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catastrophes [2019/02/23 08:44]
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 ===== Catastrophes ===== ===== Catastrophes =====
  
-=== Subtopics === 
- 
-== Climate Crisis == 
- 
-Fred-//​Jamail_ExistentialThreat.pdf// ​  Dahr Jamail | Climate Disruption Could Pose "​Existential Threat"​ by 2050 
-Detailed documentary summary of all the impending disasters as of Oct. 2017 (5 pages).  ​ 
-WikiPaper: //​RG-CataWikiTHEN//​ 
- 
-FRED - **Fleming_Fixing the Sky.docx** - Fleming, //Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control// (book excerpts - 2 pp.) - "For several centuries now, planners, politicians,​ scientists, and soldiers have proposed schemes for the purposeful manipulation of weather and climate, usually for commercial or military purposes. Their stories have tragic, comedic, and heroic aspects. Control of weather and climate is a perennial issue rooted in hubris and tragedy; it is a pathological issue, illustrating what can go wrong in science; and it is a pressing public policy issue with widespread social implications."​ 
- 
-RG- www.truth-out.org/​news/​item/​42309-our-summer-of-fire-and-the-fires-to-come  ​ 
-“The smoke and fires this summer were a wake-up call about how quickly things can change in the natural environment and how large the stakes are. But is this devastating summer just the beginning of much worse things to come? And if this is the harbinger of the future, what will this mean for the health of humans and ecosystems?​” ​ 
- 
-== Food Crisis == 
- 
-Hunziker_EcologicalCollapse.docx 
-A recent landmark study that investigated alarming loss of insects is leaving scientists dumbfounded,​ deeply troubled, potentially the biggest-ever existential threat, risking ecosystem collapse too soon for comfort. In contrast to global warming, this may be much more imminently dangerous across-the-board to terrestrial life. An enormous loss of insect population, almost decimation in some parts of the world, threatens the life-giving structure of the ecosystem. This is a deadly serious problem! 
- 
-RG- THE FOOD CRISIS - based on Holt-Gimenez-Food Crisis to Food Sovereignty.pdf Abstract: "The current global food crisis—decades in the making—is a crushing indictment against capitalist agriculture and the corporate monopolies that dominate the world’s food systems. The role of the industrial agrifood complex in creating the crisis (through the monopolization of input industries, industrial farming, processing, and retailing) and the self-serving neoliberal solutions proposed by the world’s multilateral institutions and leading industrial countries are being met with skepticism, disillusion,​ and indifference by a general public more concerned with the global economic downturn than with the food crisis. Neoliberal retrenchment has met growing resistance by those most affected by the crisis—the world’s smallholder farmers."​ 
- 
-FRED - **Moore-Food and Negative Value.docx** - Jason W. Moore, //​Capitalism in the Web of Life//, excerpts from ch. 10 - “RoundUp Ready crops are not protecting yield so well, either. “Superweeds,​” especially but not only in GMO soy, have evolved to survive the onslaught of the famed herbicide. 161 These superweeds stand in for a much more radical shift—the transition from surplus value to negative-value—that we explore in the next section. What became clear, by the late 2000s, was that the agro-biotech expansion was actively limiting the space for a new agricultural revolution. The superweeds’ dramatic, if still-regional,​ negative impact on labor productivity points towards a broader set of forces undermining neoliberalism’s Cheap Food regime.” 
- 
-Monsanto Weed Killer Divides Farmers.pdf ​ 
- 
-FRED - **Seymour_Oceans of Acid.docx** - Richard Seymour, "​Oceans of Acid" - "Ocean acidification has been established in study after study, with serious and wide-ranging consequences. Here, for the perplexed, or anyone who would simply wants to begin their seasonal depression a little early this year, is what is happening. 
-We release about 38.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. A quarter of that is dissolved into the oceans, thus dampening capitalogenic climate change. But the chemical reactions that produces are lethal for marine life. This life, as it happens, produces most of the oxygen that we breathe. It was oceanic cells that oxidised the atmosphere in the first place. And it is responsible for at least half of all '​primary production'​ on the planet -- that is, the synthesis of organic compounds using energy from the sun." 
- 
-FRED - **NYTimes-OliveOil.docx** - How Climate Change Is Playing Havoc With Olive Oil (and Farmers) - “Gone are the days when you could count on the mild “mezze stagioni,​” or half-seasons,​ that olives rely on before and after the heat. Gone, too, is the cycle you could count on: one year good, next year not good. Harvests have been bad three of the last five years, subject to what Vito Martielli, an analyst with Rabobank, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands,​ called weather-related “shocks.” And with growing demand, wholesale prices have gone up. No one will go hungry if there’s not enough olive oil on the market. But the impact of climate change on such a hardy and high-end product is a measure of how global warming is beginning to challenge how we grow food.“ 
- 
-== Nuclear Threats ==  
- 
-BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS - The lowest point for the Doomsday Clock was 1953, when the clock was set to 2 minutes until midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs. In the years after, the clock’s time has fluctuated from 17 minutes in 1991 to 3 minutes in 2016.[14] Rise of nationalism,​ United States President Donald Trump'​s comments over nuclear weapons, the threat of a renewed arms race between the U.S. and Russia, and the expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus over climate change by the Trump Administration.[5][22][23][24][25] This is the first use of a fraction in the time, and the Clock'​s closest approach to midnight since 1953. 
- 
-Wikipedia - Health in Belarus and Ukraine has shown disturbing trends following the Chernobyl disaster. In Belarus, incidence of congenital defects had risen by 40% within six years of the accident, to the point that it became the principal cause of infant mortality.[159]:​52[unreliable medical source?] There was a substantial increase in digestive, circulatory,​ nervous, respiratory and endocrine diseases and cancers, correlated with areas of high radioactive contamination,​ and in one especially contaminated district of Belarus, 95% of children were in 2005 reported to have at least one chronic illness.[157]:​129,​ 199[better source needed] The Ukrainian Ministry of Health estimated in 1993 that roughly 70% of its population were unwell, with large increases in respiratory,​ blood and nervous system diseases.[115]:​27[unreliable medical source?] By the year 2000, the number of Ukrainians claiming to be radiation '​sufferers'​ (poterpili) and receiving state benefits had jumped to 3.5 million, or 5% of the population. Many of these are populations resettled from contaminated zones, or former or current Chernobyl plant workers...Poor or inaccessible statistics has meant that causal connections are very difficult to make in both Belarus and Ukraine. It has been observed that Belarus in particular actively suppresses or ignores health-related research...Under Soviet rule, the extent of radiation injury was systematically covered up.[citation needed] Most cases of acute radiation sickness (ARS) were disguised as ‘Vegetovascular dystonia’ (VvD), a Soviet classification for a type of panic disorder with possible symptoms including heart palpitations,​ sweating, tremors, nausea, hypotension or hypertension,​ neurosis, spasms and seizures: symptoms which resemble the neurological effects of ARS. 
- 
-(weapons and powerplants) 
-wikipedia - "On 5 July 2012, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable,​ and that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans. On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants....In 2014 Japan enacted the State Secrecy Law. The Fukushima incident falls under this law and, as a "state secret",​ independent investigations and reports are forbidden by law. 
  
