Beijing pollution

Beijing Pollution So Bad That International Schools Build Filtered Air Domes for Children

Cryptogon,

June 22nd, 2013

How about if all the shit-for-brains politicians in New Zealand, who gladly bend over for China, send their kids over there to play in the domes?

Hmm? John Key? How does that grab ya?

Via: Los Angeles Times:

After nearly two decades in Beijing, David Wolf knew it was time for a change when his 11-year-old son, Aaron, somberly asked him, “Dad, when you were growing up, did you ever have PE outdoors?”

Wolf had grown up in smog-choked Los Angeles in the 1970s, but even that wasn’t nearly as bad as Beijing today. His son, like many young students in the city, has been kept inside for months, with the luckier children getting the chance to exercise under huge air-filtered domes that their international schools have built.

Later this month, when school lets out, Aaron and his mother will move to Southern California for good, and Wolf begins a new way of doing his consulting work, splitting his time between Beijing and their new home at Channel Islands Harbor.

“I want them to leave before they hate this place,” Wolf, 49, said on a recent morning as he checked Beijing’s air quality on a smartphone app, something that many people here, expats and locals alike, routinely do several times a day.

Weather chaos

120 F in Palm Springs - That's 48C

Dozens Hospitalized As U.S. West Bakes

More than 170 people were treated for heat-related ailments and some towns and cities took emergency steps to protect the homeless and elderly as the U.S. West sweltered on Saturday in dangerous near-record, triple-digit temperatures

Huffington Post,

29 June, 2013

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Extreme heat enveloped most of California and Nevada and parts of southern Arizona as a large high pressure system trapped hot air across the area, said National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Lericos.

More than 170 people were "treated for heat-related injuries" and 34 more were sent to local hospitals while attending an outdoor concert on Friday afternoon in Las Vegas, Nevada, where temperatures soared to 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 C), said Erik Pappa, a spokesman for Clark County. On Saturday, highs are expected to reach 117 (47 C).

"It involves pretty much the entire West Coast at this point," Lericos said, adding that the steamy conditions, which began in some pockets on Thursday afternoon, will likely continue throughout the weekend and linger into next week.

Temperatures were well into the triple-digits in most of the area, except in higher elevations.

In Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth, temperatures could soar on Saturday to 128 F (53 C), close to the daily record set in 1994. Other areas in and around the Mojave Desert will see triple-digit temperatures.

The "exceedingly high temperatures" can cause potentially fatal heat stroke, Lericos said, noting that those with no air-conditioning or who must work outdoors were particularly at risk.

In an effort to safeguard hundreds of homeless in Phoenix, where temperatures could hit 120 F (48 C) on Saturday, emergency shelters are temporarily adding 150 beds.

The National Weather Service said the heat warning remains in place through Sunday, and could be extended into next week should the conditions persist.

Areas in the more temperate Pacific Northwest, such as Seattle and Spokane, Washington, and Pendleton, Oregon, face hot weather over the weekend and early next week as the heat moves northward, Lericos said.

Heat wave strikes western US as temps approach 120 in Phoenix, Las Vegas

A man died and another was hospitalized in serious condition Saturday afternoon in heat-aggravated incidents as a heat wave blistered this sunbaked city and elsewhere in the Southwest.

Washington Post

29 June, 2013

Forecasters said temperatures in Las Vegas shot up to 115 degrees on Saturday afternoon, two degrees short of the city’s all-time record.

Phoenix hit 119 degrees by mid-afternoon, breaking the record for June 29 that was set in 1994. And large swaths of California sweltered under extreme heat warnings, which are expected to last into Tuesday night — and maybe even longer.

The forecast for Death Valley in California called for 128 degrees Saturday, but it was 3 degrees shy of that, according to unofficial reports from the National Weather Service. Death Valley’s record high of 134 degrees, set a century ago, stands as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

Las Vegas fire and rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said paramedics responded to a home without air conditioning and found an elderly man dead. He said while the man had medical issues, paramedics thought the heat worsened his condition.

Paramedics said another elderly man suffered a heat stroke when the air conditioner in his car went out for several hours while he was on a long road trip. He stopped in Las Vegas, called 911 and was taken to the hospital in serious condition.

The heat wave has sent more than 40 other people to hospitals in Las Vegas since it arrived Friday, but no life-threatening injuries were reported.

