The Problem With Heat

                                                                                              written 21 May 2023

                                                                                          published 28 May 2023

  

            Humans are warm blooded, radiating at least 100 watts of heat, even at rest, which allows for faster metabolism, and a wider range of habitable environments.  This advantage when temperatures are cool, becomes problematic as things heat up.  Our biological reaction is to sweat, cooling the skin by evaporation.  However, sweat can only evaporate if the air around it can absorb more water.  

            Relative humidity compares how much water is in the air to the maximum capacity at that temperature.  A thermometer wrapped in a water-soaked cloth give "wet bulb temperature", the lowest temperature that can be reached by evaporation under current conditions.  At 100 percent relative humidity, the wet-bulb temperature is equal to the air temperature, no water can evaporate, and cooling by sweating or evaporation is not possible.  

            Even heat-adapted people cannot carry out normal outdoor activities past a wet-bulb temperature of 90 °F, equivalent to a heat index 130 °F.  Heat index is how hot it actually feels, with relative humidity factored in.  The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, is a wet-bulb temperature of 95 °F, equivalent to a heat index of 160 °F.

            Heatstroke results when a body overheats.  Symptoms include: body temperature over 104° F, flushed skin, rapid breathing, racing heart rate, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, headache, agitation, irritability, slurred speech, confusion, delirium, seizures, unconsciousness, and death.  This outcome is true for all warm-blooded creatures, including pets, livestock, and wildlife.  

            During the heat wave last summer, our deck in Ukiah hit 117° F.  The humidity that day was 11 percent, giving a heat index of 113° F.  If the humidity was doubled to 22 percent, the heat index would have been 127° F.  Higher humidity changes a difficult day into a potential hazard.  While Ukiah usually has relatively low humidity, other parts of the world are increasingly at risk.

            During the heat wave last summer few people in California died, but the air conditioning load almost crashed the grid.  This summer, there are early indications that the heat will be greater.  The ocean has hit record levels of heat, and indications are an El Niño event is building, typically bringing more heat to Central America, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia.   

            Last month, Los Angeles issued a summer heat alert, helping people become aware of the danger, and establishing cooling centers.  Canada is currently experiencing 88° F heat, 35° F about normal for this time of year, with over 90 fires now burning in Alberta, many out of control.  Australia is feeling the impact with drought and heat on the rise.  Spain hit 98° F last month, very early in the year for them, and all of Europe is concerned, since 15,000 people died of heat in the EU last summer.  

            There is still a portion of the population that doesn't believe the climate crisis is real, just as there are folks who think the Earth is flat.  It is Republican dogma that the climate crisis is a "hoax" pushed by the "libs" to attack American energy independence.  The climate doesn't care what we "think" is true, because it is part of our collective reality.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide lasts a thousand years and we are adding more every year, so it will keep getting hotter.  Life on Earth will survive, but human civilization, and perhaps humanity as a species, will not.  If we want to leave a habitable planet for our children, we must stop adding more CO2, and begin removing the thousand billion tons we have already injected into the atmosphere as soon as possible. 

            Those who have been working toward that goal continually wonder what it will take for enough people to "get it", so that effective change can begin.  What is still lacking is the sense of urgency, that we may already be "too late", that only a concerted effort will turn the tide.  The optimist in me sees that change is beginning.  Since the fires of 2017, attention has grown in this portion of the State.  But the years slip by with business-as-usual still dominating.

            In "Ministry For The Future", fiction by Kim Stanley Robinson, the turning point is a massive heat wave in India, that kills a million people in one week.  This summer we may see such an event in reality.  Will that do it?

 

            

 

In Conflict With Reality

                                                                                              written 14 May 2023

                                                                                          published 21 May 2023

                                                                                                 

            I listened to the first half hour of the CNN Trump Town Hall.  He repeated his same tired story, so we just turned it off.  Over the years, I have struggled to clarify my view of the man.

            We all live in an individual psychological "personal" reality, which filters and defines our experiences.  Each is shaped by patterns from our culture, family, childhood experiences, birth order, race, gender, and religion, to name just a few.  However, we also all live in a shared "collective" reality, the ground that supports us, which transcends our personal reality.  This is the reality of living on planet Earth, inhabiting a body as a human mammal.  As the saying goes: You stub your toe on collective reality.  Life is an ongoing conversation between our personal reality and the collective reality.  The more the two correspond, the more graceful and creative our life can be.  The more they diverge, our life gets more chaotic and tends toward insanity.

            Trump exudes a complete confidence in what he says, despite spouting lies in almost every sentence.  His personal reality bubble completely defines his life.  Consequently, while his world view is internally consistent, it is closed off to input from the outside world, disconnected from collective reality.  

            His father raised him to believe the world consists of killers and losers.  Trump seems to have internalized that he is never a loser, which allows him to take no responsibility for any adverse consequences of his actions.  In addition, everything he ever does is "the greatest".  There is a great YouTube video collecting his claims to "know more than anyone" about thirty different subjects (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GqJna9hpTE).   

