Thursday, September 6, 2018

The Earth is Active!


Large earthquake in Japan followed by a large earthquake not too far from Fiji:
Deep Magnitude 7.8 Quake Hits Offshore From Suva, Fiji: USGS https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-09-06/magnitude-81-quake-hits-offshore-of-suva-fiji-usgs
The earth is active and our failing nuclear infrastructures are at catastrophic risk, for humans and ecosystems alike.

The earthquake in Japan reminds us of the vulnerability of our nuclear plants to power disruptions even when reactors are in cold shutdown. Nuclear plants' spent fuel requires continuous cooling for years in circulating water. Disruptions in cooling systems can produce fires. Japan reports cooling has not been disrupted at the Tomari nuclear power plant and that external electricity has been restored. Another disaster averted but had that quake been larger would the outcome have been different?

Why don't we address the problems of vulnerable nuclear infrastructures and radioactive waste?

In trying to understand unwillingness to address risk, thought outside of outright malfeasance, I reflected upon Pompeii.  

When i saw the Pompeii exhibit that circulated through my city I was surprised to learn that it took hours for the city to be encased in ash, which suggested to me that people might have fled if they could comprehend what was happening.

I visited the actual city of Pompeii back in the early 1990s. It was amazing and sobering. I had the impression that the volcanic ash and fumes assaulted people suddenly, allowing no escape.

I don't know which scenario is true but imagine for a moment that there was time for escape. Yet, the people could not understand their fate because they had never envisioned such an apocalypse, knowing nothing about the volcanism of their surrounding terrain.

Although the current situation seems to resemble this scenario of disbelief in sudden catastrophe, it diverges in that we are able to envision the catastrophic risk because in large part we have engineered them with technologies that lack resilience, and whose failures fundamentally degrade the conditions necessary for life to thrive.

Somehow it is even more concerning that we especially cannot address the risks we've engineered.







15 comments:

  1. If those who are anticipating an increase in both earthquakes and volcanic activity due to a Grand Solar Minimum are correct, and there is already some evidence of both things, then in the coming years we may find ourselves overwhelmed with disasters of the natural kind. However, to expect human beings to have the right kind of foresight and to anticipate and take action to either prevent where possible or to at least be prepared to take proper action is probably way too optimistic. All in all consider the considerable savings that would have accrued to the human species if the following had been avoided: the Russia Revolution, WWI and WWII, numerous other wars, various environmental pollutants like DDT, almost all nuclear waste . . . the whole Vietnam fiasco of many, many years. As a species we have a lot to regret and feel remorse about. Keeping that in mind as we look ahead it is hard to be very optimistic.

    Knowing the inevitability of a major earthquake along the West Coast has not stopped major universities filled with brilliant professors from continuing to live and work there. Nor places like Silicon Valley. People continue to live in condominiums in San Francisco in a bldg that is already leaning due to a faulty foundation. And real estate prices continue to be some of the highest in the nation. Are these people just gamblers at heart?

    This is psychological phenomenon familiar through out history. In the middle of the 19th century in California there was a period of flooding that turned the Central Valley into a lake. Somehow the native Americans knew in advance and moved to higher ground. It might be argued that our whole way of life, based perhaps on a faulty religious philosophy, it is the real culprit. But thousands of years of habit has made it seem permanent and necessary.

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    Replies
    1. The earquaqe activity is from geochemical changes in the earths crust from global warming and other factors. Like on venus you ignorant asshole propaganda bufoon

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    2. The earquaqe activity is from geochemical changes in the earths crust from global warming and other factors. Like on venus you ignorant asshole propaganda bufoon

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    3. The radiation in Japan  is caused by massive amounts of radionuclides. Radionuclides that can never really be cleaned up.

      There has probably been another nuclear accident in japan from the last 6 eq on hokaido.

      The northern hemisphere is dominatied by by nucleoapes.  France, england, japan, korea, murica, canada and especially russia. Idiotic-treacherous, nucleoapes. Nucleoapes like crazy man Trump and Abe are deregulating, old beatup, reactors.

