Here’s this week’s viewing:

Hope it’s informative!

I found the following check-list on a US Government site. I post it here for your use, as it is related to the preparedness sub-theme of the blog. It is also a similar idea to that found in When Technology Fails.

When preparing for a possible emergency situation, it’s best to think first about the basics of survival: fresh water, food, clean air and warmth.

Recommended Items to Include in a Basic Emergency Supply Kit:

• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Local maps

Additional Items to Consider Adding to an Emergency Supply Kit:

• Prescription medications and glasses
• Infant formula and diapers
• Pet food and extra water for your pet
• Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
• Cash or traveler’s checks and change
• Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information from www.ready.gov
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
• Fire Extinguisher
• Matches in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
• Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
• Paper and pencil
• Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children

This is a good basic introduction to pandemic prepareation.

At the end of yesterday’s video there is a  reference to a related research paper; I hope to present a  summary of  it  soon.

Another piece of the puzzle!

I was talking to the father of one of my daughter’s friends the other day. He is a year-round ocean swimmer, and he was telling me about the unseasonably cool ocean temperatures off the coast where I live (currently 15 degrees Celsius - it’s usually 23 degrees at this time of year).

Strangely enough, only one day earlier I had met a scuba diving instructor at a first aid course that I was attending (mandatory for regular CPR certification). He was also telling me about how cold the water was, and how the scuba instructing business had dropped off due to the temperature. He said that it was due to the unusual upwelling of deep ocean water.

Which brings me to the topic of today’s article: Rapid climate change (including changes in ocean currents).

While the onset of anthropogenic climate change is accepted by most (except those with a vested interest in denying it, or those too ignorant to examine the data), the rate of change is much less certain. Why is this? In simple terms, paleoclimatology cannot be an exact science. While it is accurate enough to warn us about the impending climate crisis (see The Two Mile Time Machine), the shortness of each time interval is determined by the technology.

Say that the researchers can determine the level of carbon dioxide, temperature and precipitation to an accuracy of 500 years. While one can then easily identify trends over a time scale of a hundred thousand years, one cannot generally tell how quickly changes occurred (because the details are lost in the geological record, much like standing too close to a Monet alters your perception of the overall image). The same goes for geographical regions - the fineness of the detail is limited by the technology.

So while in general terms the speed of climate change is difficult to determine, there is increasing evidence that rapid climate change has occurred in the past, and could well occur again in the future (as shown in The Day After Tomorrow).

There is a lot of evidence published on the web, and I refer you to it for more detailed information. Next instalment will discuss the “secret” Pentagon report on rapid climate change; here’s a taste:

There is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21^st century. Because changes have been gradual so far, and are projected to be similarly gradual in the future, the effects of global warming have the potential to be manageable for most nations. Recent research, however, suggests that there is a possibility that this gradual global warming could lead to a relatively abrupt slowing of the ocean’s thermohaline conveyor, which could lead to harsher winter weather conditions, sharply reduced soil moisture, and more intense winds in certain regions that currently provide a significant fraction of the world’s food production. With inadequate preparation, the result could be a significant drop in the human carrying capacity of the Earth’s environment.

The research suggests that once temperature rises above some threshold, adverse weather conditions could develop relatively abruptly, with persistent changes in the atmospheric circulation causing drops in some regions of 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit in a single decade. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests that altered climatic patterns could last for as much as a century, as they did when the ocean conveyor collapsed 8,200 years ago, or, at the extreme, could last as long as 1,000 years as they did during the Younger Dryas, which began about 12,700 years ago.

In this report, as an alternative to the scenarios of gradual climatic warming that are so common, we outline an abrupt climate change scenario patterned after the 100-year event that occurred about 8,200 years ago. This abrupt change scenario is characterized by the following conditions…..

Further Reading:

Books on climate change at Amazon.com

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Union of Concerned Scientists

BBC “Ocean Changes To Cool Europe”

gulfstreamshutdown.com

abruptclimatechange.net

PS Did I mention that many of the abrupt climate change scenarios involve the thermohaline circulation (of which the Gulf Stream is a part), hence my mention of cooling ocean currents at the start of this article.

Here’s today’s video:

Please let me know if you’ve found any videos that are worth sharing!

One of the things that I am going to focus more on this year is the nexus between peak oil and climate change.