- == pandemics == 
  
 ==== NARRATIVES ==== ==== NARRATIVES ====
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 There was no better place to bear witness to these contradictions and shifts than New York City... How New York City attempted to mitigate and adapt to climate change—and also to respond to climate justice more broadly – set key precedents nationally and internationally. There was no better place to bear witness to these contradictions and shifts than New York City... How New York City attempted to mitigate and adapt to climate change—and also to respond to climate justice more broadly – set key precedents nationally and internationally.
  
-=== How ===  +=== How ===
  
 +As Future Historians may recall, in 2017 we collected an excellent library in the Dropbox of articles on impending catastrophes to document our THEN about ecocidal capitalism. Alas, some of the direst predictions of two years ago have been surpassed by reality (following “Greeman’s Curve”).
  
-== The Fable of Noah We! == +Since multiple major collapses and catastrophes are inevitable, indeed are already happening, we need as future historians to face them squarely, and describe them in the past tense. As historians ​of 2120, our task is to face the worst; and yet also to come up with possible survival scenarios. Far from discouraging,​ this would give our readers something to hope for and work for. 
-by Sam Friedman ​+
  
-Once  upon  a  time,  in  a  land  now  gone  below, ​ clouds ​ gathered, ​ and  rains  began.These  ​were ​ not  your  ordinary ​ clouds. ​ They  were  very  ominous ​ indeed. ​   The  rai  ndrops ​ were  ​the  ​size  ​of  ​golfballs  ​the  ​first ​ few  days.  But  as  the  days  passed, ​ they  grew  to  include ​ baseballs ​ andthen ​ even  basketballs.And ​ there  were  lots  ​and  ​lots  ​of  ​rain-balls.Day  after  day it  ​rained. ​ The  puddles ​ filled ​ the  roads. ​ Roofs  leaked ​then ​ gushed. ​ In  ​the  ​districts ​ where  ​the poor  people ​ lived, ​ roofs  collapsed   ​After ​ a  week  or  so,  whole  tenement ​ buildings ​ began  to  fall  in +These scenarios fall under the category ​of HOW, which is the most difficult ​and important part of our narrativeIf planetary emergence does take place in the future, it will be on a planet rapidly collapsingwhich will exacerbate ​the conflict between ​the eight billion and the eight billionnaires who own half the world’s wealthThis is the point we must develop.
  
 +If there is a 1 in 100 chance for there to be historians in 2120, this emergence must have transpired by around 2030, while there was still a chance for a united humanity to stop pollution and start massive remedial action to mitigate its results. Some “tipping points” may already have been reached. Under such cirumstances,​ but under the control of a planetary federation of democratic, egalitarian communities and on the advice of the best scientists, some forms of geoengineering would inevitably be considered (starting with planting trees) and might be effective. ​
  
-It  got  so bad,  ​the  ​politicians ​ forgot ​ all  about  promising ​ tax  cuts ​monuments ​ for  their  pals and  ​new ​ prisons.The ​ Republicans ​ said  that  the  rains  were  a  sign  of  God’s ​ displeasure ​ at  tax-and-spend ​ government ​ and  atmolly-coddling ​ the  poor.  They  called ​ for  cutting ​ food  stamps ​ from  three  loaves  ​of  ​bread ​ a  month  to  two;  for stronger ​ umbrellas ​ for  police ​ on  riot  duty;  and  for  tax  incentives ​ to  spur  investment  ​in  ​galoshes ​ and reinforced ​ raincoats. ​   Just  to  show  how  seriously ​ they  took  the  threat ​ of  these  rains, ​ they  adopted ​ a  new emblem ​ for  their  party: ​ The  elephant ​ trunk  snorkel ​ as  a  symbol ​ of  self-reliance ​ under  all conditions.The ​ Democrats ​ scoffed ​ at  the  Republicans ​ and  their  callousness. ​ They  demanded ​ a  program ​ of  levees  ​or  the river  banks,  ​and  of  ​tarpaulins ​ and  tacks  to  fix  the  leaks  on  the  roofs  of  the  poor.  Of  course ​they ​ also  put forward ​ suggestions ​ for  tax  cuts  and  monuments ​ for  contractors ​ good  enough ​ to  provide ​ these  services ​ and products. ​   They  too  changed ​ their  party  emblem, ​ to  the  donkeys ​ who  hauled ​ all  that  sand+Based the on examples of New OrleansOccupy Sandy, and other historical ​and international instances ​of communities spontaneously organizing effective mutual aid in disaster situations while authorities did nothing ​or imposed violent repression ​and mistreatment ​of victimswe can elaborate our narratives
  
