Earth Day: Celebration or Apocalypse Now?

EARTH WEEK STARTS WITH A BANG

“6.6mag. Taiwan S.Japan location 24º129'N 122º335E 01a.m. UTC April 20. 2015

Four hours ago, a massive 6.6 magnitude Richter earthquake hit coastal Taiwan and Southern Japan. Local agencies, already overburdened with ongoing (nuclear) clean-up, continue to report. Minimal U.S. press coverage—slow to extract reports from the world arena in (western) night-time, unless specifically targeted—may find that differences in international dateline/time-zones may not result in this event’s being buried, It may not fit into a neat, orderly media-orchestrated political schedule.

There are ramifications, however—especially for western U.S.A.

EarthCrisis or Early Warning?

Minimum ‘safe’ height: 146ft—most of Tsunami Alley: sea-level

MAGNITUDE 6.6 mwp
Location / uncertainty 24.129°N 122.335°E± 5.4 km
Depth / uncertainty 28.9 km± 4.4
Origin time 2015-04-20 01:42:58.470 UTC
Source: USGS

Two groups of Native American elders have summoned their communities, in preparation for uprooting and a move inland, away from their traditional ocean-listening posts. In San Luis Obispo county, a small nucleus of Chumash, originally ‘whale-whisperer sea-shell people’from Morro Bay to Malibu—their traditional lodges and burial grounds long-since displaced by ex-pat. Ventura- and Topanga Canyon-ites—have returned to hear “repeated warnings from our cetacean siblings” that we are endangering our homeland.

Washington Tribe prepare for Move to High Ground
The Quileute tribe of La Push, Washington holds a ritual each year, where every woman, man and child in the reservation summons local whales, dolphins, sharks, seals and other marine species to the community’s beach by playing drums. The tribe’s chief then wades among the animals and interprets their sounds.

Cetacean whisperers help us tune in—use it before we lose it

In 2014, tribal leaders were “summoned” by Pacific Ocean whales, to alert them to a tsunami, ‘soon’ to engulf their community. La Push is located at the intersection of three tectonic plates, prone to earthquakes of nine-point magnitude. The tribe immediately started to make plans to move their community to higher ground. It applied for and received money from both the State of Washington and the federal government, to fund the relocation. Synchronously, assistance has been offered to Quileute elders by Finland’s University of Aalto, in designing their new settlement. In Finland’s Baltic and Arctic Oceans, they are also brother-whale-whisperers.

Wilderness no Longer Wild

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness” John Muir

John Muir—progenitor and founder of first U.S. National Park—would be proud of us, his descendants. While he was born in lowland Scotland and thus learned how precious is wild forest floor—Scotland’s indigenous trees mostly eaten by commercial sheep enterprises— un-mangled [by humans] tangled growth. Yet we seem oblivious of our continuing and unrelenting pollution of our only home.

Radioactive Slush
Gallons of slush and ice melt flood Great Lakes and Chicago hinterland.

Combination of Fracking, waste water recycling, human negligence, cause man-made quakes in U.S. central states

Sudden floods in New England, the Carolinas-coastal Virginia cause concern over contaminated drinking water supply. Marinas in Coral Gables, Everglades and Gulf states, Alabama, Louisiana and eastern Texas are revamping water towers last used in Hurricane Katrina, to cope with extra demand. Meanwhile Four Corners, Gila Bend, Arizona, Utah, Nevada—don’t even think of temperatures in Death Valley—and in a geographical spread as far east as Idaho, Kansas and Minnesota, high winds bring risk of grass fires.

Half the country is burning up, while the other half flounders in rising sea levels.

Do we still deny we have a hand in this? Are we pretending we don’t know what’s going on?

Competing for Cleanliest
Last week California Governor Jerry Brown scoffed at Florida governor’s amorous advances for a tourism “exchange”. While organic Californians greatly outnumber Brooklyn retirees in the balmy Everglades and Fort Lauderdale, in ecological terms, neither state can boast a totally clean city.

