Mammouth Climate Change

The Orisa Of The River

I am too embarrassed. I like to consider myself a conscious student of Ifa. I like to consider myself in tuned with nature and less likely to take nature for granted. I have been watching the happenings of flooding along the Mississippi river practically right in the back of my own neighborhood. The level of the river water has risen significantly. I have seen the Mississippi flood, but I cannot remember the last time I have seen the river so swollen.

Last night I drove across the big 270 highway bridge just north of St. Louis, Missouri to check up on some property I have in a storage locker just across the river. The river looked like a lake. The little road that runs along the river on the Missouri side was a lot closer to the water than it should be. As I drove into Illinois there were soggy puddles of standing water in the fields just on the other side of the river levee. I marveled at all the water. The Chain of Rocks canal that runs parallel to the larger river is no longer visibly separate from the river adding to the lake affect. It was another impressive manifestation of nature.

My property was safe by the way. Now that the family has a minivan, I parked my blue 1992 Honda Accord wagon in covered storage with some other items that are hard to keep when a family is trying to stay in a large one bedroom apartment. In order to keep the car in good shape, I start her up once a week and let her run for a few minutes. The river will crest in the next day or so and it looks like the levees will hold easily. I was prepared to move my things. I was even prepared to lose a few items. But it looks like the wagon and the other items will be safe.

However, it wasn’t until this morning that I realized that had not acknowledged the Orisa Osun at anytime during this ordeal. When I saw the storms traveling through the upper Midwest, my mind automatically went to the Orisas Oya, Yemonja, and Sango. I saw the winds blow and the tornadoes spin and I would give praise to Oya! I saw the rain fall and I would give praise to Yemonja! I saw the lightening strikes and I would praise Sango! I saw the rivers swell and I said wow. I have been severely lacking in my appreciation of Osun. I would like to take a second and correct that mistake.

Osun, the Orisa of the river, plays a seriously important role for humanity. The river has done so much for humanity. We have used for travel. We use it as a source of drinking water. We have disrespectfully used the river as an open toilet for our waste products. The river water has quenched the thirst of our crops. We have used the power of the river to light our houses. Man is so smug to think that we can build river damns strong enough to hold the river at bay. We think we can build levees that will keep the river confined to a small channel of water that is guaranteed to hold the water for five hundred years!

The river must be the Rodney Dangerfield of nature. It gets no respect.

Orisa are interdependent. In nature, it is rare for one Orisa to manifest change alone. They work together. Oya, Yemonja, and Sango have created conditions that have made the normally docile Osun an assertive, uncooperative, force of water, one of the most forceful elements of nature. While high velocity winds, raging fires, and movements of earth are destructive forces in their own right, the river Orisa can effectively turn our world upside down with a burst through a barrier with so much energy that a wall of water will destroy anything in its path for miles and disappear as quickly as she came. Or, Osun can creep quietly and glide slowly but relentlessly, without exhaustion, until she has literally consumed our entire world. She will stay for days, and then quietly slink away just as slowly, leaving considerable damage in her wake to everything made by the hand of humans.

As humans we have done a lot to try and redefine the relationship between the land and the river. The natural occasion of water exceeding the river banks was part of nature’s cycle. To live next to the river was to live with the fact that it is only temporary and when the river wanted to exceed the banks it was time for those living next to her to leave. It was natural. Water pouring over the land helped replenish water tables. Even the sediment and sludge that traveled with the water would carry nutrients to help keep land fertile. All of this is nature keeping maintenance of its self.

But we have engineered levees and water management systems that are intended to make the cycle of water exceeding the river banks a once in a five hundred year event. We’ve built concrete canal systems that are intended to keep the rainwater from being absorbed into the soil and instead, moving it back to the river so it can be swept out of our vicinity, back to the river, to be whisked away to some other location. And when nature responds with even greater river swells, man responds with stronger levees, damns, dykes and locks until mutually assured destruction is inevitable. The mutually assured destruction is not shared between humans and the river but among all the people who dare become so comfy that underestimate the danger of the situation we create for ourselves.