      The insane japanese are opening old-reactors-damaged by the 9.0 fukushima eartquake of 2011.

      Chernobyl destroyed Ukraine, economically, politically and environmentally. Most have fled. Ukraine is in a civil war. More nuclear accidents have occured in Ukraine since 1986.

      There 17 old beatup Soviet Style Reactors in Ukraine. The are ill maintained. One or more serious nuclear meltdowns, like chernobly can  occur there soon.

      Fukushima was a hundred times worse than chernobyl and chernobyl cesium 137 is still wreaking havoc in Belarus, Norwegian and swedish reindeer, german wild pigs 32 years later.

      Japan is failing economically. When it goes the US will go. I do not give it 5 years.

      A great deal of inhabitable western Russia is heavily contaminated by radionuclides. Their reactors are poorly designed and ready to go. Same with Murica and france.

      Multiple nuclear catatstrophes, will probably destroy what is left of the northern hemisphere with global warming. It will occur before global warming plays out. The radionuclide apocolypse will make the world uninhabitable. Too bad humans are so stupid.

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    4. SEPTEMBER 7, 2018
      Climate of Class Rule: Common(s)er Revolt or Common Ruin

      Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended,

      “A Level of Criminality Almost Hard to Describe”

      The great orange dumpster fire Donald J. Trump’s part in the reigning United States media-politics horror show is to distract the populace from the lethal pillaging of the commons behind the scenes. The leading left thinker Noam Chomsky put it very well in an interview last March:

      “Trump’s role is to ensure that the media and that public attention are always concentrated on him. So every time you turn on a television set, it’s Trump; open the front page of the newspaper: Trump…. So every day there’s one insane thing after another and then, you know, he makes some crazy lie….and the media looks at it and says “No, [not true]’…But meanwhile he’s onto something else and then you go to that…”

      “And while this show is going on in public, in the background the wrecking crew is working…systematically dismantling every aspect of government that works for the benefit of the population. …In the case of global warming, it’s almost indescribable. Not only has the U.S. pulled out – uniquely alone in the world – from the international efforts to do at least something about it. But, beyond that…the Trump Administration is going out of its way to increase the threat. Listen to his State of the Union Address, the only phrase about global climate was to talk about ‘our beautiful clean coal,’ the worst polluter there is…The new budget that’s coming out …sharply cuts research and support for any kind of renewable energy: more subsidies and support for the most polluting, destructive things.”

      “And, it’s not just Trump, it’s the entire Republican leadership. So, if you look at the 2016 election, at the primaries, every single candidate, not a single exception, either denied that global warming is taking place or said ‘Maybe it is but we shouldn’t do anything about it,’ which I think is worse. They were called the moderates, like [John] Kasich. If you look at Trump himself, or say Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, they know perfectly well that humans are causing global warming. In fact, Trump has golf courses all over; he hasn’t built a wall in Mexico yet but he’s building walls around his golf courses to make sure that the sea level doesn’t destroy them.”

      “Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil – since the 1970s scientists at ExxonMobil have been – we now know, they been made public, forced to be made public – they’ve been producing severe warnings to the leadership about the effect of the use of petroleum on destroying the environment. So they all know about it but they’re not doing anything about it, which is a level of criminality that is almost hard to find words to describe. I mean, here are, you know, educated well-off rich people, upper elite, who know that what they’re doing is destroying the prospects for human – organized human life – and do it anyway because they make more profits tomorrow. Can you think of an analog for that in human history? I really can’t” (emphasis added).

