--> In terms of preparedness for coming events, including dwindling oil supplies, climate change and freak weather patterns, there are two things every person must carefully consider right now:
1) The frequency and severity of such emergency events is increasing each year. (Things are getting worse...)
2) Most people will not prepare in advance, meaning that they will truly find themselves in an emergency during the next unpredictable event.
Keep reading to learn how to avoid becoming an unprepared victim. |
 Some of these questions will be determined by the gathering calamity of climate change and its associated environmental implications, especially starvation, lack of fresh water, and the rise of epidemic disease (see Chapter 5). In the meantime, the world is faced by the dangerous posturings and maneuverings of nations around the control and possession of oil.
At the heart of this is the United States' sick dependency relationship with the Islamic world. Islamic nations possess most of the remaining oil in the world. We're addicted to that oil. |
| The Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC) predicts that severe storms, extreme floods, and droughts will become more pronounced as global warming advances.3 In general, we are in for much more unstable weather in the decades ahead. The effects will be complex and vary considerably from place to place. For instance, while Europe broiled in the summer of 2003, the northeast United States breezed through an eerily cool summer, with few days over 90 degrees all season. An altered jet stream pattern prevented southerly air from
3. |
| The tweak of climate change beginning in 1315 lowered the carrying capacity of Europe instantly. Grain production suffered markedly for three years running and a general famine commenced. Even when "normal" weather patterns returned after 1318, there was a scarcity of seed grain to resume full food production and the famine lingered. The mortality rate was high and all classes eventually suffered. Ten to 15 percent of the population died, most from disease induced by weakened immunity. |
| We also don't know what the effects of global warming and climate change will mean in the American Southeast. It may become more subtropical. But it might also suffer decreased rainfall and prolonged drought. What kind of crops might be grown there? If diseases found in the Caribbean region extend their range into the Southeast, farm labor may take on a high mortality rate. But human life may also be a lot cheaper than it is now.
Even more troubling than the logistical difficulties are the social implications. There are two previous models for farming in the American South. |
| Global climate change is already producing extraordinary conditions in the region. In June 2004, officials were calling a persistent western drought the worst in five hundred years. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said the effect on the Colorado River basin was worse than it had been in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.5
In the early stages of the Long Emergency in the Southwest, an increased influx of Mexican immigrants will confront a desperate established population of Americans who, for one reason or another, will be stuck where they are. |
| Other old diseases are on the march into new territories, as a response to climate change brought on by global warming. In response to unprecedented habitat destruction by humans, and the invasion of wilderness, the earth itself seems to be sending forth new and much more lethal diseases, as though it had a kind of protective immune system with antibodylike agents aimed with remarkable precision at the source of the problem: Homo sapiens. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the precursor of AIDS, may be the revenge of the rain forest. |
 That's a measurable, immediate difference made possible by an innovative product delivered by a company that actually cares about saving our planet from climate change disaster.
The debate on climate change is over. Now is a time for action
Personally, I'm tired of waiting around for other corporations to do the right thing. Sometimes, if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. You have to jump in and be willing to do the hard work necessary to demonstrate eco-friendly concepts to the business community. |
 Getting rid of meat in their diet is the single most powerful thing consumers can do right now to protect the planet against global warming and climate change."
For those consumers who still choose to purchase meat, Adams urges them to check the ingredients labels for "sodium nitrite" -- the chemical additive that many researchers believe to be responsible for much of the increased cancer risk of processed meat products. "Eating sodium nitrite is quite simply dangerous to your health," Adams said. |
 Ultimately, if we are going to save our planet and human civilization from self-induced climate change chaos, we are going to have to do something about our public education system, too.
