On this day in 1812, the most violent of a series of earthquakes near Missouri causes a so-called fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River, actually making the river run backward for several hours. The series of tremors, which took place between December 1811 and March 1812, were the most powerful in the history of the United States.
The unusual seismic activity began at about 2 a.m. on December 16, 1811, when a strong tremor rocked the New Madrid region. The city of New Madrid, located near the Mississippi River in present-day Arkansas, had about 1,000 residents at the time, mostly farmers, hunters and fur trappers. At 7:15 a.m., an even more powerful quake erupted, now estimated to have had a magnitude of 8.6. This tremor literally knocked people off their feet and many people experienced nausea from the extensive rolling of the earth. Given that the area was sparsely populated and there weren’t many multi-story structures, the death toll was relatively low. However, the quake did cause landslides that destroyed several communities, including Little Prairie, Missouri.
The earthquake also caused fissures–some as much as several hundred feet long–to open on the earth’s surface. Large trees were snapped in two. Sulfur leaked out from underground pockets and river banks vanished, flooding thousands of acres of forests. On January 23, 1812, an estimated 8.4-magnitude quake struck in nearly the same location, causing disastrous effects. Reportedly, the president’s wife, Dolley Madison, was awoken by the tremor in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, the death toll was smaller, as most of the survivors of the first earthquake were now living in tents, in which they could not be crushed.
The strongest of the tremors followed on February 7. This one was estimated at an amazing 8.8-magnitude and was probably one of the strongest quakes in human history. Church bells rang in Boston, thousands of miles away, from the shaking. Brick walls were toppled in Cincinnati. In the Mississippi River, water turned brown and whirlpools developed suddenly from the depressions created in the riverbed. Waterfalls were created in an instant; in one report, 30 boats were helplessly thrown over falls, killing the people on board. Many of the small islands in the middle of the river, often used as bases by river pirates, permanently disappeared. Large lakes, such as Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and Big Lake at the Arkansas-Missouri border, were created by the earthquake as river water poured into new depressions.
This series of large earthquakes ended in March, although there were aftershocks for a few more years. In all, it is believed that approximately 1,000 people died because of the earthquakes, though an accurate count is difficult to determine because of a lack of an accurate record of the Native American population in the area at the time.
Update 16:52 TC : New damage numbers : The number of injured increased to 71. Additionally 7586 houses collapsed, 21248 severely damaged, 47781 slightly damaged
Update : we are very sad to report that 3 people have been killed and at least 30 others injured by this earthquake.
Update : 2882 houses collapsed and 8630 damaged in an intermediate report.
95km (59mi) SE of Yilkiqi, China
131km (81mi) SE of Shache, China
164km (102mi) WNW of Hotan, China
289km (180mi) SE of Kashi, China
619km (385mi) NE of Islamabad, Pakistan
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 6.4
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2015-07-03 09:07:45
TOKYO (Reuters) – A small volcanic eruption at a Japanese hot springs resort not far from Tokyo prompted authorities on Tuesday to further limit access to the area, warn that more eruptions were possible and urge a handful of people to evacuate.
Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active nations, has suffered a recent spate of eruptions, including one that forced the evacuation of a southern island. In September, 63 people died when a peak crowded with hikers suddenly erupted.
Volcanic ash was spat from a valley on Mount Hakone, which has been belching out unusual amounts of steam in recent months, forcing officials to close part of the resort at the start of the spring tourist season.
There were no reports of injury or damage, and roughly 40 people were urged to evacuate.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency raised the warning level on the mountain to 3 from 2, closing a broader area, and an agency official said activity in the area, some 80 km (50 miles) west of Tokyo, seemed to have risen “to a new level”.
“It was an extremely small scale eruption, but there is the chance of a larger one that could affect a wider area,” he told a news conference.
Hakone is a resort famed for its hot springs and views of Mount Fuji. More than 21 million people visited in 2014, including 217,000 from overseas, the Hakone town office said on its website.
White clouds, apparently steam, billowed up from vents in the stark Owakudani, “Great Boiling Valley”, the 1,044-metre (3,425 ft) high area around a crater created during an eruption of Mount Hakone 3,000 years ago.
Predicting the scale of any eruption is hard because the mountain last erupted 800 years ago, said volcanologist Toshitsugu Fujii, an emeritus professor of Tokyo University.
“If hot water or magma becomes involved, it could explode at a deeper level, and there would probably be very little warning,” he said.
“Things are now taking place at a shallow level and probably it won’t go that far. But you can’t say when that might change.”
Fujii did say it was highly unlikely that Hakone’s activity foretold an eruption of iconic Mount Fuji, which used to erupt every 30 years but has been silent since 1707.
