You're Making This Island Disappear

You're Making This Island Disappear

I try to stay afloat



You must click on this link and read this account of what climate change/sea level rise is doing to the Marshall Islands and where some climate refugees are settling in the US. You must meet the beautiful people who inhabit these islands and call them their home. They are no different than you. They are people who love their homes and families and cherish the Earth. They are people who have beautiful spirits and who live off the water that now threatens to take all they have because people in developed/industrialised countries for the most part do not understand or refuse to understand or care about what their consumerism and waste is doing to the rest of the world.

The only way to deal with climate destruction in any way that is to be construed as adequate in preserving civilization beyond this century is to look inside ourselves, understand and admit our own participation in what is happening and pledge to live a life that treats our Earth with respect and love as we ourselves wish to be treated and as our Earth treats us. This is why political (UN) conferences sponsored by the very entities responsible for this crisis will not ever do what is necessary to save us from the catastrophe that has already been put into motion.

The inhabitants of these islands have been wronged by the US and other countries in more ways than one. Not only is climate destruction now flooding their homes and cultures and threatening to overtake them- the effects of nuclear fallout from testing as far back as the 1940s (Bikini Atoll)- have also poisoned the water, ruined livelihoods and made it uninhabitable.

There will be no substantial progress in addressing climate destruction until we can all look beyond our front porches in the US and other industrialised countries to see the real and true effects of our actions and ask these questions: Just how much does our comfort at any cost supersede the continued existence of mankind? Also, what is our responsibility to the inhabitants of these islands in response to seeing their homes submerged?

Welcome To Bikini Atoll
How do we as Americans and humans not see the human rights abuses we have committed against the native people? And now we will abandon them as the waves submerge their lives? Climate destruction is not just about charts and graphs- it is about flesh and blood.

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Almost A Decade

Water Wars Are Here-We Were Warned

This August will mark nine years that this blog has been in existence. Nine years on Blogger, 45 years of my life. The link above is the first post written on Blogger in 2006. Neither the passion nor the dedication has waned in all of those years. There has been an increase in readership and my hope is that the information shared here has been shared with others and that it has imparted people with information they did not have before and perhaps even inspired action.

Water is shared by all humans and all species throughout our world. It is the one thing we all have in common- the one thread that binds all of our lives together.

To see that thread now being severed by our own hand is beyond tragic.

The day will come for the world as a whole when the true importance of water to all of our lives will be seen. I truly hope it is not too late.

Thanks to those who have sincerely supported my writing here and who have shared the information. Hopefully, the blog will see ten years.
As a treat I am posting this classic video of the Havasupai waterfall in the Grand Canyon. If we can but remember just how beautiful water is and how much it is a part of us we may learn to respect it. That is the first step to preserving it for generations to come.

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NASA: 21 Of 37 Largest Aquifers Losing Water

NASA: 21 Of 37 Largest Aquifers Losing Water

Drought-stricken California is not the only place draining underground aquifers in the hunt for fresh water.

It’s happening across the world, according to two new studies by U.S. researchers released Tuesday.

Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France -- have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water is being removed than replaced from these vital underground reservoirs. Thirteen of 37 aquifers fell at rates that put them into the most troubled category.

“The situation is quite critical,” said Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California Irvine-led studies’ principal investigator.

And it’s difficult to see it getting better soon. These groundwater reserves take thousands of years to accumulate and only slowly recharge with water from snowmelt and rains. Now, as drilling for water has taken off across the globe, the hidden water reservoirs are being stressed. Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use, up from the usual 40 percent.

In another finding from the studies led by the University of California Irvine, scientists say that some of these aquifers may be much smaller than previously thought. Only a few of the aquifers have been mapped in detail and most estimates of aquifer water reserves have "uncertainty ranges across orders of magnitude,” according to the studies.

[Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’]

The new studies used NASA’s GRACE satellites to take unprecedentedly precise measurements of the groundwater reservoirs hidden beneath the ground. The satellites detected subtle changes in the gravitational pull of the earth’s surface. Water is exceptionally heavy and exerts a greater pull on orbiting spacecraft. As the satellites flew overhead, slight changes in aquifer water levels were charted over a decade, from 2003 to 2013.