If somehow Osun burst through the levee that kept my property across the river safe it would be no one’s fault but my own. I made the choice to put my property within her reach. I know the river is swelling and yet I leave my property there instead of moving it safely out of the way. Just like the river helps to take excesses away from the land it would take my excess stuff away from me.

For now, it looks like Osun will let us keep our excesses. Regardless, she deserves an ebo. Tonight, I plan to go to the grocery store and buy a melon, apples, oranges, and etcetera. I will make a big basket of fruit. I will take it to the old Chain of Rocks Bridge that crosses the Mississippi that is now reserved for pedestrian and bicycle traffic across the river just south of the 270 interstate highway bridge. I’ll go out there to the middle of the river and toss the fruit in. I’ll watch the water rage below me. I’ll feel my heart pound in my chest with adrenaline as common sense heightened by a sense of self preservation tries to convince me not to take such an unnecessary risk with the river so swollen. Hopefully, the experience will instill with me such respect for the river that I will never take Osun for granted again.

Pollution Caps And Trades

This is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard of that’s so widely accepted. Companies can pollute if they buy credits from companies that don’t. That ranks right up there with people can commit murder if they buy murder credits from people that don’t. This cap and trade system will give companies an incentive not to pollute by making it more expensive to pollute by charging companies that pollute over their allotted pollution index and rewarding companies that emits pollutions under their allotted pollution index.

When we as a society decided that cars emit too much pollution a cap was placed on every vehicle sold. In the area I live cars have to be inspected and have their emissions tested each year to assure that they aren’t producing more pollution than they should. A car that emitted too much pollution was taken off the street. People don’t have the option of buying more permission to pollute from the next guy. There is a zero tolerance for such pollution. Can’t afford to have the car repaired so that it doesn’t pollute as much? Then you had better park that polluter until you can. Call a cab, ride a bus, get a bike, or walk. But your polluter isn’t welcomed on the street. If we can take a zero tolerance approach to the individual why can’t we take the same approach to pollution?

The ability to pollute shouldn’t be traded on an exchange like it’s a commodity. All pollution is a problem. We should be trying to get all pollution to the lowest point possible. But because big business polluters have the financial pockets deep enough to buy the political clout or the marketing savvy to make zero pollution an unattractive option to an asthmatic.

In America, our manufacturers who are forced to pay a decent wage and adhere to environmental, social, and other laws of behavior can’t compete with companies in other countries that are free to pollute and free to pay their employees a little of nothing and work them to death doing it. Why do we open our markets to these companies and countries that pollute and practice little social responsibility? In essence, why do we allow polluters to sale their tainted wares here in America? We reward companies that are fortunate to exist in areas where the government doesn’t care about the environment or human rights. And then force our companies to compete with them. How in the world does this make sense?

Manufacturing jobs and industries are disappearing every single day. These companies lament the fact that they are at a cost disadvantage with their foreign peers. Many companies have forsaken the production of their products here in favor of having them produced overseas. And we continue to support and reward this behavior.

Zero tolerance is not a foreign concept to Americans. Law enforcement will be more than happy to come down like the hand of god when certain individuals make the choice to break the law. No one has much tolerance for anyone who makes the choice to bend the rules.

When we as a country have the collective will to set a goal or a standard we usually rise to the challenge. This is the country that put a man on the moon in ten years when computer technology was based on vacuum tubes and had the storage capacity of about 2K. When we want to accomplish something we don’t make excuses. When we want to go to war, a trillion dollars and thousands of young American lives won’t keep us from doing what we want to do. We should treat pollution the same way.

A line in the sand should be drawn and everybody who wants to do business here in the Untied States will be given the time to meet that standard and make the necessary investment. Companies that need to make the investment will have the ultimate incentive. Companies that have made the investment and are already meeting the standard will be rewarded by not having to make the investment in the future. Companies that make the choice to close up shop and move overseas are free to do so. But they shouldn’t be rewarded for abandoning the pollution standard by allowing their tainted products to come to our markets.