A catastrophic eruption of the 3,776-metre-high (12,390-ft-) peak could rain some 10 cm of ash on Tokyo, located 100 km to the northeast.”
Here is a translation from a Spanish source:
30/06/2015 (June 30, 2015):
Raisealert levelaftera small eruptionat a nearbyvolcanoto Tokyo
“The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) today ordered to evacuate the vicinity of Mount Hakone, located about 80 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, having confirmed a small eruption in it.
Evacuate the area is in the so-called Owakudani Valley, on the slopes of the mountain, where there are two houses, eight hotels and hostels, a spa, a business and 12 houses that are rented to vacationers, and where a total lie 40 people, public broadcaster NHK reported.
On the occasion of the eruption, the JMA has high elevation alert, which consists of five levels, from step 2, it is advised not to approach the crater or access adjoining areas considered at risk, to 3, asking not to approach Mount the environment, according to the agency reported.
The agency confirmed today that the Mount recorded on the eve a small eruption after detecting new vents and ash accumulation by the volcano spits.
The new alert level prohibits access to a perimeter of one kilometer around the Owakudani Valley, a popular spa area on the slopes of Hakone that is under close surveillance since May, when the JMA detected the possibility of an eruption by volcanic earthquakes increase.
The agency has stressed the danger of landslides and the possibility of ash clouds spewed by the volcano in the Owakudani.”
Over the past 24 hours (up to 5pm CDT June 25, 2015) a series of large earthquakes has struck across 3,000 miles of the West Pacific.
A single M6.0 struck, along with a flurry of M5.0 events spanning the area from North of New Zealand West to Indonesia.
This renewed movement along the Central West Pacific was expected, especially the area where the M6.0 struck — we were watching this area for a shallow earthquake to strike after we saw deep movement below the plate.
After several days of relative “silence” we now begin to see renewed larger activity across the warned areas.
While Monsanto tries to dodge a class action lawsuit in California by requesting that it be dismissed by the court, a federal judge in Argentina has accepted a class action lawsuit that would force GMO labeling and provisionally suspend the cultivation of genetically modified crops.
The lawsuit targets Monsanto for causing a seed monopoly through mono-cultivation. It argues for a complete ban on GMOs and on:
“. . .the application of pesticides used for farming until their safety for the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity, the health of living beings, the cultural heritage of the Argentine people, and the sustainability of the production model is scientifically proven.”
Residents of the country of Argentina believe that the commercialization of seed through companies like Monsanto should be forbidden. The lawsuit is titled:
“Gimenez Alicia Fanny and others against the national government, Monsanto and others, over environmental damage.”
Monsanto is not the only party listed as a defendant. Also listed are:
The Argentine national government
The Federal Council for the Environment
A group of companies, including Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Novartis, Nidera, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer, Agrevo, Ciba Geigy, Argenbio, and Bayer Sciences
Monsanto is currently trying to remove their class action suit being filed by T. Matthew Phillips to federal court in order to “prohibit inconsistencies in ruling,” but they also want to have the class action suit dismissed.
Previously, more than 30,000 doctors and health professionals in Argentina asked that glyphosate be banned. The doctors are part of FESPROSA, Argentina’s Union of medical professionals.
FESPROSA explained:
“In our country glyphosate is applied on more than 28 million hectares. Each year, the soil is sprayed with more than 320 million litres, which means that 13 million people are at risk of being affected, according to the Physicians Network of Sprayed Peoples (RMPF). Soy is not the only crop addicted to glyphosate: the herbicide is also used for transgenic maize and other crops. Where glyphosate falls, only GMOs can grow. Everything else dies.”
The doctors also talk about vindicating one of their own:
“Our trade union, the Federation of Health Professionals of Argentina (FESPROSA), which represents more than 30,000 doctors and health professionals in our country, includes the Social Health Collective of Andrés Carrasco. Andrés Carrasco was a researcher at [Argentine government research institute] CONICET, who died a year ago, and showed the damage caused by glyphosate to embryos. For disseminating his research, he was attacked by the industry and the authorities at CONICET. Today, WHO vindicates him.”
If the federal judge who reviews this case prior to the end of the month has any moral fiber, he will stand against Monsanto for a fair trial as Argentina has.
Do you remember when Detroit when bankrupt and President Obama refused to intervene in order to help Americans in a beleaguered American city? This was both baffling and maddening to the American people. After all, this “hope and change” President promised to fundamentally transform America. Little did we realize that the Detroit bankruptcy would open the floodgates to the total foreign control of American’s most precious resource, namely water, where the UN has gained a significant foothold in Detroit and its influence is spreading across the country. When Obama refused to help Detroit’s bankruptcy and its ensuing water crisis, subsequent UN involvement was a portend of what was coming.