“We will probably start to see a rise in calls Sunday and Monday as the event prolongs,” Szymanski said in a statement. “People’s bodies will be more agitated the longer the event lasts and people may require medical assistance.”

The forecast for Death Valley called for 128 degrees, but temperatures topped at 125, according to unofficial reports from the National Weather Service. Death Valley’s record high of 134 degrees, set a century ago, stands as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

About 100 miles south in Baker, the temperature peaked at an unofficial 117 degrees in the road tripper’s oasis in the Mojave Desert on Interstate 15. The strip of gas stations and restaurants between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is known by travelers for the giant thermometer that often notes temperatures in the triple digits.

Elsewhere in Southern California, Palm Springs peaked at 122 degrees while the mercury in Lancaster hit 111 — a record.

To make matters worse, National Weather Service meteorologists John Dumas said cooling ocean breezes haven’t been traveling far enough inland overnight to fan the region’s overheated valleys and deserts.

In Northern California, record-breaking temperatures were recorded in Sacramento, where the high was 107 degrees; Marysville, which sweltered in 109 degrees; and Stockton, which saw 106.

Cooling stations were set up to shelter the homeless and elderly people who can’t afford to run their air conditioners. In Phoenix, Joe Arpaio, the famously hard-nosed sheriff who runs a tent jail, planned to distribute ice cream and cold towels to inmates this weekend.

Officials said personnel were added to the Border Patrol’s search-and-rescue unit because of the danger to people trying to slip across the Mexican border. At least seven people have been found dead in the last week in Arizona after falling victim to the brutal desert heat.

Temperatures are also expected to soar across Utah and into Wyoming and Idaho, with triple-digit heat forecast for the Boise area. Cities in Washington state that are better known for cool, rainy weather should break the 90s next week.

The heat was so punishing that rangers took up positions at trailheads at Lake Mead in Nevada to persuade people not to hike. Zookeepers in Phoenix hosed down the elephants and fed tigers frozen fish snacks. Dogs were at risk of burning their paws on scorched pavement, and airlines kept close watch on the heat for fear that it could cause flights to be delayed.

Meanwhile on the East coast -

East US Poised for Flooding 

Into July

Accuweather,

29 June, 2013

An increasing frequency of downpours, on top of already locally heavy June rainfall, will raise the threat of flooding in part of the eastern third of the nation into the first week of July.

Initially, downpours will tend to be isolated and flooding will be limited to urban, poor drainage areas and right along small streams.

However, as the pattern continues to evolve and a swath of tropical downpours stalls in the region, flooding problems can become more extensive and common.

Many locations along the Atlantic Seaboard have already received double and triple their normal rainfall for June in absence of the upcoming weather pattern.

Some communities in the Midwest got a taste of what such a weather pattern can deliver Tuesday night into early Wednesday. Later Wednesday, flooding extended into parts of Pennsylvania and upstate New York.



Isn't this is the area that is experiencing a heat wave?

Big hail storm In Reno,

Nevada

Federal Housing

FHA Swamped By Defaults; Congressional Report Shows FHA Could Suffer Losses as High as $115 Billion; Shut Down Fannie, Freddie, FHA

Global Economic Analysis,

28 June, 2013

An alleged "worst case scenario" shows the FHA could lose as much as $115 Billion. Since these worst case scenarios are always famously optimistic, the best course of action would be to shut the agency down.

I was quoted as saying just that by the Heartland in Congressional Report Raises Spectre of FHA Bailout

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 The Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) losses over the next 30 years could be much higher than originally projected, according to the findings of a congressional committee. The dismal forecast has some bracing for another taxpayer-financed bailout.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is reporting that a worst-case scenario stress test conducted last year estimated the FHA could suffer losses as high as $115 billion. That forecast is significantly worse than the one reported by independent auditor Integrated Financial Engineering Inc., which projected losses of $65 billion for the 79-year old agency.

Swamped by Defaults

The primary cause of the FHA's troubles is the plague of underwater mortgages that has struck the housing sector in recent years. During the late housing bubble, the FHA lost market share as more private lenders sold “subprime” loans to home buyers. But with the collapse of the housing market in 2007-08, much of that business returned to the FHA. While the agency has played a major role in propping up home prices, it has also been overwhelmed by defaults.

