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William Shatner really went to space, and it was not what he hoped for.

After exiting the Earth’s atmosphere he was awed by the warmth and life-sheltering brilliance of the Earth and the cold, black death of space. He was reminded of humanity’s insignificance and the fragility of life.

He describes the Overview Effect: “It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.”

______________________

While I have never been to space, I can understand this feeling. I am troubled by the destruction of our planet’s life support systems, and the ongoing mass die-off species. And yet, the solace can be found in knowing that Earth and life on Earth will likely outlive humanity’s ability to destroy. We will be self-limited in a macabre way. Hooray.

IDK, this morning I am mourning the loss of wilderness along the West Coast, the destruction of fires, encroaching suburbia, and the system altering carbon being ejected into the air.

I am prone to think about (or fixate on) long term risks as it becomes clear to me that the Earth will warm in a non-linear fashion, that humans will not adequately address the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere, and that one or multiple feedback loops will make our familiar weather patterns less predictable and more chaotic.

There is precious little information that I have seen that points to areas of relative safety.

There are obvious areas that will be impacted by rising seas. There is the obvious observation that drought in the desert Southwest of the United States of America will likely continue longer than before, and that wildfire will be devastating to the entire Western region of that country. We can safely assume that hot areas today will become much more oppressive in the future. Et cetera. . .

What can we do to enable us to thrive in such a world?

First, make sure to live in a place with a milder climate. Maybe you can live in a coastal area where a large body of water can mitigate increased median and extreme heat. Maybe you can live at elevation to reduce extreme heat days. Maybe you can locate a local microclimate that is more resistant to fluctuations and extreme events.

Second, help make your community more resilient. Build relationships with your neighbors. Work to educate them about natural hazards likely to occur in your area. This helps build the mindset that can be more open to planning against future risks, including climate change. So many people become “preppers” and believe in the fantasy that they could survive alone in a hostile world that is ravaging civilization. This is a child’s fantasy – you are not so powerful. You will need community and cooperation when your area suffers a massive storm or earthquake or flooding. With a neighborhood group that is organized and well-prepared, you will be far likelier to survive and thrive.

Third, you can make your home more autonomous and resilient to your local risks. Is there a risk of power outages due to an increasing rate and severity of storms? Maybe you should have a rooftop solar system. Is there a risk of water shortages/ Maybe you need to store more water than people in other places. Survival comes down to oxygen, water, food and shelter. Focus on your ability to provide each of those things for you, your family and possibly others in the event of a major disruption or in a climate shift that permanently alters your environment.

For me, I am going to set up a solar power system that will be able to provide electricity in the event of a major storm or an earthquake. Since I live in coastal California, our micro-climate is mild due to the heat mitigation of the Pacific Ocean and its reliable onshore flow. The biggest risk in our area is a lack of fresh water. I am working on ways to store and collect water, and for food, I have sufficient emergency supplies to exist for a long time, but I need to work on ways to grow greens and herbs to supplement food storage.

Much of the stupid debate surrounding climate change has been on causation or global effects. While we must be aware of the global risks, many of the local effects of climate change remain unclear and less certain. What I have read, but more based on a gut feeling- I believe that a place’s existing issues will be magnified and made more severe and frequent. Think about your area’s weather issues now. Then imagine what would it be like if severe weather lasted longer and happened more frequently. What effects would that have? How could you prepare yourself to survive and live well through those things?

No one can provide these answers for you. You need to review your situation and make decisions. And remember, do not neglect building community. You cannot survive into the future alone. You will need others.

Specifics for my situation:

1. I live in a milder climate than most, with good infrastructure and community
2. I need to strengthen ties to community watch groups and neighbors to build awareness and to identify like-minded people in the area.
3. Make home resilient by
   1. Installing a small solar system capable of powering (1) refrigerator, (2) a few lights and (3) charging computers, phones and internet equipment.
   2. Increasing water storage to at least 500 gallons, and devising water collection through rain, fog catchers and potentially run-off collection and treatment
   3. Increasing growing beds for greens and herbs and maintain food stores sufficient for 6 months or more
4. Build a resilient cabin in the mountains for retreat with small solar, water sustainability and mild climate different than home climate

49 years old. How many more trips around the star do I have in me? I hope for another 40, and that I stay healthy and keep my faculties.

I tell stories of things that aren’t here anymore. I remember places and people long gone. I grow increasingly aware that my stories are historical fiction – blended memories. I am sometimes that last living witness to these stories.

It is not at all bad. Better than the alternative.

I know myself better. I am happy most of the time. I love many people and they love me back. I still have my parents, though I fear the day is approaching that they will be gone.

Here is what I know: Life is beautiful. It is bittersweet. As I get older, the yin and yang of it gets clearer. I am more aware of its impermanence. I too will die. This knowledge makes me want to go more places and do more things. I want to spend more time outside, away from the things of civilization.

