Premier Xi Jinping’s Geopolitical Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop Challenge

Screenshot 2019 06 17 Arctic Permafrost Melting

“Without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, global warming is likely to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above today’s normal during the 21st century and that is dangerously close to the temperature of 6 degrees Centigrade above normal that initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago when 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out.”

2012 World Bank Report

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It will be the result of A Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop in the Arctic land and Arctic Ocean floor like the one that caused the Permian-Triassic Extinction. That one was the last near total mass planetary extinction. So the question now facing us is this: Will we humans be able to bring about a worldwide economic and political order that will prevent such an extinction from occurring again?

See Reference for more info

Four Questions

X Can China’s political and economic system based on Confucian and Socialist/Marxist thought assure the survival of Homo sapiens on this planet?

X Can American Democracy in its present form assure the survival of Homo sapiens on this planet?

Will all nations come together to assure the survival of Homo sapiens on this planet?

X If the answer to all is no, what then?

With the bronze/iron/agricultural age we became fully aware of the fact that we can be delusional and when we are, finding rational solutions to challenges can be a problem. The following biblical verse from Jeremiah 6/5th century BCE speaks to this.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

Jeremiah17:9:

Now a few words on America and then on China

And then back to Jeremiah:

Many throughout the world see America in a state of self-delusion.

They see Americans in a state of political and societal upheaval.

They see a nation overwhelmed by an unrelenting flow of fake vile lugubrious information.

They see large segments of the American population encumbered by dark inner social/psychological forces.

They see powerful psychotic extremists in control of large segments of its society.

They see an American nation recently under the control of a psycho President who dispatched a mob to ransack the Capitol in hopes of overturning his loss in an election.

They see a nation with gaping material inequality, an absence of “containment” of autocratic power, a nation of autocrats who are blinded to societally needed constraints on their behavior, also blinded to the suffering of the downtrodden.

(Income inequality in America is greater than that in any of the other Western democracies and is growing)

Now they see a new American President who is trying to put some of the pieces back together, yet facing sizeable opposition.

All are asking the question: Why are Americans so out of touch with world reality? Why has irrational thought become so powerful? Why are so many unable to draw the line between constructive “Free Speech” and extreme opinions and beliefs that encourage aberrant behavior?

This raises a serious question not only about the future of America but also the future of other nations that have adopted the American Democratic Capitalist form of government as their own.

It is the question all “Democracies” should now be asking:

Has the time come to go back to Socrates and rethink this “Democracy” thing all over again?

American dysfunction was an issue in the minds of early American leaders Washington and Madison and others like them when the Nation was formed. They saw themselves as having ability knowledge and virtue. Their concern however was how much power to give the masses. It led to questions such as: How much power should those in control have to contain the masses? How can a constitutional government of the people and for the people check-mate all sides to the equation?

Years before, Socrates had given them a warning. He believed that the best form of government was neither a tyranny nor a democracy. Instead, government worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest ability knowledge and virtue and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.

His was a vision of an ideal society. It was an ideal inoperable for America during and after its formation. The nation was soon to find a lack of ability knowledge and virtue among its leaders. And as for the masses??

In this New Age the “Western” world should be examining the strengths of China. It is demanding ability knowledge and virtue among its leaders and at the same time constraining the aberrant behavior of its masses. It is instituting a form of Marxist/Socialism in a blend some ways like that of Scandinavian Social Democracy. All this is combined with a government structured under the guiding precepts of Confucianism.

The implications are profound. In ideological competition with the Westernized world are over 1.400 billion Chinese citizens accepting an entirely different pattern of thought and behavior.

The Westernized world is losing the battle. One reason is that the system gives full rein to the neurotic psychotic me/me/mine side of the human impulse. Western laws and customs do not provide sufficient restraint. There is no understanding of the need for governance to control aberrant human behavior up and down the line.

We see this pattern in America and in many other Western countries as well as in those colonialized by the West such as in India.

So here is the question:

Could China be providing an answer?

A key to an understanding of the system in China is that China is intent on constraining that part of human behavior which throughout its own history was evidenced by societally destructive forces. Controlling them today is a priority.

It includes societally destructive religious forces. An example: China has been able to control Uyghur Islamic terrorism and Uyghur Islamic exponential population growth. Exponential population grown is an enormous problem in the Middle East. Uyghurs within the Xinjiang region now number just over 12 million. Terrorism there was being brought in by Islamic terrorists leaving Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. “Reeducation Centers” are being used to reeducate those would be terrorists. Also, sterilization measures are being taken to stabilize population size.

Some facts about American behavior are now in order. Between 1994 and 2020 there were 893 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States. Overall, right-wing terrorists perpetrated the majority; 50 % of all attacks and plots during this period compared to 25 % committed by left-wing terrorists, 15 % by religious terrorists, 3% by ethno nationalists.

Since Tiananmen Square, there seems to have been no notable extremist behavior in China. All has been quiet. One reason why: There are no news outlets or organizations as in America that feast on American style ultra-conservative alt-right degenerate false fake-news. There is no Rupert Murdoch Fox News or his Wall Street Journal, no CPAC, no neo-radical Face Book.

Unlike in America China has been able to provide an increasing standard of living for all of its population, including medical care. It should be noted that Pandemics such as the Corona Virus were contained better than in any other nation of its size. And to build international goodwill, China pledged roughly 10 times more vaccines abroad than it distributed at home. The Chinese pharmaceutical companies Sinovac and Sinopharm early on began supplying “vaccine aid” to 53 low and middle-income countries, those largely left behind as rich nations were scooping up most of the pricey vaccines produced by the likes of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson.