Why are we teaching high school students useless geometry theorems while neglecting to teach them how to read labels while shopping at the grocery store? Why are we teaching algebra but not how to estimate a 10 percent waiter's tip in your head? |
 It will most likely happen in a gentle, nudging way -- like global climate change, infectious diseases, global pandemics and food supply shortages. Maybe there will be other little reminders, like global water shortages, typhoons, earthquakes and changes in weather patterns that affect the food supply. It will likely be these types of things that kill a lot of human beings. Not only is this is going to keep happening, but I think it's going to accelerate. We as human beings are creating the conditions that will cause these devastating events. |
 We are currently seeking writers who would like to cover one or more of the following topics:
Profiles of interesting natural health companies or products
Natural cosmetics, skin care and personal care products
Environmental news: global warming, climate change, etc.
Freedom news: Free speech, health freedom
Yoga, pilates, Tai Chi or other gentle exercise systems
Nutrition and phytonutrients
Raw foods and superfoods
Renewable energy, hybrid vehicles
The housing bubble, the U.S. dollar, national debt and personal finance
New energy technologies (cold fusion, ocean water, etc. |
 Speaking of outstanding science, a White House spokesperson today said the Bush Administration has never forced former Surgeon Generals to censor their speeches or scientific conclusions, except for requiring that they avoid talking about same-sex couples, stem cells, secondhand smoke, emergency contraception or anything involving climate change. Surgeon Generals were also required to repeat the phrase, "Bush is King" at least three times in every speech.
Salmonella for ya, Aaarrrr!
Salmonella contamination was recently found in Veggie Booty snacks. |
 Just ask all the scientists who publicly disagree with the Bush Administration's hopelessly politicized view on climate change...
Other critics of Moore are either the greedy, corrupt corporations impacted by his film (drug companies, health insurance providers, hospitals and so on) or juvenile stay-at-home back-seat Internet critics who don't like Moore for the simple fact that he dares to stand up and say "The Emperor Has No Clothes!" Nearly all the criticism leveled against Moore is without substance. |
 On top of that, it produces a whopping 10,150 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions which directly promote global warming and climate change. Mercury is also released into the atmosphere from all the energy usage, thanks to the fact that much of the electricity consumed in the world comes from coal-fired power plants that emit toxic mercury into the air.
So the Total Cost of Ownership for a 100-watt light bulb is well over $500 for producing 50,000 hours of light.
In contrast, what is the Total Cost of Ownership for our 10-watt EcoLEDs light bulb? The LED light itself costs about $100 up front. |
| The debate on climate change is over. Now is a time for action
Personally, I'm tired of waiting around for other corporations to do the right thing. Sometimes, if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. You have to jump in and be willing to do the hard work necessary to demonstrate eco-friendly concepts to the business community. Taking action to make this a reality is a lot more powerful than sitting back and criticizing other corporations for being such lousy stewards of the environment. I believe that right now is a time for action. |
 Historians blame many culprits for the demise of once flourishing cultures: disease, deforestation, and climate change to name a few. While each of these factors played varying—and sometimes dominant—roles in different cases, historians and archaeologists rightly tend to dismiss single-bullet theories for the collapse of civilizations. Today's explanations invoke the interplay among economic, environmental, and cultural forces specific to particular regions and points in history. But any society's relationship to its land—how people treat the dirt beneath their feet—is fundamental, literally. |
 In Sweden, scientists studying layers of mud from lake bottoms found evidence of climate change that occurred much more quickly than anyone at the time thought possible. These scientists discovered large amounts of pollen from an Arctic wild-flower called Dryas octopetala in mud cores from only 12,000 years ago. Dryas's usual home is the Arctic; it only truly flourished across Europe during periods of significant cold. |
| Of course, war, politics, deforestation, and climate change contributed to the societal collapses that punctuate human history. Yet why would so many unrelated civilizations like the Greeks, Romans, and Mayans all last about a thousand years?
Clearly, the reasons behind the development and decline of any particular civilization are complex. While environmental degradation alone did not trigger the outright collapse of these civilizations, the history of their dirt set the stage upon which economics, climate extremes, and war influenced their fate. |
| A society that approaches the limit of its particular coupled human-environmental system becomes vulnerable to perturbations such as invasions or climate change. Unfortunately, societies that approach their ecological limits are also very often under pressure to maximize immediate harvests to feed their populations, and thereby neglect soil conservation.
