Coping: With People; Poles Apart & the Dirty Thirties

Yet another round of emails has landed like  V-2 rockets on London in my inbox.  One mentions what a douche I am for failing to embrace global warming.  That happens periodically, I suppose.  But with reason…

The Warmist email reminded me that US News is covering the rise of natural gas use and proclaiming that it won’t change the warming profile.

Those more prone to “chill” (so to speak), like the gang up at the Chronicle Project, sent along a snip about how sea ice in the Antarctic has just set another record high.

Asymmetry bothers me – a lot.  Polarity makes manipulation of public consensus just too damned easy.  Yet we see it in headlines every day.

Let’s focus on warming hype once again:  What seems to be going on is the northern hemisphere has more “hot air” going around than the southern hemisphere.  Real heavy ice down under and very little topside (Arctic).  Ignore the fact it’s summer, if you can, also.

I have a couple of theories about ice thicknesses; some serious, others less so.

Among the “less so” is the number of politicians, hysterical TV Networks, and so forth resident above the equator.  With the exception of New Zealand and Australian television, plus southern Africa, there’s not as much global hot air coming off the southern hemisphere. 

Privately, I wonder if Rupert Murdoch’s focus on America helped cool the Antarctic?

In truth, the southern hemisphere may generate less heat in 3-days than comes out of Washington in a single day.

More seriously,  A search of  the LA Times archives reveals that drought in California is nothing new and that what passes as climate change rhetoric today obscures focus from the historical record and, further, the fluky weather of the 1860’s is why California doesn’t have a major cattle industry today.  Blame a drought of 150-years ago..

As a 1991 article in the LA Times headlined “The Great Drought : Fickle Weather in 1860s Led to Breakdown of Cattle Industry.”

Around the office here, when we’re not buried in work, we try to keep in mind that macro-variations in solar output and absorption of different particles, seems to have a semi-regular pattern to it.

Unlike the La Nina/El Nino oscillation, science has been quite slow figuring out that there is likely a “Northern Hemisphere Drought Oscillator” as well.

The 1860  drought came along (to round things off) about 75 years before the midpoint of the 1935 Dirty Thirties in the US Midwest.

Tack on another4 75-years to the last of the Dust Bowl years (1940) and now we’re looking at when?  Answer: 2015 if you haven’t beaned-up, yet.

I’m going to go out on a limb here for the Global Warming people: I’m going to predict (with a 10% margin of error) that when California finally returns to normal rainfall, we will be able to add 70-75 years to whatever that end date is and predict the Midwest will be getting its ass kicked 75-years hence with another Dust Bowl event.

While it’s true, by the way, that planting trees and cover crops top soil retained topsoil, it’s also true that a lot of the ending of the Dust Bowl had to do with the calendar and this Hemispheric Drought Oscillator.

The study of economics teaches us a lot about looking for the hidden variables behind many things.  In fact, I’ve just ordered a bunch of textbooks to do some research into the emerging science called behavioral economics.

What the intersection of psychology and economics is teaching us is that subtle changes to set conditions that happen off on the margins, may exert a disproportionate influence on outcomes.

While I’m pretty sure California will continue singing “How dry I am” for a couple of more years, the longer  and more holistic view suggests that weather patterns (like drought epicenters) may express in different locations over time. And oscillate at a frequency of 75-years.

I’ve studied Nicolai Kondratieff’s work extensively (the godfather of long wave economics) and you can see distinct solar patterns in his commodity price research dating back to to the 1200’s.

Not to claim Clement Juglar was a charlatan, but we note that his 7-11 year fixed investment cycle dovetails neatly with the observed 11-year solar cycle, as well.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately (off in spiritual studies) about the “operation of the Universe” under Law.  And when I say law, I mean the common framework that all things obey whether they want to, or not.  We can bend law (like gravity) but when we do so inadvisedly, it is at our own peril.

The same thing applies to socioeconomics, weather, and the general environment we share.

Droughts and climate change may very well turn out to be nothing more than localized expressions of systemic regional variation over time. They sure look that way.

So much so that in the next few years, I expect we will continue to enjoy the fruits of lower solar output which – in turn –  should moderate what’s being sold as “climate change..”

Like law in spiritual matters, when a macro cycle law arising in complex system dynamic equilibrium comes into view, it’s tempting to monetize it.  

Happens in religions, happens in science.  Which is why, when we spy a discernable change in something like the weather, politicians run off to monetize it.  Hence the press for a global climate tax by the New World Order/PowersThatBe types.  Everyone wants to own their own mandatory collection plate.

The difference between tithing and taxing is minute.

History is a damned inconvenience, too.  It fuels renegade thinkers.. 

The astute observer will note the California Drought of the mid 1860’s ended without government intervention.  When the cycle turned, the rains came back.

In likewise fashion, when the last of the Dry Years passed (at last) in 1940, the Dust Bowl settled down on its own. 

Sichuan Province in China is instructive, as well.  We have three pretty good data points we  can enumerate, drawn  from Wikipedia here:

1. 1928-30 Northwest China resulting in over 3 million deaths by famine.

2. 1936 and 1941 Sichuan Province China resulting in 5 million and 2.5 million deaths respectively.

3, In 2006, Sichuan Province China experienced its worst drought in modern times with nearly 8 million people and over 7 million cattle facing water shortages.

We can infer from the end of the 1928-1930 event a drought cycle of 76-years.

