Lingchi: Howling at the Thunder Moon (the death of nature?)

"The scholarly book, "Death by a Thousand Cuts investigates the use of slow slicing or lingchi, a form of torture and capital punishment practised in mid- and late-Imperial China from the tenth century until its abolition in 1905."

"Lingchi involved repeatedly slicing the convict's flesh beyond the point of death. By the time of the final imperial dynasty, the punishment could be meted out for an offence as simple as striking a teacher."

"The authors argue that this was more than a physical punishment,… but about denying the victim "somatic integrity"… and denying them any hope of a life after death which, the authors argue, caused them to feel shame."
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/legal/lingchi.htm (Brook, Bourgon, and Blue)


The End of Nature? A Death by a thousand cuts.

DEEP CUT: Recent NASA reports say that the Arctic could be completely ice-free by the fall of 2012. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztz3ZdPbdKo

For sailors like me, this would be good news because a Northern sea route from the Pacific, specifically the Orient, to the Atlantic would cut thousands of miles off the trip and save a lot of money. This would favor owners of large vessels like tankers, freighters, bulk carriers, passenger ships, and naval vessels. When they begin to traverse a certain route, especially in such inhospitable waters, it makes it safer for the smaller vessels that I'm used to working with.

The Northwest Passage, as it's known, is the legendary route that was thought impossible until the beginning of this millennium when we began to really notice a thinning and melting of the Arctic ice cover. In 2005 Roald Amundsen won the holy grail of sailing when he made it completely through after a three-year effort.

As Stan Rogers brilliantly wrote:
Ah for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI (still, no video, but the whole song)

Rogers never lived to see the passage open. He died in an aircraft fire in Cincinnati in 1983, two years after he wrote that famous song. That "warm line" he wrote about has spread across the entire region and threatens to make us nostalgic for the old days, dry feet, and traditional summers.

CUT: Those of us who are well versed in climatology and global climate change know the fundamentals. First of all, there will be scientific uncertainty and the definitive answers we seek today will only be known when humanity's massive experiment with atmospheric and planetary homeostasis is too far underway to stop. Traditional weather patterns will be disrupted. That is a long-term challenge because the conclusions we seek won't be available during the experiment. From the data that's already been collected we know that fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record since 1850 have occurred in the last fourteen years. http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/

CUTS: "While it is impossible to establish a direct causal link between greenhouse gas accumulation and individual, relatively short-term climatic events, it is certain that we have been experiencing increasing numbers of climatic events unprecedented in the human experience. It is worth noting that the reduced sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean, the retreat of mountain glaciers, reduced ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, increased droughts and fires, increased severity of storms and flooding have all occurred with a warming of only 0.75oC (1.3oF). It is also certain that many of the greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane, have lengthy residence times in the atmosphere, and that we will continue to be affected for years or even centuries to come by the atmospheric burden we are creating today."
(Woods Hole Research Center - http://www.whrc.org/resources/primer_fundamentals.html)

CUTS: The effects of rising greenhouse gasses will make warming most pronounced at the higher latitudes, the polar regions of the Earth. Storms will become more intense. Insurance claims for storm damage have already skyrocketed. Patterns of rainfall and drought will shift and the possibilities of numerous positive feedback loops could cause what's known as a runaway greenhouse effect. This is the environmental metaphor for mutual assured destruction MADness that began during the cold war. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/.../5...effects-of-global-warming/27...

That MADness, too, has not abated although we haven't overtly played chicken with thermonuclear toys since Kennedy and Cuba. This is an important point today because we are involved in several oil wars and Americans and others are dying as you read this. It would not take much of a miscalculation to escalate an oil war, and any of a dozen or two possibilities could lead to rapid escalation. There is a great deal at stake in securing access to the last of the oil. Moreover, players with little to lose have a big hand in shaping that struggle. Many including:
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-henderson240207.htm)

CUT: By some estimates, the carbon footprint of the Gulf Wars, Iraq, and Afgahnistan have negated any improvements in carbon reductions in our homeland.