-After  the  legislative ​ debates ​ and  compromises ​Democratic ​ and  Republican ​ officials ​ alike  hired  their  cousins and  contributors  ​to  ​do ​ the  job.    When  ​the  ​largest  ​of  ​these ​ companies, ​ End-Run, ​ provided ​ sandbags ​ held together ​ with  fishnets, ​ and  tarpaulins ​ of  chickenwire, ​ they  promised  ​ ​thorough ​ audit  by  Under-Sand ​ andCompany. ​   They  also  got  lots  of  photo-ops ​ and  posed  beside ​ elephants ​ and  donkeys ​ who were  hard  at  work.Now, ​ the  common ​ people ​ were  fed  up  with  their  leaky  roofs, ​ collapsing ​ buildings and having  ​to  ​swim  ​to their  jobs.  By  the  twelfth ​ day  of  the  rains ​they ​ were  demanding ​ action   ​Some ​ went  ​to  ​their ​ churches,mosques or  ​synagogues, ​ where  they  all  were  told  ​to  ​pray ​ to  the  lord  for  smaller ​ raindrops ​ and  su  nny  skies;​and ​ to  sacrifice ​ a  scapegoat ​ or  two  to  make  their  prayers ​ effective ​And, ​ of  course,​to ​ atone  for  their  sins  and think  of  Heaven, ​ a  nice,  warm,  dry  spot  far  above  the  rainclouds   ​But ​ after  catching ​ and  burning ​ a  few workers ​ of  other  faiths and  ​praying ​ all  the  while, ​ the  rains  just  kept  falling.+BelowI have attempted ​to elaborate ​the broad outlines ​of one such scenario, and I invite everyone ​to add to itdevelop it, put in and elaborate detailsYou can post them here by editing this page (don’t forget ​to add your name)add them in the Dropbox, or email them to AnotherWorldNYC@gmail.comIf you're feeling particularly ambitioustry writing your own scenario from scratch ​and others can contribute to it as well.
  
-Others ​ went  to  the  leftish ​ political ​ parties, ​ the  Social ​ Democrats ​ and  Greens. ​   These  parties ​ organized ​ a demonstration ​ where  the  party  officials ​ swam  around ​ the  legislature ​ with  signs  demanding ​ action. ​ (No workers ​ came  because ​ they  held  it  during ​ a  working ​ day.)    The  main  effort ​ of  these  parties ​ was  to  set  up re-call ​ petitions ​ to  hold  new  elections. ​ It  was  real  hard  work  swimming ​ door  to  door to  get  signatures, ​ and  the ink  on  these  signatures ​ kept  running ​ in  the  rain.    But  these  folks  were  determined ​ and  gutsy. ​   By  the  17th  day of  the  rains, ​ they  had  enough ​ signatures ​ to  demand ​ a  re-call ​ election. ​   And,  after  alot  of  legal  hemming ​ and hawing, ​ even  the  election ​ commission ​ had  to  agree  (on  the  25th  day).    So  new  elections ​ were  called ​ for  three months ​ (92  days)  later. ​ And  so  the  election ​ campaign ​ began.And ​ the  rains  kept  falling. ​   The  Democratic ​ and  Republican ​ officials ​ got  more  and  more  worried ​ about  what the common ​ people ​ might  do.    They  started ​ blaming ​ a  neighboring ​ land  they  called ​ the  I-Wreck-Ye’s ​ for  the rains. ​   They  gathered ​ an  army,  and  supplied ​ it  with  all  the  best  swords ​ and  spears ​ made  by  the  End-Run ​ and Boing-Boing-Blockhead-Marionetta ​ corporations. ​ And  the  army  waded  off  to  defeat ​ the  idolatrousI-Wreck-Ye’s ​ to  stop  the  rains. ​ But  within ​ three  days,  the  army  swam  back  home  again because ​ their  weapons were  too  rusted ​ to  use,  and  because ​ their  uniforms ​ (by  Oy-Veh!-Say-Low-Rain) ​ were  rotting ​ away.    TheDemocrats ​ and  Republicans ​ thereupon ​ cried  that  the  war  was  being  sabotaged ​ by  I-Wreck-Ye-loving ​ red  and green  terrorists, ​ and  called ​ upon  all  the  patriotic ​ citizens ​ to  put  out  flags  to  support ​ their  country. ​   But  within two  days,  these  flags  (by  the  Oy-Veh!-Say-Low-Rain ​ and  the  I’mGod ​ corporations) ​ had  molded ​ to  ruin.+//[Richard scenario here]//
  
