MODELING THE FUTURE [or] GETTING THE MESSAGE?

Now that the true extent of the devastation unleashed by Hurricane then extratropical hybrid storm Sandy is apparent, 50 billion USD or more in damage, and at least 90 fatalities (there are still people missing who were washed away in NYC), it's possible to put it in perspective, and to see how the US public and government are processing it.  

Many prominent researchers in the Atmospheric Sciences and Climatology are now putting forth their assessments of the situation. Which are very much in agreement with ours. In a nutshell, global warming isn't causing these storms directly, but making the overall environment more ripe for rapid storm development. Which is what we have been seeing here in S-Central Alaska the last few years.

 

We here at the APR view this storm as one of the most globally sigificant weather/climate events of the last five years, not as much in the death/destruction she wrought, but because it is making more people take notice of global warming. And starting to wonder, will we be able to protect our coastal cities from flooding in the decades to come from rising sea levels and stronger storms?

 

The other most significant events of the past five years were the Australian Heat Wave/Wildfires in 2009,

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/03/warning-lights-are-flashing-australia.html
 

the Drought/Wildfires in Russia 2010 combined with flooding in Pakistan,

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-close-are-we-now.html
 

and the two year drought in first Texas and the southwestern US in 2011, then in almost all of the western and central US in 2012.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2012/08/days-of-future-present-us-heatdrought.html

 

This article from the Climate Central website a few days ago offers a great overview of all the features of Sandy that made her so unique and devastating. Along with some input from prominent researchers in the climate change/modeling and atmospheric sciences fields.

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-15190

How Global Warming Made Hurricane Sandy Worse
Published: October 31st, 2012 , Last Updated: October 31st, 2012
 577 324 164 1

 By Andrew Freedman

 As officials begin the arduous task of pumping corrosive seawater out of New York City’s subway system and try to restore power to lower Manhattan, and residents of the New Jersey Shore begin to take stock of the destruction, experts and political leaders are asking what Hurricane Sandy had to do with climate change. After all, the storm struck a region that has been hit hard by several rare extreme weather events in recent years, from Hurricane Irene to “Snowtober.”
 
Photo of coastal flooding along the New Jersey shore, taken from a New Jersey Air National Guard Helicopter.
Credit: NJNG/Scott Anema.

Scientists cannot yet answer the specific question of whether climate change made Hurricane Sandy more likely to occur, since such studies, known as detection and attribution research, take many months to complete. What is already clear, however, is that climate change very likely made Sandy’s impacts worse than they otherwise would have been.

There are three different ways climate change might have influenced Sandy: through the effects of sea level rise; through abnormally warm sea surface temperatures; and possibly through an unusual weather pattern that some scientists think bore the fingerprint of rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice.

If this were a criminal case, detectives would be treating global warming as a likely accomplice in the crime.

Warmer, Higher Seas

Water temperatures off the East Coast were unusually warm this summer — so much so that New England fisheries officials observed significant shifts northward in cold water fish such as cod. Sea surface temperatures off the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic remained warm into the fall, offering an ideal energy source for Hurricane Sandy as it moved northward from the Caribbean. Typically, hurricanes cannot survive so far north during late October, since they require waters in the mid to upper 80s Fahrenheit to thrive.

Scientists said about 1°F out of the 5°F East Coast water temperature anomaly may have been due to manmade global warming. Warmer seas provide more water vapor for storms to tap into; this water vapor can later be wrung out as heavy rainfall, resulting in flooding.

The most damaging aspect of the storm was the massive storm surge that struck the coastline from Massachusetts to Maryland. Global warming-related sea level rise gave the surge a higher launching pad than it would have had a century ago, making it more damaging than it otherwise would have been. This is only going to get worse as sea level rise continues as a result of warming ocean waters and melting polar ice caps and glaciers.

The storm surge at The Battery in Lower Manhattan was the highest ever recorded at that location. It surpassed even the most pessimistic forecasts, with the maximum water level reaching 13.88 feet above the average of the daily lowest low tide of the month, known as Mean Lower Low Water, including a storm surge component of 9.23 feet. That broke the official record of 10.5 feet above Mean Lower Low Water set in 1960 during Hurricane Donna, as well as a record set during a hurricane in 1821.

A water vapor satellite image of Superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30.
Credit: Stu Ostro/Facebook.

Or, to put it in simpler terms, the water level reached 9.15 feet above the average high tide line.

Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said manmade climate change likely contributed to the storm surge at The Battery in Lower Manhattan, with 1 foot 3 inches of long-term sea level rise recorded at that location, the result of manmade sea level rise, sinking land, and ocean currents. She said the manmade contribution to the storm surge may have been a small amount.

But to the Metropolitan Transit Authority or Con Ed, the main electric utility in Manhattan, each inch of sea level rise matters a great deal.

If a similar storm were to strike New York in 2050, it would cause even more damage, since sea levels are expected to be considerably higher by midcentury. In fact, a recent study found that sea level rise has taken place at an accelerated rate at locations north of Norfolk, Va., and if this pace continues the Northeast could see much higher sea levels than other parts of the East Coast by midcentury.

A 2012 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that sea level rise has likely increased extreme coastal high water events around the world.

By warming the seas and the atmosphere, global warming is also expected to alter hurricane frequency and strength, making North Atlantic hurricanes slightly more powerful, while reducing the overall number of storms during coming decades. Detecting such changes in the observational record is difficult, considering the varying ways people have kept tabs on hurricanes prior to the era of hurricane hunter aircraft flights and satellite imagery?  A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that warmer sea surface temperatures are tied to an increase in stronger Atlantic hurricanes.