Today, we see California on the verge of extinction because of the profound water shortage. Not to worry America, the United Nations has promised to intervene in all of America’s coming water crises. The U.N. High Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur on safe water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, is in possession of a mandate which dictates that it must directly intervene with the U.S. government, first in a confidential manner and then in a public manner. This is why Obama did not help the people of Detroit, as he was helping the UN establish a foothold in the United States when it comesto the control of our water supply. It is interesting that Obama would bail out GM, but not its host city, Detroit. Now we know why. The UN is interested in water, not automobiles, at least not in the present moment. Now the UN has turned its sights on California.
Detroit Is History and California Is Next
In yesterday’s article, I briefly touched upon the fact that California would experience a mass population exodus due to the artificially contrived water shortage. A few of the readers had trouble believing that the water situation was as grave as I stated in the previous article. Here is a chart that counters these misguided beliefs as it depicts the severity of the California drought.
What if California could not produce food, what impact would that have on the nation? California produces a sizable majority of American fruits, vegetables and nuts; 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots and the list goes on and on. A lot of this is due to California’s soil and climate.
“Lemon yields, for example, are more than 50 percent higher than neighboring states. California spinach yield per acre is 60 percent higher than the national average. Without California, supply of these products in our country and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products specifically, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.
Soon, the effect on consumer prices would become attention-grabbing. Rising prices would force Americans to alter their diets. Grains are locked in a complicated price-dependent relationship with fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. When the price of produce increases, people eat more grain. When the price of grain rises, people eat more fruits and vegetables. (In fact, in some parts of the world, wheat and rice are the only “Giffen goods” – a product in which decreasing prices lead to decreasing demand.) Young people and the poor in America, more than others, eat less fresh fruit when prices rise”.
It is not just California that is in danger of having very serious life-threatening water nd resulting food shortages. Please take a look at the following map
For those who believe in the coincidence theoriy of history, the following won’t mean much to you. However, to those who have taken off of your blinders as you have come to realize that there is an elite faction of powerful people who do engage in conspiratorial behavior to get what they want at any cost, please note the similarity between the above chart depicting widespread water shortages in the west and the original Jade Helm map featured below.
Only an avowed “coincidence theorist” could believe that there are not strong connections between Western water shortages, Jade Helm and Atzlan.
And there is more….
The UN Has Private Partners In Its Thirst for Control Over All Water
The infamous corporate raider and robber baron of the oil industry, T. Boone Pickens, is leading the charge to unscrupulously enrich himself as he leads the globalist depopulation efforts to create a series of artificially contrived water shortages. Pickens was one of the first to rush to capitalize on the impending water shortage by his insidious acquisition of the largest underground aquifer in the US, the Ogallala Aquifer, containing a quadrillion gallons of water, This massive underground reservoir extends from Texas to South Dakota.
In Roberts County, TX., Pickens has purchased nearly 70,000 acres, as well as the water rights to personally remove up to half of the Ogallala aquifer of which he plans to sell back to nearby residents in order to enrich himself. Much of this aquifer extends into prime farm land located in America’s bread basket. One man, T. Boone Pickens, is acquiring the ability to turn the American heartland into a dustbowl. Pickens will soon have the political power to charge so much for water, that farmers will be forced to abandon their farms and ranches in a Hunger Games rendition in which government sponsored interests will eventually become the sole purveyor of the nation’s food and water supply as the anti-humanist, Pickens, makes more money from water than he ever did with oil.
In order to acquire the water and expand his control over the Oglala Aquifer, Pickens needed more political power. In 2006, Pickens bought off the Texas State Legislature for $1.2 billion. This purchase of water-related law making power has allowed Pickens the ability to do accomplish four goals: (1) He created an eight-acre town and an accompanying local government, and subsequently made his tiny municipality into a powerful Water Supply District; (2) As such, Pickens automatically acquired the right to issue tax-free bonds and thereby, giving himself the lucrative benefit of borrowing at a tremendous discount; (3) Now operating as a public entity, Pickens is armed with the power of eminent domain which will allow him to expand his water acquisition potential in which he bullies local residents, along the aquifer, to sell their properties for pennies on the dollar; (4) Pickens used his 1.2 billion dollar bribe money to get the Texas legislature to pay for a 250 foot wide water pipeline corridor all the way to Dallas where Pickens will make an estimated yearly profit of $165 million at taxpayer expense. Pickens has become the poster child for the phrase “crony capitalism.”