It is inevitable that such a no nonsense policy would result in more expensive products. The cost of doing business will rise. We need to ask ourselves how much is too much when we talk about the protection of the environment. When we have polluted to a point when we have severely impacted the planet’s ability to sustain life, how much would it be worth then? However, there is no cap for a financial impact when we talk about trading away our ability to survive.

The World Has Had Enough

I know I’ve had plenty!

Humberto

It looks like all the known rules about hurricanes are being pushed to the limit these days. Hurricane season is starting earlier and lasting longer. Hurricanes are getting stronger and more intense. There’s talk about expanding the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale that currently tops out at category 5 and extending it to include a category 6. But as quickly as the intensity of the storms is growing category 7 can’t be too far behind. And it’s only a matter of time before hurricane season is starting sometime in April and ending in late January.

For years the weather service has been able to predict pending hurricanes days in advance giving the public more time to prepare for the impact and/or leave town with time to spare. But something altogether different happened on Wednesday, September 12th. A tropical depression formed in the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Texas that morning. Eighteen hours later there was a fully formed hurricane in the gulf. The forecasters were able to predict its path with only hours of warning. Humberto was the quickest forming hurricane on record.

People have always had this arrogance to believe that they could tame weather. Scientist dream of one day having a machine, techniques, or procedures that could actually influence weather to the dominating will of the people. Humberto is more proof that nature isn’t just sitting around for humans to catch up. For every ying that humans do nature has an infinite number of yangs to counter. Now that we’ve thrown down the gauntlet in this match of wits Mother Nature is only too happy to oblige us.

A hurricane that forms in as little as a day and right off the coast is a dangerous phenomenon. When hurricanes can develop with the quickness of a tornado we are in some serious trouble. And Humberto was only a category F2 at best. What happens when we an F5 or the yet to be determined F6 forming so close to shore in a matter of hours. There will be very little we can do to prepare other than maybe call all our relatives outside the area of impact and tell them how much we love them.

And this is only one of the transformations of hurricanes that is manifesting. Add the extension of the hurricane season, the fact that hurricanes are happening more often, hurricanes are getting stronger, hurricanes are forming quicker, what else can happen? What if hurricanes are able to maintain their integrity further into land? What if the hurricanes absorb more moisture from the sea and are able to carry that further over land and inundate more areas with flooding conditions? The options are nearly endless. And nature is holding all the cards.

But we’re not through yet. We can build houses that are even more wind resistant. We can put our buildings on taller stronger stilts to keep them from being subject to flooding. We can determine the mechanics of these quicker forming storms. Instead of only having mere hours to prepare for these new storms we can have more hours to prepare. And as we adapt the weather will only get more chaotic. Humberto is just the first of many changes on the horizon.

Capitalism Kicks Community To the Curb

Hawaii is about to be affected by a hurricane for the first time in over a hundred years. According to the news hurricane Flossie is about to graze Hawaii’s big island later on today. While the island will avoid a full head on assault from the category three hurricane, it will still be hit by one hundred plus mile an hour winds. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. If it happened one hundred years ago without the so called global warming effect that a lot of people are talking about so much these days, then it was bound to happen again some time. No news here folks.

And the United Kingdom is just beginning to dry out from all the flooding from June and July. According to weather reports the breakdown of a high pressure from an upper trough moved in and triggered thunderstorms that just wouldn’t quit. Combined with a chain of other weather phenomenon, the UK got soaked like it has never been soaked before. Some areas received as much rainfall in a single day as they would’ve gotten in an entire month under normal conditions. But this is similar to what happened in England back in 1947. Again, this is a naturally occurring phenomenon bound to reoccur naturally in nature.

There’s been flooding in Australia and Jakarta this year. There has been severe drought in North America combined with record breaking hot temperatures. And I do believe snow fell in Argentina in August. That hasn’t happened in nearly ninety years.