-Now,  some  of  the  workers ​ in  the  shipbuilders, ​ seafarers, ​ longshore, ​ umbrella-makers,​and ​ trash-haulers unions ​ were  getting ​ pretty ​ upset. ​ They  were  afraid ​ all  their  families ​ and  friends ​ would  drown  or  get  crushed by  falling ​ tenements. ​ They  called ​ a  meeting. ​   Many,  many  good  people ​ came,  including waist-deep ​ ecologists and  women  tired  of  pumping ​ basements ​ when  they  had  swum  home  from  work  (because ​ even then,  women’s work  was  never  done,  from  rainfall ​ dawn  to  pump  and  run.) They  named  themselves ​ the  Necessary ​ Organization ​ Against ​ Horrors ​ (NOAH, ​ for  short).Their ​ action ​ plan was  to  build mighty ​ ships.  ​The  ​trash-haulers ​ brought ​ lumber ​ and  nails  from  the  rubble  ​of  ​collapsed ​ buildings. ​ A  lot  of  the boards ​ and  doors  were  floating ​ in  the  roads  anyway. ​ The  sailors ​ brought ​ rope  and  tar they  just  happened ​ to find  on20the ​ piers. ​ The  longshore ​ workers ​ and  truckers ​ brought ​ boxes  of  food  and  jugs  to  catch  rainwater.(These ​ just  happened ​ to  get  dropped ​ as  they  swam  packages ​ to  ships  and  trucks.) ​ And  everybody, ​ women,​men, ​ and  kids,  worked ​ dawn  to  dusk  and  dusk  to  dawn  (when  not  at  their  jobs)  to  build  ships  and  put  food  on them.    The  waist-deep ​   ecologists ​ swam  through ​ the  countryside ​ rounding ​ up  animals ​ and  seeds—snails,​pussycats, ​ hyenas, ​ morning ​ glory, ​ cannabis, ​ even  a  few  donkeys ​ and  elephants, ​ and  lots  of  doves  to  seek  the land  of  peace  and  dryness.And ​ on  the  31st  day,  NOAH  and  the  common ​ people ​ went  to  their  ships  singing ​ and  praying. ​    +See also [[friedman-noah|The Fable of Noah We!]] by Sam Friedman
- +
-But  the  rich and  the  politicians ​ heard  about  it  because ​ a  few  over-their-head ​ ecologists, ​ who  had decided ​ that  the  human race  had  done  too  much  damage ​ and  should ​ drown, ​ ratted ​ out  NOAH’s ​ plans  to  the  cops.So ​ the  politicians and  the  rich  folks  and the  police ​ came  running ​ with  their  guns to  take  what  the  workers ​ had  made  for  their own  use.    They  had lots  of  practice ​ at  such  theft, ​ since  that  is  their  day  job.But ​ this  time,  their  plans  to  seize  the  ships  for  their  own  use  were  pretty ​ obvious,​so ​ it  made  it  easier ​ for  the workers ​ to  know  what  to  do.  They  fought ​ back.    When  most  everybody ​ and  everything ​ were  on  board, ​ they sent  a  herd  of  aurochs ​ running ​ down  the  pier  to  shove  the  attackers ​ back.And ​ so  NOAH  sailed ​ off  with  great  hopes, ​ leaving ​ the  rich  and  the  politicians ​ beside the  collapsing ​ levees ​ in their  designer ​ galoshes ​ and  silken ​ raincoats—trying ​ to  make  life  jackets ​ out  of  bales  of  End-Run ​ stock. ​ After some  weeks  on  the  waters, ​ NOAH  and  the  people ​ and  animals ​ and  plants ​ landed. ​ They  built  monuments ​ to the  aurochs ​ for  giving ​ their  all,  and  to  the  workers ​ of  NOAH  for  saving ​ all  but  the  aurochs.+
  