      “Not a Wake-up Call Anymore”

      Jump a half-year ahead to the late summer and early fall of 2018. Fully 17 of the 18 warmest years since modern record-keeping began have occurred since 2001. Numerous record-setting heat and related deadly weather (wildfires, droughts, rains, flood, mudslides etc.) events have occurred, as predicted in the (supposedly controversial) climate models produced by scientists who have been trying to warn the world for many years about the eco-cidal consequences of burning fossil fuels on a mass scale. One headline I recall this summer announced that 2018 was the year in which global warming went from being a future “threat” to a lived “menace.” As the New York Times’ climate correspondent Somini Sengupta wrote last August:

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    5. “This summer of fire and swelter looks a lot like the future that scientists have been warning about in the era of climate change… In California, firefighters are racing to control what has become the largest fire in state history. Harvests of staple grains like wheat and corn are expected to dip this year, in some cases sharply, in countries as different as Sweden and El Salvador. In Europe, nuclear power plants have had to shut down because the river water that cools the reactors was too warm. Heat waves on four continents have brought electricity grids crashing…And dozens of heat-related deaths in Japan this summer offered a foretaste of what researchers warn could be big increases in mortality from extreme heat.”

      “ ‘It’s not a wake-up call anymore,’ Cynthia Rosenzweig, who runs the climate impacts group at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said of global warming and its human toll. ‘It’s now absolutely happening to millions of people around the world.’”

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    6. Meanwhile Trump is destroying everything of the public benefit. He is a corrupt assclown. It is good there are orders in the corrupt military industrial complex that are down. Owrders in nuclear weapons manufacturing and extraction industries are way up! Meanwhile th kochs and fuko the clownites are out to destroy renewables and what is left of legitimate aspects and protections

      Follow Me on Twitter Message Rick Staggenborg, MD
      Rick Staggenborg, MD ((# of views))
      At: /rickstaggenborgmd
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      Volunteer a little time and make a big difference



      I am a former Army and VA psychiatrist who ran for the US Senate in 2010 on a campaign based on a pledge to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood.

      Now that the general public is beginning to understand the importance of the issue,I am devoting much of my time to get political activists to understand that the only way to reach their goals is to establish representative democracy in the US. This will require a constiutitional amendment banning corporate campaign expenditures and limiting amounts rich individuals can spend to influence elections.

      I am convinced that the only way to do this is to make support for such an amendment a campaign issue. That way, we can easily see who wants to get in Congress to represent We the People and who want to serve our interests over those of corporations who currently control the US government.

      I believe that it is possible to end war if we can prove that democracy is possible. Unless we can awaken enough Americans to the fact that their government is pursuing an agenda of corporate imperialism that will enslave them along with the rest of the world if not reclaimed by We the People, we will leave our children with a legacy of pain for which we cannot be forgiven.

      Ultimately, endless war is a symptom of a disease that will destroy human civilization if not eradicated. There is no "us" vs "them." Our fates are intertwined. None of us gets out alive. The question is, how will we have lived?
      www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org

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    7. t 12:52:38
      VA privatization continues with MISSION Act
      By Rick Staggenborg, MD Follow Me on Twitter Message Rick Staggenborg, MD
      (Page 1 of 1 pages) Permalink



      Save our VA
      Save our VA
      (Image by Rick Staggenborg MD)
      The recently passed VA MISSION Act has been billed as a boon to veterans because of provisions that would expand some services, some of which are outside direct health care delivery. While this seems to have convinced major veteran service organizations to support it, the MISSION Act will also bolster ongoing efforts to privatize VA health care delivery that all have publicly opposed. This suggests that they missed the obvious down side of the legislation and will likely withdraw their support when its consequences become apparent.

      The MISSION Act creates a permanent Community Care program to replace the ostensibly temporary Choice program that currently refers VA patients to private providers. The new program will divert $22 billion over 5 years that could be used to address staffing shortages that have led to long wait times for care in some VA facilities. The case for investing more VA resources on private care is based on specious claims of pervasive problems in wait times and quality of care. In fact, the VA's record in both is exceptional.