All of these things are explainable or nothing to fret over when seen individually. But as a collective picture with all of this happening at the same time or in such a relatively short period of time then something might be a little out of whack with our weather system.

Now I know a lot of people have been paid a lot of money to roll their eyes and humph like a choo-choo on steroids whenever somebody says anything that might be interpreted as even a suggestion of global warming. Newsweek magazine did an excellent article on how companies who have a vested interest in keeping the global warming issue in a perpetual state of confusion and scientific disagreement. Never mind the fact that the corporate entities trying to sow the confusion have an obvious desire to keep the issue from its obvious and inevitable conclusions.

The American Petroleum Institute was one entity I remember being listed in the article. Now, who can’t see the connection between the API, with their members who operate in an industry whose finances are so heavily dependent on the mass consumption of elevated carbon emissions, and their decisions to fund science (and I use the term very generously) that keeps their deception machine fully stoked? It has been reported that these corporations offer to pay scientist ten thousand dollars for each paper that will continue to refute any conclusive science in the global warming issue. But, nobody is making such overt gestures to pay the people on the other side of the issue for their papers. Inconclusive science shouldn’t require such heavy handed opposition.

Instead of everybody recognizing the global warming issue for the global threat to everybody that it is some people are putting their personal needs, desires, and/or wants before the welfare of the community. What can you expect from a capitalistic economy? For way too many people the opportunity for making a little capital comes before the opportunity to make a community. We already know the mantra drilled into every red blooded American from the beginning of the cold war, capitalism must destroy communism. Or put another way, capital is good and community is bad.

Please trust that I’m not advocating the downfall of capitalism. I am promoting the downfall of a capitalist system that kicks the community component of life to the curb. The downfall of this uber form of capitalism will happen because people are so obsessed about their own personal enrichment that they are willing to sacrifice their community to obtain it. It’s kind of like Doctor Zachary Smith, excellently played by Jonathan Harris, from the Lost in Space serials back on the 60s. Dr. Smith would gladly murder the Robinson family, the future hope for humanity, for a paycheck. Or Cypher, played by Joe Pantoliano in the sci-fi thriller the Matrix, who was ready to betray the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and the future of humanity for the promise of an illusion of personal enrichment from the machines. Two fine examples of capitalism run amok.

We can’t give people healthcare because we have to save that resource for the people who already have it or can afford it. We can’t raise minimum wages because the people who own the businesses would have to pay people more. We can’t stop pollution because companies that pollute would go out of business. We can’t give people educational opportunities because only the best people deserve to be educated. We can’t give people a job here because it’s cheaper and more profitable to give people jobs over there. And with each of these choices that we make as a society the community suffers and capitalists benefits.

When Disaster Strikes

A lot of people who preach the Ifa gospel speak from a fire and brimstone point of view. Orisas are always on the lookout and standing ready to use their powers over nature to wreak wrath and havoc on the minions whenever we collectively step out of line. It was the Orisas punishing us that causes the winds from the tornado to blow our house away or the water from the torrential rain to wash our car off the road. Do an ebo and Orisas will keep you safe. Get a reading and Orisas will warn you when disaster is approaching. It’s time to put things in perspective.

Earth is often referred to as a rock. But a rock implies a complete solid structure from the surface to the core and the Earth is anything but. If anything, we exist on the surface of a bubble filled with a liquid core of metal hot enough to vaporize human flesh. The bubble itself exists in a cold vacuum of space without the ability to hold even the teensiest bit of anything resembling heat. In between these two extremes is a very thin layer of rock and atmosphere that supports our ability to exist.

We may perceive the Earth bubble as a very durable and virtually indestructible relative to humans and in many respects that is very true. But it is the very narrow environmental conditions of climate, geography, and atmosphere that allows humans to exist that is the most fragile component of this setup. How fragile is it?

