what are y'all saving from the wild to deal with coming crisis?

[ValerieJ]

I am not hearing anyone saying that they would join up with their neighbors, pool their food and resources, and support one another in a worst- case scenario. I'm hearing, I'm gonna provide for me and my own to the bitter end, come hell or high water gonna make? But I say this is wrong. We have to hang togethe. There is great power in community and unity. Think about it.

In our neighborhood, several of us have had this discussion. We all have different resources and skills.

 

[Fishkeeper]

Kidney failure, mostly. If your cats (or someone else's) brush against the lilies and then groom the pollen off their fur, it can cause their kidneys to fail, which is expensive to fix, painful, and potentially fatal. Even tiny amounts will do it.

Hydroelectric dams are great in theory, but are awful for the ecosystem around them, especially downstream. Everywhere they've been put in, you'll find environmentalists, and I mean actual scientists, wanting them back out. They decimate the river ecosystem in both directions, sometimes for miles. They also cause problems where the river is supposed to meet the sea- vital brackish water habitat is lost to saltwater as the pressure of the onrushing fresh water recedes. Several major rivers in the US barely make it to the sea at all, at this point.

And global CO2 emissions are at 2.4 million pounds per second. Constantly. Every second of every year. Volcanoes don't put out anything near that.
Decent bets at this point are in places to get clean water, in food plants that can withstand temperature swings in either direction and bad weather events, and in making your house as resistant as possible to things like tornadoes and (when even remotely relevant) blizzards.
Also, in policy changes. We have the technology at this point to completely negate carbon emissions with filters. It would be very expensive, but not prohibitively so with the right taxes in the right places. Other ideas along the lines of as much greenery as possible and reducing output in the first place are also excellent. Some combination of them and other ideas is probably the best option, but none of it will help in any way if it isn't done. It is entirely possible, with technology and resources that we already have, to get the amount of excess carbon (read: carbon that assorted plant life can't absorb) down to 0.
However, even if humans started emitting 0 excess carbon tomorrow, there would still be changes. An overall increase in global temperature changes- well, you can read up on it for yourself, but expect worsening flooding and severe weather.
(and please note that your graph there lists 'now' as 2011, and that, in every graph from a reputable source, i.e. one that labels both axis, temperature changes are much faster now than in prior times. Also that prior temperature swings caused famine, severe weather events, and overall chaos and death.)
Or, ya know. We could go with the idea that nearly every reputable environmental scientist in the world is part of a global conspiracy to... what, to make it so that we release less CO2?
Look up "is manmade climate change real". You will see an overwhelming "yes", so I guess Google is also part of that conspiracy, too. And every other search engine you can think of. And pretty much every relevant scientist you can find to ask.

I'm not sure how readable all that is, there's a thunderstorm keeping me awake a couple hours past where I should be asleep, but the takeaway is that manmade climate change is real. If someone tells you otherwise, they are probably either misinformed, or they're trying to sell you on something. I guess that's not too surprising, since major fossil fuel companies have been hiding for a few decades now that what they're doing is, and was already, harmful in the long run.

We are at a critical turning point for environmental regulation. There need to be big changes made, and soon, to stop things from getting even worse than they're already going to be. People are going to die, and already are- look at the flooding and famines already happening and getting worse. Look at everyone dying in storms.

 

[ValerieJ]

Kidney failure, mostly. If your cats (or someone else's) brush against the lilies and then groom the pollen off their fur, it can cause their kidneys to fail, which is expensive to fix, painful, and potentially fatal. Even tiny amounts will do it.

Hydroelectric dams are great in theory, but are awful for the ecosystem around them, especially downstream. Everywhere they've been put in, you'll find environmentalists, and I mean actual scientists, wanting them back out. They decimate the river ecosystem in both directions, sometimes for miles. They also cause problems where the river is supposed to meet the sea- vital brackish water habitat is lost to saltwater as the pressure of the onrushing fresh water recedes. Several major rivers in the US barely make it to the sea at all, at this point.

And global CO2 emissions are at 2.4 million pounds per second. Constantly. Every second of every year. Volcanoes don't put out anything near that.
Decent bets at this point are in places to get clean water, in food plants that can withstand temperature swings in either direction and bad weather events, and in making your house as resistant as possible to things like tornadoes and (when even remotely relevant) blizzards.
Also, in policy changes. We have the technology at this point to completely negate carbon emissions with filters. It would be very expensive, but not prohibitively so with the right taxes in the right places. Other ideas along the lines of as much greenery as possible and reducing output in the first place are also excellent. Some combination of them and other ideas is probably the best option, but none of it will help in any way if it isn't done. It is entirely possible, with technology and resources that we already have, to get the amount of excess carbon (read: carbon that assorted plant life can't absorb) down to 0.
However, even if humans started emitting 0 excess carbon tomorrow, there would still be changes. An overall increase in global temperature changes- well, you can read up on it for yourself, but expect worsening flooding and severe weather.
(and please note that your graph there lists 'now' as 2011, and that, in every graph from a reputable source, i.e. one that labels both axis, temperature changes are much faster now than in prior times. Also that prior temperature swings caused famine, severe weather events, and overall chaos and death.)
Or, ya know. We could go with the idea that nearly every reputable environmental scientist in the world is part of a global conspiracy to... what, to make it so that we release less CO2?
Look up "is manmade climate change real". You will see an overwhelming "yes", so I guess Google is also part of that conspiracy, too. And every other search engine you can think of. And pretty much every relevant scientist you can find to ask.

I'm not sure how readable all that is, there's a thunderstorm keeping me awake a couple hours past where I should be asleep, but the takeaway is that manmade climate change is real. If someone tells you otherwise, they are probably either misinformed, or they're trying to sell you on something. I guess that's not too surprising, since major fossil fuel companies have been hiding for a few decades now that what they're doing is, and was already, harmful in the long run.

We are at a critical turning point for environmental regulation. There need to be big changes made, and soon, to stop things from getting even worse than they're already going to be. People are going to die, and already are- look at the flooding and famines already happening and getting worse. Look at everyone dying in storms.

Thanks for the info on the cats and lilies. I have a lot of lilies and two cats. Have had this situation for 5 years. Now I'm concerned.
As for the climate change talk, I assume that is to someone other than me because I haven't been talking about it. But I will say this, the population of the USA is .04 of the world population. We can continue to clean up our environment, and we should, as we have been for several decades. I personally remember the 70's when we were sure we only had 20 years left to self destruction. But if the rest of the world doesn't join us, it will be futile. How about China? They have 1.3 billion people, and they said they would be increasing C02 emissions for the next 20 years and then would level off. So we can worry fret and stop driving, but it's not going to work. Well, that's my doomsday take on it.

 

[Willowspirit]

Thanks for the info on the cats and lilies. I have a lot of lilies and two cats. