The Costs of Climate Change: From Coasts to Heartland, Health to Security
House Budget, The Costs of Climate Change: From Coasts to Heartland, Health to Security, July 24, 2019
We will repeat some of our material from June regarding flood insurance, however there is still much to be said.
On warming in general, there is no doubt that it is man-made. While there was a warm period around the first millennium, we came to it gradually. Industrialization may have ended what is called the Little Ice Age, but that warming is sudden and has dire consequences. We do not know that it will stop the way it did in the Middle Ages, indeed, it is not likely to, which makes these hearings vital.
Starting with the coasts, there will be sea level rise. Indeed, the flooding shown in Vice President Gore’s latest film shows how bad it is getting. The wealthy don’t seem to care, because they have flood insurance. From last month: The most basic step to at least get wealthier taxpayers on board (including the upper-middle class) is to cap flood insurance benefits to a level where beach houses properties can no longer be insured. Even that small step could never be enacted. Too many donors have beach houses.
The heartland is currently more likely to experience draught. While no-till farming can help, soil conservation programs are constantly facing the chopping block, making these problems worse. Farming is by nature, not mobile for family farmers, although corporations can relocate more easily to wetter and colder climates, while migrant workers are, by nature, mobile – although this opens a different can of worms which we addressed recently to this Committee.
It may be that agriculture must become an indoor venture, adding a new meaning to factory farming. Advances in stem cell research may even lead to an end to animal husbandry entirely. Beef cells have been grown, with mixed results, although adding cloned fat, sinew, blood and bone may give us a decent hamburger yet. 3D printing may even give us steak, ribs and the rest. A mission to Mars may accelerate research here, especially if colonization is planned. As the former Director of Colony Planning for 1000 Planets, I assure you that this kind of innovation is possible, including smaller scale systems for household food production.
The real obstacles to both Mars and home farms is financial. Mars can be handled by moving NASA appropriation to the DoD line items, as we mentioned in our comments earlier this year to the Committee in the Defense budget.
At the household level, the cost of such systems is out of reach for most families in capitalism. The interest costs alone are prohibitive and the concentration of income, especially profit, at the top of the system destroy the chance of economies of scale at the household level.
A shift to employee cooperative ownership changes that. Profit becomes retirement saving and income for the many and finance is replaced by debt in terms of standard labor hours, with no profit center for interest. Indeed, the same cooperative can produce external sales and internal consumption of most goods, including government services. Attachments One and Two explain the tax structures to get there and further explain how such ownership can work, including how it can be quickly expanded through tax policy.
Industrial and environmental food production will end the abuse of the planet caused by what we call modern agriculture. Without these changes, Food, Inc. will lead to pandemics caused by resistant bacteria. With them, farmland can be replaced with grasslands and forests so that the planet can breathe again.
Cooperative ownership will also allow for improved transportation, from electric cars with central control through a grass covered roof deck. Alternative from community solar and win to eventual Helium3 fusion will end carbon emissions. Indeed, it may even take us to cooling if we go too far. I am willing to risk it.
Health needs agreed urgent for the poor who receive substandard health care, have obesity from carbohydrate rich diets caused by low SNAP allocations and substandard housing. Bad housing can mean no air conditioning while poverty makes energy consumption unaffordable in a warmer environment. People will die from overheating and asthma. I almost did in rural Ohio as a teen with asthma, no health care and no central air. Many others have not survived and the carnage continues and accelerates.
In the current economy, one must be at the 90th percentile to stay even with inflation. Capitalism does not raise all boats and leaves the working class in constant fear of slipping into poverty. Instilling that gear is, sadly, more a feature than a flaw.
Cooperation internally will lead to cooperation and ownership internationally, with the systems explained above going global. This will lead to enough global community to shift resources from defense to science, including habitat improvement, both in terms of products and manufacturing methods. A wider economy also leads to better education and the discovery of more natural genius now stifled by poverty.
Not cooperating magnifies the health problems experienced here. Poorer population and those in the Pacific, from China to Indonesia and Australia may be subject to coastal inundation as well as less fresh water. Some futurists predict that in the future, wars will be about fresh water. Less warming and better closed system environments end these dangers.
As sea levels rise, coastal inhabitants, both here and abroad, become the new refugees. Imagine three billion people needing to migrate, sometimes expanding into other nations. Think of China relocating to the west and the potential pressure on the Russian border. Destabilize India, Russia, China and Indonesia and the entire planet is in crisis. One that we cannot avoid unless we change now.
It seems that these problems are as depressing as those of migration as detailed previously. Indeed, migration and inequality issues as experienced at our southern border will become global.
Have a nice day.
If we do not act, it will become progressively harder for most of us to have such days. The rich will try to manage, but systemic global inequality at current levels is impossible to maintain much longer. Consumerism will no longer hold off more drastic redistribution. The Earth simply will not let us.
