People ask what I think the biggest danger that we should prepping for these days. I think the answer is quite clear — climate change 🌎 and declining fossil fuel energy.o⛽
People seem think the fossil fuel party can go on forever, consuming even greater amounts of a limited resource each year on grounds that they keep discovering new sources of fossil fuels and better ways to extract it for less money. But we know growth isn’t unlimited, especially for a limited resource. 📉 Carbon, in form of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, may be abundant but by no means is it unlimited. Most geologists will admit we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,🛢 even though mankind has gotten better at turning the bottom of barrel into useful sources of energy and fossil-based products.
Fossil fuels are a lot like a narcotic such as heroin. The more you heroin you shoot in your veins, the better you feel. Withdrawl is painful, it can make you awful sick. The same can be said about fossil energy – even though it’s consumption comes without the stigma of shooting heroin. 💉 More fossil fuels mean more light, more warmth, bigger and faster automobiles, airplanes, and more computing power. Fossil based energy is turned to many products that improve human productivity, warm our hearts, make life more delightful. 💡 Conservation, especially the radical levels of conservation that are going to be needed for mankind to survive have been rejected by mankind.
So what is next for our country? We are already in the distant future we talked about 20 years ago, and we are already seeing the impacts of climate change. Winters are not as cold as they were even 20 years ago. Our resilience to cold in the Northeast has diminished, people seem to struggle more with blasts of cold then in years past. 💥 Severe weather, while always happening, is getting more severe, especially along the coast lines as sea level is rising, slowly but surely. As most of our major cities are built around sea levels, and great masses of poor people live in buildings along the coast, much of the suffering so far has happened there. Even upland, nobody is left free from the impact of climate change.🌎 Snowmobiling, once a popular activity in Upstate NY is now really limited to the snow belts of Tug Hill, Western Adirondacks and areas downwind of Lake Erie, e.g. high peaks of Cattaraugus County.
Peak oil, natural gas, and coal may happen before we know it. Sure, oil and gas prices are low right now, but it’s not clear if prices will remain so low or that drilling is sustainable in the high-cost environment that exists right now. The world seems awash in oil right now, but should chaos break out in the Middle East, things could change quickly.🤷 Our economy is so dependent on cheap oil, cheap natural gas, and cheap coal for all forms of energy, we are going to be screwed so quickly should a tipping point be reached. Few things bite at the American Psyche like high prices at the gas station,clearly advertised at every street corner. Few things attack the American way of life then having the ability to motor around cheaply, as much as we desire. Put a high price on motoring fuels,🚙 and watch how quickly peoples lives change.
COLUMBIA - The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is trying something new to limit the presence Callery pear trees in local environments.
Callery pear trees, also known as Bradford pears, are the top invasive plant species in Missouri. They are easily identifiable right now because of the white petals of their blossoms.
Artificial reefs are one of the many tools used by marine conservationists to restore coral reefs around the globe, they are made from a variety of natural or synthetic materials, and come in an infinite number of shapes and styles. The goal of these artificial reefs is generally to provide a stable growing area for corals, and habitat for fishes and all the other organisms that you would find on a natural reef. Over the years, artificial reefs have a lot of praise from those who have worked with them, but a lot of criticisms from scientists who see it as working on the symptoms and not the problems that face coral reefs. At the New Heaven Reef Conservation Program, we have been working with artificial reefs for over a decade, and in this article, we are going to explore the history of artificial reefs, and then look at some of the methods we have found to be the most or least successful.
How do you start a power plant when there is no electricity being supplied to it? It's an interesting question, as a power plant has to be up to speed before it can be synchronized to grid.
The 2020 hurricane season was so prolific that the National Hurricane Center used up its roster of 21 alphabetized storm names. When that happens, the government pulls in the Greek alphabet. But don't expect to see Hurricane Alpha or Beta again.
Turns out the names were Greek to a lot of people, and forecasters worried about creating confusion.