“Blocked” Weather Pattern

In addition, an unusual weather pattern in the northern hemisphere steered the storm in an unprecedented direction, as it made a dramatic — and for many East Coast residents, catastrophic — left hook right into coastal New Jersey. The east to west movement, which is exactly the opposite of how weather systems normally move in this area, helped maximize the storm surge, since a strong easterly air flow struck the coast at a right angle.


Satellite loop from the University of Wisconsin, showing Hurricane Sandy as it made landfall in New Jersey.

The upper air flow over the Atlantic Ocean was temporarily jammed by a powerful area of high pressure near Greenland and a storm system in the Central Atlantic, leaving the storm no escape route away from the U.S. Such patterns are known as “blocking” events, and they have occurred with increasing regularity and intensity in recent years. Blocking patterns have been linked to several noteworthy extreme weather events, such as the deadly 2010 Russian heat wave and Pakistan floods, the 2003 European heat wave, and the March heat wave of 2012 in the U.S.  [and are a factor in increasing the frequency/strength of our windstorms here in S-Central Alaska, eds..]

In this case, the blocking pattern, occurred at precisely the wrong time — when a hurricane was moving out of the Caribbean.

Weather Channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross wrote about this on Oct. 26. “The freak part is that a hurricane happens to be in the right place in the world to get sucked into this doubled-back channel of air and pulled inland from the coast,” he said. “And the double-freak part is that the upper-level wind, instead of weakening the storm and simply absorbing the moisture — which would be annoying enough — is merging with the tropical system to create a monstrous hybrid vortex. A combination of a hurricane and a nor’easter.”

Some, though not all, scientists think the more frequent blocking events be related to the loss of Arctic sea ice, which is one of the most visible consequences of manmade global warming. The 2012 sea ice melt season, which ended just one month ago, was extreme, with sea ice extent, volume, and other measures all hitting record lows. The loss of sea ice opens large expanses of open water, which then absorbs more of the incoming solar energy and adds heat and moisture to the atmosphere, thereby helping to alter weather patterns. Exactly how sub-Arctic weather patterns are changing as a result, however, is a subject of active research.

Some researchers who warn that climate change is already being felt in extreme weather events, such as Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., are not yet convinced of the Arctic connection. Others, such as Hayhoe, think it is a “plausible theory” that is worth investigating, although she noted there is evidence that Arctic warming may cause more blocking during the winter rather than during the fall.

James Overland, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who recently published a study on how Arctic sea ice loss is altering the weather in the Far North, said it’s not clear whether Hurricane Sandy was just a freak event or a sign of things to come. “What was highly unusual to me was the slowing down of the jet stream that normally turns hurricanes out to sea, allowing Sandy to directly [make] landfall,” he said in an email conversation. Yet, he said it’s important to recognize that there is still a huge role played by randomness, or chaos, in global weather patterns. “Having looked at a lot of weather maps, I don’t think it’s entirely legitimate to make a big possibility for an Arctic connection with Sandy rather than the chaos default,” he said.

And while climate change has undoubtedly altered the background conditions in which all weather systems are born, scientists said that natural variability still plays a very large role, and may have been the dominant factor with Hurricane Sandy.

Martin Hoerling, a researcher at the Earth Systems Research Laboratory, also in Boulder, is a proponent of this view. “Great events, like this meteorological one, can happen with little cause(s). Individually, neither the tropical storm nor the extratropical storm that embraced it, were unusual,” he said via email. “What makes this a rare, perhaps once in a lifetime event, is the fortuity of their timely (“untimely” as far as most are concerned who sit in harms way) intersection.” Randall M. Dole, who is a colleague of Hoerling's at ESRL, noted that the blocking pattern that helped steer Sandy was "highly transient," which suggests to him that it was just "random bad luck" that it coincided with a hurricane along the East Coast.
 
Regardless of the chain of events that led to this disaster, Hurricane Sandy is almost certain to wind up being one of the top 10 costliest hurricanes on record, and it comes soon after Munich Re, a global insurance giant, warned of increasing natural disaster losses in the U.S., a trend the company said is related to global climate change.

And regardless of unequivocal linkages between this particular storm and manmade climate change, questions related to future human-caused changes — how they will make this type of event more likely and destructive, through a combination of sea level rise, extreme weather trends, and vulnerability of coastal populations and infrastructure, deserve to be asked and may be much easier to answer.
 

This image, above, shows the areas that were flooded in NYC, with green the most shallow (not sure of the scaling), and orange the deepest. As we saw, the highest recorded storm surge levels were about 9.2 feet above mean high tide levels. What is this map going to look like when a storm in 2040 buffets the same area when mean sea levels are five feet higher? Ten feet higher? It's highly possible that could happen, as the Greenland Ice Sheet's stability is now in question. Massive pieces of it breaking apart and melting are going to be a real problem in the coming decades as Arctic warming continues to accelerate. For a time last summer, temperatures were above freezing over the entire ice/land mass, and melting was occurring even on it's higher elevations. This melt-water then infiltrates through the ice sheets, and lubricates the bases of them.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/05/fahrenheit-2051.html

That's assuming nothing is done nationally and globally to rein in CO2 and methane emissions from fossil fuels combustion. Which to date, has been a good assumption.