 === Now === === Now ===
Line 147: Line 108:
 were ruined by the dumping of huge amounts of cheap industrially-produced corn into local markets, where vast factory-farms,​ owned by banks and conglomerates,​ were making billions transforming inputs of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers and pesticides into mega-tons of uniformly tasteless produce designed to attract the eye and to remain salable for weeks after harvesting, where agricultural products were transported thousands of miles to markets at a huge cost in carbon pollution, where monopolistic distribution chains paid farmers ridiculously low prices for their produce and suck up enormous profits overcharging customers, where nearly half of this excess produce went to waste in the '​advanced'​ while famines raged across half the world, where food riots out periodically broke out in Asia, and where the extraction of petroleum for industrial agriculture and the clear-cutting of forests for profitable luxury crops like palm oil contributed massively to global warming and impending climate catastrophe. were ruined by the dumping of huge amounts of cheap industrially-produced corn into local markets, where vast factory-farms,​ owned by banks and conglomerates,​ were making billions transforming inputs of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers and pesticides into mega-tons of uniformly tasteless produce designed to attract the eye and to remain salable for weeks after harvesting, where agricultural products were transported thousands of miles to markets at a huge cost in carbon pollution, where monopolistic distribution chains paid farmers ridiculously low prices for their produce and suck up enormous profits overcharging customers, where nearly half of this excess produce went to waste in the '​advanced'​ while famines raged across half the world, where food riots out periodically broke out in Asia, and where the extraction of petroleum for industrial agriculture and the clear-cutting of forests for profitable luxury crops like palm oil contributed massively to global warming and impending climate catastrophe.
  
