Close Coal Plants Causing Climate Change Pollution

Over the next three to five years (2014 to 2016) total shutdowns of 241 coal generators in 30 states — more than 36,000 MW of electric generation or 11 percent of the U.S. coal fleet.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/21/report-more-than-200-coal-fired-generators-slated-for-shutdown/#ixzz2HXbq9EvU

Released November 13, 2012 by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a report spotlighted 353 coal-fired generating units nationwide that are among the walking dead—plants which would be more expensive to upgrade with modern pollution control equipment than to simply close. Those plants produce 59 GW of electricity.

Source: Midwest Energy News

"... increasingly harder for the poor to breathe due to nearby coal plants, a study released this week states.  Low-income communities are disproportionately affected by health-threatening pollution from coal-fired power plants in Illinois and other Midwestern states, a report by the NAACP says.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/11/16/Poor-who-live-near-coal-plants-show-health-issues/UPI-19771353090681/#ixzz2HXeAg6gE

Climate Change

Notes after watching PBS “The Abolitionists” Part 1 of 3
January 8, 2012

The Abolitionists of today are the people advocating to change the economic and political institutions of America based on moral principals. In the same way that individual states banned slavery, today states are changing the economic and political institutions that support the fossil fuel industry. States are reducing CO2 emissions while the fossil fuel industry is advocating shipping coal to China and building a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast to process oil.

After land, slaves were the greatest economic asset in the American economy in the early 1800s. Southern slave owners were the richest people on earth. Today, the fossil fuel industry provides the energy that fuels the American economy. The value of the known reserves in the ground are factored into the stock price of the companies. Rich people and powerful corporations have their wealth and income dependent on the value of the fossil fuel industry. They will fight to preserve that value.

Abolitionists and slave owners had different economic, political and moral beliefs. Today,  in the same way, people advocating stopping all CO2 emissions and the fossil fuel industry have different beliefs. The Climate Change advocates are taking a broad moral view that future generations must be protected. The American economy is threatened with a depression and significant unemployment if the fossil fuel industry is shutdown.

The same dilemma that exited prior to the Civil War, now exists on a global scale and within the United States. We will suffer the consequences no matter what we do. If we shutdown the fossil fuel industry the American and global economy will collapse. If we continue to rely on fossil fuels the American and global economy will collapse due to the consequences of climate change.  The longer America delays resolving this dilemma the greater the consequences.

The Abolitionist William Garrison said the American government was not legitimate because of the conflict in the constitution between the support for slavery, and the liberty and freedoms granted.  In the same way, today’s federal government is not legitimate because of the moral corruption caused by the support for the fossil fuel industry.

The Lockean Proviso states that by working on private property from nature, people can do so only "...at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others".  The fossil fuel industry maintains their private property rights but they are polluting the atmosphere so that future generations will not have enough, and as good, left in common.

A rogue nation, corporation or wealthy individual could implement geoengineering and America might respond with fighter jets being scrambled to take down tanker jets sent aloft to spray aerosols, or taking out balloons carrying up hoses to do the same thing. 

Today, there is no legitimate system of governance that would be able to make decisions about implementation of geoengineering to either reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or reduce solar radiation penetrating past the stratosphere.  A new institution will be created on a global scale with the authority to protect the atmosphere for future generations.

Instead of being localized to America, like the collapse of the slave economy and the Civil War, the collapse of the fossil fuel industry and the consequences of climate change will be a global catastrophe. Both will happen at the same time.

Stress Makes People Sick

Anxiety is a type of classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning. Conditioning is a form of learning where one stimulus comes to signal the occurrence of a second stimulus. The mind sends a signal to the body in response to stress, the body responds and sends information back to the brain.  However, when there is insufficient serotonin in the brain, the feedback from the body is misinterpreted by the brain and triggers anxiety. 

There are two methods to deal with anxiety. Drugs and non-drug therapy. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) drugs increase the reservoir of Serotonin in the brain to improve the communication between the mind and body. Meditation slows or blocks the harmful feedback loops and reinforces the good feedback loops in the mind-body system.

The mind-body system uses hormones, such as adrenaline (Epinephrine), and steroid hormones, such as cortisol (hydrocortisone).  Adrenaline and cortisol are released in the body due to stress. 

Triggers to release adrenaline are stresses, such as physical threat, excitement, noise, bright lights, and high ambient temperature. All of these stimuli are processed in the central nervous system (CNS), made up of the brain and the spinal cord. The spinal cord functions primarily in the transmission of neural signals between the brain and the rest of the body. The spinal cord functions as a conduit for motor information, which travels down the spinal cord, and as a conduit for sensory information in the reverse direction.  When the brain is low on serotonin then the flow of information from the body is misunderstood and the brain sends signals to stimulate adrenaline and cortisol. People imagine they are having a heart attack or experiencing pain when in fact there is no detectable medical condition. Serotonin levels in the brain can not be measured directly yet.

An adrenaline junkie is somebody appearing to be addicted to endogenous epinephrine. The "high" is caused by self-inducing a fight-or-flight response by intentionally engaging in stressful or risky behavior, which causes a release of epinephrine by the adrenal gland.