Echoes from Earth’s Chasms—Ring of Fire Rumbles into Activity
X-Class Solar flares emerging from the ‘hidden’ side of the Sun, add a frisson to so-called normal spring weather. Global extremes have caused great loss of life, however.

There’s more to come.

Triggered by solar CMEs incoming—bombarding Earth’s heat shield to stretching point, dormant volcanoes along subterranean ridges and lava reservoirs of the Ring of Fire are exploding.

Ring of Fire—Seismic Deeps and Ridges of the Pacific Ocean: festering to blow

Sewage and polluted water are high-profile questions that affect the whole human Earth-population.

Californians, once again, get to act guinea pig.

When Chualar—Salinas-Monterey Bay hinterland—received its first crop circle December 2013, it seemed to point the finger at even the most enlightened of Administrations for allowing continued proliferation of housing development in the Salad Bowl of the World. Fuller account of the Salinas fantasy here.

When the dice are rolled, who gets the blame for leading humanity over the edge of the world——?

Unfortunately for Governor Brown—and for all his supporters south of Sacramento—the WWII-aircraft carrier U.S. Independence has been rediscovered on the ocean floor, in San Diego’s back yard. However supposedly :safely: out of sight, according to U.S. National Ocean and Atmospheric Administrqtion (NOAA) Chief Science officer, James Delgado, the hulk, used for monitoring hydrogen bomb tests on Bikini Atoll in South Pacific’s Marshall Islands was deliberately sunk off San Diego’s beaches, carrying one hundred barrels of nuclear waste in its hold.

Bikini Atoll: no Place for Bikinis Now
NOAA make light of the rediscovery:

WWII. aircraft carrier, U.S. Independence, scarred in Pacific battle theater

“After 64 years on the seafloor, Independence sits on the bottom as if ready to launch its planes”
J.Delgado, Chief NOAA Science officer

Damaged in WWII, aircraft carrier US Independence found intact April 2015 in Pacific waters carrying nuclear waste

A half-buried metal ship full of discarded nuclear waste is not what U.S.Navy residential retirement community of Coronado needs. Not to mention its hold, stuffed with radioactive bricks, concrete and mortar—’in case of leakage’—lies now exposed to every little rattle emanating from the San Andreas fault and its tributaries stretching south into Baja California. Los Angeles’ Baldwin Hills experienced two middle-range quakes last week. Pasadena and San Marino residents live constantly with shaking mantels.

Sentient Earth
In cyclone-hit Philippines, residents live their lives in the shadow of a stratovolcano.

Pinatubo still fuming a century later

Fifty years to the day, volcanic activity around the planet regurgitates ash, debris and detritus from its dormant cone, as if marking the event in EARTH’s calendar, Earth‘s schedule, Earth’s Grand Plan.

Residents of Pinatubo‘s local island Luzon—unlike the cancer-prone residents of Bikini—still recount stories their grandfathers told of wildlife death toll, relocation and readjustment to life under a stratovolcano’s gaze.

Shooting Stars on Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Five years on: NorthAtlantic ridge giant, Eyjafjallajökull, used pyroclastic flows to delay SpaceShuttle Discovery’s reentry to Earth

It is also five years since Iceland’s volcanic-field-cum-ice flow blasted ash and pyroclastic mush into the North Atlantic, delaying the return of NASA’s last space shuttle, Discovery.

Their favorite volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, standing proud in a 33-mile wide lava field, is still smoldering, shooting reminders up into the stratosphere along the fault held loosely by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In case anyone farther afield is listening, Herta, Surtsey are telling us Earth has its own idea of marking anniversaries.

Perhaps we should go along with the conclusion drawn by an old veteran WWII Lancaster bomber navigator friend, who only last week decided to slough off this mortal coil at the youthful age of 95:

Combination of Earth’s silicate core, presence of Iridium and solar flares gives us our weather. It’s the CORIOLIS EFFECT.
Commander (retd.) Sandy (Gogo) Constable, RAF

We shall see, Sandy. When the tsunami hits Coos Bay, may we remember your words of wisdom.
©2015 4/20 Siderealview