Pickens told Business Week that he is only planning on selling surplus water, but according to the United Nations research and scientific studies report, nearly two-thirds of the entire population inhabiting the planet will face severe, life-threatening water shortages by the year 2025. So, Mr. Pickens, what surplus could you be talking about? And you only thought you had to worry about Obama collapsing the economy through his socialist policies.
T. Boone Pickens’ control over the water supplies through America’s heartland is only the tip of proverbial iceberg.
Nestle is Depleting the Great Lakes
There is a second front which is being used to create an artificial water shortage in the United States. Perrier, a subsidiary of the multi-national Nestle corporation, has invested heavily in Michigan and the Great Lakes. Locked behind two sets of chain link fence, huge siphoning pumps are deliberately hidden from view in the forest. They are pumping the Great Lakes dry and shipping the water overseas. Much of the Great Lakes water is headed for China, filled in massive cargo bags which are pulled across the ocean by a large supertanker.
By using a gaping loophole in the 2006 Great Lakes Compact, Obama’s appointees are allowing the Nestle Company to export precious fresh water out of Lake Michigan to the tune of an estimated $500,000 to $1.8 million per day profit. Obama’s Federal water managers are allowing the theft and subsequent export of our Great Lakes water out of our country across thousands of miles of oceans into the Asian basin plagued by huge population centers that are suffering from their constant lack of fresh water.
Nestle is not just taking water from the Great Lakes, they are contributing to the misery in California as Nestle is, today, in the midst of the California water crisis, draining California aquifers, from Sacramento alone taking 80 million gallons annually. Nestle then sells the people’s water back to them at a grealy inflated price and this is being done under dozens of brand names.
The Defense Intelligence Agency Warns the World
Even the Defense Intelligence Agency has clearly echoed the dire warnings of the United Nations report by stating that unstable water supplies will greatly impact all and water will subsequently be used as a weapon. The DIA report evoked a reaction from former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,just prior to leaving office as she commented that the DIA’s findings are “sobering” and that as the world’s population continues to expand, the demand for water will increase but fresh water supplies will not keep pace and by the year 2025, the world will face catclysmic and very deadly water shortages. In yesterday’s article, I made the point that the technology exists to artifically create droughts as I revealed the series of Air Force documents known as “Air Force Owning the Weather 2025. Why is the year, 2025, figure so prominently into the dire forecasts of the globalists? I almost forgot that the CIA front group, Deagel, forecasted America’s population would slip to 65 million by the year 2025. My oh my, it is just raining coincidences.
Conclusion
I have written many articles about how past despots have used water and food as a weapon. If one controls water, one will control food. The United Nations, through The U.N. High Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur on safe water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, has asserted its authority under the guise of protecting human rights to assume control of an area which has severe water issues. Will Americans, one day, be forced to enter a camp to receive life-sustaining supplies?
At the end of the day, someone thinks that California will be abandoned. Consider what is happening with U-Haul prices:
“U-Haul Prices 6/18/15:
Denver to Los Angeles = $985
Los Angeles to Denver = $2,273
Difference: $1,288
Here’s another one:
Atlanta to Los Angeles: $1,112
Los Angeles to Atlanta: $3,582!!!
Difference: $2,470″
Somebody knows something. But apparently, Obama does not know enough because Time Magazine reported that he will golf Saturday on a lush, green course in California later today.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned. And it could be said that Obama golfed while America burned. This is a lot of coincidences to have been complied inside of only one article.
As Always – Do Your Research: (Although, if you have not noticed, quite a number of Hollywood star-types have been putting their CA properties on the market recently. What do they know?)
California property values collapse as water shut-offs begin… wealthy community to go dry in days… real estate implosion now inevitable
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
(NaturalNews) Water shut-offs have now begun in California, where government-ordered restrictions are starting to leave large communities high and dry. As CBS News is now reporting, the Mountain House community of 15,000 residents will run out of water in just a matter of days.
“The community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off by a curtailment notice from the state on Friday,” reports CBS.
And just like that, the property values of millions of dollars worth of homes belonging to 15,000 residents nosedives toward zero.
After all, what’s the value of a home that has no running water? California isn’t Africa… yet… so the idea of carrying your own buckets of water for bathing isn’t widely accepted.
Get ready for a real estate collapse in Collapsifornia
How many California homes and businesses are headed for a zero-water future? Many millions. How many Californians are aware of all this and already have their homes on the market so they can move somewhere else? A very small number… a tiny fraction of the total number of home and property owners invested there.
What these people are unfortunately not yet seeing is the catastrophic consequences of a continued drought and how it can utterly destroy the value of their property.
In that same article, I also foretold what’s going to happen next: plunging property tax revenues, municipal bankruptcies, a wave of climate refugees fleeing California and the collapse of the California economy. Unless rain starts falling out of the sky, all this is going to start unraveling like clockwork. (Count on it.)