By some estimates the Earth is believed to be over four and a half billion years old. Homo sapiens (modern man) have existed for the past two hundred thousand of those years. The earliest civilizations on record appeared in Egypt and Mesopotamia about six thousand years ago. The trade of the fossil fuel coal started approximately five thousand years ago. But human existence started to negatively impact our environment on a global scale with the birth of the industrial revolution just three hundred years ago when we started to poison our water with our industrial and human waste. But with the invention of the mass marketed automobile and coal fired electrical plants in the past three hundred years that we as a global community really started our inadvertent attack on the Earth’s ability to sustain human life.

Now add nuclear pollution. And on top of that we now have pollution from developing nations like China and India that are trying hard to catch up to western culture in energy expenditure per capita. While some people will deny the correlation others will find it easy to connect the dots to where we are headed. What took nature four billion years to create, it is quite possible for us to completely destroy Earth’s ability to sustain us in just a few thousand years of our existence. That’s how fragile it is.

With all that said, Orisas, as manifestations of nature on a global scale, move through the environment doing exactly what they do. Winds blow. Rains fall. Earthquakes rumble. Lightening strikes hit. Inevitably, some of us will be affected by nature going about its business on this planet. Instead of being in tuned to our environment and possibly being aware of nature’s movements, as Orisa worshippers, we allow ourselves the false luxury of thinking that if we’re good and obedient we will be immune to the wrath of the earthquake god or the hurricane god or whomever. Just throw another virgin on the fire and we’ll avoid nature moving against us.

Some Orisa worshippers believe they’re so down with Olokun he would never wash their home away when the tidal wave hit. People believe they’ve given Osun so much honey that she would be too grateful to let the river’s water spill over its banks and damage their property. People have performed so many dances for Sango that he wouldn’t dare strike their person and stop all that good high stepping mojo performed for his behalf. People think we can poor so much molasses over our Yemonja pot that the Orisa of the ocean would never dream of doing anything to harm us. But people can’t pay or bribe the Orisas not to do what they exist to do.

There is a region in the North American continent known for its tornadoes. Many people move into the tornado alley unaware of the fact that they are increasing their chances to be affected by a tornado. When the tornado strikes they are devastated and wonder how in the world Oya could punish them when Orunmila didn’t even tell them about Oya’s pending anger. And this is a prime example of how people in the tradition take Orisas for granted. It isn’t Orisa’s responsibility to watch over us when we ignore nature. When the lightening storm comes and I make the conscious choice to go outside it’s as if I’m begging Sango to hit me.

Technology shows us exactly where the fault lines are and the areas with the highest possibility of severe earthquakes. Satellites and forecasting can predict areas most susceptible for flooding. And who the hell doesn’t know that the Gulf States and the east cost are areas with a high probability if impact from a hurricane. Yet, everyday we make the choice to move to and live in these areas and then hang our head and cry why me when we reap the fruit of our choices.

If affected by a natural disaster just remember, an Orisa’s got to do what an Orisa’s got to do. It’s nothing personal. It’s just Orisa business.

The Technology of Common Sense

It’s a fact that when the tsunami hit Sri Lanka on December 26th, just days before the end of 2004, the number of animals that were killed was extremely low. There are stories about animals fleeing the low ground just before the giant wave hit the shore. There are other stories from people who usually take their dogs for walks on the beach about how their pets resisted going that particular morning.

Researchers are working to uncover how animals sense the various pending disasters, whether it be by hearing nearly undetectable sounds in the environment, sensing minute vibrations in the ground, detecting changes in atmospheric pressure, or whatever it may be. The hope is to duplicate the animal’s detection ability with technology since humans either never had the ability or lost the ability to detect such occurrences.

Whatever the phenomenon animals use to detect environmental disaster it appears that they all share it. So it may not be just one characteristic of pending destruction that animals detect. More than likely, the animals are simply more in tuned with the natural environment in its entirety than the humans who share their world. People are so out of touch with their environment that no technology can compensate for our indifference to the environment.

