Deja Vu All Over Again

                                                                                       written 9 February, 2025

                                                                                 published 16 February, 2025

 

            The last time fascist boots marched across the world, millions died, and many countries were smashed to dust before it was over.  My father survived that war, so it is deeply depressing the authoritarian fascists this time are American.  In just the first few weeks in office, the tsunami of chaos, disruption, and ill feelings flooding from the White House feels overwhelming, and denial is policy.  

            As the Asian bird flu expands, decimating commercial flocks, raising egg prices, the Center for Disease Control is being gutted, and information expunged, leaving the population blind at a time of increasing risk.  A growing measle epidemic in Texas is expanding unacknowledged, without any official recognition or reaction, in that very red, anti-vax state.

            Rather than face issues, we have a "know nothing" party in power, focused on narrowly popular social issues, with heavy punitive religious overtones.  When authoritarian rule is aligned with fanatical religious dogma, people feel justified by God to kill and oppress for exclusive gain.  Fear, judgement, and revenge are the currency of this administration, and people already feel it.

            Yesterday, a man with a battery powered bullhorn was standing on the street corner, shouting non-stop at the passing traffic.  The words were unclear, but the tone was dire.  As I passed, I could only see the words "Jesus" and "vomit" on his sign.  According to the Bible, Christ taught the two most important actions were to love God and love the other.  How can anyone hate, and still believe they are truly "Christians"?

            But the most significant juggernaut headed our way is the growing climate crisis. Out of spite, the new regime is defunding all previous climate efforts.  Regulations are being removed, allowing unfettered fossil fuel development, despite the industry knowing their time is ending.  All mention of climate change is being stripped from government websites.  National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which has been significant in monitoring climate change, is being gutted and muted.  

            But reality doesn't bend to denial.  January 2025 was the hottest January on record.  Temperature at the North Pole was 20°F above normal last week.  The Earth has now exceeded the previous Paris accord limit of 1.5°C above preindustrial times, and it was recently reported that we will blow past 2°C in no time, as the planet is heating faster than was previously feared.

            The proof is becoming impossible to ignore.  Lloyd’s of London, a major re-insurance firm, reported that in the last decade the quantity of insurance claims increased a factor of 3 and payments increased a factor of 5.  State Farm Insurance recently announced it will raise home owner insurance rates in California an average of 22 percent.  Insurance may not be affordable, even if available.  Uninsurable property loses 80 percent of its value, threatening real estate and banking industries, and the funding of state and local governments.

            The January wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed $70 billion in insured property, but the regional economic impact, including lost incomes, uninsured losses, and destroyed infrastructure, is estimated as high as $280 billion.  The estimated regional economic impact of the fall hurricanes in the southeast is $140 billion.  These two events, in just five months, add up to about half the annual US Pentagon budget.  Rest assured, these aren't the last climate disasters we will see.  These are only teaser previews of coming attractions!  But our "leader" doesn't believe it is real.  

            The challenge is how to respond.  We each have the power to choose, despite the external situation.  Hating the other, not only doesn't work, it is just the same play book as the party in power and we become what we resist.  

            From a Buddhist, unity reality, we are all one, and our "leader" is part of me.  He was abused by his father, taught the world is only killers and losers.  He had no emotional support, and no real friends.  He knows he is a fraud, but can't embrace that, so he spews hate on everyone else.  If I have compassion for that destroyed, angry, frightened little boy, my attitude changes.  I don't forgive his actions, but I don't hate him, and I feel better.

            We don't know what will happen.  In the long term, the rise and fall of Hitler ushered in 80 years of peace in Europe, the longest in recent history.  Hold fast to the vision of what we want.

 

Canada and Greenland

                                                                                       written 2 February, 2025

                                                                                   published 9 February, 2025

     

            The 2021 fictional movie "Don't Look Up" portrays how humanity responds to the impending disaster of a comet about to impact the Earth.  The entrenched status quo declared it "fake news", to calm the public and protect profits.  More responsible people organized a global attempt to deflect the comet enough to avoid any impact.  At the last minute, wealthy voices, seduced by the value of the rare minerals in the comet, derailed that attempt.  Instead of changing trajectory, the goal became capturing the comet.  That failed, and everyone died.

            "Don't Look Up" is a metaphor for the climate crisis, which our current "leader" labels as "fake news".  Addicted to protecting short term corporate profits, he is working to undo the modest efforts of the previous administration.