Soils provide us with a geological rearview mirror that highlights the importance of good old dirt from ancient civilizations right on through to today's digital society. |
| Over the past several decades, studies of soils throughout Greece—from the Argive Plain and the southern Argolid in the Peloponnese to Thessaly and eastern Macedonia—showed that even the dramatic climate change at the end of the last glaciation did not increase erosion. Instead, thick forest soils developed in the warming climate as oak forest replaced grassland across the Greek countryside. Over thousands of years the soil grew half a foot to several feet thick depending on local conditions. Soil erosion began to exceed soil production only after introduction of the plow. |
| Intrigued, he set about trying to determine whether these geologic changes in historical times told of climate change or land abuse.
Traveling from Morocco north to Spain, and then back east across North Africa to Jordan, Vita-Finzi found evidence for two periods of extensive hill-slope erosion and valley bottom sedimentation in river valleys around the Mediterranean. Deposits he called the Older Fill recorded erosion during late glacial times. |
| As much as climate change, the demand for food will be a major driver of global environmental change throughout the coming decades. Over the past century, the effects of long-term soil erosion were masked by bringing new land under cultivation and developing fertilizers, pesticides, and crop varieties that compensate for declining soil productivity. However, the greatest benefits of such technological advances accrue in applications to deep, organic-rich topsoil. |
 Global climate change is one side effects of massive meat consumption.
If we were to switch over to a system of generating artificial meat, then the climate effect of this meat production would be drastically reduced. |
 At the end of 2006, it released its first-ever report on the effects of climate change. The China Meteorological Administration predicted that the average temperature in China would rise by 1.3 to 2.1 degrees Celsius by 2020, and by 2.3 to 3.3 degrees Celsius by 2050. It forecast increasingly violent weather patterns that could lead to declining crop yields of as much as one third by the end of the century. |
 With the threat of global war and the very real chance that it will involve atomic weapons, the emergence of new disease from viruses that seem impervious to our arsenal of drugs, and the suffering brought on by drought and starvation that has already begun as the result of abrupt climate change, we simply don't have the luxury of another century to understand every iota of the universe's secrets before we act.
Clearly, now is the time to apply what we do know about the way our universe works in order to address the problems that threaten our survival and our future. |
 According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on climate change, a body made up of the world's leading climatologists and other scientists, the predicted level of warming—up to 10°F by the end of this century—will bring on a disaster of biblical proportions: a rise of sea levels by nearly 3 feet; unendurable heat in many parts of the world; a vast increase of vector-borne diseases; raging floods and storms. A change upward of ten degrees may not seem like much until one realizes that lowering it by the same amount would bring on another ice age. |
 When asked why we had an accident or a disease, or in the face of global climate change, we give many answers—faulty tools, faulty user, genetics, biochemical and anatomic mishaps, pollution, the shrinking ozone layer. Yet these are answers to the question how, not why. 'Why1 questions lead to a message. What is the message? What is spirit telling us through the language of our physical existence? How can we connect more fully to our physical existence and begin to hear God? The answers are within ourselves. We need only to ask, open up to the answers, and pay attention. |
 This is a big step backward at a time when the United States needs to show forward motion on energy efficiency and climate change issues."
To date, the EPA estimates that Energy Star programs have prevented more than 150 million tons of carbon emissions from reaching the atmosphere and that American consumers using Energy Star products saved over $6 billion, with reduced energy bills in 2001 alone. According to the EPA, each Energy Star dollar generates more than $15 in private investment. So Energy Star is not only a pollution prevention program, it also has an economic stimulus effect. |
| C, which would cause tremendous climate change. "Of course, this could be accelerated, and may be 'short-circuited' by direct human deforestation," say the researchers in the Nature article.
Wangari Maathai wanted to create a sustainable supply of fuel wood for rural African women while halting soil erosion and other threatening forms of environmental degradation. |
Email this page to a friend