 

Bill McKibben puts the disaster we are calling Sandy in good perspective in the following article, showing that some politicians and corporate media may be getting the message. Will it help tip the scales, so that more people can think of the bigger picture? That the only way we are going to solve problems like this is through abandoning greed as the motive force in societies. And realising that the only stable and sustainable economies are/will be ones that place primary emphasis on meeting people's basic needs and protection of the environment for future generations.

 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/01-8

Published on Thursday, November 1, 2012 by The New York Review of Books

A Grim Warning from Science

by Bill McKibben

One of the things that makes Sandy different from Katrina is that it’s a relatively clean story. The lessons of Katrina were numerous and painful—they had to do with race, with class, with the willful incompetence of a government that had put a professional Arabian horse fancier in charge of its
rescue efforts.

Sandy, by contrast, has been pretty straightforward. It’s hit rich, poor, and middle class Americans with nearly equal power, though of course the affluent always have it easier in the aftermath of tragedy. Government officials prepared forthrightly for its arrival, and have refrained from paralysis and bickering in its wake. Which allows us to concentrate on the only really useful message it might deliver: that we live in a changed world, where we need both to adapt to the changes, and to prevent further changes so great that adaptation will be impossible.

Science and its practical consort Engineering mostly come out of this week with enhanced reputations. For some years now, various researchers have been predicting that such a trauma was not just possible but almost certain, as we raised the temperature and with it the level of the sea—just this past summer, for instance, scientists demonstrated that seas were rising faster near the northeast United States (for reasons having to do with alterations to the Gulf Stream) than almost anyplace on the planet. They had described, in the long run, the loaded gun, right down to a set of documents describing the precise risk to the New York subway system.

 

As nature pulled the trigger in mid-October, when a tropical wave left Africa and moved into the Atlantic and began to spin, scientists were able to do the short-term work of hurricane forecasting with almost eerie precision. Days before Sandy came ashore we not only knew approximately where it would go, but that its barometric pressure would drop below previous records and hence that its gushing surge would set new marks. The computer models dealt with the weird hybrid nature of the storm—a tropical cyclone hitting a blocking front—with real aplomb; it was a bravura performance.

In so doing, it should shame at least a little those people who argue against the computer modeling of climate change on the grounds that “they can’t even tell the weather three days ahead of time—how can they predict the climate?” But in fact “they” can tell the weather, and in the process they saved thousands upon thousands of lives. They can tell the future too. No serious climate scientist believes that the sea will rise less than a meter this century, unless we get off fossil fuel with great speed; many anticipate it will rise far more. Think about what that means—as one researcher put it this week, it means that any average storm will become an insidious threat.

[It's already been established that global sea levels were 5-7 metres higher 128,000 years ago, when CO2 levels were also at 390 ppm, due to naturally occuring volcanism.http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-seems-likely-based-on-what-weve.html
We'll be at 550 ppm by 2050, will global sea levels have risen 5-7 metres, or more, by then? It's quite possible, due to the melting/instability of the Greenland ice sheets. How will humanity adapt? eds..]

It’s possible that we can spend enough money to somehow protect Manhattan—and it’s possible that we can’t. It’s impossible to imagine that we will be able to protect, say, the Asian subcontinent, or the Pearl River delta of China, or any of the other crowded places imperiled by rising seas. In fact, the last year has seen even more serious flooding in Bangkok and Manila, and a recent study found that New York was only seventeenth on the list of cities at risk of such flooding, with Mumbai and Calcutta leading the league.

 

Having great scientists, and taking those scientists seriously, are two different things, of course. Our climate scientists—led by James Hansen, who lives in New Jersey and does his work from a NASA lab on the Upper West Side—have trotted patiently up to Capitol Hill every year for the last two decades to present their latest findings, and been entirely ignored, the fossil fuel industry having purchased one of our political parties and cowed the other. But it may be that firsthand experience will accomplish what academic studies have not—Governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, was forthright in his declarations this week that climate change was a “reality,” that we were “vulnerable” as a result, and that we would need to adjust to deal with it.

 

But that adjustment can’t just be building new seawalls, because we’ll never catch up. The same researchers who predicted events like this week’s horror have warned that unless we cease burning coal and gas and oil the planet’s temperature—already elevated by a degree—will climb another four or five. At which point “civilization” will be another word for “ongoing emergency response.”

Building new defenses will be expensive but relatively popular; cracking down on the fossil fuel industry will be a great trial, and indeed Cuomo has an important test approaching. He must decide at some point in the coming years whether to allow fracking within the borders of the Empire State. A lead author of a very weak report from his Department of Environmental Conservation is a climate denier; after Sandy it will be interesting to see if the governor asks for a new study from people in touch with actual science. I think he might; as powerful as the fracking lobby is, the sight of a hundred apartment and office lobbies filled with seawater is more visceral. We’ve been given a warning by science, and a wake-up call by nature; it is up to us now to heed them.

 

© 2012 The New York Review of Books

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. 

more Bill McKibben 

A MORE PERFECT STORM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Perfect_Storm

The "Perfect Storm" that occurred off the northeast US coast in 10/1991 was originally an "extra-tropical" low pressure system, fed by the jet stream and overall tropical-subpolar temperature gradients. It produced it's greatest damage and all the fatalities in this phase of it's existence over the eastern US and southeastern Canada. This was Hollywood-dramatised in the movie of the same name, which came out several years later. The storm ended moving further into the subtropics and then transitioned into a category 1 hurricane. This is different from the "Frankenstorm" Hurricane Sandy, now brewing just off the SE US coast. Sandy had been up to a category 2 hurricane a few days previously in the Caribbean, she has weakened moving further north.