            But the changes in the Arctic Ocean are real.  The Northwest Passage, once completely frozen solid, was first transited by 3 icebreakers in 1957.  The Arctic is warming 3-4 times faster than the rest of the planet, with diminishing summer ice cover each year.  The first summer with an ice-free route was in 2007, and cruise ships now occasionally make the passage.  

            The potential economic opportunities are huge, as passage through the Arctic, from China to Europe, is twice as quick as current routes using the Panama or Suez Canals, which are often congested.  Further, vast mineral and fossil fuel deposits could be exploited as the ice recedes.  China and Russia are very interested, which explains why our "leader" is now threatening to make Canada another state, and invade Greenland, offending two of our traditional allies.  National Security is the excuse, but greed is the driver.  However, like the misguided wealthy in the movie, a fundamental disaster is being completely ignored, risking everyone.

            Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a known greenhouse gas.  Humans have changed the atmospheric chemistry, added over 1,000 billion tons of fossil carbon in the last 75 years, heating the planet an additional 1.6°C.  Atmospheric CO₂ lasts for millennium, and the heating effect lags behind the atmospheric content by about a decade, so even if we stopped adding more today (which is NOT happening), the planet will slowly continue to heat up.

            But methane (CH₄) is another important greenhouse gas.  It is a smaller part of the atmosphere, and breaks down into CO₂ within a decade, but over that short interval it is 80-120 times more potent than CO₂ at heating the planet.  Natural methane is the byproduct of anerobic bacterial action, so wet lands, rice paddies, landfills, and herbivore belches contribute, but they recycle existing atmospheric carbon.  Natural gas is fossil methane, buried for millions of years.  As that industry expands, methane leakage increases.  In 2005, natural gas fracking boomed and by 2007 atmospheric content of methane began increasing sharply.   

            But the looming disaster in the warming Arctic comes from long frozen methane in the vast area of permafrost and in the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean.  These deposits have accumulated over millennium from buried bacterial action.  Like frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice), frozen methane goes directly from solid to gas when heated.  With increasing frequency, when frozen methane in permafrost warms and turns to gas, it blows out visible craters on the surface.

            The Arctic Ocean is a shallow sea, with an average depth of about 100'.  When the surface is covered with ice, as it has been for thousands of years, sunlight is reflected back, keeping the ocean floor cold, and the frozen sea floor methane remains stable.  The concern is that when the ocean surface is ice free, the darker water absorbs heat, warming the shallow sea and eventually the ocean floor, turning the frozen methane to gas which then rises to the surface.  

            The Arctic is relatively unexplored, so the amount of frozen sea floor methane is estimated between 200 billion to 10,000 billion tons.  If 1,000 billion tons of CO₂ warmed the world by 1.6°C, then just 10 billion tons of methane would have the same impact.  That is only 5 percent of the lowest estimated amount of sea floor methane, or less than 0.1 percent of the highest estimate.  The heating impact would hit within months.  Once any significant methane induced heating started, there would be nothing to stop the whole frozen mess coming to the surface.

            GOP/MAGA institutionalizes denial, distracted by greed, domination, and petty revenge, ignoring issues that are rapidly corroding our economy and our civilization.

 

 

Oil Sheen

                                                                                    written 20 January, 2025

                                                                                   published 2 February, 2025

  

            Everyone has seen the iridescent rainbow patterns in an oil sheen on water.  Oil is hydrophobic, which repels water and doesn't mix.  It spreads out across the surface of the water, and if the quantity of oil is small enough, the layer gets very thin and the rainbow patterns become more distinct.

            White light is composed of different colors, which are different wavelengths of energy.  A thin layer of oil reflects some light from the surface, but also allows some light to penetrate into the layer.  When that light hits the oil/water interface, some is reflected back toward the source, where it interacts with light reflected from the top surface.  For a given color, or wavelength, the interaction can be constructive (in phase) or destructive (out of phase) depending on the depth of the oil layer.  When constructive, that color is enhanced, when destructive, that color is diminished.  The rainbow patterns we see on the surface are a visual map of the subtle, varied thickness of the oil film.

            The human eye "sees" from red to blue, with red having a longer wave length than blue.  The wavelength of red light is 700 nanometers, 28 millionths of an inch, and blue light is only 16 millionth of an inch.  The rainbow patterns result from oil layer thickness differences as small as 10 millionths of an inch, 100 times finer than a human hair. While we can't directly experience those small distinctions, we clearly perceive the material consequences, seeing patterns without realizing the subtlety underlying those patterns.