I have no wisdom to impart. I am just feeling extremely grateful for still being here, and simultaneously irritated as fuck at what we, as a species, are doing to the planet, to each other and to ourselves. I will carry on now.

There is a heat wave in California. I am so glad to live at the beach.

In Winter, it is often 10 degrees cooler at the beach than in most of Los Angeles. In Summer, the difference is often 20 degrees or more. We owe the Pacific Ocean a big thank you. . .

If California can sort out its (1) water issues and (2) over-reliance on automobiles, coastal Southern California is a relatively sustainable place to weather climate change. The big Pacific Ocean will continue to act as a temperature stabilizer and the ample sunshine provides for great solar power generation.

I never thought I would say it, but I like living here.

Last week, I was listening to Mother Country Radicals, a podcast about the Weather Underground and their revolution against the United States government. I have also been listening to The Radical King, edited by Cornel West, which is a compilation of several of Dr. King’s speeches and sermons that demonstrate his evolution of belief. I highly recommend both!

The juxtaposition is striking between Dr. King’s life-long devotion to non-violence and the young, white radicals, who were partly inspired by him, and radicalized by his assassination, and their use of violence as a political tool. It is also striking to me how much of the conversation about race has not changed in the last 50 years.

I have been thinking a lot about how much I admire Dr. King and feel such hope when I listen to his thoughts on the brotherhood of man and how and why non-violence is the only path, and how hate destroys the hater, and how he will wear down oppressors with his capacity for suffering. All of these ideas are transformational and seem like they should resonate with anyone. And yet, looking back on the civil rights movement, did he succeed? Did non-violence succeed? To put it bluntly – did the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s achieve meaningful change to the power structures of the United States of America.

How would one measure that success? There was the civil rights act in 1964, but after that came the backlash – first Nixon and then the war on drugs and the war on crime. This is the same pattern that happened post-civil war, right? This is the same pattern we are living through now, right?

Post-civil war, President Andrew Johnson and Southern state legislatures passed the “black codes” which intended to control ex-slaves labor and movement. A more liberal and radical wing of the republican party then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which allowed blacks to vote freely and gain representation in state government and even the federal congress. This lasted less than a decade before the backlash, led by the Ku Klux Klan and Southern Democrats fought back to restore white supremacy explicitly through violence. See this article for a nice top-level summary of the sequence of events.

This pattern of liberation and backlash has echoed through our history since. It happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is happening now. Here is an incomplete list of the pattern echoing through our history since the civil war: (1) The Klan and the Southern Democrats in the 1870’s reestablishing white supremacy, (2) Jim Crow, (3) the destruction of Black property in 1921, (4) the horrors of lynchings throughout US History, (5) the rejection of an anti-lynching bill in the 1930’s (filibustered by Southern democrats) largely as backlash to the gains made for blacks in New Deal programs, (6) the discrimination against black veterans returning from WWII, (7) redlining from the 30’s to 1968, (8) the post-civil rights era war on drugs, explicitly admitted (later) to criminalize black and revolutionary populations, (9) the 1990 and 1994 crime bills of BOTH parties leading to more mass incarceration, especially of African-Americans and (10) the obvious reactionary times we are presently living through since the 2008 election of Obama and the 2016 election of Trump.

How else can we understand the current moment? President Obama was elected, which was a moment where the theme on most news coverage was this was proof of a healing country. We were all one! Daniel Schor on NPR asked if we might be in a post-racial America. . . It was triumphant, and it was embarrassing in its naivete of what would inevitably follow.

In fact, there was a backlash even before Obama won the nomination – was he a secret Muslim?, was he born in Kenya?, was he trying to destroy America? In our information age, the vanguard of the backlash was a flood of misinformation and thinly-veiled racial animus. The perfect avatar of the backlash arrived on the national political stage in Donald Trump, who mastered the word-salad attack containing lie after lie and regularly breached the norms of discourse to delight his followers. Trump is the embodiment of meritless accusations and reactionary hatred that characterized so much opposition to Obama’s policies.

The incoherence of Trump’s words did not matter to his followers. They were not and are not reacting to the content of his ideas or any coherent policy proposal. The crowds want the red meat of vitriol – anger over perceived losses of entitlement, position, and prestige. They are angry about a perceived attack on the structures of white supremacy itself, whether they are aware of it or not. Moreover, they are willing to use force to restore white supremacy. See the big Lie and the January 6^th insurrection. See police killing black men and boys, and the endless excuses and justification from the police and their supporters for the state violence. See the rhetoric around gun rights, and the failure to pass regulation on weapons even when children are murdered in their schools.