-==== Catastrophes II ==== 
  
-[[catastrophes2|Catastrophes Writing Project II]], March 3, 2019+=== Subtopics === 
 + 
 +== Climate Crisis == 
 + 
 +Fred-//​Jamail_ExistentialThreat.pdf// ​  Dahr Jamail | Climate Disruption Could Pose "​Existential Threat"​ by 2050 
 +Detailed documentary summary of all the impending disasters as of Oct. 2017 (5 pages). ​  
 +WikiPaper: //​RG-CataWikiTHEN//​ 
 + 
 +FRED - **Fleming_Fixing the Sky.docx** - Fleming, //Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control// (book excerpts - 2 pp.) - "For several centuries now, planners, politicians,​ scientists, and soldiers have proposed schemes for the purposeful manipulation of weather and climate, usually for commercial or military purposes. Their stories have tragic, comedic, and heroic aspects. Control of weather and climate is a perennial issue rooted in hubris and tragedy; it is a pathological issue, illustrating what can go wrong in science; and it is a pressing public policy issue with widespread social implications."​ 
 + 
 +RG- www.truth-out.org/​news/​item/​42309-our-summer-of-fire-and-the-fires-to-come ​  
 +“The smoke and fires this summer were a wake-up call about how quickly things can change in the natural environment and how large the stakes are. But is this devastating summer just the beginning of much worse things to come? And if this is the harbinger of the future, what will this mean for the health of humans and ecosystems?​”  
 + 
 +== Food Crisis == 
 + 
 +Hunziker_EcologicalCollapse.docx 
 +A recent landmark study that investigated alarming loss of insects is leaving scientists dumbfounded,​ deeply troubled, potentially the biggest-ever existential threat, risking ecosystem collapse too soon for comfort. In contrast to global warming, this may be much more imminently dangerous across-the-board to terrestrial life. An enormous loss of insect population, almost decimation in some parts of the world, threatens the life-giving structure of the ecosystem. This is a deadly serious problem! 
 + 
 +RG- THE FOOD CRISIS - based on Holt-Gimenez-Food Crisis to Food Sovereignty.pdf Abstract: "The current global food crisis—decades in the making—is a crushing indictment against capitalist agriculture and the corporate monopolies that dominate the world’s food systems. The role of the industrial agrifood complex in creating the crisis (through the monopolization of input industries, industrial farming, processing, and retailing) and the self-serving neoliberal solutions proposed by the world’s multilateral institutions and leading industrial countries are being met with skepticism, disillusion,​ and indifference by a general public more concerned with the global economic downturn than with the food crisis. Neoliberal retrenchment has met growing resistance by those most affected by the crisis—the world’s smallholder farmers."​ 
 + 
 +FRED - **Moore-Food and Negative Value.docx** - Jason W. Moore, //​Capitalism in the Web of Life//, excerpts from ch. 10 - “RoundUp Ready crops are not protecting yield so well, either. “Superweeds,​” especially but not only in GMO soy, have evolved to survive the onslaught of the famed herbicide. 161 These superweeds stand in for a much more radical shift—the transition from surplus value to negative-value—that we explore in the next section. What became clear, by the late 2000s, was that the agro-biotech expansion was actively limiting the space for a new agricultural revolution. The superweeds’ dramatic, if still-regional,​ negative impact on labor productivity points towards a broader set of forces undermining neoliberalism’s Cheap Food regime.” 
 + 
 +Monsanto Weed Killer Divides Farmers.pdf  
 + 
 +FRED - **Seymour_Oceans of Acid.docx** - Richard Seymour, "​Oceans of Acid" - "Ocean acidification has been established in study after study, with serious and wide-ranging consequences. Here, for the perplexed, or anyone who would simply wants to begin their seasonal depression a little early this year, is what is happening. 