            The same can be said for our experience of what we call the "material" realm.  Most people have heard of Einstein's famous equation E=MC²: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.  All material form is concentrated energy.  Because the speed of light is so great, the energy represented by even a modest amount of mass (material) is enormous.  For example, a single 12 ounce bottle of my favorite beer, Boont Amber from Anderson Valley Brewery, has the energy equivalence of 13 megatons of TNT, 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Fortunately, beer is a very stable form of energy, delicious to drink, and easy to experience.

            The physical perspective resulting from Einstein's equation has been validated by transformative technologies ranging from the destruction force of nuclear weapons to LED lights, computers, cell phones, and solar cells.  No person alive today is untouched by the consequences of this view of reality.

            Like seeing the patterns in the oil sheen, yet unable to directly perceive the underlying subtle reality, our material experience misses another deeper reality.  The concentrated energy we experience as material form arises from a vast ocean of energy, much like the waves we see on the ocean ride on the invisible depth of water below.  We see only the surface patterns, not the volume.  

            Enormous as they are, the energy concentrated in the matter pales to insignificance when compared to the vast energy ocean from which all matter arises.  The most concentrated mass known, and therefore the most energetic, is the core of a neutron star, yet the difference between that and "nothing" is a billion trillion times less than the distinctions we see in an oil sheen.

            Why is any of this important?  How does it apply to my daily experience?

            The fundamental dysfunction of our times, the root of every "ism" that bedevils us all, is the persistent illusion that we are all completely separate, apparently supported by our limited experience of material reality.  The ways we divide reality are everywhere, and have been perpetuated through centuries, but they all rest on the belief that the differences we experience are absolute differences, instead of only relatively superficial distinctions.  To the extent we can open to the idea that all form is simply waves on the surface of the same ocean, we can begin to experience the unity of reality, instead of eternally fighting against what is inherently actually ourself.  

            This idea is not new, as the mystical core of every spiritual tradition teaches the same message.  For thousands of years, as far back as written history extends, the unity of life has been known and taught.  But over the same period of time, it has been ignored by the fanatics seeking power and domination.  However, we are now too numerous, and too powerful to be so ignorant much longer.

Fires in LA

                                                                                      written 20 January, 2025

                                                                                  published 26 January, 2025

                  

            Parts of Los Angeles are still burning, even though I began writing this 2 weeks ago.

            The region received less than 0.1" of rain since October 1st, 2024.  Tuesday, January 7th, meteorological conditions created strong Santa Anna winds, rushing over the desert, down the coastal ranges, heating and drying as they progressed, blowing steadily at 50mph, gusting up to 100mph.  With winds this strong, fires are unstoppable. 

            That afternoon, the first fire was reported in the Pacific Palisades, between Santa Monica and Malibu.  This mountainous portion of the city, with narrow winding streets, has very expensive homes.  A hurricane of embers swept through, fire resources were overwhelmed, and evacuation became the only possible focus.  The water system, designed to supply residential needs, was exhausted within hours, leaving hydrants temporarily dry at the peak of demand.  Roads became clogged, as traffic congestion caused people to abandoned their cars and run for their lives.  Blocks upon blocks of housing and commercial buildings were reduced to ash and rubble, and video of the disaster made all the news outlets. 

            A few hours later, the Eaton fire was reported in Altadena, just north of Pasadena.  With fire resources already stressed, this heavily populated area was also suddenly burning, and evacuation was again the priority.  Soon, three more areas of the city were on fire, one near Hollywood and two in the San Fernando Valley.

            The next day, the winds were so strong, and smoke so thick, aerial firefighting was curtailed.  The extent of the damage was becoming clear.  By then, the Palisades fire had consumed 26 square miles and destroyed over 1,000 structures.  The second largest impact was the Eaton fire, burning 16 square miles and 900 structures.  The initial death toll was five, but 130,000 had been evacuated and 1.5 million were without power.

            By Thursday, winds had diminished some, allowing planes to help attack the flames.  A total of six named fires were now burning, consuming a combined total of 46 square miles and 5,000 buildings.

            On Friday, only the four biggest fires were still growing.  The Palisades fire had burned to the ocean, and the active front was expanding north into the wild lands of the Santa Monica mountains, and west into the hills above Malibu and Pepperdine University, having consumed 31 square miles, with 8 percent containment.  The Eaton fire, burning north into the San Gabriel mountains, consumed 21 square miles, was 3 percent contained.  In the San Fernando valley, the Kenneth fire in the west, and the Hurst fire in the north, each burning another 1.5 square miles, were both only 1/3 contained.  The death toll had reached ten, 10,000 structures had been destroyed, and 180,000 people had been evacuated.  