China has been able to move forward in other ways. Unlike in America, by way of governmental control of industrial activity it has been able to control internal economic growth within the framework of specific objectives. This has resulted in infrastructural initiatives such as electrical grid, electric transportation. (no Texas tragedies as noted below)

Also it has begun to expand its influence beyond its borders culturally and economically by way of its Belt and Road initiative; now stretching to the other Asian countries, to the Middle East, to Eastern Europe and to South America.

The list goes on.

So here is the “if it succeeds” China question: Is Premier Xi Jinping, a follower of Confucius, the man Jeremiah (quoted above and below) and Jesus and Socrates and Confucius himself would choose as the world leader to recognize and overcome the dark eukaryotic neurotic psychotic force now in this Anthropogenic Age driving all of us on this planet toward extinction?

Or would it be Americans Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Fox News or the Wall Street Journal; all so opposed to President Biden’s initiatives, from COVID-19 Relief to Climate Change? Or those Republican Senators and Representatives; as they too vote against his initiatives and announce to the World that America is no longer “The United States of America” but now “The Divided States of America”.

It would appear Xi Jinping has a much better chance of passing the Jeremiah/Jesus/Socrates/Confucius test.

Because it would seem he has identified the fact that we are coming out of a many thousand year period of contradictory/separate/regional identity formation,

Because it would seem he has identified the fact that a new period is being forced on us by our need to reassess our relationship to each other by way a shared global identity and a shared symbiotic relationship with all life on Planet Earth.

Because it would seem he has identified the need for a metamorphosis of the human mind far surpassing all others throughout human history.

But then questions remain:

Within a 10/15 year period can Premier Xi Jinping and his team eliminate China’s carbon dependency? China through coal use is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses on the planet.

Under an international agreement, will Premier Xi Jinping agree to escalating taxation of all domestic goods and services based on carbon content? For the purpose of orchestrating a graduated worldwide increase in the price of all other nation’s carbon input goods and services will this also become integral to all China export pricing?

Will he recognize that our problem goes well beyond carbon, that this must be just the first step toward human planetary resource control and human survival? Will he then recognize that pricing in of all other negative externalities harmful to humanity and other life on the planet need to come next?

Will he recognize all nations need to acknowledge that our planetary problems can only be solved multi-nationally and that the future of human civilization hangs in the balance?

See My Paper This Subject

There is evidence that with the bronze/iron/agricultural age we became fully aware of the fact that we all have a problem. Over the centuries the underlying cause has not gone away.

It is a thinking imperfection we brought with us into this Age.

Jeremiah wrote about it.

It remains our nemesis.

If Premier Xi Jinping’s China will not – and all other nations will not – fully recognize it and move quickly to overcome it, then what is left of us – if any are left – will have to go back to Jeremiah and figure out how to start this human civilization thing all over again.

I will end as I began; with the Jeremiah message: I quote him in my New Book

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

Jeremiah 17:9

REFERENCES

Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop Challenge

“A 500 ppm concentration would most likely warm the planet by 3 to 4 degrees C (5.4 to 7.2 degrees F). The permafrost under the Arctic tundra, already softening would generally melt …. greatly enhancing the greenhouse effect…. At present rates carbon dioxide is expected to reach 500 ppm by 2050, and combined with the effects of methane and nitrous oxide, will cause a relentless push toward higher temperatures, which will release more methane from tundra regions, increasing warming in a relentless feedback cycle. Less obvious but potentially a greater cause for concern than gasses within the Arctic tundra is the enormous accumulation of methane deep within the sea.…. With continued warming, the sea may give up in a geological blink the accumulation of millions of years of carbon sequestration. Destabilizing the massive accumulation of methane hydrates could trigger undersea landslides that in turn could set off tsunamis on a grand scale.”

Earle, Sylvia A. The World Is Blue How Our Fate and The Ocean’s Are One

National Geographic Society,  2010.  pp 169,170


https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/earth-permian-mass-extinction-apocalypse-warning-climate-change-frozen-methane-a7648006.html
  

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Was Jesus a “Socialist” ?

Jesus the Jewish Socialist

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A NY Times Quote

Nicholas Kristof NY TIMES  Feb. 13, 2021  Can Biden Save Americans Like My Old Pal Mike?

“We fret about competitive challenges from China, but the best way to meet them is to elevate our capabilities at home. China built new universities at the rate of one a week, while the number of colleges in the United States is now shrinking — and as many Americans have criminal records as have college degrees.”

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Following are two of my essays written a few years ago that attempt to explain why China, if it succeeds in its experiment, may have a better chance of becoming the template for a new and creatively cohesive global human civilization structured within a reordering of human thought and action allowing people to live in a symbiotic relationship with all life and nonlife on this planet

https://countercurrents.org/2017/12/07/the-end-of-american-exceptionalism/

https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/the-end-of-neo-liberal-american-exceptionalism/

XXX

Here is an essay by Irwin Jerome about the state of confusion that exists in Texas and the inability of Texan society to correct the problems that Texan “Freedoms” have over the years bestowed on its people. It is an illustration of Texan (and American) dysfunction. I worked there for ten years as a senior officer and member of the Executive Committee of the largest bank. So I know. A Texas Texan took over. I left. Six years later it went under.

https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/climate-catastrophe-in-texas-and-the-texans-are-freezing-to-death/

David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics. He has written four books. The fourth (Below) is about a necessary geopolitical, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival.

OVERCOMING the THREAT to Our FUTURE

http://inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html 


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