"Amory Lovins, the world-renowned energy consultant, agrees that the US military has a "fat fuel-logistics tail" and believes that this is a "very teachable moment for the military" on reducing its immense fossil fuel consumption.

"And it is indeed immense: according to a report in Energy Bulletin earlier this year, the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of oil in the world. If the Pentagon was a country, it would be the 36th biggest consumer of oil. The US military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day, but this total only includes "vehicle transport and facility maintenance". What about the 130,000 US contractors in Iraq rebuilding the ruined infrastructure?

Lovins estimates that about a third of the military's oil is used to run generators, the vast majority of which power air-conditioning units. And compared with the second world war, the military in Iraq and Afghanistan is using 16 times more fuel per soldier, according to a Pentagon report published this year." What about Co2 footprint of the munitions used and fires started by conflict, including gas tanker fires?

Ultimately, the question posed is unanswerable, but what is known is that one thing war is good for is dramatically increasing a nation's fuel use."
by David le Brocquy http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/27/ethicalliving.carbonfootprints

CUT: There are still an estimated quarter of a million refugees from the American Gulf coast and New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Those storms decimated the region in 2005, as Amundsen was completing his historic voyage. If sea levels rise by one meter, as predicted for this century by the UN IPCC and others, there could be a billion refugees from lowlands like Mauritious, Bengaladesh, Holland, South Florida, South Jersey, a bunch of airports, seaports, and our favorite beaches. According to the Stern Review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/30/economy.uk) mitigation will likely cost 1/20th, or 5%, of the cost of adaptation, but the costs rise with every year of inaction. The Sierra Club recently reported a one meter sea level rise could overwhelm the world's economies to cope.

CUT: The Tuesday (6/12/11) New York Times front page headline proclaimed, Drought Spreads Pain From Florida to Arizona: Crops and Livestock Suffer in canSwath of 14 States. "The heat and the drought are so bad in this southeast corner of Georgia that the hogs can barely eat." (http://www.timesizing.com/)

CUT: At the same time, residents in Canada, and in over a dozen US states from the Dakotas and Illinois to Louisiana and Mississippi are beginning the recovery from one of the largest and most damaging floods recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Mississippi_River_floods

CUT: According to Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the long-suffering nations in the Horn of East Africa are enduring the worst drought conditions in more than half a century, and are at risk of "massive famine." "In its most recent update on the crisis, USAID declared the food and water shortage in East Africa "the most severe food security emergency in the world today." (Huffington Post) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/famine-in-africa-usaid_n_897644.html

CUT: After suffering the worst drought in 1000 years Australia yesterday announced it will give $11.2 million in food aid to countries in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. Earlier this year, Australia's worst floods caused as much as $20 billion of damage to their eastern states. http://www.positiveuniverse.com/Places/Africa.html -

CUT: A different type of flooding, sea level rise, has been spreading across the world like mold across a damp basement. This involves entire nations and will be in the forefront of a refugee phenonenum that is only beginning to attract the attention and concern of the world. Although we care what happens to "them", only the Dutch seem to be aware that "we all live in the same polder". A polder is what they call an area that's below sea level. A third of Holland is below sea level and it's lowest city is seven meters below the level of the North Sea. www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm I haven't found out what they've already spent to increase the country by more than a third, but it's been estimated that to continue will cost, "about $1.5 billion a year for the next 100 years." So, who cares? Now that you know, you probably do.

CUT: The polar bears and the seals probably care too, but what do they know? The populations of Beluga Whales are down to 300 in some areas, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2255 and threatened in many others. There are a lot of people in the Northeast who don't give a rat's ass what happens to Polar Bears and seals. Some do, but we seem to prefer Penguins. One reason may be that they live at the other end of the world and we don't have Penguin refugees crowding the beaches at the jersey shore. Maybe we also like them because they dress nicely and have "happy feet".

CUT: With Arctic Amplification well established in 2009, our friends at the National Snow and Ice Data Center recently said, "The decline of summer sea ice in the Arctic punctuates a long warming trend that is amplified in the north. While some scientists study the loss of sea ice and its effect on climate patterns, other scientists have been monitoring ground that was once permanently frozen. It is also thawing, with both local and global consequences." nsidc.org/monthlyhighlights/february2011.html

This is known as a positive feedback loop with negative consequences for humans. This is especially true for those of us in the US Northeast where the effects of sea level rise is more pronounced than in other parts of the world.