“The water table is dropping all over the world,” Familglietti said. “There’s not an infinite supply of water.”

In Australia, the Canning Basin in the country’s western end had the third-highest rate of depletion in the world. But the Great Artesian Basin to the east was among the healthiest.

The difference, the studies found, is likely attributable to heavy mining near the Canning Basin. Mining is a water-intensive activity.

In the United States, California’s Central Valley Aquifer was in the most trouble. It is being drained to irrigate farm fields. California only last year passed its first extensive groundwater regulations, allowing for local control over groundwater. But the new law could take two decades to take effect.

[California’s water woes primed to get worse as groundwater is drained]

Also running a negative balance was the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains Aquifer, which stretches across the Gulf Coast and Florida. But three other aquifers in the middle of the country appeared to be in relatively good shape.

The studies were published Tuesday in the Water Resources Research journal.

Familglietti said he hoped the findings would spur discussion and further research into how much groundwater is left.

“We need to get our heads together on how we manage groundwater,” he said, “because we’re running out of it.”

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I really am wondering why so many people simply cannot understand the urgency of conserving water. It is inevitable that with growing populations, continued privatization and globalization, pollution, industrial agriculture and the effects of climate destruction that water usage and waste will be on the rise. However, we as a species are woefully unprepared for the world we are making- mainly a dry world. A world devoid of the water necessary to sustain life.

This is not some obscure story to be relegated to the back burner. This is a major crisis that effects each and every one of us regardless of race, gender or political predisposition. More of our world is becoming too dry too sustain crops with nutrients being depleted due to industrial chemicals and effects of monoculture. Again, this is not just about a global water crisis- this is about the very clear and present danger of a global famine.

Many of us particularly in the US and other so called "developed" nations still act as if we are somehow immune from these effects- even as California continues to struggle in an epic drought that has farmers struggling to survive as well as in other places around the globe. We go to supermarkets somehow forgetting that what we see on the shelf had to come from a field or it wouldn't be here- and that takes water and lots of it.

Which is why man's insatiable thirst for water now not for life but for profit is a false choice that is leading us quicker to Peak Water and that global famine. Mining, fossil fuel extraction, tarsands, Fracking, mega-dams are all wasting precious water needed for life. This also extends to our oceans which we have poisoned and polluted to the point of a real crisis for us and the species that inhabit them. How is it we can still on the whole sit so silently as our world slips away from us?

Time is not on our side at this point and we can no longer continue with the mindset that the water we waste and use will be replenished. Climate destruction is now wrecking havoc on the hydrologic cycle with monsoons being affected that effect growing seasons as well as salt water intrusion that makes farming untenable with amplified intensity and severity of droughts and floods. Snowpack has been reduced which is resulting in less water being replaced as usage increases. Even someone with poor math skills can see that sooner or later this equation will have devastating effects on all living things.

With 7 billion people on planet Earth and projections of population increases to 9 billion within the next two decades the importance of not only planning but adapting and conserving cannot be stressed enough! If you are not genuinely scared for what the future holds as we continue to go along at the current pace thinking water will always be there you are in for a very rude awakening

Wars over water are also not some sci-fi plot. They are happening now and will continue to as the source of our lives continues to dwindle in areas of the world where there is the greatest concentration of poor people. This is why management of resources is not the only important factor here- but who has control over that management. I try very hard to hold out hope that humanity as a whole will finally see just how precious water is and do what is necessary to conserve this commons for our future. I would be remiss if I did not state that my hope is waning. Just take a look at the rich in California claiming they don't "need" to conserve water because they think they are entitled to it and care more for their lawns and reputations in their nose in the air communities that live in another universe. I say, if you waste water on your lawn then you get no food. I actually hope the rude awakening is especially rude for them. That unfortunately is what is necessary to wake up the populace.