John Ligon, senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, writes:

The FHA has a core mission of providing targeted support to creditworthy low- and moderate-income, minority, and first-time homebuyers. The FHA cannot responsibly achieve these intended objectives when it is expanding its market share and competing with the conventional market for high-cost mortgage loans.

According to Ligon, the only way the FHA can avoid a bailout is to reduce its market share by lowering maximum loan limits to $325,000 over the next four years, raise credit requirements for borrowers, and institute “burden sharing” with loan originators by reducing insurance coverage from the current 100 percent to 50 percent by 2016.

While these reforms may improve FHA's balance sheet over the long term, they would also reduce market liquidity, which in turn could cause home prices to fall. Thus homeowners with little home equity now could find themselves underwater on their mortgages, which could trigger more defaults.

But it is precisely this apparent dilemma that government-sponsored enterprises like FHA have created with their meddling into the market that has some calling for a more radical approach.

‘Shut Down Fannie, Freddie, FHA’

“I would shut down Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, HUD, and such similar programs and agencies,” says Mike “Mish” Shedlock, a market analyst and host of the Web site Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis. “The more money government threw at housing, the less affordable housing became until the bubble popped.”

He says numerous government agencies and programs “should be shut down and things would be far better off because government can never allocate money better than the free market.”

Record US debt

Central Banks Sell Record Sums of US Debt

CNBC,

28 June, 2013

Central banks sold a record amount of US Treasury debt last week and bond funds suffered the biggest investor withdrawals on record as global markets shuddered at the prospect of the US Federal Reserve ending its quantitiative easing program.

Holdings of US Treasuries held at the Fed on behalf of official foreign institutions, dropped a record $32.4 billion to $2.93 trillion, eclipsing the prior mark of $24 billion in August 2007. It was the third weekly outflow in the past four weeks and came as Japanese investors, who are big holders of US Treasury debt, sold a net $12 billion of foreign bonds last week, their biggest sale in 14 months.

Bond funds tracked by EPFR Global, a data provider, saw total redemptions of $23.3 billion in the week to June 26. US funds were the worst hit, with withdrawals totaling $10.6 billion, but emerging market debt funds also saw record redemptions of $5.6 billion.

That is twice last week's withdrawals. Over the past five weeks emerging market debt and equity fund outflows have totaled $35 billion, of which $22.5 billion has fled stock market funds.

"People are throwing in the towel," said Markus Rosgen, chief Asia equity strategist at Citigroup. "It'll drag the market down lower over the course of the summer.

Fixed income markets have tumbled since Fed chairman Ben Bernanke first signaled on May 22 that the US central bank would begin reducing its asset purchases later this year. Yields on 10-year US Treasuries have risen sharply since then, hitting 2.52 per cent on Friday compared with 1.62 per cent at the start of May.

A noticeable rise in short term Treasury yields in spite of the Fed stressing it is no hurry to tighten policy, could well be a function of emerging market countries selling two-year notes to support currency intervention efforts.

"We can only speculate at this point about which countries were selling, and what maturities were being unloaded," said Lou Crandall, economist at Wrightson Icap. "One obvious possibility is that emerging market nations whose currencies have been under heavy pressure sold shorter-dated Treasuries for intervention purposes."

Global markets have regained some of their footing this week, with bond yields declining and most stock market clawing back some of their losses. The FTSE All World Index gained 2.7 per cent since Tuesday, and the average international bond yield for emerging market government fell to 6 per cent, after spiking to 6.4 per cent, the highest since October 2011.

Fund managers stress that the Fed is still buying billions of dollars worth of bonds for months to come, and point out that actual interest rate increases are far away. But most are still cautious, and are waiting for US Treasury yields to settle.

"In the near term things look difficult," said Boon Peng Ooi, chief investment officer for fixed income at Eastspring Investments. "We have to be wary of outflows, as the impact of flows in these markets can be great."

Some asset managers are concerned that if outflows continue it could force some to sell positions once more and trigger another, deeper leg in the fixed income rout.

"The summer is hot and shallow. If people capitulate then it will not be nice," warns one big asset manager. "

Equity funds failed to benefit from the move out of fixed income, with redemptions hitting $13bn in the week ending June 26. Japan was the only place to see net equity inflows in the past week.