I feel the need to do this for several reasons:

1. Climate change is here, even if some scientists and most politicians don’t admit or believe it. (To my way of thinking, this is the same sort of disinformation that has been used by Big Tobacco; in both cases driven by profits).
2. It is likely that the inequalities in both health and healthcare access that already exist will be worse in the future.
3. Peak oil will is going to have major impacts on healthcare provision, perhaps starting as early as 2010 (when some estimate that PO will occur). This is a given even if our climate remains stable.
4. Climate change will massively alter what we have taken as normality for the last 100 years or more. I think that we will come to regard the 20th century as the last of the Holocene, and that we are about to move into a very different climate regime.
5. Global warming will cause many changes in global health; most of them are likely to be adverse.
6. It is the synergy between peak oil and climate change that particularly worries me - the effects of these two looming issues (that will occur more or less simultaneously) will be multiplied rather than additive.
7. If we take a holistic view of peak oil then we must also consider climate change, as using further fossil fuels (particularly coal) to mitigate its effects will accelerate warming.
8. Dealing with the effects of climate change (such as decreased food production or sea level rise) will increase the need for oil-based transport fuels, fertilisers, and other derivatives (unless we come up with effective alternatives).
9. It is my opinion that rapid climate change is a real possibility (discussed below).

So for all these reasons, I will attempt to integrate climate change and peak oil as much as possible this year.

Climate Change and Adverse Health Effects
As the planet warms there will be an increase in average temperature, along with increased climate variability. This will result in an increase in the frequency of very hot days and heatwaves, which in turn will cause adverse health effects.

Events like this have already occurred - for instance the 2003 European heatwave is now thought to have caused up to 50,000 excess deaths (in addition to melting 10% of the remaining Alps glaciers).

So while there is still debate over whether or not climate change will result in an increased burden of illness, and while it is methodologically difficult (at this stage) to attribute excess deaths solely to global warming, I believe that there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation (at the very least), if not full-out carbon dioxide reduction.

An increased frequency of excessively hot days is likely to be just one of the (milder) effects of full-blown global warming. Because climate is a complex system, it is almost certain that there will be many currently unpredictable effects. And while a few of these may be positive (for example longer growing seasons at high latitudes and warmer winters), most effects are going to be negative. So from that point of view, I think that the expected social disruption from peak oil is likely to be just a taste of what is to come.

Climate Change and Peak Oil
Both of these phenomena will have such far-reaching consequences for our society that their overlapping will multiply the challenges that we have to face. For example, consider agriculture. We are currently dependent on oil to eat: Petroleum and its derivatives power farm machinery and irrigation pumps; fertilize the soil; control insect and plant pests; transport the produce from the farm; process the food into finished products; package it; move it to big-box supermarkets; and transport it to your home in the back of a SUV. So what happens when climate change makes farming land drier, promotes the growth of insect pests, or drives the farmer to financial ruin? Just when oil reaches $100 a barrel (or $200)? We need to act now to break our oil habit so that (non-coal) alternatives are well-established before the main climate-change game begins.

Coming Next: Rapid climate change and why it could be starting now.

Please enjoy today’s mid-week video:

A very important issue, and one I will cover extensively over the coming year!

Predicting Global Health Trends: Why Peak Oil Matters

By

Dan Bednarz and Paul Roth

Recently, Energy Bulletin posted a summary of a UPI story that described a WHO (World Health Organization) study projecting global mortality and disease patterns in developing countries to the year 2030. The UPI story is titled “Analysis: Wealth Brings New Health Threats,” and concludes:

“As the level of development worldwide increases, the greatest threats to health will shift from infectious diseases to non-communicable health problems like smoking-related illness, obesity and depression”.

At first glance, this story illustrates how economic growth and the associated consumerism create “diseases of affluence” (such as heart attacks, stroke, obesity and diabetes). As these illnesses are already rampant in the Western world, their increasing prevalence supports the notion of a reduced marginal rate of return on health expenditure, once basic public health measures (such as sanitation, safe drinking water provision, and mass immunisation) are implemented.

In the last of our summer season of video, you can see how one person made a difference by transforming a garden with permaculture.

I will start the year off by posting a mid-week video for the next couple of months - please leave your feedback below.