CUTS: In the 20th century there has been about a foot of sea level rise in the nation's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. What landscape amnesia has hidden from us is the fact that in 1900 Maryland was the center of the American maple syrup trade. Although today, Vermont is acknowledged to be the capital, Vermonters and Canadians are aware that it continues to move northward across the border. Smith's Island, the last of Maryland's thirteen inhabited islands in the bay is slowly going under and the inhabitants, including the refugees from the other islands are now debating whether or not to abandon it. http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=164

CUTS: The list of nations most threatened by sea level rise, once short and tragic, has now grown to a list too long for this article. But it may be accessed at: http://www.globalislands.net/news/newsdeskitem.php?newstype=Special&newsid=4660&mfxsr=8

CUT: According to the International Energy Agency, global greenhouse gas emissions soared to the highest level on record last year. The increase was about three percent higher than the previous year and a sign that we're still digging the hole deeper. Us emissions were reported to be climbing in spite of our best efforts at conservation and efficiency. So much, so far, for American ingenuity. http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959

CUT: Today's local paper announced a Pew Research Center study that finds Western Europeans say China will overtake the US. Many of them seemed to think it would be a good thing. I always wondered how the Brits took the news that the sun was setting on their empire. It was reported that they were among the last to notice that it happened. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576442400450218990.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

CUT: When I started writing this I didn't realize how easy it would be to find the places where Nature was suffering all of those cuts. But it's also impressed me with how often the scalpel is cutting both ways. With the end of cheap oil behind us, and a rising demand from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and (yes) China) cutting across the falling Hubbert Peak Oil supply bell curve, I wonder if China will find the fuel to overtake anyone. At the same time, Western nations, long dependent on the availability of cheap energy, may just collapse economically as a result of their fiscally irresponsible use of that natural resource in the last century. Virtually every recession in the last century was preceeded by a spike in the price of oil. http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-systematic-monetary-polic...

CUT: What is most remarkable is that we're barely through the first decade of this Millennium. Those of us watching this kind of news are probably wondering when I'll mention "water". Here's Wikipedias take on that: "Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts .."

CUT: Water may be for fighting, but so is oil. The first major attack in the global wars for oil occurred in 2001, the first year of the Third Millennium. Most of us were expecting some major calamity in 2000, the beginning date for the mathematically challenged. In 1995, when many were beginning to fret about the Milliennium and Y2K, I (among many others) predicted that if something of human origin occurred it would likely be in 2001. Like Arthur C. Clark, I remembered my grade school math. imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980902d.html

CUT: Yet it could be said that the war over oil began as far back as 1979 when Iranians, pissed off at the US for reinstalling the Shah (among other things), seized the US Embassy and gave the 52 remaining hostages to Ronald Reagan as an inauguration present. http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/oilsk.htm


23 CUTS. From Beirut in 1983 to the first world trade center bombing in 2001, The United States has been absorbing numerous cuts and slashes. http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology.html

CUT: According to Dick Cheney, when he was nominally the President and the Vice President, we are in a war without end. Of course it's not about oil. We all know that we attacked Iraq because they were plotting to overthrow the United States with weapons of mass destruction. I wonder how the US economy would be faring without the burden of a $3 trillion set of wars. I know the troops are starting to come home but how long will Blackwater, Dynacorp, and Triple Canopy stay behind to take care of our assets and interests? What will that cost?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/.../americaswarwithouten

CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: A more complete listing of Gaia's wounds would quickly get boring and overwhelming. Over a year later, oil is still washing ashore while the Gulf of Mexico is trying to recover from the April 2010 BP Macondo well blowout and oil spill. Prince William Sound is still struggling from its 1989 encounter with the Exxon Valdez. The pollution in the Niger Delta, along with the oppression of the Ogani people is said to be far worse than both. And what is China doing to the atmosphere and the oceans in their quest to provide a western standard of life for over a billion of their citizens? Whales and dolphins are still threatened, the glaciers are nearly gone in most parts of the world and a billion people depend on that for their water supplies. I mentioned water at least twice. And, see how easy it is to expand this list?