Near-term human extinction

Habitat
Reflecting on anthropogenic climate change and near-term extinction

by Seemorerocks

I have been in the habit of collecting news stories that tend to support what I have come to describe as the collapse of human and industrial society.

I have often been asked why I do it, and doesn’t it make me depressed to be dwelling in so much negativity? My answer has always been that I couldn’t live with myself (that’s a nonsensical statement if ever there was one!) if I didn’t confront this head on.

What has made it easier is to treat it all a bit like the martial arts - to accept the information and then reflect it back out (in a more concentrated form) into the universe.

When I started this blog about 2 years ago it was all about collecting stories about Peak Oil and the collapsing economy, and encouraging people develop strategies for themselves, their families, and, first and foremost, their communities, to make them become more resilient and to transition to a post-carbon economy.

Two years later the world economy is still dragging itself along, still on the point of collapse, but things have become incomparably worse. The stories have become shriller and more frequent - yelling out that this cannot continue; something’s got to give.

Near term human extinction

While all these ‘old’ processes have not gone away it is hard to escape the reality that what we have now is runaway global warming with numerous non-linear, irreversible processes - positive feedback loops that ensure, in essence that ‘The hotter it gets the faster it gets hotter, and the faster it gets hotter the more....’ etc.

In the last weeks (since the onset of the northern summer) we have seen events whereby we seem to be watching the break-up of the Arctic ice in real time, and a series of truly horrifying extreme weather events around the globe simultaneously

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GYmgWnBGNJk

Now, it seems to me, the narrative has to be changed from building sustainable communities to acknowledging that humanity is on a suicidal mission and the greatest likelihood is that we (along with the rest of life) are heading for near-term extinction.

So much so that it now has an acronym of its own - NTE.

Living with denial

I woke up this morning after listening to Guy McPherson’s interview with Doomstead Diner for the second time, with a strong need to make a tactical retreat and to process for myself what this really means.

There are various ways that we can process this.

One is to totally ignore reality and take refuge in the lies and distractions of mainstream, corporate media. Along with usually comes an unconscious anger at having one’s comfortable view of life challenged by the likes of you or I.

It is highly likely that as things get worse this anger will take on more violent forms.

These are the people that become the foot soldiers of fascism, who will invariably blame the victims and look for the reasons for their predicament anywhere other than where they should.

I genuinely fear the strength and violence of this reaction.

There are others who will take refuge in a liberal view that also paints a largely false picture.

The huge chasm between the cloying rhetoric of Obama and the reality of his administration stands out as well as the nonsense of the liberal media that takes the rhetoric for fact and ignores the reality.

When it comes to climate change the majority of those who recognise its reality will follow the ‘official line’ which paints a ‘frightening’, but false picture of linear change.

"The oceans will rise and the world will get hotter - but not in our lifetime".

Mainstream media, science and the IPCC

I have become somewhat used to the distortions of the media. 

In this country (NZ) there seems to be a complete taboo agaInst dealing with the realities of climate change other than in brief items that see things in isolation from the global context and the reality on the ground. 

I should have been a bit more realistic in my expectations that the stark realities of rapid sea ice melting and of methane release (along with all the other feedbacks) would be reflected somewhere in mainstream science

But it turns out, they haven't.

The actual observations of scientists working in the Arctic (and the Antarctic) has long overtaken the computer projections of mainstream science. David Wasdell of the Apollo-Gaia Programme in the UK, in his excellent presentation on Arctic feedback mechanisms, makes it clear how wide the gulf between reality and the computer models of the IPCC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjZaFjXfLec

I have always been aware of the inherent conservativeness of scientists and their tendency to become locked in their own specialities (and thus avoid the 'Bigger Picture'). 

Regarding the IPCC, it is an international body and so is subject, not only to all this but also to considerable political pressures from member states who can literally veto any conclusions they don’t like. 

It is science by consensus.

Why would an elite that is suppressing the realities of economic breakdown and of Peak Oil (and resource depletion in general) be interested in having an informed public that is aware of the dangers of runaway climate change?  Why would they be interested in having people aware of ecological collapse - the extinction of 200+ species a day -  and the predicament of having 430 + nuclear installations that are past their use-by date and subject, at any time to catastrophic meltdown?

