We look at utter devastation in northeastern Japan’s coastal region, after it was tossed about by a series of earthquakes punctuated by a mega-tsunami. We know this region is no stranger to either natural event, but these were abnormally powerful. Now we read that at least some citizens of northern Japan are desperate; that they are starting to flee from the bitter cold of late winter, and from the encroaching starvation of nature-ravaged civilization. We notice, too, that lack of both water & sanitation are growing problems in northeastern Japan, despite the best relief work of Japan’s military and some help from America’s navy. We reflect, however, on how Japan’s people are largely devoid of rioting, of looting, of ‘trashing’, and of similar base selfish behavior that we have come to expect (since Woodstock) from certain ‘entitled’ segments of American society.
But there’s a bigger notice, on which we should reflect a little. Life is interconnected. Japan’s struggle is connected to a far broader ongoing American societal discussion.
Hurricane Katrina, as well, showed us what nature can do, even with more than a week of increasingly precise warning forecasts. We saw the near-death of a modern American city and much of the surrounding region. We saw rioting, looting, ‘trashing’, and all manner of other base selfish behavior. We can only imagine what the New Orleans region of the gulf coast would be like if Katrina was preceded and followed by a series of extremely powerful – and unwarnable – earthquakes. Today, much of the New Orleans region is rebuilt, but much is not. Much may never be rebuilt. By some accounts, the new New Orleans area population will never even need all the former glory to be rebuilt, since apparently (after six years) 40% of the old population will never return. New Orleans was not utterly destroyed, but it is today much more sparse than it was – a phantom of what it once was. These are all direct event-to-event reflections on a devastating American event, considered against the backdrop of a similarly devastating Japanese event. From this, we can learn much of what can happen. From this, we can describe an enormous range of conclusions about what should happen.
What is the bigger point we can we reflect on? What about ‘underlying causes’? Here’s one. Certain segments of American society have regaled us with fears of human-caused global warming – and that powerful hurricanes are one result. Though actual data do not support this claim of more and greater hurricanes, let’s focus on Katrina for the moment. It’s all in the words: global warming, now termed global climate change; it’s all about the atmosphere. They never said much (anything?) about within-earth forces; the fear was placed in atmospheric phenomenon. Indeed, these particular secularists among us have tortured us with fears of Anthropologic Global Warming, now relabeled (but still man-caused) Global Climate Change. (That’s a favorite tactic: change the name when the secret lies are discovered. Perhaps, soon, they will begin to entertain us with tales of how earthquakes and tsunamis are now linked to global climate change?) Yet, beyond the unsupported assertions of hurricane numbers and ferocity, we now learn that the undoctored temperatures since 2001 have actually fallen, though carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Meanwhile, we see that the Sun quieted quickly from the 2001 Solar Max, then spent several years in a Solar Minimum that should have lasted half as long as it has. And we have seen this extended Solar Minimum featur an uncanny number of months devoid of even a single sunspot. Even today, we watch a Sun only slowly entering into a Solar Cycle 25 – a cycle that shows all the signs of ending up with a rather anemic Solar Maximum. In short, the Sun has been calming down since 2001, as Earth’s temperatures have cooled a bit. This is coincidence, surely, as causality has not been proved here. But let’s compare the secularist-named culprit. Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to rise, alongside these dropping temperatures. These two trends are not coincidental; at least as measured in terms of decades, they are either opposed or unconnected, especially since carbon dioxide numbers rose in the 1990s when temperatures also rose. That tandem 1990s rising was the secularist’s initial clarion call of alarm. But now the data of their alarm are confounded; now we see there is no even coincidental relationship between carbon dioxide and temperatures, thus there is no possible causality. What remains to be seen, however, is whether temperatures affect carbon dioxide levels. Regardless, the objective reality of the real world washes the entire foundation from underneath the secularists’ Global Climate Change fear-mongering structure.
Mother Nature showed us the truth: how she is vastly more powerful than all our technology
Perhaps, instead, Mother Nature showed us the truth: how she is vastly more powerful than all our technology. That should be the lesson of 2011: forces of Mother Nature still show mankind who is boss – more often than we sometimes acknowledge. But this truth requires a profound adjustment in our underlying thinking. Perhaps our economic recession (depression?) will make this shift easier; easier than when our economy is roaring and life is easy and we feel a measure of control. (Talk about looking for a silver lining in a very dark cloud!) Yet, events like Katrina and Japan’s twin mega-disasters show that, indeed, we are not the gods that some of our more secular Americans like to think we are.
To reflect the thinking, let’s take a pat secularist phrase, to coin a new one. In the mid-1990s, when election results lifted Bill Clinton over an opposing campaign that focused on Bill Clinton’s lapses of character and trustworthiness, facts proved triumphant, and James Carville memorably chortled “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”. To modify Carville’s phrase, now that the environmental jury has returned, it could be true, and we could openly acknowledge an inconvenient truth, that … “It’s the Sun, Stupid!” It is important to realize what is truly real, so that the Law of Unintended Consequences helps us, instead of bites us. Perhaps “It’s the Sun, Stupid!” can help us to remember what’s what.