“A number of water districts plan to sue the state on the grounds the State Water Resources Control Board has no legal authority to cut off some of California’s oldest and most protected water rights,” reports CBS. And so the water wars begin: there’s not enough water to go around, and the courtroom serves as the new battleground over a resource that the state of California has squandered for far too long.
The Collapsifornia real estate collapse has already begun
Just as I predicted in May, the collapse of real estate valuations in California is already well under way.
As the Washington Post now reports:
Rancho Santa Fe resident Randy Woods was feeling burdened by his lush landscape and opted to downsize. …The drought has dampened demand for large estates in San Diego County.
Woods said his girlfriend is among those struggling to sell. Her home boasts a yard designed by Kate Sessions, a well-known landscape architect and botanist who died in 1940. But now, the rare palm tree specimens, the secret garden and the turret-shaped hedges are a liability rather than a selling point.
Another friend, Woods said, has seen the value of his nine-acre plot plummet from $30 million to $22 million.
Did you read that correctly? A multi-million-dollar estate has lost over 25% of its value virtually overnight due to the issue of water. And this collapse in property prices is for properties that still have running water. What happens when the water supply to a $30 million estate is cut off? The value collapses to almost nothing. Who wants to live in a $30 million mansion and pay seven figures of property tax each year to the same California government that cuts off your water supply? Who wants to live like a third world refugee in a $30 million estate?
Nobody in their right mind, it turns out. Not even in California.
Freak out and get out, or be the last one holding worthless property
As this drought has unfolded, my message to Californians has been consistent and simple: freak out early and you might still be able to sell and leave. But if you delay, you’ll be among the last people holding near-worthless property.
This isn’t difficult to predict. As the sell-off begins, property valuations will plunge in an accelerated manner. (It has already begun.) The more water gets cut off by the government, the more desperate people will be to sell and leave. The term “motivated seller” will be ratcheted up to “panicked seller” and then finally “fire sale!”
People who buy the properties will soon be able to pick up once-prized real estate for dimes on the dollar. But it’s a gamble: If the rainfall comes back, property valuations may recover. And yet, according to nearly all the people who live in California right now, this drought is all caused by man-made global warming. And because I don’t see China shutting down its coal-fired power plants anytime soon, there’s no end to this drought if the climate change alarmists are correct.
Welcome to Delusionville, where the power of magical belief in Big Government can overcome any drought
California, it seems, is reverting back to a barren desert. Meanwhile, far too many of the people who live in California remain in a state of absolute denial over where this is all headed. Overall, I love California optimism, and many of my best friends live in California. But as anyone who lives in Los Angeles knows all too well, California is also the home of fantasyland dream weavers… people who live in their minds instead of reality. (Oh yeah, and I have a really awesome script I need you to read… it will change the movie industry forever!)
Delusional thinking is also a key trait of California’s political leadership. These are people who think money falls out of the sky and water runs uphill. They’ve recently even decided that California should cover the health care costs of the children of illegal immigrants.
And why not? If you’re going to live in Delusionville, you might as well dress it up with all the false hope and delusional wishes on your list: free health care for everyone, unlimited debt spending on entitlement programs, magical waterfalls of free H2O falling out of the clouds, and so on.
I once lived in Arizona, and many of the street names there envision concepts that are total fiction: Waterfall Lane, Great Spring Drive, Surging Rivers Rd. and so on. (Most of the rivers in Southern Arizona are bone dry riverbeds nearly all the time.) Wouldn’t it be great if California renamed its own streets and thoroughfares to match its own fantasies? Everything Is Free Hwy and Limitless Entitlements Drive seem especially fitting. Why not open a new swimming area called No Consequences Beach?
I think I’ll also take a long, meandering drive down If I Think It, It Must Be Real Highway, where “positive thinking” overpowers negative obstacles to such an amazing degree that you don’t even need to wear seatbelts or turn on your headlights.
Desalination is an environmental nightmare
For those who are saying, “There’s no water problem in California! It has the entire Pacific Ocean right next door!”, you need to look into the catastrophic environmental destruction tied to ocean water desalination.
Not only does desalination use fossil fuels which emit the very same carbon emissions that the California government insists caused the drought in the first place, the desalination process itself pollutes the ocean with high concentration salt brine that kills marine ecosystems and destroys ocean life along the California coastline.
And that’s on top of all the Fukushima radiation that’s already causing a marine ecosystem collapse in many areas of the coast. Add more salt brine to the mix and you get a state where rich, self-entitled Hollywood celebrities demand their lush, green lawns at the expense of ocean life, climate change and the global ecosystem. If that happens, California will lose all credibility as a “green” state, and its wealthiest residents will be living an ecological lie.