But what happens next is what is so interesting, unusual, and possibly, unprecedented! More will be known within 72 hours as she moves ashore, right now models are mostly pointing toward the Delaware River outlet. But Sandy's evolution is just the opposite of the "Perfect Storm" of 1991. In Sandy's case, she has been/will be weakening considerably as a hurricane moving out of the tropics, but within 48 hours from now will get fed by the contrast of colder/drier air originally moving south from the Arctic. In the form of this low pressure trough over the eastern US, on this mornings 500 mb (usually around 5300-5900 metres, or centred around 18,000 ft.) analysis. Sandy shows up as the small upper-level feature off of the Florida coast.

 

Then she will be undergoing a transition from hurricane-type structure/processes, to an extratropical system, which is much different. And which has not been studied much, as it rarely occurs. Sandy's movement too, is contributing to it's interest. So whilst models are forecasting tropical storm type conditions as it moves ashore, the scale of them will be much larger, and for a longer period of time. Likely to produce severe flooding, from heavy rains, and storm-generated surges on top of the monthly high tide in many areas.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/federal-officials-warn-of-hurricane-sandys-rare-damage-potential-15170

We will certainly be offering you a post-storm assessment, several days after her peak. But for now, just wanted to bring it to your attention. It will be an event of some significance in the next 5 days.

 

Today though, on our usual daily scan, when we saw this headline like something from a U.K. tabloid, but with a "liberal" slant to it, we had no choice but to dive in and take a look.

 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/27-6  You've seen much like this before here with us, but Juan Cole put it together very nicely. A little commentary of our own as well, first.

 

We obviously don't envision a "vengeful Mother Nature" throwing this storm at the eastern US as punishment. Any more than Katrina was for the Gulf Coast, or Andrew for Florida. It is what it is, and must be dealt with. Generally speaking, in all powerful and destructive storms in modern history, the well-off are able to flee quickly/safely, while mainly poor people can't, who then can't rebuild quickly/easily. We hope for the best for everyone there. Worst-case scenarios have been discussed involving the flooding of parts of the NYC subway system, among other things.

 

The Alaska Progressive Review does like the tabloidy/seedy headline though. We think it was either Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell, the conservative Christian televangelists, who pinned Katrina on the sins of New Orleans, etc.. back in 2005.

 

Published on Saturday, October 27, 2012 by Informed Comment

Candidates Flee East Coast as Frankenstorm Takes Revenge for their Ignoring Climate Change

by Juan Cole

Mitt Romney and Joe Biden have canceled campaign events planned for this weekend at Virginia Beach as a massive storm bears down on the east coast of the US. The candidates are fleeing from the East Coast, even though they won’t talk about the key environmental issue of our time.
The candidates in this year’s presidential election completely ignored climate change in their debates and their campaigning, even thought it is the most deadly issue facing this country and all humankind. Human beings are dumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning coal, natural gas and petroleum at feverish rates. They have already increased temperatures significantly since 1750, and are on track to put up the average surface temperature of the earth by 5 degrees C. or 9 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, enough to turn everyplace on earth over time into a sweating tropics, melt all surface ice, and, over the long term, submerge a third of the current land mass. A global state of emergency would be necessary to keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees C. or less, but the window is rapidly closing for this curbing of disaster.
 

Big oil is pouring money into the Romney campaign or superpacs supporting him, so as to make sure they keep their tax breaks but those for wind power are abolished. The power of big Carbon money is preventing climate change from being discussed in the campaign, even though it affects every American voter. Romney’s energy policies will cause global disaster, but even Obama doesn’t seem to realize the severity and urgency of the problem (or else he does and feels his hands are tied).

 

A new study appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that uses accurate tide measurements since 1923 removes any doubt that hurricanes are more frequent and stronger in warm years (the number of warm years has steadily increased over the past century and especially in the past decade).

[pdf] For every increase of 1 degree Fahrenheit, US hurricanes will likely get 2% stronger (i.e. they are already 5% stronger than 2 centuries ago). In hurricanes, a 5% increase in ferocity matters quite a lot.

 

One mechanism for the increased severity is that higher temperatures produce more high-altitude clouds, called “deep convective clouds,” associated increased rainfall.

 

One recent study [pdf] found that torrential downpours in the United States are occurring a third more often than in 1948. New England has been the worst hit, with torrential downpours 85% more common now than in 1948. Note that these findings are based on actual historical records, and are not a matter of projection.

 

Across the board, storms are 10% more intense now than when Truman was president.

Hurricanes are a more contentious issue than storms but models show that the speed of hurricane winds could increase by as much as 13 percent over the next century as a result of our production of carbon dioxide, and rainfall rates will increase 10-31 percent in hurricanes. Because of the rising level of the seas, hurricanes will cause larger storm surges.
 

A Tel Aviv researcher has shown that every one degree increase Celsius produces a 10% increase in lightning, with the attendant dangers of increased forest and other fires.

 

Those who talk about solar energy being “more expensive” than coal or natural gas are not figuring in the expensiveness of climate change. In many markets, wind and solar are already competitive, and if the damage hydrocarbons are doing to our economy were taken into account, they’d be the only game in town. [but in capitalism as it exists now in most of the world, the only thing sacred, or of value, are short term gain/profits; human life and environmental health must fit within that bracket, eds..].
 
One of the many indexes of the failure of American democracy is that our candidates can’t even publicly say the name of our worst nemesis.

© 2012 Juan Cole

Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His latest book, Engaging the Muslim World, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He is also the author of Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.

ELECTORAL THOUGHTS [and] HELPING HANDS

Now that the fall 2012 national elections are just about upon us, we thought we'd share a little with you the APR's view on the current line-up, as there are some interesting potential developments. Firstly, we've never taken much stock in the US presidential races, as being capable of producing rapid, substantial systemic change. As the old saying goes, "if voting was so effective, it would be illegal". The US duopoly of the Republicans/Democrats continues to argue about issues that are really distractions to the masses, while ignoring the most pressing concerns, global warming, resource depletion/environmental collapse, increasing inequality (nationally and globally), and built-in economic instability (for all but the most wealthy). Because they are funded by the most powerful trans-national corporate comglomerates in the fossil fuel, financial, pharmaceutical, and weapons industries.

 

And all the major improvements in US society over the past 150 years, labour rights, women's and non-white people's civil rights, environmental protection, etc.., have only occurred after and because of sustained mass movements engaging in direct action, protests, boycotts, strikes, etc.. Which eventually forced politicians at all levels to at least begin paying attention, and make at least token, or incremental changes in policy.

All that said though, we still feel it is important to vote, as much to send a message, as anything else. We've long been Green-oriented here at the APR, feeling that the Green parties throughout the World offer us the most logical and workable ways to bring about positive changes in our political and economic systems.

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/22/enough-of-this-obamination/

The above article offers a quick summation of why we don't look to the Democratic Party, at least on a national level, for any hope in addressing the major problems this country and the World are facing.

 

And the current duopoly knows that they can't compete with truth-telling members from other political parties, who are increasingly being shut out from the US political system, as this article attests:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12168-green-party-ticket-arrested-at-presidential-debate

Green Party Ticket Arrested at Presidential Debate

Wednesday, 17 October 2012 13:11 By Allison Kilkenny, The Nation |

Jill Stein, the presumed Green Party presidential candidate, during an interview in her car in Roxbury, Mass., July 5, 2012. (Photo: Charlie Mahoney / The New York Times) In addition to being entirely shut out of this year's presidential debates, Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, were arrested for "blocking traffic" as they attempted to enter the debate at Hofstra University. The women were detained despite the fact that, in the video of the arrests, the police are much more of an impediment on traffic than the two candidates.

Stein and Honkala have been shut out, despite the fact that the Green Party ticket will be on an estimated 85 percent of ballots this election. The Commission on Presidential Debates stipulates that a candidate must garner at least 15 percent in national polls in order to participate, but national television exposure is a key factor in generating that kind of broad support. Hence, shutting out third party candidates creates a cyclical suppression in which candidates can't reach the 15 percent mark precisely because they are denied access to a large audience.

Additionally, there are all kinds of hurdles placed in third party candidate's paths as they attempt to collect signatures and support. Ralph Nader was famously kicked off the Oregon ballot in 2004 by the state Supreme Court for "fraud" and "circulator irregularities," despite the fact that Nader submitted far more county-verified voter signatures than the 15,306 needed on sheets in full compliance will all statues and all written rules. And that's only one example of numerous cases of third party suppression.

Shutting out third party candidates from debates obviously inflicts damage on the democratic process, but it also waters down the debate. Stein would have been a valuable asset to the dialogue, particularly when 20-year-old Jeremy Epstein posed a question about the bleak future for soon-to-be-graduates.

Here is Stein talking to Forbes' Peter J. Reilly about her fears for a generation that is being crushed by overwhelming student debt, and how she would prefer we bail out students rather than banks.

Stein would have been the only candidate to propose holding the banks accountable for the systemic fraud that led to the 2008 subprime disaster. President Obama and Governor Romney, having embraced the "look forward, not backward" mantra, refer only to the "tough economic times" in passing, as though it was some terrible bygone era that will never be repeated. In reality, a disastrous bubble burst will definitely happen again without oversight, regulation, and prosecutions of guilty Wall Street firms, and Stein is the only somewhat prominent candidate proposing that.

Stein would have also been the only candidate to propose significantly scaling back on military and security spending, and drone strikes, which have made us less safe, according to the candidate.

Then there would have been the added perk of having a conversation about the environment involving a candidate who utters the phrase "climate change."
As for the dreaded "spoiler," accusation, Honkala says, "You can't really spoil something that's already rotten."

The folks that I've been traveling around with and talking to for 25 years are crying because they're visiting their loved ones in prison, are crying because they are losing their loved ones because they don't have health care.

Honkala would have been the only candidate to talk at length about poverty and poor people. While Obama, Romney, and the vice-presidential candidates debated about the status of the "middle class"—a vague term that has come to mean everyone who is not poor or our one percent overlords—and President Obama gave a lightning-quick shout-out to the poor, who he referred to as, "folks who are striving to get into the middle class," Honkala co-founded the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, and is a passionate advocate for families struggling to get by on a few hundred dollars a month.

"Those are people we need to start caring about and doing something about and not just putting out this rhetoric, like (Vice President Joe) Biden was yesterday, saying, 'We've got to begin caring about Main Street, not just Wall Street,'" she said.
 

This story originally appeared in The Nation.
Copyright © 2012 The Nation – distributed by Agence Global.

 

So get out there and vote with your conscience, we certainly will be! There are also some exciting ballot propositions on hand in many different states this year.