Attachment One – Tax Reform – May 22, 2019
Attachment Two – A. Employee-Ownership, March 7, 2019, B. From Hearing on the 2016 Social Security Trustees Report
We will repeat some of our material from June regarding flood insurance, however there is still much to be said.
On warming in general, there is no doubt that it is man-made. While there was a warm period around the first millennium, we came to it gradually. Industrialization may have ended what is called the Little Ice Age, but that warming is sudden and has dire consequences. We do not know that it will stop the way it did in the Middle Ages, indeed, it is not likely to, which makes these hearings vital.
Starting with the coasts, there will be sea level rise. Indeed, the flooding shown in Vice President Gore’s latest film shows how bad it is getting. The wealthy don’t seem to care, because they have flood insurance. From last month: The most basic step to at least get wealthier taxpayers on board (including the upper-middle class) is to cap flood insurance benefits to a level where beach houses properties can no longer be insured. Even that small step could never be enacted. Too many donors have beach houses.
The heartland is currently more likely to experience draught. While no-till farming can help, soil conservation programs are constantly facing the chopping block, making these problems worse. Farming is by nature, not mobile for family farmers, although corporations can relocate more easily to wetter and colder climates, while migrant workers are, by nature, mobile – although this opens a different can of worms which we addressed recently to this Committee.
It may be that agriculture must become an indoor venture, adding a new meaning to factory farming. Advances in stem cell research may even lead to an end to animal husbandry entirely. Beef cells have been grown, with mixed results, although adding cloned fat, sinew, blood and bone may give us a decent hamburger yet. 3D printing may even give us steak, ribs and the rest. A mission to Mars may accelerate research here, especially if colonization is planned. As the former Director of Colony Planning for 1000 Planets, I assure you that this kind of innovation is possible, including smaller scale systems for household food production.
The real obstacles to both Mars and home farms is financial. Mars can be handled by moving NASA appropriation to the DoD line items, as we mentioned in our comments earlier this year to the Committee in the Defense budget.
At the household level, the cost of such systems is out of reach for most families in capitalism. The interest costs alone are prohibitive and the concentration of income, especially profit, at the top of the system destroy the chance of economies of scale at the household level.
A shift to employee cooperative ownership changes that. Profit becomes retirement saving and income for the many and finance is replaced by debt in terms of standard labor hours, with no profit center for interest. Indeed, the same cooperative can produce external sales and internal consumption of most goods, including government services. Attachments One and Two explain the tax structures to get there and further explain how such ownership can work, including how it can be quickly expanded through tax policy.
Industrial and environmental food production will end the abuse of the planet caused by what we call modern agriculture. Without these changes, Food, Inc. will lead to pandemics caused by resistant bacteria. With them, farmland can be replaced with grasslands and forests so that the planet can breathe again.
Cooperative ownership will also allow for improved transportation, from electric cars with central control through a grass covered roof deck. Alternative from community solar and win to eventual Helium3 fusion will end carbon emissions. Indeed, it may even take us to cooling if we go too far. I am willing to risk it.
Health needs agreed urgent for the poor who receive substandard health care, have obesity from carbohydrate rich diets caused by low SNAP allocations and substandard housing. Bad housing can mean no air conditioning while poverty makes energy consumption unaffordable in a warmer environment. People will die from overheating and asthma. I almost did in rural Ohio as a teen with asthma, no health care and no central air. Many others have not survived and the carnage continues and accelerates.
In the current economy, one must be at the 90th percentile to stay even with inflation. Capitalism does not raise all boats and leaves the working class in constant fear of slipping into poverty. Instilling that gear is, sadly, more a feature than a flaw.
Cooperation internally will lead to cooperation and ownership internationally, with the systems explained above going global. This will lead to enough global community to shift resources from defense to science, including habitat improvement, both in terms of products and manufacturing methods. A wider economy also leads to better education and the discovery of more natural genius now stifled by poverty.
Not cooperating magnifies the health problems experienced here. Poorer population and those in the Pacific, from China to Indonesia and Australia may be subject to coastal inundation as well as less fresh water. Some futurists predict that in the future, wars will be about fresh water. Less warming and better closed system environments end these dangers.
As sea levels rise, coastal inhabitants, both here and abroad, become the new refugees. Imagine three billion people needing to migrate, sometimes expanding into other nations. Think of China relocating to the west and the potential pressure on the Russian border. Destabilize India, Russia, China and Indonesia and the entire planet is in crisis. One that we cannot avoid unless we change now.
It seems that these problems are as depressing as those of migration as detailed previously. Indeed, migration and inequality issues as experienced at our southern border will become global.
Have a nice day.
If we do not act, it will become progressively harder for most of us to have such days. The rich will try to manage, but systemic global inequality at current levels is impossible to maintain much longer. Consumerism will no longer hold off more drastic redistribution. The Earth simply will not let us.
Attachment One – Tax Reform – May 22, 2019
Attachment Two – A. Employee-Ownership, March 7, 2019, B. From Hearing on the 2016 Social Security Trustees Report
posted by Michael Bindner at 10:00 AM
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