Environmental Survival

Our actions upon the environment — even in our backyards — have a profound effect upon our survival. You may not notice it right away, maybe not even for decades, but when we make our decisions and choices based upon “giving our shareholders the greatest return,” and other strictly financial considerations, we often lose in the long run. Or our children “lose” as a result of poor air, water, and overcrowding.

When great “natural disasters” occur, we tend to call these “acts of God.” Indeed, the earth moves and shakes and

blows and chills and heats, and goes through all its changes. Man does not control these changes. Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, fires, droughts, volcanic eruptions, ice ages, high winds, etc., have been with us since the beginning of memory, and will continue to be.

While we can’t stop the forces of nature, we must begin to see how our actions (and inactions) exacerbate the effects of these natural forces, and definitely affect our ability to survive.

DROUGHT

Take drought, for example. Do our actions have any effect on drought conditions? Absolutely! Some have attempted to prove that the great drought of the 1930s, and the resultant Dust Bowl era, was the result of poor farming practices. In order to maximize the farming areas, and farm with the greatest of convenience, trees were cut down, and the soil was not properly fertilized.

Without the trees to do their soil-protecting, and with barren top soil due to the farming methods, the land had no life and the dry winds blew it away. Act of God? Hardly. It was the result of the ignorance of man on a large scale. We create desertification on a small scale, right here in Pasadena, when we follow the strict dictates of the fire department when they demand that we denude the soil down to the bare earth. Such patches of soil are hotter than planted soil, and lead to erosion.

RAIN

Heavy rains are common after the drought and fire cycle is played out. Such rains often do result in flooding and landslides. Though we can call heavy rain an “act of God,” the effects can be lesser or greater, depending upon what we have done to the land. In some cases, houses should never have been built on steep hillsides, since building of the houses requires cutting down the trees and reshaping the terrain.

With the trees gone, and much of the land paved over, the water must go somewhere when it rains. The trees and soil can process a fair amount of the water, but with trees gone, and no way for water to percolate into the soil, the water flows downhill, creating disasters for those who live in the mud’s path.

When we have removed all grass and brush cover due to the extreme dictates of the fire department’s supposed “brush control” regulations, we set the stage for erosion, and eliminate the natural cover for animals — and these principles apply even here in Pasadena!

EARTHQUAKES

A major earthquake could occur at any time along any of the major fault lines throughout the world. While we cannot stop the shaking, we can realize that we live in such an area, and plan to minimize the impact on our family’s life in the aftermath, such as storing water, organizing friends, having knowledge of first aid.

And some earthquakes may indeed have been caused by the hand of man. There are some scientists who believe that the Long Beach, CA earthquake of 1930 was the direct result of over-pumping the oil from underground reservoirs there.

It would be difficult to plan for some disasters — like  a large comet hitting your neighborhood. Assuming you survived, so much would be devastated that “waiting for help” would not be a viable option. If you valued life, you would have lived your life in accord with “higher principles,” and you would have developed skills that now might actually be useful in the post-apocalyptic world. To read a possible scenario of a large comet hitting the earth, read Lucifer’s Hammer (by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 1977).