'The Pleasures of Extinction'

Another form of denial is illustrated by recent article, the Pleasures of Extinction

by John Michael Greer, who, I understand specialises in questions of Peak Oil.

His, in many ways, admirable essay points out how many times predictions of Armageddon have proved to be false and discusses the important role fundamentalism has played in the history of the United States.

However, without addressing the sound scientific base behind the conclusions, he attacks Guy McPherson without naming him, and refers to near-term extinction as 'the latest apocalyptic fad'.

“Fantasies of imminent human extinction are one comforting if futile response to this ugly predicament. If you want a justification for living as though there’s no tomorrow, insisting that in fact, there’s no tomorrow is certainly one option”

As if the conclusions of McPherson and others was just one more example of an apocalyptic cult, instead of being based on sound science.

I did not come across a single scientific or factual argument in his article to counter Guy McPherson's argument.

In a subsequent article he talks about a thermostat mechanism and 'negative feedbacks' without, I suspect, understanding (at least in the context of climate science), what this means.

Habitat

When we contemplate increases in global temperature of 1, 2...4C, it is easy to think there is nothing special in that. After all the human species can withstand wide variations in temperature, and I experience much greater variations when I step outside.

The clear answer came from Guy McPherson in his recent interview with Doomstead Diner

The answer is not in the temperature per se, but in habitat.

We are already seeing loss of human habitat from processes such as desertification and from ecological disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico; from Fukushima. We are seeing acidification of the world's oceans and increases in dead (anoxic) zones.

Increases in temperatures that we are already seeing, and future increases from concentrations of 400+ ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere (actually much more, thanks to releases of methane from the permafrost and methane clathrates in the Arctic and Antarctic), mean that we will see huge changes in the range of temperatures.

Already we are seeing that in recent climatic events such as the heatwave in Alaska and Siberia, where temperatures went from freezing to 90F in the space of 50 hours.

What happens to humans and their habitat in these conditions, especially with energy collapse when we won't simply be able to turn on the air conditioning any more?

We will then have to live with the 'new abnormal'

Prolonged exposure to temperatures more than 95F and we lose our ability to thermoregulate. In the words of Guy McPherson 'in the short term we're dead'.

When the temperatures go from freezing to 100F in the space of 2 days how is our permaculture garden going to survive. At a certain temperature protein starts to denature.

I would contend this means we will lose our ability to feed ourselves quite quickly - let alone the ability to feed 7 billion people.

No sane person would wish for the extinction of life on this planet, (still less make afad of it), but no intellectual argument is going to make the problem go away any more than collectively burying our heads in the sand.

The first thing we need to do is to accept the evidence.

If you are going to argue please do it on the basis of facts and evidence. 

Tell the climate scientists they are wrong; tell the polar ice scientists that their measurements are wrong and the volume of Arctic sea ice has not decreased by 80 per cent. 

And please bring some evidence along with you to refute the facts.

Living with uncertainty

Once we have accepted the evidence we have to work out how we are going to respond - another stage of round through Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief?

It's not just accepting near-term extinction. 

It's a probability, not a fact.

Perhaps we need to learn how to live with uncertainty.

That for me, at least, is harder.

A common argument against dealing with the facts is to say that people are incapable of doing so, so we should only give them such facts as they can deal with. And always leave room for Hope. 

Always Hope!

To me that equates roughly with lying.

And to the perennial objection that the only possible reactions are to fall into the most abject depression or to become a hedonist and party our way to oblivion.

To the latter, Guy McPherson had the perfect response.

Given the way that most of us in the developed world lead our lives it is impossible to distinguish how living as a hedonist could be distinguished from the way we are already living our lives.

And regarding depression, does that have to be terminal? Can't we move from denial to anger, to depression through to acceptance?

What about looking reality directly in the eye - without blinking.

For me that is the only way of living my life.

For a summary and update on climate change by Guy McPherson  GO HERE


PS - I put the following question to Guy McPherson

Q: All the media talks about is sea level rise and do not talk about changes to the human habitat. You don't talk much about sea level. Is this because the sea level changes could be slower than other changes that will finish us off, like extreme heat, acidification and general inability to produce food?

Or is it just one more factor?

A: Sea level lags well behind the changes in habitat that will kill most of us. The exceptions are small islands.