Researches have developed technologies that can calculate the path of a hurricane for days prior to its landfall. The technology predicted hurricane Katrina’s course through New Orleans and the rest of the gulf coast states. But the technology was ineffective against the indifference of people who command and control all the resources to help those in need with little resources if any. Nearly two years after Katrina people are still waiting for help from people who have obviously little desire to help them. Unfortunately, the reality is that any technology developed to warn of approaching tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts, or killer meteorites will not be used to assist the population of color. Black people have yet to realize that they we are not appreciated as an integral part of American society.

Katrina is old news. America doesn’t care about black people is old news, at least for those of us with our eyes open. Animals can instinctively detect environmental disasters because they are tuned to nature. All of this is old news. But what if the animals weren’t necessarily more in tuned with their environment but just more in tuned with their common sense? What if animals simply see what is happening in their environment and make rational decisions about leaving the area? People on the other hand see the changes in our environment, suppress their common sense, and simply shrug off the changes as nothing that our technology can’t handle.

For years medical institutions have been warning about the dangers of smoking yet people continue to learn to smoke to this very day. Why? Who knows? But it’s obvious somebody’s not practicing common sense. With so much evidence about the dangers of smoking and the practically zero benefit one wonders why as a society will continue to allow cigarette manufacturers to continue to sell their poison. A society that practiced common sense would not have a problem shutting the cigarette companies down to save their children.

For years people knew that New Orleans couldn’t survive a direct hit from an intense hurricane yet people in the area lived as if none of it mattered. Poor or not no one should’ve made the choice to live in that city with the threat of flooding so real on a daily basis. I remember being in New Orleans once and watching as a ship floated out to sea on water so much higher than my relative position. It actually made my heart skip a beat I was so shocked. I was uncomfortable for the remainder of my visit bothered by the notion that at anytime the levee could break and we could be inundated with water. Common sense says not to live in such a dangerous position.

But what happened to New Orleans is child’s play compared to the pending disasters looming on the horizon. Global warming is real. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t very important but since it will severely impact our ability to survive on this planet one would think everyone would take it a lot more seriously. But people scoff at the idea of a possibility that the Earth’s ability to sustain us is at risk. Where’s the common sense? These people wouldn’t acknowledge danger until it is scientifically proven that it is far too late.

The financial crisis that the United States has created with its crushing national debt is another impending disaster. According to the History of Oil by Robert Newman, the United States had to go to war with Iraq to keep countries buying and selling oil from changing their US dollars to the European dollars. Saddam Hussein wanted to conduct business in euros and once that ball started rolling and other countries followed suit the American economy collapses and the United States would dry up unable to sustain its self. The multinational companies rooted here will simply conduct their business where the money is good. It’s no accident that a lot of companies are doing their best to gain a foothold in China.

We see this coming. It’s not a question as to whether or not the economy collapses. The question we should be asking ourselves is that when the financial hurricane comes and bitch slaps the United States what have we done collectively to prepare for it. The fact that we may or may not have the resources of other people to prepare properly will be little comfort when our families and communities suffer from a nationwide inability to obtain food. And like most disasters that hit us as a society, usually it is the black communities that suffer the hardest and longest.

Like the animals in Sri Lanka and the other places that left before the tsunami hit we shouldn’t hesitate to move ourselves away from the disaster that we see coming. If at all possible people need to make a choice to minimize their exposure if they can’t get out of the way. A little common sense now will help us become better prepared for these and other disasters that our heading our way. If Katrina has taught us one thing it is the fact that people of color don’t have the luxury of waiting for technology or to wait until the very last minute.

The Future of Weather

Pickup a newspaper and turn to the weather section. Tropical depression Andrea has formed off the southeast coast three weeks before the official start of hurricane season. There’s record flooding in the Midwest with a number of levees failing in Missouri. An enhanced F-5 tornado with winds topping 205 miles per hour hit Kansas while sister twisters hit Oklahoma. Devastating thunderstorms hit Texas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Raging fires are inside the city limits of Los Angeles. Nature has already started the response to changes in the atmosphere.

Many scientists believe that the atmosphere is being affected by polluting emissions. In response, The Kyoto Protocol was a United Nations agreement for countries all over the world to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse type emissions. As of April 27th, 2007 170 countries have agreed to abide by the conditions of the agreement. But the management team of the United States is holding out for a better deal.