Perhaps in this realization too, we should reflect further and probe deeper; get beyond the observed phenomenon, to the underlying mindset. Names are powerful; they convey meaning. True, we all know to “never judge a book by its cover”. Why? Could it be that so many books are poorly titled? Truth is that we all work to grasp the complex with easy phrases. Secularists recently grappled with a rogue assassination attempt by talking about ‘civility’ – no matter that this crowd had just spent time lecturing us on the bad practice of using labels. In truth, an accurate label encapsulates a broader idea, just as a good title encapsulates the nature of the book. So, is it time that we start to call Mother Nature by a new, old name? Let’s skip right over adopting the secularists’ suggestion, ‘fragile environment’. Indeed, let’s stop the whole malarkey of thinking that a butterfly flapping its wings in China causes a hurricane in Florida, since we know that forces dissipate with distance, not grow stronger. So instead of ‘fragile’ or ‘delicate’, let’s consider terms that properly recognize human-dwarfing power within the natural world, whether we are theists, agnostics, or atheists. Such a new, old name, could be, “God’s Natural Universe”. Theist or not, that’s a term accurately connoting the awesome power we see around us every day, in the Earth-Sun system, and beyond.
Now, what does this have to do with Japan’s current devastating tragedy?
We find Japan is having trouble containing damage to a nuclear power plant, after enduring the spate of earthquakes and a mega-tsunami. To the ‘no nukes’ crowd, the wonder is that such an incident took so long to happen. But in this wonder lies truth. Though nature is powerful, engineers, at least, generally recognize it. Japanese engineers & managers, knowing their country sits in earthquake country, designed for it; mankind can conquer nature in small areas for a time, and in broader areas for short times, but we still see how nature has the final say. So the plant was built for sturdiness in a harsh location; thus, the plant having a problem is actually surprising, until we realize three things. First, that Japan has endured a whole series of quite powerful earthquakes in the last several weeks, and the peak quake is the 5th largest in all our Earthquake records. Second, that the peak earthquake – the one that generated the killer wave – was almost ten times more powerful than what the plant was engineered to withstand. And, third, that the failure leading to the plant having a problem was with the non-nuclear hardware, that this non-nuclear hardware (plural) failed when the huge tsunami hit. All these things were not predictable, yet engineers over-engineered the plant with rather amazing resiliency. So we see, in the over-engineering, and in the nuclear plant’s problems, that we humans are indeed subject to nature. Sometimes we mis-calculate our planning and engineering, such as when we’re preoccupied with false hype like ‘nuclear plants will explode like nuke bombs’. It is proper to place emphasis on safeguards around powerful operations, from nuclear plants to oil refineries to airports. But it is also proper to avoid trite & false hype (like ‘no more nukes’), to focus instead on what is real. To be consistent, it is incumbent as well, on critiquing individuals to replace fears with facts, and to be sure of their facts so as to avoid drawing baseless hysterical conclusions (like a nuclear explosion from a Japanese nuclear power plant). Hysteria on falsehoods help nobody, and in fact often do worse than nothing, by getting in the way.
The lesson in Japan is not about nuclear power plants per se, but in robust and dependable conventional equipment backup systems. At least three factors are key. First, that hype can distract from proper attention to mundane underlying critical systems. Second, that our critical systems have to have backup support that is wholly independent of the broader infrastructure – at least for a critical time required to restore normal commercial infrastructure. Third, that backup support systems need to be actually exercised, to validate both the physical equipment and the intended procedures, as well as to maintain proficiency in emergency situations. That said, Japan’s nuclear heroes are fighting a valiant fight, perhaps even in spite of baseless distractions that some Americans would hurtfully distract them with.
Katrina showed, as Japan’s twin torments currently show, that nature reigns supreme
Katrina showed, as Japan’s twin torments currently show, that nature reigns supreme; it matters not how highly some of us think humanity rates. Our task, for success or even for survival, is to prepare for nature’s effects, and to adapt to the unexpected. We are clearly not in control, though we can control how we plan and react. The nuclear power heroes continue their fight against unplanned damage, and with unplanned paucity of support equipment. They are adapting and, to at least a certain extent, are already overcoming. It could be worse. They could have fled and let the damaged plant go further into crisis. But these Japanese nuclear technicians are staying. They are thinking. They are containing the situation as best as their meager remaining resources allow. We can anticipate that the rest of Japan, markedly absent base selfish behavior, will quickly restore some ad-hoc critical support infrastructure. But one way or another, the crisis will pass. We must look to the recovery; perhaps our navy can help their efforts, perhaps our words can help their morale. Perhaps we can at least avoid loose hyperbole that merely hurts their cause. Even before Japan’s crisis is all done, we must assess how to keep backup equipment from failing against a host of possible hazards, and fix & exercise improvements; this is comparatively easy, and certainly less costly than cleaning up after a disaster. This last point is a well-known wisdom: an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Perhaps we can choose to use this tragedy to good effect going forward to ever more reliable inexpensive nuclear energy.
But one question remains, that secularists must address before they can be credible in lesser claims: who created the universe’s awesome forces, that made all mankind’s achievements seem as a mere ant crawling on a bear? And we should observe: the ant may bite the bear, but the bear will win; better it is, for the ant to recognize the bear for what it really is, and thus to cooperate with the bear. Nature reigns supreme. We should not be distracted by false notions that possibly some ‘elect’ humans have the wisdom or the power of gods. Dealing with reality is hard enough when we actually acknowledge what is real. Let’s not waste money nor effort on false claims.
Let’s stand with Japan’s nuclear engineers, construction workers, and technicians; let’s do what we can to help them fix their problem and adapt ever better to nature’s power, so we can all enjoy a brighter future with ever more safe, resilient, & inexpensive nuclear-generated electricity. Let’s use nature and nature’s tools & gifts to us, not fearful of some supposed Wrath of Gaia, but prudently aware of nature’s power available to us for the discovering and channeling to the extent we can.