The new green, it turns out, is actually BROWN.
How dare we think ahead!
I fully realize it’s entirely evil of me to think ahead and point out what’s coming. There is no person more hated in modern society than someone who tells the truth. (Just ask Donald Trump, who’s now running for President by abandoning political correctness and stating the obvious.)
If you live in California and don’t have your own individual water supply — a private well that still works, large-scale rainwater collection in a rare area that still has rainfall, access to a private year-round stream, etc. — you either wake up to what’s coming or you get steamrolled by it.
Think of California as a jumbo jet that has just run out of fuel and is plummeting toward a mountain. You can either grab a parachute and bail out, or you can plug in your headphones and keep watching the in-flight Hollywood entertainment, pretending nothing bad is happening outside your immediate focus.
I know this isn’t the good news you wanted to hear. It’s much nicer to turn on the local TV and hear how Gov. Jerry Brown is going to brilliantly solve all of California’s problems by using the magic of wishful thinking and sleight-of-mind economic trickery. Meanwhile, in the real world, the taps are running dry, employers are fleeing the state’s high taxes, the almond orchards have shriveled into dust, the flood of non-citizen immigrants is draining the state’s revenues and property valuations are about to fall off a cliff.
Perhaps the California that has been promoted by socialist-minded propagandists can be recreated as a virtual reality destination for Oculus Rift fans, but in the real world, nobody wants to live in third-world conditions and drink their own recycled urine. Not even Ed Begley, Jr., and he’s a pretty cool dude who’s willing to do almost anything to save the planet.
Hence the coming wave of recently-bankrupt California climate refugees who will flood into neighboring states seeking water, low-cost housing and free entitlements. That’s not gonna win friends in neighboring states, trust me. If you’re living in California right now, I urge you to strongly consider where things are really headed and start making a realistic list of your options.
Here’s More Proof Earth Is in Its 6th Mass Extinction
by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | June 19, 2015
Mei Xiang, a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C. There are fewer than 2,500 mature giant pandas left in the wild, according to the IUCN.
Credit: Abby Wood, Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Diverse animals across the globe are slipping away and dying as Earth enters its sixth mass extinction, a new study finds.
Over the last century, species of vertebrates are dying out up to 114 times faster than they would have without human activity, said the researchers, who used the most conservative estimates to assess extinction rates. That means the number of species that went extinct in the past 100 years would have taken 11,400 years to go extinct under natural extinction rates, the researchers said.
Much of the extinction is due to human activities that lead to pollution, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species and increased carbon emissions that drive climate change and ocean acidification, the researchers said.
“Our activities are causing a massive loss of species that has no precedent in the history of humanity and few precedents in the history of life on Earth,” said lead researcher Gerardo Ceballos, a professor of conservation ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a visiting professor at Stanford University.
Ceballos said that, ever since he was a child, he struggled to understand why certain animals went extinct. In the new study, he and his colleagues focused on the extinction rates of vertebrates, which include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes.
Scientists found that species are dying off more than 100 times faster than they would without human activity.
Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist
First, they needed to establish how many species go extinct naturally over time. They used data from a 2011 study in the journal Nature showing that typically, the world has two extinctions per 10,000 vertebrate species every 100 years. That study based its estimate on fossil and historical records.
Moreover, that background extinction rate, the researchers found, was higher than that found in other studies, which tend to report half that rate, the researchers said.
Then, Ceballos and his colleagues calculated the modern extinction rate. They used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization that tracks threatened and endangered species. The 2014 IUCN Red List gave them the number of extinct and possibly extinct vertebrate species since 1500.
These lists allowed them to calculate two extinction rates: a highly conservative rate based solely on extinct vertebrates, and a conservative rate based on both extinct and possibly extinct vertebrates, the researchers said.
According to the natural background rate, just nine vertebrate species should have gone extinct since 1900, the researchers found. But, using the conservative, modern rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct during that period, including 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptile species, 146 amphibian species and 158 fish species, they said.
“Every time we lose a species, we’re eroding the possibilities of Earth to provide us with environmental services,” Ceballos told Live Science.
Researchers typically label an event a mass extinction when more than 5 percent of Earth’s species goes extinct in a short period of time, geologically speaking. Based on the fossil record, researchers know about five mass extinctions, the last of which happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs.
“[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” study researcher Paul Ehrlich, a professor of population studies in biology at Stanford University, said in a statement.
Bye-bye, birdie
At this rate, a huge amount of biodiversity will be lost in as little as two to three human lifetimes, Ceballos said. And it can take millions of years for life to recover and repopulate the Earth, he said.