It is disappointing to say the least to watch the Untied States slip into obscurity as much of the rest of the world tries to respond to global warming. In order to protect every nickel of profit of every major polluter in the United States the Bush administration cites the perception that the agreement would hold the United States to a higher standard than other polluters around the world. The government warns that the US would loose jobs and competitiveness if we forced our poor polluting corporations and conglomerates to standards after they’ve been polluting for so many generations. The world shouldn’t hold the world’s biggest polluter to such lofty standards. Please!

Multinationals and this government could not care less for the protection of American jobs. The government looks the other way as more and more companies find it far cheaper to setup shop in other countries. And some of those countries have signed the agreement. The truth is that many companies lobby the government way too hard to allow any laws that would affect their bottom line get passed in this country. George Bush has ransacked the Environmental Protection Agency to a point where one of the directors of NASA publicly accused his administration of refuting widely accepted scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming because it did not “fit predetermined, inflexible positions”. The Bush administration was also accused of editing reports to make the potential dangers of global warming sound far less threatening. Anyone familiar with the environmental history should know Mr. Bush’s reputation. While he was Governor of Texas George Bush enabled policies that allowed Houston to succeed Los Angeles as the pollution capital of the country.

There is supposedly some debate on whether or not global warming is a natural occurrence in nature or if it is a manmade phenomenon. And as we sit around and argue over which comes first the chicken or the egg the storms will get stronger. Hurricane season will start earlier and last much longer. Tornadoes will start to appear in places few people thought imaginable. Glaciers will continue to melt and we will continue down our path of consequences. More cities will require more electricity to run more air conditioners to counter the warmer weather. But more electricity will require more fossil fuels which will release more greenhouse gasses and the cycle continues like swirling soiled water down a toilet.

The Bush administration did not believe that the Environmental Protection Agency is entitled to regulate automobile emissions. In the Supreme Court case of Massachusetts v. Environment Protection Agency twelve states had to sue the EPA to get off its ass and do something about automobile emissions. On April 2nd of 2007, the court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate automobile emissions because, “greenhouse gases fit well within the Clear Air Act’s capacious definition of air pollutant.” The court also stated that the EPA must regulate in this area unless it is able to provide a scientific reason for not doing so. Can’t regulate the weather, but they will bomb the hell out of a country on the slightest whim for weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Bush cares for the environment like a wolf cares for a chicken coup. This is the same President that decided to protect the national forests by letting logging companies cut down trees. So let the strong, harder storms rage. Let the summers get hot as all hell. Let the winds blow and the rains fall. Besides, the next disaster hits will be yet another opportunity for companies like Halliburton to win lucrative no bid contracts to clean up the mess and squander our national treasure while our military fights the War on Terror and squander other national resources. It’s just a matter of coincidence that Halliburton just decided to move its headquarters, and some of its highest paying jobs, over to Dubai.

Global Warming Doesn’t Matter

From the minute we’re born we start to die. No one can avoid it. No one lives forever. Everything on this plane of existence will someday either die or be destroyed.

Inevitably the same holds true for the Earth. The Earth is going to be here for a very long time. But it isn’t going to be here forever. Bottom line is it is going to be destroyed; we can’t stop that. The day is coming when the Earth will cease to exist.

A lot of talk is going around about global warming and how we’re destroying the Earth. Not everybody is trying to recycle as much waste as possible. Everybody wants to drive the largest sport utility vehicle their credit can afford. Too many people want to experience the luxury of heated hand lotion warmers and 12-cylinder sports cars that can barely break into the double digits for highway gas mileage. Everyone wants the 4000 sq. ft. empty nest on top of the hill with triple zone environmental controls to retire to after they’re finished working. Everybody wants to get as much as possible because it’s about them.