CUTS TO COME: If our military has done its usual good job in outlining the likely threats to the United States in the last Joint Operating Environment Report (2010), 2012 will likely see events that will overshadow and overwhelm what's on this list. http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
Please don't download it from the web because you might blame me for your nightmares. And as he-who-must-not-be-named-scalpel-hands gets warmed up, the cuts will come faster and deeper. And we will bleed, along with our troops coming out of The Hurt Locker. Don't worry, it's only a movie. http://www.thehurtlocker-movie.com/

CUT: Many bleed real blood in Iraq and Afghanistan and they feel the pain. Estimates of the death toll fluctuates wildly between 120,000 and a million. The number of wounded far exceed that and the final tally will be mind boggling if it's ever accurately counted. Our thirst for oil, diesel, and gasoline we are apparently paying our enemies for their war expenses. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq -
http://www.daveedgr.com/news/the-high-cost-of-oil-dependence/

THE MOST PAINFUL CUT SO FAR: Roughly 25% of US petroleum imports come from that region. A Pew Research Center report on July 13, 2011, indicates that America's image does not fare well in that region. According to Rocky Mountain Institute, Americans waste between 50% and 90% of the energy we use. This fact is well known to energy analysts and auditors who survey our buildings. A 25% reduction is very doable and 50% is within our reach. Yet, although that precise fact eludes me at the moment we Americans spend billions annually for a commodity that is killing our troops and that we essentially waste. There is something pathological about this. Many Americans and Iraqui's are dying and being maimed for oil we essentially don't need. Our balance of trade is out of whack, and these wars run up the national debt Washington crisis du jour.
Freeing America From Its Addiction to Oil
DOD’s Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity

APATHY: The children of the sixties and the seventies put their bodies on the line to try to stop the senseless slaughter. We died and were martyred in protest and created a vibrant cultural movement that endures.. but mostly in our memory.
en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...

I want to know when the people, the voters, the citizens, the people of conscience, the faithful, and the outraged, here in the West, begin to lead? When will we stop financing insanity? When will we stop complaining about the waste in Washington and become fiscally responsible for ourselves and our families? Have we all been bought off with a little comfort, bread and circus, and a "little temporary safety"? (ref.: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/science/earth/18prof.html

Do the bones that you're chewing on taste that good? Have we all taken leave of our senses, or are we living in the Age of Stupid? I ask you, "How do you want to be remembered?" If you have children, and if they survive, they will judge you.
http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid

We need a Western spring to match and surpass the one that the Arabs are inventing. Yes, we are complicit in the cutting, but like Lysistrata, we too, are able to withhold our cooperation with what some call the white male power structure. http://drama.eserver.org/plays/classical/aristophanes/lysistrata.txt

If we have the will and the gumption, we can stop being docile "consumers" and go back to being human beings.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Postscript: The final cut

The End of Nature (also, book by Bill McKibben: http://www.billmckibben.com/end-of-nature.html)
An article from the year-end issue of the International Herald Tribune Magazine.

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Published: December 2, 2010
"The big ecological disasters of 2010 fit into the ancient cosmological model, in which the universe is made up of four basic elements: AIR, volcanic ash clouds from Iceland immobilizing airline traffic over Europe; EARTH, mudslides and earthquakes in China; FIRE, rendering Moscow almost unlivable; WATER, the tsunami in Indonesia, floods displacing millions in Pakistan.

Such recourse to traditional wisdom offers no true insight into the mysteries of our wild Mother Nature’s whims, however. It’s a consolation device, really, allowing us to avoid the question we all want to ask: Will more events of such magnitude turn up on nature’s agenda for 2011?"

"While science can help us, it can’t do the whole job. Instead of looking to science to stop our world from ending, we need to look at ourselves and learn to imagine and create a new world."

Bravo, Slavoj! (Ed.)

Full article at: (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/global/02iht-GA12zizek.html