New Social And Economic Systems Are Needed ASAP

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We need new societal patterns. Likewise, people with limited financial means can’t take care of all tragedies. We have our own ongoing in MA right now with recent gas explosions and fires as this picture of a house shows..

Kerala, India has a giant torment with almost two million people displaced and hundreds dead due to a monsoon. Who knows if and when the region can rebuild?

Philippines is currently under assault from having had a typhoon and many of the people there are more poor than the financially poorest in our US southern states. One can assume that many will starve or die from dysentery from a bad water supply after the storm.

How about the US VI and Puerto Rico being still inundated and inadequately helped? What a mess!

Kerala Floods, Development And Fossil Fuels

‘Bigger, Stronger, and More Dangerous’ Than Florence, Super Typhoon Mangkhut Strikes the PhilippinesJessica Corbett

 

You want to see about what it is like to clean up a shell of a home? I do know. I do know. It is seared into my memory. So nobody needs to pull my heartstrings with tragedies that other face:

The Times Ahead: Catastrophes, Resource Conflicts And Cooperation

Of course, it is great to help people inundated by troubles. No one in his right mind can dispute that.

It is better still to teach them new ways to go forward, although not to dismiss aid as needed. Definitely, this former action is needed in dire times to come as is the latter counterpart of providing help. … Transition Town models are needed. So we all need to move onward past our current economic and banking models that cause these problems, okay? … We need to stop only cleaning up the messes that our human ways create. We desperately need new ways for going forward presented rather than just hand wringing after the fact of some new tragedy grabbing attention..

Population bottleneck.svg

A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events (such as earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, or droughts) or human activities (such as genocide). Such events can reduce the variation in the gene pool of a population; thereafter, a smaller population … – From Population bottleneck – Wikipedia

We here in MA should ignore our own people and favor ones way south of us in the USA or in other regions of the world when our resources — financial and other kinds — are stretched thin? What is a viable answer? Help other regions or help ourselves since we can’t handle it all?

Right now, we people in  MA still have our horrible gas problems, along with people displaced from homes and businesses in several communities. We also have flooding from Hurricane Florence and another (the sixth in recent months) of tornado warnings while knowing that even one a year is rare in this region … or use to be so until now.

All considered …

Let’s take Charlie’s foot off the gas and stop accelerating climate change
in Climate Change — by Rob Moir

https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/16/lets-take-charlies-foot-off-the-gas-and-stop-accelerating-climate-change/

I once taught elementary science in Andover, Massachusetts, and raised my family there. So my heart goes out to all the people suffering from at least 39 house fires and explosions in South Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover. An eighteen-year-old was killed sitting in his van when natural gas exploded a house and the brick chimney toppled on to it. At least eighteen people were injured, likely many more. Given the massive destruction of epic proportions, it is miraculous more people were not killed.

Yes, we need to get off of the fossil fuel merry-go-round. Are people going to take this task on in more than a tepid fashion or just give bandages when each new disaster strikes in the USA and other lands?

I  am truly sorry for our southern-east states in the USA suffering from Florence. I am equally so for other regions of the world, but we have to each concentrate our efforts on our own region’s suffering from climate change related problems and other types originating from our high energy usage. It’s just the way that it is.

I am well versed in the ways to do fix-up from devastation. You borrow a beat-up small truck from neighbors, Trudy and Mel. You straddle the giant holes in the floor while driving it. You use their king sized bed-sheet to scrape and shovel glass, nails, shards of wood and contaminated cloth debris onto it to dump in the back of the truck. You stay in another friend’s home and move their furniture out of the way since parts of the roof leak like a sieve and you want to minimize damage. You use a ladle to dip into one of your cisterns at your former home site when thirsty. They are still left intact, although plumbing is not.

You work and work day after day while crying on and off at the devastation. No electricity of course. No money coming for your aid. So you just make do, There is no alternative.

Certainly I am glad for the dilapidated truck, sheet and ladle for water. I am happy for the dried foods that neighbors gave to keep me strong as I worked

Here is that which is left of the home. It was a piece of a pillar. It had three of three inch heavy steel  rebars running through it down to a yard beneath the pillar serving as a house foundation — one of many of which all toppled over on their sides… This reminant is around two and a half inches by almost an inch, I took it home state-side since my father painted it and designed it.

Especially the elderly people and those infirm in mind need help in facing horrors.  With resolve and hard work, the rest of us can muddle through tragedy or, in my case since I am not emotionally over the ordeal, Perhaps one never fully recovers, but sometimes with the help of neighbors like Trudy and Mel, one does get on by.

An email that I received this message from Molly Diggins Director, North Carolina Chapter of the environmental group. the Sierra Club

Hurricane Florence is devastating communities. Please Help.

florence 1

I’m in Raleigh.

I just talked to Ben Mack with the South Carolina Chapter. We’re hearing stories and seeing photos from people across the Carolinas in the path of Hurricane Florence.

Its impacts are devastating: In New Bern, North Carolina, more than 300 people have been rescued and hundreds are still stranded after 10 foot-plus storm surges. In the Pee Dee region of South Carolina, they are now anticipating catastrophic flooding as the storm turns and slows. At least seven people have lost their lives. Fear and concern are sweeping across all of us as this storm strikes our communities.

It isn’t over, and it won’t be over when the rain stops and wind dies down.

They’re saying that, by the time the Florence passes through, there will be forty — yes, forty — inches of rain and billions of dollars in damages, but neither tell the full extent of the damage done by this storm.

More than 1 million people were ordered to evacuate. Others who may have lacked money for gasoline or hotels stayed behind to face whatever comes. There’s no time to waste, Emily. With more than 200 emergency shelters in operation and as many as 3 million homes predicted to lose power for a week or more, we must provide local relief and support these communities’ recovery effort — now.

We’re raising money for local organizations working on the ground — such as North Carolina Community Foundation Disaster Relief Fund, North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, and Charleston Community Research to Action Board — to rush support to those devastated by Florence’s wrath. Please help with an emergency gift of $5 or whatever you can give now.

Please, make an emergency gift to the Sierra Club’s Hurricane Florence relief efforts. 100% of the funds you donate will go directly to recovery efforts and to non-profits serving the communities affected most by this devastating storm.

Florence is being called a “beast” with good reason: the storm crept along literally at a walking pace (2-3mph), resulting in more hours of hurricane-force winds. Its winds and surges extended a full 80 miles from its center, cutting a jagged path of freshwater flooding and destruction through areas whose populations have grown by 25% since Hurricane Hugo nearly three decades ago.

We’ve been through enough of these calamitous storms to know what lies ahead: Food, water, and fuel shortages. Compromised medical care. Low-income communities and communities of color bearing the brunt of the suffering and loss. And untold damage to the hearts and minds of all those who suffered from the storm.

Thank you for your support. It will help folks here who are truly suffering. And for everyone in the storm’s path, we are thinking of you and hope you and your loved ones are safe.

Sincerely,

Molly Diggins
Director, North Carolina Chapter
Sierra Club

Sally Dugman is a writer from MA, USA

 

 

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