There’s little doubt with reasonable people that all of this materialistic, self-absorbed behavior so engrained in western culture is taking a heavy toll on earth’s ability to sustain life. A lot of people like to deny any connection between western decadence and its effects on the environment. A lot of people want more definitive evidence before they’ll even think about considering a possibility that they might be wrong. But chances are good that these are the same people who claimed that there was no connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

As early as the 1950s there was evidence that there was a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. People with a lot to loose denied as long as possible, as much as possible. It wasn’t until the earliest part of the 21st century that it could actually be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that smoking kills. But the tobacco companies knew almost from get go that there was a connection. Those companies had way too much to loose to come clean. The same thing is happening now with this global warming thing. Too many people have too much to loose to come honest with their thinking let alone their behavior.

But that’s okay. Although we as a species have proven ourselves unfit to care for this world as if our very survival depended on it, we don’t have the ability to destroy it like we may think. We have altered and continue to alter the atmosphere as if we can simply move to Mars once things get bad enough. But long after we’ve gone, whether it’s by moving to another planet or we’ve altered Earth’s ability to sustain us, Earth itself will still be here. We simply don’t have what it takes to destroy this planet beyond nature’s ability to repair it. So if we as a global community are too weak, greedy, and/or too uncaring to put a stop the perpetual contamination of the Earth’s air, water, and land we and the earth will just have to wait for someone or something to stop all this polluting for us.

The good news is that nature is much more capable of protecting and repairing itself than we think. Orisas are more than ready to step up to the plate that we as a community hem and haw around. Without any financial contemplation or other matters of profit or benefit to consider Orisas won’t hesitate to clean what we contaminate.

So what does this mean? Like most things borne out of nature the Earth is designed to be regenerated and sustained. The process has already started. Scientists have already measured the temperature of the oceans rise a miniscule degree. It doesn’t sound like much. But for each gallon of water in the ocean to rise the fore mentioned fraction of a degree takes a certain amount of caloric energy. I really don’t know how many calories are necessary. But I do know that there are a gazillion gallons of water in the oceans. Do the math. A gazillion gallons of water multiplied by the number of calories is a lot of energy.

All that extra energy sitting in the ocean with Olokun is just waiting to be put to use. Orisas work in concert in their endeavors. Olokun will transfer all that energy to Yemonja and the ocean’s waters will rise higher and the waves will become stronger and hit the shores and land much harder. Olokun and Yemonja will transfer a lot of that energy to Oya and the winds will blow like they’ve never blown before, raising storms fiercer than they’ve been before. Oya’s storms will feed Sango which will generate more lightening strikes. The cause and effect will travel on and on and on down the Orisa line through natural relationships and connections that we cannot imagine or understand with our science.

Suffice it to say that the nature’s technology is far greater than or own. And try as we might, it will forever stay that way. Nature doesn’t have to research how to respond or justify the cost-benefit relationship of a particular action to make sure profit margins are protected for as long as possible.

Most credible scientists believe that millions of years ago the Earth suffered a traumatic, cosmic collision with a meteorite that wiped out the dinosaur. The resulting collision kicked so much dust and debris into the air that the sun was blotted from the sky and the planet suffered from global cooling. An ice age was started and all manner of life on this planet was terminated and/or changed forever. All sorts of animal and plant species were severely impacted. But the Earth remained. It took a while for the planet to heal. But for what we know as countless centuries, eons, and millennia may be nothing more than a couple of minutes on the galactic clock. Regardless, the planet came back teeming with even more life. Nature was resurrected down a different path.

The planet Earth is meant to have life. If the scientific theory is true and this planet was hit by a massive meteor that wiped out the dinosaur and other species, it’s a remarkable achievement for this planet to bounce back so strongly. Whatever adjustments to the climate are necessary for the planet will be made and life will adapt, even if that life may not include the human race.

So rest assured the Earth is in safe hands. Global warming may or may not be real. But in the long run it really doesn’t matter. We don’t need to save the planet from any of the big greedy global conglomerates whose primary focus is the lining of their coffers. As a global community it is more important that we have record profits than clean water. So if we must let’s keep our focus on our money. Nature will take care of nature.