As stated above, this is not a new phenomenon. If history is our guide, the backlash will go on for much longer than the brief moments of hope and progress that preceded. Such is our history and nature.

Have there been successes and improvements in the lives of African Americans? I am unconvinced that there is less racism now than in previous eras. [I would argue that many apparent gains are from technological and economic improvements across the board, and that those gains have improved ALL lives, but even in this, African Americans have not benefited proportionally. Thus lives are better but racism persists]. However, I think I must defer to others who experience this daily. I don’t pretend I know how anyone else feels, let alone a population of which I am not a member.

So what? What do we do? I think we hold onto hope. I fail at this all the time. I see gathering darkness everywhere. Abortion, environmental collapse, racism, fascism, etc. . . But we must find and hold onto hope. I think about Dr. King’s words in the last chapter of his final book, “Where Do We Go from Here?”. In his 1967 work, he considers a “worldwide neighborhood” where humanity must find ways to co-exist and love one another or risk poisoning society with hate and fragmentation. He notes how the world of the 1960s was much different than that of the 1860s, in that we have made great technical and material progress. Yet, if we do not match that with moral progress, society will suffer: “We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a great poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. . . We have allowed the means by which we live to out-distance the ends for which we live.”

We have made even more progress materially and technologically in the last 60 years, and now we need to grow with moral progress to match. Dr. King says, “Western civilization is particularly vulnerable at this moment for our material abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.” I think history has born out the truth of his warning – there was no lasting moral growth or awakening in the society, and we have fragmented and lapsed back to fear and divisions that are largely indistinguishable from those of Dr. King’s time. We, collectively, are materially richer and more technologically advanced, but we are poorer morally now than in 1967.

His words feel as true today as when he wrote them fifty-five years ago. There can be great hope in a connected world for solidarity among peoples or all nations and creeds and races. Yet, if we cannot change the morality of our society (to use our connections and abilities to communicate to come together rather than divide us), we will repeat the patterns of liberation and reactionary backlash of white supremacy. I will not be Pollyanna-ish – this will take labor, blood, sweat, and there will be setbacks. I think it will require a something that has not yet emerged in America, and we don’t even know yet what it may be. But we must carry on and move forward. There is no alternative.

My morning routine continues to be the best part of my fitness routine. That is saying something too – because I love my current routine and I have been at it for 6 months now.

My morning routine is to dead hang from a pull-up bar for one minute, then sit in a low squat for 30 seconds, then move into a deep lunge for 30 seconds on each side, and finally to stand with my eyes closed and breath for 40 seconds and then balance on one foot with eyes closed for 20 seconds each side. That is it. I always feel good afterwards and I feel like it is short and effective.

My current training focuses on a base of zone 2 cardio (45-minute sessions) 4-5 days per week, HIIT 1-2 days per week, and light strength training which is commonly chins superset with dips two days, trap bar deadlifts on Fridays, shrimp squats on Tuesdays. The shrimp squat variation I do is a 5 second count down and then explode up. It is usually 3 sets each side with 5 to 10 reps each, depending on how I am feeling.

That has been very good for me. I have more energy than when I was doing a lot more resistance training, and I feel good.

I will stick with this for the next month at least, and probably a lot longer.

I was listening to a podcast with Will MacAskill and Ezra Klein and this exchange struck me as unlikely to be true:

EZRA KLEIN: And it should be said, there’s still pockets of slavery today, but —

WILLIAM MACASKILL: There’s still pockets of slavery today.

EZRA KLEIN: — in terms of large-term values, it isn’t seen as acceptable.

WILLIAM MACASKILL: In the world today, especially if you include forced marriage, something like 0.5 percent of the world’s population is in some form of slavery. But for context, in 1700, that number was like three quarters of the world’s population. So the sheer prevalence of slavery in history is often underappreciated. I didn’t appreciate it until I really started learning about this.

I immediately asked myself, “Was 75% of the world’s population enslaved in 1700?”

To be fair, MacAskill is (I think rightfully) including women in forced marriages in that number, which will likely push that number much higher than without. But I think we would have to broaden the definition of slavery beyond recognition – to include disadvantageous working conditions, child workers, and others who lack agency – to get anywhere near his stated 75%.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the only part of the world approaching MacAskill’s number is coastal African countries. Even at the peak of slavery in the United States, the number of slaves was greater than 50% in four states (where cotton was grown), but the overall percentage was nowhere near 75%. In 1700, there were also indentured servants, child laborers, and women in forced marriages. I am not sure how to approximate those numbers accurately. . . But looking at historical numbers this morning, I am not seeing support for the 75% figure.

Obviously, I am not trying to say or imply that historical slavery was not bad. I am just wondering where he got that figure, and why he chose 1700. If you define a slave as one with a lack of agency who is compelled to do unpleasant things, I think you can get to the 75%. But I think that is overbroad – it would include employment and other arrangements we do not typically consider slavery.