 

One of the most significant is Proposition 37, on the California state ballot.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/19

 

This would mandate that food be labeled if it contains genetically modified ingredients, as it is required in most of the European countries. The amount of corporate money fighting this is incredible, because if it passes, many other states will likely follow suit. Some of the same people involved with the tobacco companies' spreading of lies and obfuscation about smoking's harmfulness are now involved in the corporate fight against Prop. 37., and are using the same dirty tricks.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/23-9

We greatly hope the people of California pass Proposition 37, don't you want to know what is in your food, and if it is safe or not? 

 

In addition, several states have propositions to either decriminalise, or even legalise Marijuana, with one state proposition, Colorado's, actually proposing to have the state become involved in it's sale and distribution, to gain needed revenue. We fully support and hope these pass as well, as they will help bring to a much needed end the malignant US "War" on drugs, which over the course of it's 40+ year run, has been really a war on the poor and people of colour. Responsible for the fact that the US now has the greatest actual number of prisoners of any country on Earth (3+ million), as well as the greatest percentage of it's populace locked up.

http://www.alternet.org/11-enemies-marijuana-legalization?paging=off

 

We will be sure to offer our commentary and provide you with any significant results, after tallies from the interesting 2012 fall elections occur.

 

                                                 HELPING HANDS

 

Your lead editor here at the APR has had some accidents and injuries over the course of my few decades of active engagement with our physical environment, in the avid pursuit of my interests in long-distance hiking, running, skiing, and wilderness travel.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/05/kesugi-ridge-experience.html

 

Which beside physically sustaining and renewing me, spending time in these pursuits in wilderness and less-developed areas, provides us all here at the APR with necessary spiritual sustenance and renewal.

Unfortunately this week, during one of the APR's routine daily running outings on the edge of our neighbourhood, here at the Chugach Front, I sustained one of my worst-ever injuries, which will keep me bound to the CFRC for a few months, until complete recuperation is gained.

 

The story is as follows. As soon as we left the street in our neighborhood, and entered onto the trails, around 1030 in the morning, we noticed a man working on a downed section of a backyard fence. He waved us down, and said a grizzly bear had knocked it over a few hours before, and had been rooting through his yard, looking for food. Our cold wet summer, followed by the September windstorms ruined much of our various wild berry crops, which is probably why the bear in question felt the need to pursue other food sources, before holing up for the winter.

 

Realistically, this should have made us turn back on the spot. But, we kept going, albeit rather nervously on my part. About fifteen minutes later, as we were on a power-line trail, about a half km in the woods from the houses,  I heard a rustling noise behind me. My assistant editor Mattie, and research assistant Kluane were both slightly ahead of me. Turning around, yet still running, my left leg jammed into a hole or rut (which I couldn't see, facing the other way), while my upper body kept moving at about a 7:30 pace. My left leg snapped, just below the tibial plateau below the knee, the pain was incredible, and the sound was gruesome. Whatever it was that had been behind us (which I never did see) was probably scared off by this! I dropped immediately to the ground, knowing I had a very serious injury out in the cold (it was -10C or about 14F), away from any assistance. After rolling around for about five minutes, I was able to slowly get to my feet, but immediately knew the left leg was useless. I was already quite scared, knowing we were over 1/2 km from the houses, with no one in sight.

 

Fortunately Mattie and Kluane both stayed with me while I stumbled and crawled the distance toward the houses, yelling for help all the while. It took us about 15 min. before we saw an older couple through the trees, walking their dog. I yelled as loud as I could, and they came over, and immediately rendered assistance. They both grabbed ahold of me and helped me stumble to the main trail, right next to the houses. Then Jim, the husband, ran for his car, which he was able to manoeuver onto the trail, and loaded us all into it. He then delivered us all back to the Chugach Front Research Centre, and even stayed until the paramedics came, after I had called 911 (I was in no shape to drive myself to the hospital). Without this wonderful couple's assistance, it would have taken me much longer to get help, and possibly would have aggravated my already serious leg injury.

 

During the ambulance ride to the Alaska Regional Hospital emergency room, my blood pressure was spiking at 150/90, due to the intense pain and stress I was under. It usually is around 110/68 or so. I was taken right into the e.r. and received immediate attention, first in the form of a strong pain pill (which greatly helped in about 5 min.), then a detailed examination. X rays and a CT scan were taken, and it was thought I had a fractured patella and tibia initially. A consultation with an orthopedist was scheduled for the following day. This is what my left leg looked like just after I had arrived at the e.r., note how much swelling is present, in comparison to the right leg.

One thing I thought interesting was that the e.r. physician never gave me a real prognosis of the injury, he just said the orthopedist would. But after he departed, the attending R.N. there, a friendly athletic-looking younger man in his early 30s, told me it was very serious, and that I would need an operation. I think he knew we were kindred spirits in the athletic sense, and decided I should know the situation right away.

 

Arriving back to the CFRC around 1530 (after leaving for our ill-fated run at 1030), there then followed a horribly painful night, even with pain medication and a leg brace, any little movement of my left leg was excruciating. I did not get much sleep.