Cortisol is released in response to stress: (1) making available glucose that can be used for the brain, (2) generating new energy from stored reserves, and (3) diverting energy away from low-priority activities (such as the immune system) in order to survive immediate threats or prepare for the exertion of rising to a new day. However, prolonged cortisol secretion results in significant physiological changes.

When there is no detectable medical condition, then behaviors are most likely due to low serotonin, such as: anger, anxiety, aggression, pain, headaches, depression, upset stomach, difficulty breathing, dehydration symptoms, fainting and many other unexplained symptoms.

Stress suppresses the immune system so that a person is vulnerable to viruses and infection. Cold sores on the lips or inside the mouth might appear. A person might get sick more frequently than others.

What To Do

First, see your doctor and ask about low serotonin. Be aware that the doctor is used to  relying on medical evidence for decisions but in this case they have no basis for prescribing drugs except what you tell them. Depending on how sever your symptoms, the doctor will prescribe a low or high dose of an appropriate drug.  There are drugs designed for long-term usage and drugs that are short acting for immediate relief.

Second, whether or not you take an SSRI, find a way to learn and practice forms of meditation. Once you are off the drug, you will need a way to avoid having problems again. Meditation is the way. Meditation conditions the mind-body system to not respond to stress in our daily life.

Mindfulness is a method of practicing meditation and conditioning the mind to deal with pain. Mindfulness is a method to condition the mind-body system to not respond to stress in our daily life.

Policy and System Dynamics

Policy(1) is neither a stock nor a flow.  Accumulations and flows of physical or abstract things, through operational thinking, are connected and modeled as stocks and flows in computer software. In addition, they are connected using information arrows indicating the direction of information.  When policies are operationalized in a model they are elements (variables) placed between the information arrows connecting the stocks and flows creating a feedback loop. So there are two types of connections, one is the physical or abstract flow of things and the other is the information arrow creating feedback loops.

Policies in the real world are operationalized using laws, regulations, rules and other procedures.  In an SD model, policies are operationalized using constants and variables input as elements between the arrows connecting the stocks and flows creating feedback loops.

Similar to human policies, the laws of physics are operationalized as equations in SD models to create feedback loops.  The sciences have laws or rules that can be operationalized in an SD model using feedback loops.

For example, a stock with an outflow has a material flow.  However if the level of the stock needs to regulate the rate of outflow then an information arrow connects the stock to the outflow so that level information is provided to the the outflow equation.  This is a feedback loop.  As the level of the stock changes the rate of the outflow changes causing the level of the stock to change, and the arrows make this connection continuous. In the real world this is called a bathtub with an open drain.

(1) Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy)

Stress Makes People Sick

Stress reduces serotonin in the brain and causes the mind-body system to not communicate well. Another way to say this is that over time, as we experience major and minor stressful events in our life, our serotonin level is reduced each time.  When the level goes below a threshold, our brain starts to imagine things that are not really happening. This triggers the fight or flight syndrome that causes our body to use a lot of adrenaline, suppress our immune system, move cortisol (a steroid) into the digestive system and prepare our muscles for action. When in fact in our modern society we can neither fight nor run from our work or home situations.  As a result, we experience symptoms as if we were sick due to some unknown illness or disease that our mind imagines we have.

Low serotonin is a medical condition that is only diagnosed when there is no other explanation for the symptoms a patient is experiencing.  Serotonin in the brain can not be measured directly and the indirect testing is expensive.  A typical patient will tell the doctor they feel like they are having a heart attack when tests show the person is in perfect condition. From experience, the doctor knows this means the person is having an anxiety attack.

The quickest way to increase serotonin is to use an SSRI drug like escitalopram. There are other SSRI drugs. There are non-drug therapy options such as Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Using Mindfulness, the practice of bringing the mind back to the present moment and focusing on the inhale and exhale of breathing, we can learn to listen to our body’s real experiences. Practicing body scan and meditation are methods to train the mind-body system.  Various meditation practices include: sitting, yoga, walking, swimming, counting, chanting a mantra and other techniques.

The primary purpose of the drugs and non-drug therapy is to switch off the fight or flight syndrome while focusing the mind and body on the present moment. Instead of letting the mind wander and imagine things that send signals to the body to react, meditation is a way to calm the mind and relax the body. SSRI drugs do the same thing by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain.

Climate Change and Geoengineering

There is no legitimate system of governance that would be able to make decisions about implementation of geoengineering to either reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or reduce solar radiation penetrating past the stratosphere.

A rogue nation, corporation or wealthy individual could implement geoengineering and America might respond with fighter jets being scrambled to take down tanker jets sent aloft to spray aerosols, or taking out balloons carrying up hoses to do the same thing.

Climate Change and Intergenerational Evil

Climate Change

The world that has been created since World War Two is quickly coming to an end. This video pulls together information from different scientific sources, religion and ethics into a powerful statement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1HpkCiOaiI

Baby Boomers will pick up this moral principle and justify significant sacrifices, there will be Wars to be fought, evil and enemies, good and heroes, and just like we survived WWII, there will be many believing the end of the world will happen but humans will survive as a species.

The bad news is that over one billion people will die before the worst is over by 2028.The good news is that America will not be where very many people will die.