If he had said that in 1700, 75% of the world population did not have political agency and was forced to do hard work to survive, I would not have questioned the number stated. But maybe that is too broad? Maybe we need to parse the definition of slavery to not be so broad to include people simply because they lack self-determinization. Or maybe that broader definition is correct?

. . . I have other thoughts about this interview, about long-termism and other exchanges – particularly where Ezra pushed back on some of the arguments MacAskill was making.

As a final note, The Root has a good article with some startling facts about slavery in the USA.

The Seattle Times has an article detailing the sudden and unexpected collapse of the snow crab fishery in Alaska this season.

It is a stark reminder that climate change may have sudden effects, which may or may not be transitory, in addition to long-term gradual changes. This is why a heating world is so significantly dangerous to agriculture, fisheries and humans.

Ezra Klein’s recent podcast about mental health in America and how we got to this moment of dysfunction spurred my memory.

Until listening to this podcast, I always thought that the closing of the mental hospitals/ institutions in the 1970’s and 1980’s was caused by the NYCLU/ACLU cases about Willowbrook and other facilities abysmal conditions, as well as the Florida case, O’Connor v. Donaldson (1975), in which a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that states cannot confine a non-dangerous individual who can survive on his own, or with help from family and friends.

It made sense to me that the sequence of events was:

1. Geraldo Rivera was making his name shaming the New York Government for the horrific conditions in Willowbrook on Staten Island;
2. The contemporaneous NYCLU/ACLU cases (Wyatt v. Stickney in 1972, and Wyatt v. Aderholt in 1974), regarding Willowbrook and other facilities, which resulted in state institutions being forced to reduce abuse, reduce patient populations, increase staffing ratios, and generally improve conditions – all of which critically led to a need to increase funding;
3. O’Connor v. Donaldson (1975), in which a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that states cannot confine a non-dangerous individual who can survive on his own, or with help from family and friends.
4. Then the wider cultural reaction, as demonstrated by movies related to the subject. Here is a partial list: Asylum 1972, Don’t Look in the Basement 1973, Horror Hospital 1973, Seven Beauties 1975, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 1975, Sybil 1976, Carrie 1976, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden 1977, Halloween 1978, The Fifth Floor 1978, The Bell Jar 1979, et cetera. . .
5. The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) of 1980, which codified protections for institutionalized persons.

Really, there is SO MUCH MORE to the story than that. . .

In response to the cases in the 1970’s and the growing public awareness and outcry, Jimmy Carter signed and congress passed the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, which provided block grants to States for funding community mental health facilities. In the signing statements from Senator Kennedy, Representative Waxman and the president and Mrs. Carter, they state this act was intended to provide funding for the facilities to continue operating in compliance with the court cases staffing and care requirements.

But in 1981, Ronald Reagan defunded the Mental Health Systems Act, established the year prior, in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981. In a dirty political move, the omnibus bill removed all federal funds in the Act but kept the patient bill of rights. Thus, Reagan could say that he was protecting the patients’ rights but took away all federal funds for States and local governments to provide for the patients’ care.

It is shocking how our current moment, in which cities are straining under the crisis of homelessness – involving addiction, mental illness, and poverty, can be traced back to the famous “Reagan tax cuts” which massively cut taxes on those earning the most and cut all government spending except for the military (which increased dramatically).

We might have avoided this fate if we had not cut the mental health services and the social safety net so much. And it is sick to see conservatives blame the “government” for failing on these issues, when it is their side that defunded the programs that were meant to address these issues. AND WE ALL FALL FOR IT!?!!??

Aaron Smith, a professor at UC Davis, just published an analysis of who eats the food and uses the crops grown in California.

This is worth reading and thinking about when considering potential solutions to the continuing megadrought in California and the probable future of less reliable water supply for the region and state.

It sure appears that California will be forced to reduce agricultural use to stop over-drafting the groundwater in the central valley and in wine-growing regions. The extent of the reduction is the question. If there is a substantial reduction in ag use, and savings in urban use through reclamation, demand reduction and system upgrades (fixing leaks), then the governor’s recently issued plan will likely be sufficient for the immediate future – providing more storage of non-snow precipitation and structural changes that help secure the future.

But recharging the groundwater – the goal of the 2014 Jerry Brown legislation will be elusive without massive changes to the water use and crop choices of the central valley produces. That transition will likely be very painful and will also produce winners and losers. Time will tell how that will play politically.

I am thinking about these issues as I am drafting my overview of water in California – just trying to determine if California and the South Coast water region will be a viable place to live in the coming decades, considering the likely changes in climate will continue in the la nina / drier pattern as with the historical, regional megadroughts.