 

The next day I met with the orthopedic surgeon, and he showed me the x-rays and CT scan images. The patella was actually not broken, but there was a 9 cm long diagonal fracture of the upper tibia, where it connects to the knee joint, about 5 mm wide. The surgeon said I would need a plate and some screws put in to mend the tibia, and a clean up of some small fragments. The operation was scheduled for the next day, at 0730. After another sleepless, painful night, I couldn't get in to the scheduled surgery fast enough, which was at Anchorage's other big hospital, Providence. After our pre-op procedures, a "femoral block" was established for my leg, an intra-venous introduction of strong anesthesia which numbed it. My first real relief since the accident! Then the surgeon and anaesthetist explained their procedures, a plunger was pushed, and down I went.

 

Waking up what seemed like an instant later (but was three hours), I had my leg brace on, and a thick set of bandages around the knee, and was not in any real pain! After slowly coming to, drinking some water and resting, to make sure I had no post-operative nausea, I was able to eat a sandwich by early afternoon, then return to the CFRC by early evening.

Here are two views of the hardware that was installed to knit the tibia back together.

 

Now it needs mentioning that I do have real health insurance, through my regular employer, and that accidents are covered, in theory, close to 100%. We know that the total sum for all the care I received (which was excellent, and for which we are greatly satisfied and appreciative) will easily be at least 20,000 USD, perhaps more, maybe even 40,000. We'll let you know when we find out. I would still be in excruciating pain had I not had the health insurance, in all likelihood I would have refused an operation, knowing how expensive it would have been, and that I would be unable to pay for it. Think about how many millions of people in the US have to make decisions like this every year, and suffer needlessly, because we are the ONLY industrialised nation without universal health care coverage. 

 

I am now slowly healing, still in some pain, but relieved in knowing that in a few months I'll be able to be back out in our wilderness settings with the rest of the APR staff, doing all the things we enjoy. And wishing that everyone in our country had the good fortune I have had, to have recourse to excellent medical care, and hope for real recovery to a serious injury or health situation.  This whole situation also reminds us here at the APR just how reliant we all are on the assistance and care of others in our daily lives, and re-affirms our faith in the essential well-meaning of people, when emergencies arise. We also look forward to seeing and thanking our kind and helping neighbours in a few months, when we are out on the trails again after my recovery. As well, if anyone wishes to take our assistant editor Mattie and research assistant Kluane for outings, please feel free. Until I stage a complete recovery, I will only be able to offer them short walks whilst I hobble about on crutches. Cheers.

90 YEARS BEHIND? [or] OUR ROCKY SPINE

We came across this interesting article the other day, and were very captivated by it.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/29

  

Author Mary Ellen Hannibal wrote a book, Spine of the Continent [which we have yet to obtain, but shall a.s.a.p., eds.], which the following review describes:

 

As climate change encroaches, animals and plants around the globe are having their habitats pulled out from under them. At the same time, human development has made islands out of even our largest nature reserves, stranding the biodiversity that lives within them. The Spine of the Continent introduces readers to the most ambitious conservation effort ever undertaken: to create linked protected areas extending from the Yukon to Mexico, the entire length of North America. This movement is the brainchild of Michael Soule, the founder of conservation biology and the peer of E.O. Wilson and Paul Ehrlich, who endorse his effort as necessary to saving nature on our continent. With blue-ribbon scientific foundations, the Spine is yet a grassroots, cooperative effort among conservation activists – NGOs large and small -- and regular citizens. The Spine of the Continent is not only about making physical connections so that nature will persist; it is about making connections between people and the land we call home. In this fascinating, exciting, and important book, Mary Ellen Hannibal travels the length of the Spine, sharing stories and anecdotes about the passionate, idiosyncratic people she meets along the way – and the critters they love.

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With that as a background, give this article a read, it's really fascinating, and frankly, it moved us greatly, as it illustrates so many principles we believe in, and try to live by, here in our little sub-Arctic corner of this vast North American continent. Nice also to see that it appeared in the New York Times, so that hopefully, millions of people read it.

 

Published on Saturday, September 29, 2012 by The New York Times

Why the Beaver Should Thank the Wolf

by Mary Ellen Hannibal

This month, a group of environmental nonprofits said they would challenge the federal government’s removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Wyoming. Since there are only about 328 wolves in a state with a historic blood thirst for the hides of these top predators, the nonprofits are probably right that lacking protection, Wyoming wolves are toast.(Image: Jungyeon Roh/NYT)

Many Americans, even as they view the extermination of a species as morally anathema, struggle to grasp the tangible effects of the loss of wolves. It turns out that, far from being freeloaders on the top of the food chain, wolves have a powerful effect on the well-being of the ecosystems around them — from the survival of trees and riverbank vegetation to, perhaps surprisingly, the health of the populations of their prey.
 

An example of this can be found in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were virtually wiped out in the 1920s and reintroduced in the ’90s. Since the wolves have come back, scientists have noted an unexpected improvement in many of the park’s degraded stream areas.
 

Stands of aspen and other native vegetation, once decimated by overgrazing, are now growing up along the banks. This may have something to do with changing fire patterns, but it is also probably because elk and other browsing animals behave differently when wolves are around. Instead of eating greenery down to the soil, they take a bite or two, look up to check for threats, and keep moving. The greenery can grow tall enough to reproduce.

 

[no, this is not a wolf chasing the majestic bull moose just 10 km walk from the CFRC here in the Chugach last month, it's our research assistant Kluane trying to herd him, but you get the idea.. :), eds.]

Beavers, despite being on the wolf’s menu, also benefit when their predators are around. The healthy vegetation encouraged by the presence of wolves provides food and shelter to beavers. Beavers in turn go on to create dams that help keep rivers clean and lessen the effects of drought. Beaver activity also spreads a welcome mat for thronging biodiversity. Bugs, amphibians, fish, birds and small mammals find the water around dams to be an ideal habitat.
 