      There are many reasons why this is not common knowledge, not the least of which is propaganda from a group backed by those who would profit most from privatization. Highly misleading claims are being promoted by Concerned Veterans of America, a Koch brothers-funded organization with little veteran representation. Their strategy is to portray the VA as failing, making privatization seem a better alternative. What they don't mention is that the diversion of VA funds to pay for private care makes it impossible to address the problems they claim are inherent flaws of the VA. Privatization does, however, generate substantial profits for investors in the health care industry such as Koch Industries. The real motivation behind expanding outsourcing seems to be maximizing private profit, not helping vets get more timely or higher quality care.

      The Choice program was introduced as a stopgap measure after the scandal over falsifying wait times at the Phoenix VA. Its stated intent was to improve wait times until the problem could be addressed. However, it has now expanded to the point that over 40% of patient visits are outsourced to the private sector. Under the MISSION Act, referrals will be significantly increased, with more patients being dumped on an overburdened system of private care that has already produced wait times longer than the VA.

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    8. Every dollar invested in private care ultimately comes from money necessary to fully fund and staff the VA. This diversion of funds results in fewer services and compromising the system of integrated care that only the VA provides, while the cost of private care is substantially higher than VA care. It is ironic that the Community Care program will require the hiring of large numbers of specialists merely to process referrals and provider billing. At the small facility near where I live, there will be 70 Community Care staff in a system that had less than 900 employees as of 2014. Just imagine the impact that hiring 70 new clinicians could have had!

      Privatizing services will result in a degradation of care. Private providers have much less experience meeting the special needs of veterans. Shockingly, the VA is already referring mental health patients to the private sector, which doesn't meet the standards of the VA's cutting-edge suicide prevention practices. As someone who has been both a physician and a patient at the VA, I can attest that the problems the VA does have are not as serious as the flaws in the private health care system. I gave up using private insurance and now get my care entirely through the VA. As a result, I get fully integrated care in a system designed to serve vets. VA care consistently rates higher on key performance and patient satisfaction measures compared to private care, at significantly less cost. Neither the cost savings, the high quality of care or the integrated nature of the system would be possible in the private sector, where the need to generate profits precludes many of the features of the VA system.

      Those who put their lives on the line for our country deserve the best care possible. Despite the propaganda about the quality of care at the VA, both objective measures and patient satisfaction ratings indicate otherwise. An essential feature of the VA system that leads to these outcomes is the integrated nature of services. Money taken out of the system and lost to the private sector is not available to fund the VA's comprehensive services and to fix problems such as long wait times at some facilities that are largely the result of inadequate staffing.

      If we want to keep our promises to our vets, we cannot accept the stripping down of the VA to generate private profits. If you agree, contact your members of Congress and let them know that they need to take a closer look at what the MISSION Act will do to the VA and the veterans who depend on it.

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    9. "Earquaqe"? Maybe by a rock concert or a loud clap of thunder.

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    10. Used a smartphone to post that one. Sometimes done. So what? You are an ignorant and stupid, little troll. You have no critical thinking skills. You quote a fake PhD. You push a confabulatory propaganda-agenda. You are a Trump Troll. You and your insane demented-figure head are such goons! Racist swine

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    11. I see. Your smartphone is a little retarded. Let's see you refutation of Casey's hypothesis . . . perhaps one of your published papers on the subject.

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  2. 9/06/2018 -- Major Earthquake in West Pacific -- Sesimic activity dramatic increase -- BE PREPARED
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66a3XE1uLtQ

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  3. Earthquakes during Grand Solar Minimum. John L. Casey Ph.D.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHVgu0LmeIE

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  4. UK Extreme Cold Late Summer as Atlantic Ocean Temperatures Change

    "Uk, Ireland, Scotland and Wales set for extreme cold in Summer and northern part of the isles will get frost and freezing temperatures over the next few days. The drop has already begun, now lets see how many cold temperature records are broken. Massive rain deluge in Italy along with lightning bolts in the harbor and loading port at Trieste. Did I mention Atlantic water temperatures are way cool, this is effecting weather patterns originating in the Atlantic."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iRpTPdmcpE

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