The Daily Infuriator

Guide to Creating Sea Level Rise Models on Mac OS X

Infuriator — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:47:46 +0000

1.) Download SimpleDEM Viewer: MacDEM
2.) Download the data files from here: ElevationMaps Use the HarvestChoice option (it downloads faster). Even though you can click on multiple squares, you will need to download each square separately. It doesn’t matter. The files are based on latitude and longitude coordinates, so you can open multiple files at the same time and they will form one continuous map.
3.) Open the asc files in SimpleDEM (they should be about 150MB).
4.) Set the contours accordingly under the preferences menu so you can see the actual peaks and valleys — what you actually see is dependent on the terrain of the area you are viewing.
5.) You can insert locations on the map using the national database from USGS: NationalCoordinates
6.) To add the location: Right click to “add memo” data to map — insert the lat and long from the geoname file and name the point correspondingly
7.) To model sea rise, change the elevation of the blue color accordingly.
8.) For each sea level rise, save its format to come back to later (under the preferences menu). Once all models are created, click “create projection map” under the Tools menu for each model. Make sure to click on “display memo data” so that the image shows the labels you have inserted.
9.) Save each image separately as a jpeg to your hard drive. Be sure to name them consecutively so that you can flip through the slide show in order. For instance, zero sea level rise could be “map00″. Sea level rise of one meter would be “map01″, etc.

You Just Might Be Useless

Infuriator — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:00:19 +0000

“You have to realize that someday you will die, and until you know that, you are useless.”

-Tyler Durden, “Fight Club”.

For centuries, humans have sought immortality. Many of these people endeavor in this pursuit for their own selfish purposes so that they will not have to face the fear of the unknown beyond death. The possibility that they will not be remembered with fondness or that they will be ashamed of who they were as they face and ultimately, meet their Maker, is terrifying. One could easily argue that this is because they are unwilling to cope with the misdeeds (or deeds left undone) they have perpetrated, and are thus incapable of justifying a righteous passage from living existence to the after life. So it can be said that those who cannot face death cannot cope with their own very being.

Much in the same way that many are unable to bravely face death with dignity, many currently on the Earth are unwilling to own up to harm they have caused to the planet. Those of you who do not believe in human-related climate change I will not attempt to persuade. But I can, however, illuminate your soul to the extent that you will question whether your inability to face the truth is due to an ignorance or simply an unwillingness to consider the evidence that yes, human civilization will is on course to suffer critical setbacks (as has happened on countless occasions throughout history).

Fortunately for some, the planet has suffered many critical setbacks but has always been more powerful and resilient than humans, so any planetary harm will bear on civilizations more than the environment.

As with the black plague and with recent typhoons, hurricanes, and earthquakes, humans have survived similar disasters, and can again. And given the tumultuous nature of the ever-more-damaged planet, disasters are more than likely to continue to occur, and certainly escalate. But humans have survived similar disasters, and can again. The only questions are: how many will survive, and where?

This question uncertainly can only be answered by reevaluating our ability to face death, both on the singular and global scale. Once we own up to the fact that we are direly affecting the planet, we can begin to plan for a future of survival. To continue down the current course of willful ignorance can only result in a total lack of preparation and increasing devastation. Lack of preparedness for the next catastrophic hurricane in Florida or the next ruinous earthquake in California shows not only a lack of foresight, but also a blatant form of blissful obliviousness that proclaims: “It will never happen again.” Well, history shows that it can happen, and scientific research is predicting that events will likely worsen. Scientific predictions are not entirely flawless, but thus far they have been proven almost entirely accurate (and even too optimistic). But even if science is wrong, is it really wise to roll the dice with a system so complex and hope that nothing disastrous will ever happen?

Disaster and devastation and death are facts of life. Those unwilling to face these truths in their own personal lives invariably will suffer. Those unwilling to accept the fact that the environment is (at best) being seriously harmed are, too, ignorant of the fact that we, as a planet require foresight and innovative strategic planning to survive. This is not to say that survival is impossible; it is likely– at least for some. The reality is, to maximize survival, we must realize that someday, disasters will take place. Until we all realize that, we are useless.

Special thanks for inspiration from Dianne Dumanoski, visionary author.
Special thanks also to Loie Hayes from the Boston Climate Action Network for crucial edits.

Evolve to Renew

Infuriator — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:15:55 +0000

Regardless of one’s belief in the historical evolution of mankind, the origins of life and the like, it is indisputable that humans are in no way the same beings who walked the earth one hundred years or even twenty years ago. In fact, humans are evolving more rapidly now than ever before. Major technological advances in recent years are certain proof of that. Thoughtful deduction shows that humans and the earth evolve on a logarithmic scale, as our accomplishments are built on the summation of all that precedes us.

