Sweat Lodge Earth

We are part of the living Earth, Gaia, going through historic change. This time of transition to a new age has been described in Hopi prophecy as The Great Purification. With the greenhouse effect, Earth is sweating.

We have been cutting down the forests for thousands of years. The deserts that exist now are almost entirely human-made. The Fertile Crescent now has vast areas of desert.

When a person has a fever, that heat and sweat serves to purify the body of some bacteria and viruses. Similarly, Earth at rising temps is serving to rid it of species no longer needed for this new age we're going into. Many animals and plants are going extinct now. Many people are dying too. Some scientists are predicting human extinction, but I don't think that's gonna happen. And, even if it's true, that's no excuse to stop working for a better future for life in general.

Given the likelihood of continuing rising average temperatures, some urban farmers are valuing the shade given by nearby plants. What may look like an overgrown and messy garden may actually be a permaculture site, a thoughtful attempt to allow Nature more decision-making leeway to decide what plants to grow where.

Big changes are coming to Everybody's Garden. We will be making it much neater. Volunteer help is always welcome. We have a new composter now to replace the improvised ones I've been using. And I'm campaigning for support to build a much larger enclosed compost bioreactor which would safely process organic material faster and without any laborious turning necessary. We've envisioned a picket fence, grape arbor, new bench and picnic table, and walkway made of paving stones, and an area under the shade of the trees to sit. We had chickens at our first garden, which was on Ladora Way; we're thinking of having a chicken run in the back part of Everybody's.

Convinced as I am that the Universe is being run by some Intelligence with a plan, I am not engulfed in discouragement at all the disasters, conflicts, and suffering on the planet. With the right attitude we can work together to make things better, a Heaven on Earth even. The catastrophes are coupled with greater communication and cooperation possible. And new ideas and inventions.

Jim McCue
composter and biotech researcher 412-880-7237
http://bioeverything.blogspot.com

Geo-engineering

Geo-engineering

The climate crisis will not be resolved by just letting Nature alone.

We humans have been changing the climate for thousands of years, accidently. Forests covered the Earth. It's said that at one there were so many trees in what is now called the United States that a squirrel could have traveled from branch to branch from the East Coast of this country to the Mississippi River without ever having touched the ground. Now that we see the weather has become unbalanced, all our technology needs to be used to better the situation.

We geo-engineer (change the Earth) every time we kill a bug. The number and varieties of insects is in rapid decline now, damaging the food web by depriving, for instance, birds them as food source. We geo-engineer every time we plant a flower, choose to drive a car a short distance we could just as easily walk, light a barbecue, turn on a stove, buy a new car, fly or drive to a vacation spot, buy things we don't need, go to a grocery store rather than grow our own food.

Ecosystem Earth, if it is to sustain humans, must have some huge changes, even more than stopping the combustion of fossil fuels. Even if somehow we were, magically, able to completely stop burning all fossil fuels - coal, oil, gasoline, natural gas, and the others like propane and butane - the amount of methane going into the atmosphere is still going to keep spiraling upward in amount because of the warming of Earth and ocean. Methane is now coming up from the cold parts of ocean and Earth in massive amount.

To give some idea of how dire this emergency is, there iis now discussion, believe it or not, of re-freezing the Arctic. The melting of the Arctic that is now in progress, if allowed to continue, will further so change the weather that it will be hard for anyone to survive.

Here are only a couple of geo-engineering schemes (there are many), which, to the extent I understand them, hold promise for helping this climate crisis that is MUCH more deep than most realize:

1. Causing snow clouds in cold parts of the Earth by piping sea water up into the air where it will freeze and give shade.

2. Nano-fertilization of iron to the oceans to regenerate sea water ecosystems damaged by warming, pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification. The dust falling on the oceans has all the nutrients needed for life. But the mineral iron is heavier and so falls faster from the surface where algae (phytoplankton) can get sunlight to consume it and make oxygen through photosynthesis and to feed the larger life form. Experiments have shown that nanoparticles of iron, being so tiny, will float on the surface long enough to be absorbed into the ecosystem. The next thing you know, the algae is being eaten by zooplankton and fish and water ecosystems are being regenerated.

As with robotics, genetic engineering, and drones, geo-engineering is not of itself bad. It's what is done with the technology that is important.

Jim McCue
composter and biotech researcher 412-880-7237
http://bioeverything.blogspot.com