Also see:

Global Freshwater Consumption Crossing Its Planetary Boundary

Drop In U.S. Underground Water Levels Has Accelerated

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Backing Earth Up Against The Wall

This is not going to be another pretty please to 'politicians' to ask them to please do more on this crisis. The bottom line is that we as a species are committing slow suicide to ourselves and murdering species, trees, plants, the rainforests, rivers and oceans, the atmosphere and all ecosystems that support our own existence and it is being done out of willful ignorance which is morally reprehensible.

We now know that human behavior is contributing to the rise of GHGs in our atmosphere which is in turn causing rising seas, accelerated melting of glaciers specifically in the Arctic which threatens our climate balance, stronger storms, droughts, wildfires, floods, deforestation, desertification, the spread of disease, species extinction, invasive species, water shortages and erratic weather patterns.

These conditions are then in turn causing the death of livestock, the extinction and disappearance of species important to the web of life, hunger, lack of potable water, environmental degradation of land needed to grow food, pollution and the possibility of millions of environmental refugees who will be forced to leave their homes because where they live will be uninhabitable...and that is already happening in places like Bangladesh, Vanuatu and other islands that have already been swallowed up by the rising seas. The economic devastation because of it is so much more than it could ever be in not doing the right thing, not to mention the environmental damage and the spiritual damage to our balance with this planet.

I am so sick of these so-called 'conferences' that come out with false rhetoric about seeking to fight climate change and then let the Earth down without binding targets. I am sick of climate change being used as a political wedge issue rather than treated as the urgent moral crisis it is with governments backing down by using the economy as a damn excuse to sit and do nothing and waste more time while this world melts around us! But of course, that is the way of "politics".

After all of the petitions signed, the letters written, the phone calls, the flyers, the blog entries, the changes I have made in my own life and in doing all I can to spread this message to others, there is only thing left I can say to the developed countries of this world including the U.S., UK, Russia, Australia, as well as China and India (which in my book are developed countries based on their economies and what they are contributing to this crisis because of it now):

It is time to stop the stalling and do something now, because words no longer mean anything. We have now passed definite tipping points in the climate balance of this Earth that are and will have catastrophic effects on the habitability of this planet. Scientists have confirmed it and Mother Nature is now illustrating it in response to our behavior on a global basis. What is it going to take?

It is absolutely morally reprehensible for any country that is contributing the most to this crisis to still sit on its hands and play these, "it will be bad for our economy" games while the poor of this world become more and more vulnerable to the effects of this crisis! These are the same games that were played for decades and you should know that it is logical that without a truly sustainable planet economy won't mean squat. As a matter of fact, it has been proven that sustainable investments and practices particularly regarding agriculture not only save money but bring jobs and a safer, cleaner, more peaceful world.

But continue to have your 'conferences' that let the Earth and those species that cannot defend themselves down and still expect her to sustain you. The arrogance of those perpetuating this crisis truly blows me away. You now back the Earth up against the wall and she will not be kind to you for it nor will history.

G7 Leaders Agree To Phase Out Fossil Fuels By End Of Century



Here stand the accomplices making another irrelevant announcement.

By end of century? TOO LATE. We are already experiencing consequences of abrupt climate destruction. And again, why is the main focus always on investing? There is never any mention in these plans of Sustainable Agriculture, reforestation, Soil Carbon Sequestration because god forbid they stand up to big ag/Monsanto/Cargill. Are all you politicians just setting these targets to give more investment dollars to those on both sides getting rich off our suffering? By end of century we will see fossil fuels already run out and with us continuing to coddle our addiction without any sort of timely transition that will be adequate in comparison to pace of changes resulting in massive social unrest. Perhaps, that is their plan? Also, making this announcement while they fervently continue their wars for natural gas resources (Arctic, Syria, Ukraine, etc.) that they label as "clean energy" to give their fossil fuel corporate backers cover reeks of hypocrisy. We cannot survive until end of century with a LOW carbon strategy- especially one including fracking, nukes and industrial agriculture.

The fact that they do know this and continue on the same path is beyond criminal.

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