So the beavers keep the rivers from drying up while, at the same time, healthy vegetation keeps the rivers from flooding, and all this biological interaction helps maintain rich soil that better sequesters carbon — that stuff we want to get out of the atmosphere and back into the ground. In other words, by helping to maintain a healthy ecosystem, wolves are connected to climate change: without them, these landscapes would be more vulnerable to the effects of those big weather events we will increasingly experience as the planet warms.
 

Scientists call this sequence of impacts down the food chain a “trophic cascade.” The wolf is connected to the elk is connected to the aspen is connected to the beaver. Keeping these connections going ensures healthy, functioning ecosystems, which in turn support human life.
 

Another example is the effect of sea otters on kelp, which provides food and shelter for a host of species. Like the aspen for the elk, kelp is a favorite food of sea urchins. By hunting sea urchins, otters protect the vitality of the kelp and actually boost overall biodiversity. Without them, the ecosystem tends to collapse; the coastal reefs become barren, and soon not much lives there.
 

Unfortunately, sea otters are in the cross hairs of a conflict equivalent to the “wolf wars.” Some communities in southeast Alaska want to allow the hunting of sea otters in order to decrease their numbers and protect fisheries. But the rationale that eliminating the predator increases the prey is shortsighted and ignores larger food-web dynamics. A degraded ecosystem will be far less productive over all.
 

Having fewer fish wouldn’t just hurt fishermen: it would also endanger the other end of the trophic scale — the phytoplankton that turn sunshine into plant material, and as every student of photosynthesis knows, create oxygen and sequester carbon. In lakes, predator fish keep the smaller fish from eating all the phytoplankton, thus sustaining the lake’s rate of carbon uptake.
 

Around the planet, large predators are becoming extinct at faster rates than other species. And losing top predators has an outsize effect on the rate of loss of many other species below them on the food chain as well as on the plant life that is so important to the balance of our ecosystems.
 

So what can be done? For one thing, we have begun to realize that parks like Yellowstone are not the most effective means of conservation. Putting a boundary around an expanse of wilderness is an intuitive idea not borne out by the science. Many top predators must travel enormous distances to find mates and keep populations from becoming inbred. No national park is big enough for wolves, for example. Instead, conservation must be done on a continental scale. We can still erect our human boundaries — around cities and towns, mines and oil fields — but in order to sustain a healthy ecosystem, we need to build in connections so that top predators can move from one wild place to another.
 

Many biologists have warned that we are approaching another mass extinction. The wolf is still endangered and should be protected in its own right. But we should also recognize that bringing all the planet’s threatened and endangered species back to healthy numbers — as well as mitigating the effects of climate change — means keeping top predators around.
 

© 2012 Mary Ellen Hannibal
 

Mary Ellen Hannibal is the author of The Spine of the Continent

 

It's nice to see what we have long known and understood, that all our species rely on each other to maintain the health of the ecosystems we are in, just by the way in which they live. And that the removal of one or more, has far-reaching and potentially very harmful effects.

 

Yet because of the European-based cultures that over-ran this continent's view that human beings (and specifically, white, male Christian human beings) must subjugate and control the natural world, as they are "superior" to it, as written in the Christian Bible, we are faced with the result. Species extinction, environmental destruction, and eventual collapse, unless new cultural views incorporating a more holistic view of humanity's place on the Earth are incorporated.

 

 

 

 

Having grown up in California, I always liked the state flag, with it's large grizzly bear prominently displayed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_California

 

Although the article about this flag, above, states that it was based on one developed during a brief revolt by "white" settlers in northern California, declaring independence from Mexico in 1846, shortly before the U.S.-driven war began against that country, it was formalised as a design much later. In 1911, and again, in 1953. And in fact, the very last wild grizzly bear in California was killed in 1936. So why is a grizzly bear, which no longer exists in the wild in California, still on their flag? And not something more iconic and representative of the man-made wealth and power of that state, such as the Golden Gate Bridge? We like to think it's because deep down, it's part of our instinctive drive to be in and a part of the natural world, notwithstanding any religious dogmas to the contrary.

 

My maternal grandmother was born in Oregon in 1910, and grew up in a logging camp in the northern coast range. She told me when I was much younger (she passed away in 1996), that when she was a child, say around 1920, that they still had grizzly bears and wolves there, in addition to all the other large animals still present, elk, deer, black bears, and mountain lions, for example. Whenever I am back in Oregon visiting, I love to think about how it would have been in those days, in the vast forests of huge old-growth douglas fir, western red-cedar, hemlocks, and other conifers, to know that their ecosystem was complete, and healthy.

That's why we live here in Alaska, because we love knowing that our ecosystems here are complete, and relatively healthy, in comparison to those in most of the rest of the U.S. And that we can have access to real wilderness in very short order, with all it's physical and spiritual benefits.

And that is also why we fervently hope that the idea of having linked protected areas extending along our continent's rocky spine from Alaska/Yukon, south to Mexico, can become a reality. Which we will do our best to support, and aid in efforts to establish, here at the Alaska Progressive Review.

After all, we love all our other neighbouring species, here at the Chugach Front, and hope that they will always be able to live and thrive with us, in our little corner of the continent, with it's amazing and still relatively unspoiled natural environment. May we always remain 90 years behind the rest of the U.S.!

Cheers.