Thus we would expect from 1936 we should see drought arise in China from 1012 and lasting through at least 2016.  It ought to be greening up in California  about then, also.

Sure enough (although you no doubt miss things like this because of “news overload” and hysterical events like Ebola behinds headlines like “Drought worsens China’s long term water problems.” 

It also explains why the Chinese are working like crazy on cloud-seeding technology – in order to light off some rainfall.

As with the study of religion, polarity on issues like Climate Change is not very useful for the Great Middle.  If there is a central  (monotheistic) core to the Universe, the study of cumulative law is quite instructive.

Likewise, when we stop damning one side, or the other, to the bowels of hell for their perspective on climate, and step back far enough to see the whole cloth of the complex system, there may be some unifying principles (73-78 year drought cycles for one) that can help humans navigate into the future with much less effort and way lower taxes.

But where would be the job growth in that?

DreamScapes

Several thoughts from readers on my odd dream I described in yesterday’s column:  Mary-Anne of Omaha, for example:

Hi, George. Very interesting dream. Your comment about doorways into other worlds reminded me that the author CS Lewis explored this idea in his Narnia books.

In “The Magician’s Nephew” there is a “wood between the worlds” — an in-between place — from which you can get to any number of worlds/universes simply by jumping into a pool.

If you have the proper equipment (a ring in this case), the pool will turn into a chute and you find yourself deposited onto another planet. You won’t know at what stage of that planet’s civilization until you get there.

By the way, time stands still in the wood; since you are in-between, you are out of time. As in “outside” rather than “none left.”

And a not from long-time reader Dr. Chip wonders if that wasn’t perhaps a passing contact with the other side of life (death)…

….l was reading your dream experience in today’s column, and it made my head spin ! l have had several of these dreams lately, similar but not exactly the same.

The place l frequently dream of is a shopping area located in a vast complex of restaurants, shops and (always) seaside lodging with beaches nearby…..

My parents both died in 2011, and they seem to be living in this place. I go fishing with my dad( deep sea angling was his passion in this life)- when l cast my fishing line it usually arcs out over the water and turns into a rainbow! there is also a nearby village in the hills- l went there last night looking for a friend….very friendly, happy people there -BAREFOOT !- laughing, talking and laid-back…..almost like a past century with little technology.

l looked down and saw that l was wearing an old fashioned dress with a dropped waist,NO shoes, and my hair was very long, hanging to my waist.

There were wooden sidewalks, farms nearby with crops and livestock…..all was well! l have ” dreamed” of this place ( with my parents living nearby on the ocean) many, many times in the last year. l have assumed that it is on ” the other side”, since my parents are there and they seem so happy to see me…..l think the “veil” is getting very, very thin between ” worlds” ..our time in this one may be short…..but the one l “see” ahead looks pretty fabulous!!

Yep – this brings up another area of research which ought to be quite revealing about how humans work.

As you know, there has been a tremendous amount of research in Near Death Experiences.  Dr. Raymond Moody kicked off that in about 1976, or so, with his groundbreaking book Life After Life in which he interviewed people who had been dead for some period of time (resuscitated after heart attacks and such). 

And Chris McCleary is doing some incredibly cool forecasting work over at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site.  People (turns out) have very high-accuracy dreams in advance of events.  I’ll explain in a second.

But the area of future research that would be TOTALLY cool would be to map out the Hereafter.  Have people (*who have both died along with those who have vivid dreams that describe the Place after life) and draw up a picture of it.

It’s a large place that I’ve visited a few times.  On my visits, the LandAfter was along a beach…the kind with modest dunes (2-3 sets) going out to the beach.  There were clumps of tall dune grasses.

Then the “resort” seemed to be like a two-story high hotel complex where people were sitting around a collection (one after another) of restaurants ands bars.  Seemed like the major activity people engaged in was wandering from one bar or restaurant to another and speaking about what they did/learned back in what we call the here and now.

If I can ever get my directed dreaming down to the point it’s easily focused, I might try to get back there, look up some departed people I know, and see if I can find them and strike up some conversations with them about how the mechanics of afterlife/bardo/holding pen etc. works.

The problem with such research is that it would be highly speculative and subject to the researcher’s onboard personal spiritual upbringing and beliefs.  On the other hand, we might be able to use the www.nostracodeus.com software to tear apart a large amount of text and using word frequency and some concepts, cobble up a description of this place.

Oh…one oddity about it?  Didn’t seem to have a parking lot…and except for the bar and food service equipment, very little technology.  Quite the interesting place.

Dreaming Another Bull’s Eye

If you’re having a tough time following some of our references to this space where dreams and death go dancing, you might be able to gain some feeling for at least how well the “dream” aspect of things can forecast low probability events by reading the write-up on Rabbi Barry Busted over at the National Dream Center site here.

If nothing else, scroll a bit more than halfway down the page and look at how the occurrence of “Barry” preceded events.

We need to collect many more such bull’s eye hits on terribly improbable dreams before we can make sweeping (AND I expect mind-bending) generalizations, but the data is coming in.

While other research has long held that changes in language precede events, it;’s also becoming a demonstrable truth that changes in mind precede changes in language.  And – this is key – the changes in mind via dreams – hold far more useful data that gets diluted when translated into a language shift and is then reassembled by a researcher.

And, as proof of the accuracy, I’d say check with a Rabbi … Barry.


OK, almost the weekend…so go work on what’s really important this weekend.  We’ll be back to working on the “What’s really necessary” crap come Monday.

Write when you break-even

George    george@ure.nert