Set in the early 1900′s, Orson Welles addressed some critical issues in his 1942 masterpiece “The Magniﬁcent Ambersons.” One such key issue was the evolution of vehicular transportation. Much at the ridicule of his family and friends, a young inventor in the film is attempting perfect the “horseless carriage.” The invention, among other adjectives, is described as “detestable.” Critics raised concerns such as “the wheels (blown up with air) will explode!” Infrastructure accommodations for the carriage also provided critical fodder. Note another telling remark on the invention below:

“People aren’t gonna spend their lives lying on their backs in the road letting grease drip in their faces.”

And those against the inception of the horseless carriage would cry out on the street “Get a horse! Get a horse!”

Resistance to change was relentless, while the forces of change were, at the time, weak. Rapid evolution seemed impossible. Somehow, evolution did take place in this instance: severe apprehension to the new invention, over time, gave way to full acceptance, culminating with President Eisenhower’s Federal-Aid Highway act in 1956. Keep in mind that approximately 26,500 years passed between the recorded origin of neanderthals (judging by the dating of the first discovered remains) and the invention of the wheel by the Mesopotamians in 3,500BC. Evolution in the 20th century was undoubtedly more dramatic, by orders of magnitude.

Over the remainder of the 20th century, the highway system (largely) served us well. In spite of the many trafﬁc and emission concerns of today, Americans still appreciate the federal highways as a means of personal freedom that take us wherever we want to go whenever we want to go there.

But it is time to evolve once again. The sticking point is that, due to forces of time and nature, we are required to evolve at an increasingly rapid rate. Hence the resistance to energy developments on the horizon.

Due to rising demand for oil in countries such as India and China, and the inability of oil production to match that rate, the need for new energy is becoming imminent. Emissions and pollution are readily apparent in large urban areas, causing respiratory illnesses such as asthma, and in some cases, death.

On the topic of emissions, now consider coal. Analogous to the oil predicament, coal emissions, including mercury poisoning of ﬁsh, are dangerous beyond an acceptable level. Coal advocates claim that there is enough coal to fuel our needs for possibly hundreds of years. While there may physically be enough coal supplies buried within the earth to achieve that goal, the critical measurement for coal has been circumvented. They key element in this debate is that energy demand continues to rise, and if coal production cannot meet this rise in demand, supply will be insufficient, and the lights will go out.

Loss of power is a likely scenario due in part to the “low-hanging” fruit quandary. That is, the coal that has already been mined was coal readily-available (the “low-hanging” fruit). What remains is low quality coal that is much more polluting and difficult to mine than past coal. Poor access to coal will drive up external costs such as the fuel needed to mine and transport the coal, in addition to the labor needed to mine it, making coal production entirely cost-prohibitive. Some estimates conclude that coal supplies could become insufﬁcient as soon as 2050.

It is time to evolve away from coal and oil. In this process, small groups of people will need to make sacrifices. Congestion analysis concludes unequivocally the following: in a heavily congested system, such as vehicular traffic backup, if one person were to pull aside (in this case, off the road) everyone on the road, INCLUDING the driver who made the temporary sacrifice, will arrive at their destinations sooner than if no one had made said sacriﬁce.

This conclusion can be readily applied to the coal and oil situations. Plausible alternatives to the status quo include wind energy and electric vehicles. To bring these technologies to fruition, some groups of people will need to make temporary sacrifices that will ultimately beneﬁt all parties. Communities or businesses will need to pull off the road for a bit to facilitate this progress.

Such sacrifices may include a perceived visual impairment on the horizon or a temporary loss on the books due to fossil fuel investments gone bad. Congestion analysis will show you that, if evolution proceeds, these losses will not be permanent. The society as a whole stands to benefit.

Original complaints about the horseless carriage were well received at the time, but in today’s world they seem farcical. No one seems to lament the passing of equine-based transportation, and no one really believes that tires will “blow up.” Mechanics do in fact find it reasonable to stick their heads under cars to change the oil. Such may be the way with wind energy or electric vehicles. Wind critics have raised concerns about noise, radar interference, projectile icicles, and yes, disturbance of the rotation of the Earth. Critics of the electric car rightly raise the point of battery efficiency.

Historical evaluation indicates that many of these concerns will prove to be invalid. Offshore wind farms in Europe uphold that philosophy thus far. Electric vehicles are popping up with effectiveness around the globe, similar to the creation of the horseless carriage.

Resistance to change is human, but not as human as evolution. We need now to make another surge forward, built on leaps that have grown larger and larger over time. Civilizations throughout history have been built on forward thinking. Let’s take that leap forward, further than ever before, but just as far as we desperately need.