            However, never admitting he has ever lost, means he can never learn from past experiences, and must continually deny some parts of our shared reality.  The "Big Lie" is a perfect case in point.  In the collective reality, he lost both the popular and the Electoral College vote in the 2020 election.  Despite being told he lost by numerous Republican leaders and high Trump administration officials, a fact further confirmed by losing over 60 court cases, his personal reality is so divorced for collective reality that he has never accepted that truth.  Because he can't acknowledge that loss, the election MUST have been stolen, and everything he has said and done in the last few years has pushed that perspective.  

            Another aspect of his derangement is his attitude toward women.  Misogyny is deeply baked into our culture.  Ask any woman.  Trump is proud of his attacks on women, witness the Hollywood Access tapes or his public humiliation of any woman that challenges him.  In his defense in the recent sexual assault case he lost, he claimed "she wasn't his type", implying he would have assaulted her if she had appealed to him.  As with every other attempt to bring him to face the consequences of his actions, Trump claimed the trial was a "witch hunt", with money and political gain at the root of the "false" charges.  Anything bad happening to him is always someone else's fault, never his.

            If Trump were an ordinary person, this would just be a sad case of delusional behavior, perhaps mediated by counseling, suitable medication, or time in a mental hospital.  But in this money obsessed culture, Trump has been rich enough to get away with his deranged patterns for his whole life.  What makes his case even worse is that he has been elected President, and still has a following of loyal voters who are attracted by his misogyny, racism, and "Big Lie" as part of their personal reality.

            For the most part, these folks are not in the billionaire class that benefits from Trump's political "accomplishments".  These people feel life has been unfair to them, and relate to the grievance drama that is Trump's stock in trade, resonating with Trump's claims "nobody has been treated this unfairly".  This highlights a metal health crisis endemic in our culture, where so many people chose to blame "others", rather than claim any personal responsibility.   

            Trump grows more extreme, fanning fear and hatred as a way to energize and control his supporters, while providing no actual solutions and alienating an increasing portion of society.  We have real problems in our collective reality which require cooperative effort to solve.  Trump and his followers contribute nothing to this discussion.

Fundamental Climate Questions

                                                                                                written 7 May 2023

                                                                                          published 14 May 2023

  

            I was recently asked two fundamental climate questions.  Why is atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) bad, since plants need it to grow?  How could the climate crisis kill the economy?

            Atmospheric CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, transparent to incoming visible light, but absorbing the radiated infrared energy coming from the planet, heating the air.  Concentrations are measured in parts per million (ppm).  

            Twelve thousand years ago, during the ice age, atmospheric CO₂ was 180 ppm, ice three miles thick covered the northern half of our continent, and sea levels were 400 feet lower.  Over two thousand years, CO₂ levels gradually rose to 280 ppm and stayed relatively stable as the interglacial period began.  For 10,000 years, humanity thrived and civilization evolved.

            Atmospheric CO₂ is 425 ppm today, a level not seen for 8 million years, long before humans, when sea levels were 80 feet higher.  Not only is this far outside the range where humanity flourished, but the jump has been rapid, adding 100 ppm in the last 50 years, now growing 2.5 ppm each year.  This rate of change is so abrupt, the expressed heat lags CO₂ content by a decade, so the heat will continue to increase.  CO₂ isn't "bad", any more than heat is "bad", but too much of either will kill us.  

            How can this threaten our economy?  The fire threat changed dramatically six years ago, beginning with the Redwood Valley and Tubbs fires.  Every summer since has brought massive fires and property destruction.  The fire insurance industry is alarmed, and cancelations are rising everywhere.  The State has backup fire insurance, but the rates are higher and the coverage is reduced.  As heat increases and fires continue, insurance may quickly become unavailable or unaffordable.  A similar problem is already happening in Florida, with flood insurance rates up a factor of four.  Imagine how such an increase will affect the real estate market.  As mortgage defaults increase, the local banking industry will be threatened as well.  

            Tourism is a huge percentage of our local economy.  As roads are closed more often due to increasing fires, as Public Safety Power Shutoff blackouts become more common, as air quality regularly deteriorates during fire season, as water shortages are more common, what effect will that have on tourism?  

            Another large portion of the local economy is the wine industry.  Smoke taint from bad air quality at the wrong time degrades the quality of the resulting wine, and sometimes isn't even noticeable until after the wine is bottled.  In addition, as the planet heats, grape varieties that have thrived in specific local microclimates will no longer be as productive.  This is already happening to the wine industry in France.  Vineyards may have to be completely replanted with varieties that might be able to thrive in the new climate, costing billions.  Alternately, vineyards may abandon the area and move further north.  Britain is now hosting vineyards escaping increasing heat on the continent.