            By Sunday the 12th, the death toll was sixteen, with 62 square miles burned, but most of the power had been restored.  On the 20th, the regional death toll is 27, 14,000 structures were destroyed, and the Palisades fire is only 52 percent contained. 

            Over 25 years, California wild fires have more than doubled in extent, as atmospheric CO₂ content grows, inexorably heating the planet.  15 of the 20 most destructive fires have occurred in just the last decade.  The 2018 Camp fire, which destroyed 18,800 buildings in Paradise, was the most expensive fire, but the Palisades fire is expected to top that, with regional economic impact estimates now as high as $250 billion.  

            But people still deny the climate crisis, even as the results make the evening news.  Our newly inaugurated "blamer-in-chief" pointed the finger at Biden and Newsom, yet is unable to propose any actual solutions.  Real problems require real people, but we only get a media distraction.  The fires we experienced in LA will become exponentially worse, growing larger and more frequent over time, until we collectively decide enough is enough.  This will be difficult to change.  Not only is the magnitude of the problem vast, but the mindset that caused this is very resistant.  People who are fooled are resistant to accepting they have been fooled.

            But the climate crisis doesn't care what you believe or how you voted.  If left unaddressed, your home and community will get dried out, burned up, flooded away, or blown to bits, no matter where you live.  Our heavily leveraged, massively inequitable economy, will corrode and collapse.  Do you think these fires will make home owners insurance more affordable or available? 

 

Thinking of the Titanic

                                                                                         written 5 January, 2025

                                                                                   published 12 January, 2025

    

            At 11:40pm, April 14th, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg, sinking 3 hours later.  From the moment of impact, the ship was doomed, but that awareness spread unevenly through the 2,224 people on board.  

            For hours previously, despite repeated radio warnings of sea ice from other ships in the area, the Titanic never slowed, determined to make their maiden voyage in record time.  The night was moonless, and windless, making detecting icebergs very difficult.  Spotted only a few minutes before impact, the berg couldn't be avoided.  

            The Titanic was advertised as "unsinkable" with 16 watertight compartments.  But it could only stay afloat with four or less fully flooded.  The ice narrowly sliced along the side of the ship, opening 5 compartments to the sea, and the pumps couldn't keep up.  

            One of the first to know their dire reality was the ship's architect, who was onboard for the celebratory voyage.  With his extensive knowledge of the design, he had no doubt the ship would sink.  But most of the passengers were still asleep.  As the situation became clearer, the crew began to react.  Distress signals were repeatedly radioed.  All passengers were awakened, and lifeboats were being rigged for launching.  Many passengers still didn't know what was happening, or didn't believe the information.  Many, most especially the first-class passengers, were upset at being disturbed.

            Believing the ship invulnerable, there had been no lifeboat practice drills for crew or passengers, so events proceeded slowly.  Further, for cost and aesthetic reasons, there were only enough lifeboats on board for half the people.  Even when the boats were eventually launched, the were carrying fewer than full capacity, from unfounded fears they would capsize and lack of concern by many still on board, who continued believing the ship was "unsinkable".  

            The first ships arrived almost 2 hours after the Titanic disappeared.  By then all the people in the frigid water had died, over 2/3 of the ship's population, predominantly third-class passengers and crew.

            Moving from a past disaster to the present one, last year was again the hottest year on record.  For the first time, we are 1.5°C above preindustrial times, having added 1,000 gigatons of atmospheric CO₂ in the last 200 years, due to fossil fuel combustion.  The International Panel on Climate Change had set 1.5°C as a target to avoid.  Despite decades of scientific warnings, describing risk of increasing climactic collapse, short-term corporate profits prevail, and atmospheric CO₂ content grows each year.

            Arctic sea ice is the lowest on record for this time of year.  The concern is, with sea ice cover diminished, the shallow Arctic sea floor will warm, melting the embedded frozen methane, estimated between 200-10,000 gigatons.  Methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a few decades.  Once the sea floor warms above freezing, an unrestrained methane release into the atmosphere would cause a sudden, massive temperature spike.  Beginning a decade ago, dinner plate size methane bubbles were reported rising to the ocean surface.

            Has space ship Earth already been irrevocably damaged?  Are we doomed to collapse, with most of the passengers still asleep, unaware of our fate?  Are there any lifeboats onboard?  What do they look like?  Where would we go?  Are we depending on rescue from other "ships" in the area, or divine salvation?  

            Less than 2 weeks from now, a president will take power who claims these concerns are "fake news", and is owned by the billionaire class killing the planet for exclusive profit.  It may be the current shift in our energy production, a crude lifeboat attempt, is far enough along it can't be stopped by the denial lunacy.  But the best efforts so far are inadequate to the challenge, and any delay will hurt, as more CO₂ floods in each year.  

