors of hummingbirds coming to Nome, Alaska.  Do note who this goofy scientist is who thinks a warmer Alaska is nasty: he lives in FLORIDA!!!  HAHAHA.  He can’t tolerate even one full winter, much less many harsh winters.

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I have a brother-in-law who lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for a number of years.  He grew up in the mountains of northern New York which as very harsh winters.  Even he was happy to leave the cold Ice Age conditions there!  He moved to the mountains of Oregon which is like paradise to him in comparison.  Summers there are much longer than in Alaska!  Plenty of snow in Oregon but it is significantly warmer than Alaska.

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This is due to humans actively desiring to be in warm places.  The Alaskan expert wanted to hang out in hot Florida, not cold Alaska.  He used Alaska to make money studying it and whining about it warming up and then would hop onto a CO2 spewing jet to rush back to his hot holiday residence where he didn’t have to wear five layers of clothing and worry about his fingers falling off if he forgot his gloves!  This is a very simple thing to understand.

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On the upside is this story:  Discovery of a ‘dark state’ could mean a brighter future for solar energy

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Zhu and his team previously demonstrated that those hot electrons could be captured using semiconductor nanocrystals. They published that research in Science in 2010, but Zhu says the actual implementation of a viable technology based on that research is very challenging.

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“For one thing,” said Zhu, “that 66 percent efficiency can only be achieved when highly focused sunlight is used, not just the raw sunlight that typically hits a solar panel. This creates problems when considering engineering a new material or device.”
To circumvent that problem, Zhu and his team have found an alternative. They discovered that a photon produces a dark quantum “shadow state” from which two electrons can then be efficiently captured to generate more energy in the semiconductor pentacene.

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The problem with many energy systems is that they not only pollute the environment, they cost a lot and are run by huge organizations.  The joy of solar energy is, if one can buy the panels, one is the OWNER of the entire system!  You are your own energy producer.  I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful this is!  Power for the People!  The efficiency improvements will be very significant and I would adore having this on my own home and think every home should have these!  And the government should push very hard to enable us to free ourselves from the utility corporations and carbon-producing energy systems.

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We have to get away from say, natural gas, coal and oil simply because they are LIMITED resources.  Whether the planet is hotter or colder, these things are limited.  We have limited time before we cannot make the shift to say, solar power.  So we have to try hard to retrofit.  Far from being an age where burning of fossil fuels will be more and more, we are heading towards the Hubbert Energy Peaks and we have no choice but to shift to other systems.  We know from Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power is not a sane answer to our desire to have energy.

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And the US has put nearly all its eggs into the Pentagon basket so…NewsDaily: NASA revamps, delays commercial space taxi work.  This civilian use of technology is now being privatized except it is still nearly all funded by our government which is letting it die since Congress cut NASA funding by 50% while expanding the Predator Drone assassin program.  Iran official: We tricked the U.S. surveillance drone to land intact shows us how ultimately futile this business will become.  We can keep on using it against poorly armed peasants but not against the Chinese or Iranians.  Not to mention, the paranoid Russians.

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The mad dictator of North Korea died and good riddance to an evil man.  His idiot son remains on the throne but not for long.  If North Korea finally opens up, this will change the configuration of power in Asia significantly.  Like the permafrost melting, it will be different but in the long run, better.  Certainly, for the people of Korea, a good thing indeed!  A very good thing.  I hope, like with the equally crazed Mao at the end, this leads to a new dawn for those severely repressed people.

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