 +We release about 38.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. A quarter of that is dissolved into the oceans, thus dampening capitalogenic climate change. But the chemical reactions that produces are lethal for marine life. This life, as it happens, produces most of the oxygen that we breathe. It was oceanic cells that oxidised the atmosphere in the first place. And it is responsible for at least half of all '​primary production'​ on the planet -- that is, the synthesis of organic compounds using energy from the sun."​ 
 + 
 +FRED - **NYTimes-OliveOil.docx** - How Climate Change Is Playing Havoc With Olive Oil (and Farmers) - “Gone are the days when you could count on the mild “mezze stagioni,​” or half-seasons,​ that olives rely on before and after the heat. Gone, too, is the cycle you could count on: one year good, next year not good. Harvests have been bad three of the last five years, subject to what Vito Martielli, an analyst with Rabobank, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands,​ called weather-related “shocks.” And with growing demand, wholesale prices have gone up. No one will go hungry if there’s not enough olive oil on the market. But the impact of climate change on such a hardy and high-end product is a measure of how global warming is beginning to challenge how we grow food.“ 
 + 
 +== Nuclear Threats ==  
 + 
 +BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS - The lowest point for the Doomsday Clock was 1953, when the clock was set to 2 minutes until midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs. In the years after, the clock’s time has fluctuated from 17 minutes in 1991 to 3 minutes in 2016.[14] Rise of nationalism,​ United States President Donald Trump'​s comments over nuclear weapons, the threat of a renewed arms race between the U.S. and Russia, and the expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus over climate change by the Trump Administration.[5][22][23][24][25] This is the first use of a fraction in the timeand the Clock'​s closest approach to midnight since 1953. 
 + 
 +Wikipedia - Health in Belarus and Ukraine has shown disturbing trends following the Chernobyl disaster. In Belarus, incidence of congenital defects had risen by 40% within six years of the accident, to the point that it became the principal cause of infant mortality.[159]:​52[unreliable medical source?] There was a substantial increase in digestive, circulatory,​ nervous, respiratory and endocrine diseases and cancers, correlated with areas of high radioactive contamination,​ and in one especially contaminated district of Belarus, 95% of children were in 2005 reported to have at least one chronic illness.[157]:​129,​ 199[better source needed] The Ukrainian Ministry of Health estimated in 1993 that roughly 70% of its population were unwell, with large increases in respiratory,​ blood and nervous system diseases.[115]:​27[unreliable medical source?] By the year 2000, the number of Ukrainians claiming to be radiation '​sufferers'​ (poterpili) and receiving state benefits had jumped to 3.5 million, or 5% of the population. Many of these are populations resettled from contaminated zones, or former or current Chernobyl plant workers...Poor or inaccessible statistics has meant that causal connections are very difficult to make in both Belarus and Ukraine. It has been observed that Belarus in particular actively suppresses or ignores health-related research...Under Soviet rule, the extent of radiation injury was systematically covered up.[citation needed] Most cases of acute radiation sickness (ARS) were disguised as ‘Vegetovascular dystonia’ (VvD), a Soviet classification for a type of panic disorder with possible symptoms including heart palpitations,​ sweating, tremors, nausea, hypotension or hypertension,​ neurosis, spasms and seizures: symptoms which resemble the neurological effects of ARS. 
 + 
 +(weapons and powerplants) 
 +wikipedia - "On 5 July 2012, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable,​ and that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans. On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants....In 2014 Japan enacted the State Secrecy Law. The Fukushima incident falls under this law and, as a "state secret"​independent investigations and reports are forbidden by law.
  
 +== pandemics ==
  
 +tbd
catastrophes.txt · Last modified: 2019/03/16 21:52 by admin