            There may still be paths to avoiding societal collapse but we have wasted decades.  Gradual change is no longer sufficient, and abrupt social change doesn't seem possible in such a polarized global society.  

            We don’t know what’s going to happen.  Are we just a lethal parasite killing our host?  Could crisis awaken the masses to experience the fundamental unity of our reality?  Could limited dogmatic religious visons of transcendence fall away?  Could we embrace the power of our own attention?  Could we experience the imminence of reality?  Miracles are the operation of forces of which we are currently unaware.

Brief History of Fusion

                                                                                   written 29 December, 2024

                                                                                     published 5 January, 2025

            Last week I described how some of the heavier elements will fission, releasing energy as they get smaller.  Modern physics also shows the lighter 26 elements release energy as they get larger through fusion, with the nucleus more tightly bound.  The most well know example of this is the fusion of two hydrogen atoms into one helium atom.

            Because protons are all positively charged, the electromagnetic force repels them.  When that repulsion is overcome, and protons are brought close enough together, the "strong" nuclear force takes over, holding the nucleus together.  The core of the sun has pressure 100 billion times our atmospheric pressure, with a temperature of 15 million degrees Centigrade.  This is sufficient to initiate hydrogen fusion, and the released energy is what allows life on Earth.

            Combustion of any kind (carbohydrates in the body, plant material, or fossil fuels) involves oxidation of hydrogen, which has historically powered life and human civilization.  But oxidation of hydrogen involves the electromechanical forces in chemistry.  Fusion of hydrogen, involving the strong nuclear force, is 2 million times more powerful, making it an attractive energy source.

            The problem with accessing this level of energy is the extreme pressure/temperature needed to make it happen.  Once the first fission device was developed in 1945, it was realized this power could be used to initiate fusion by locating a hydrogen core within a nuclear fission bomb.  The first hydrogen fusion device was detonated in 1952, rated at 10 megatons of TNT.  Russia detonated their first hydrogen bomb a year later, and detonated the largest man-made bomb in 1961, rated at 50 megatons of TNT, 3,000 times larger than the fission bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.  

            As with the power from fission, efforts quickly turned to trying to make peaceful use of fusion.  This is a much more difficult engineering project than a bomb, as controlled fusion needs be sustainable and not destructive.   The fundamental problem is still how to generate sufficient pressure/temperature to initiate fusion.  Designs using radio waves, magnetic fields, and lasers have been proposed and constructed, trying to generate the necessary conditions and keep them contained.  

            Over the decades, research has become more globally cooperative, driven by the complexity and massive expense of such a project, with almost 100 fusion experiments now in play globally, and more planned.  Billions of dollars are invested annually in the US alone.  Successes have been measured in terms of temperatures and energy levels achieved, and duration of actual fusion.  Designs have improved, now including superconducting magnets and as many as 200 laser beams.  

            However, the longest duration of sufficient temperatures yet achieved was 18 minutes, and the longest actual fusion was just seconds.  Any power produced is a fraction of the power required to generate the fusion environment.  Therefore, commercial fusion power is still described as "decades away".   

            In 1989, there was a flurry of news about "cold fusion".  Two chemists, Fleischmann and Pons, reported excess heat and nuclear byproducts using electrolysis on the surface of an electrode, and the hope was a new form of cheap and abundant energy.  However, multiple efforts to reproduce the results failed, so this report was considered an error and the subject declared dead.  No peer reviewed literature now mentions cold fusion, and many consider it impossible.  

            However, some researchers continued, mostly working outside the US, despite limited funding and rejection by the mainstream scientific community.  Over time, these investigations have earned enough reputation to become known as Low Energy Nuclear Reaction research.  Rather than trying to push hydrogen together, one theory is cold fusion pulls them together, within the cracks of suitable substrate.  Perhaps the energy released destroyed the substrate structure, making the first results impossible to reproduce, and research now centers on creating more durable substates.

            Science has a history of blind spots, where orthodoxy refuses to recognize changes when they appear.  Cold fusion may be one of these and will one day become mainstream.  However, that isn't going to happen soon, if ever.

            Fusion is still a technologist's dream, and fission is expensive, economically risky, producing eternally lethal waste, consuming finite fuel.  No form of nuclear power is going to rescue our troubled energy future.  Even the oil industry acknowledges the US fracking boom is over, depleted.  Without even addressing the climate crisis, a sustainable technological civilization will require fundamental changes in our energy production, if it is to exist much longer.