            Extreme heat waves can kill people, especially in areas not used to such heat.  Last summer 600 people died in British Columbia, and 20,000 in Europe.  While California avoided extensive heat deaths, the grid almost crashed under increased air conditioner loads.  

            A hotter climate means stronger and wetter storms.  California saw 31 atmospheric rivers this winter, and many areas of the state had flooding and wind damage.  Many fields are still too wet to support agricultural activity.  The huge snow pack in the southern Sierras threatens to flood communities on the valley floor below.  Radically climate makes farming more economically risky, and food more expensive.

            Last week, ocean heat broke records, increasing concerns that this summer will be hot and deadly, with a damaging hurricane season.  Last year, US climate related expenses hit $500B.  These costs will inevitably increase as we continue adding to atmospheric CO₂ content, already dangerously high.  How often can a community rebuild before going bankrupt, or just getting too exhausted to try again?   

            If we do nothing, atmospheric CO₂ will hit 500 ppm by 2050, a level not seen for 12 million years, when the world was 28°F hotter.  The best time to act was decades ago, but fossil fuel corporations, protecting their profits, heavily funded climate deniers, so we wasted the time.  The next best time to act is today.  What is it worth to leave a habitable planet to our children?   

     

 

Marketing Fear

                                                                                           written 30 April 2023

                                                                                          published 7 May 2023

                                                                                                 

            In 1984, Rush Limbaugh began claiming that "government, academia, science, and the media are enemies of the people", amassing great personal power and wealth.  Casting doubt on the foundation of our society, he built on President Reagan's assertion that the "government is the problem".  This was further amplified by the rise of Fox News in 1996, making billions promoting fear.  

            To be fair, some people in government are motivated more by personal gain than public service.  Academics are people, and often have biases and narrow rigid perspectives.  Science is an evolving understanding, where paradigms that have held sway for decades get swept away by new information.  Media concentration has led the institutional limitations and reduced free flow of information.  But in all these cases, hindering discourse only makes matters worse. 

            Frightened people suppress their fore brain logical processes, and activate their reptilian brain flight/fight impulses.  Breathing and heart rates increase and digestion is reduced.  Blood chemistry changes and blood supply to vital organs is curtailed.  As fear becomes chronic, health deteriorates, fatigue and depression increase, memory becomes impaired, decision making becomes difficult, social contacts deteriorate, and beliefs are increasingly questioned.  Frightened people are easily distracted and controlled, but a fearful nation is not a healthy nation.  

            America is the only country on the planet with more guns than people, twice the per capita ownership of the next highest country, the Falkland Islands.  This produces headlines like the teenager who rang the wrong doorbell, and was shot through the door by the elderly homeowner.  Or the woman shot and killed after driving down the wrong driveway.  Or the cheerleader shot for getting into the wrong car in a parking lot.  In each case, the shooter claimed they "feared for their life".  All these stories happen in just one week.

             Traditional Republican offering of "thoughts and prayers" in response to the monotonous parade of gun violence has been augmented by admission that they "don't plan to do anything about it", because they are slaves to the gun industry.  When citizens in Tennessee protested in their State House against gun violence, Republicans ousted two of the three Democrats that joined the protest (just the two black members).  Cosmic irony is that both men were reappointed by the voters who had elected them, and the leader of the Republicans who expelled them, had to resign due to sexual misconduct.

            But marketing fear is more destructive than just gun violence.  By promoting fear of our democratic form of government, we get extreme political polarization, election deniers, and the insurrection of January 6th, which lays the foundation for accepting an autocratic alternative.  By promoting fear of academia, we erode free discourse, general access to education, and the dumbing down of our citizens.  Cultivating distrust of science damages our national health system, eroding our response to pandemic diseases and hinders our economic competitiveness in the global economy. Denigrating the media worsens social polarization, destroys true transparency, aids the corrupt, and keeps society more ignorant.

            Furthermore, the conservative perspective lacks any concern about the impact of corporations, the foundation of Republican fundraising.  Corporate philosophy has shifted over time, condensing from a wide range of social concerns to the sole objective of maximizing executive and shareholder short term economic returns.  This has created a concentration of wealth where three men own as much as the poorest 170,000,000 Americans.

            Because the needs of some many people are irrelevant to these three rich men, we have chronic problems of homelessness, poverty, inadequate health care, and massive environmental destruction.  Keeping people poor goes along with keeping them afraid.  When life is dominated by paying for the essentials of life, there is little time for joy, altruism, social activism, or creativity.  

            The marketing of fear has created a beast that is out of control of the marketers.  Most people want honesty, and liars eventually go too far.  Lawsuits have brought down Alex Jones, and the Dominion case showed Fox News, obsesses with profit over truth, lied regularly, chasing the conservative Republican base to boost market share.  Being only slightly more cautious, Fox is now losing market share for being too "woke".   

            We all have the power to choose love over fear.  This is the nature of the Golden Rule, and the core of all spiritual traditions.  Those selling fear have powerful megaphones, but we don't have to buy their product.