Species make up distinct populations that can spread over a continent. But some vertebrate populations have so few individuals left that they cannot efficiently play their role in the ecosystem, Ceballos said.
The snow leopard (Panthera uncial) is endangered; its numbers have declined by at least 20 percent over the past 16 years, mainly due to poaching and loss of habitat and prey, according to the IUCN.
Credit: Dennis W. Donohue | Shutterstock.com
For instance, elephant populations are now far and few between. “The same [goes for] lions, cheetah, rhinos, jaguars — you name it,” Ceballos said.
“Basically, focusing on a species is good because those are the units of evolution and ecosystem function, but populations are in even worse shape than species,” he added.
However, there is still time to save wildlife by working with conservationists and creating animal-friendly public policy, he said.
“Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations — notably, habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change,” the researchers wrote in the study, published online today (June 19) in the journal Science Advances.
The study supports other findings on Earth’s high extinction rate, said Clinton Jenkins, a visiting professor at the Institute of Ecological Research in Brazil, who was not involved with the study.
In 2014, Jenkins and his colleagues published a study in the journal Science that came to the same broad conclusions detailed in the new study, but in last year’s study, they also included flowering and cone plants. That study found that current extinction rates are about 1,000 times higher than they would be without human activities.
“This latest study is further evidence of a human-induced mass extinction now underway,” Jenkins told Live Science. “Much like the situation with human-caused climate change, years of research have built an enormous scientific case that humanity is driving a mass extinction. What the world’s many species now need are actions to reverse the problem.”
A large burst of naturally occurring methane has occurred in Lambton Shores, Ontario Canada, located about 80 miles Northeast of Detroit along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Appearing more like a violent geyser eruption at Yellowstone super-volcano, this large emission of methane caught locals off guard — as this is not ‘normal’ by any means.
Officials are saying this is a ‘natural’ burst of gas from the ground, and have issued a local state of emergency – warning people to keep away from the area.
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Methane bursts are a worst case scenario according to professionals like the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG).
Scientists have warned we would start seeing these types of methane emissions in sub-tundra areas now that the Post Glacial Rebound Effect is taking hold in earnest.
“Indian Hills golf course staff have posted an update regarding the eruption of natural gas this week. Earlier this week the course was closed because naturally occurring gases had been observed being released from the ground in a localized area of the golf course. There continues to be no risk to the public outside of the site. The monitoring and testing will continue. The declared localized emergency remains in effect.
” Here is our understanding at this time. We cannot allow anyone on the golf course until we know that the situation is stable and no gas is leaking from the ground. We have all the required survey’s and tests lined up to take place today, tomorrow and over the weekend and into the start of next week. We hope to reopen by next weekend and should be able to have clear answers to exactly what happened.
“As of 10am on Friday things are looking almost normal which is allowing us to do further tests that will ensure the publics safety. Thanks for everyones understanding of the situation.”
Lambton Shores Deputy Mayor Cook stated “The Municipality is continuing to work with the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, as the owners of the golf course in conjunction with experts in this area.” Residents are being asked to stay away from the immediate area until advised that the situation has been resolved.
The public may call 2-1-1 for any updates on the situation.”
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Cause of natural gas bubbles in Lambton Shores thought to be natural
“Municipal officials in Lambton Shores declared a “localized state of emergency” Thursday, one day after a natural gas leak at a local golf course bubbled and released methane gas.
Doug Cook, the town’s deputy mayor, announced the state of emergency for the Indian Hills Golf Course and surrounding subdivision following a meeting of the Municipal Emergency Control group.
Gas has continued to leak into the air since Wednesday morning, and with no indication of when it might stop.
“We’re hoping it will dissipate in the near future,” Cook told The Observer. “There may be more radical steps to take if not, but at this point, there’s not much we can do.”
Firefighters and Lambton OPP responded to reports shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday from a nearby First Nations group of a strange odour coming from a creek.
The golf course was evacuated when the leak was discovered, and access to Indian Hill Trail West remains restricted, said Const. Travis Parsons, the OPP’s community services and media relations officer.
Cook said the evacuation was a precautionary measure and there is no risk to the public outside the gas leak site.
The cause of the leak is under investigation and is assumed to be naturally occurring gas venting to the surface. If that’s the case, it would be a rare incident since natural gas is usually found in pockets deep into the ground.
Natural gas, used as an energy source for heating, cooking, and power generation, is flammable when it mixes with air at certain concentrations.
Union Gas accompanied the firefighters to the site and determined the leak was indeed natural gas and contained methane, according to Andrea Stass, Union Gas’ manager of media relations. The utility company does not have any natural gas pipelines in the area, she added.
Representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and Ministry of Natural Resources are working in tandem to monitor the leak, but are not responsible for testing or determining the cause of the gas bubbles.
“Our focus is making sure the sampling work is done to determine the cause,” said environment ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan. “Once we have that or further information, that will really help us to determine what the appropriate next steps are.”
That responsibility falls to the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation who technically own the land. It also falls within the municipality. As such, the First Nation has hired a consultant to determine where the gas is coming from.
The environment ministry did a review of the area for any possible sources of methane, but found nothing, Jordan said.
While there is a commercial sewage treatment plant on the golf course that sends treated “effluent” back to the creek, the ministry concluded “there is no indication that the sewage treatment plant or its effluent could be contributing to the methane release.”
The ministry also determined there is no possibility that the methane would present a health risk to people outside the immediate area, Jordan said. The municipality’s drinking water is safe.
“While signs may point to this being a naturally occurring gas leak, this has not been confirmed definitively,” Jordan said.
But Cook said with no possible sources of man-made pollutants releasing the methane, the consensus and “best opinion” is the gas leak is natural.
He added he had never heard of a naturally occurring gas leak before. Stass from Union Gas said she had heard of one other case in over 15 years working with the Chatham-based utility.
Lambton Shores, the First Nation and its consultant, as well as Ministry of the Environment officials are meeting again Friday. Until then, the state of emergency remains in effect and the public is advised to avoid the area.”
Sometimes, you have to think outside of the freeze-dried food paradigm. You may find yourself in the woods forced to run from your home or camp because of marauders with nothing to eat. Fortunately, there are many edible plants that can save your life if you know what they are, how to identify them and are comfortable with preparing them.
I don’t personally think that I will love eating a bunch of weeds to survive, but I will if needed. In a long-term disaster, I would certainly consider them vital to preserving life and the right edible plants could augment your gardens and food stores. I wanted to write up this list of 20 edible plants that are found mostly in the temperate region. There are certainly others you could find growing near you, but this is a good start. If I am able to master 20 edible plants in the area where I live, I would consider that a huge benefit to my prepping needs.
There are a lot of very recognizable plants you can eat like strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and so on, but I didn’t want to add those to the list.
Plants to avoid
Before you grab a good book on edible plants and run out into the woods with a bowl and a fork, you should practice some caution with this process. Not all plants are edible and knowing what not to eat is just as important as knowing what to eat. Before you forage, here are some simple rules to follow when you are trying to identify a plant.
Do not eat any plants that have the following traits
Milky or discolored sap
Grain heads with purple/pink or black spurs
Beans, bulbs or seeds inside pods
Yellow, white or red berries
Soapy or bitter taste
Never eat plants with thorns.
Steer clear of plants with shiny leaves.
Don’t eat mushrooms. Many are safe to eat, but many are highly toxic and even deadly, so it’s not worth the risk.
Umbrella-shaped flowers are a bad sign. Stay away from these plants.
Avoid anything that smells like almonds.
Same as poison ivy, stay away from plants with leaves in groups of three.
In addition to avoiding all of those traits, you want to forage for wild edible plants in areas that are less likely to have toxins. Plants growing near homes could have been sprayed many times with chemicals. Plants in water that is contaminated will likely hold that same contamination. Plants by the road will have picked up many harmful chemicals and pollution.
Before eating, use the Universal Edibility Test
Before taking the test, you need to fast for 8 hours. If you are desperate enough to need to find edible plants, this might be already the case.
Test only one part of a potential food plant at a time.
Separate the plant into its basic components – leaves, stems, roots, buds and flowers
Smell the food for strong or acid odors. Remember, smell alone does not indicate if a plant is edible or not.
During the 8 hours you are fasting, test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant part you are testing on the inside of your elbow or wrist. Usually 15 minutes is enough time to get a reaction if there is going to be one.
During the test period, take nothing by mouth except purified water and that plant part you are testing.
Select a small portion of a single part and prepare it the way you plan to eat it.
Before placing the prepared plant part in your mouth, touch a small portion (a pinch) to the outer surface of your lip to test for burning or itching.
If after 3 minutes there is no reaction on your lip, place the plant part on your tongue and hold it there for 15 minutes. DO NOT SWALLOW.
If there is no burning, itching, numbing, stinging , or any other irritation, swallow the plant part.
Wait 8 hours. If any ill effects occur during this period, induce vomiting and drink a lot of water.
If no ill effects occur, each ¼ cup of the same plant part prepared the same way. Wait another 8 hours. If everything is still good after all of these steps, the plant is considered edible.
Note: Just because the part you tested is edible, that doesn’t mean the entire plant is edible. Test all parts the same way before eating them.
List of Edible Plants
Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus and other species)
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
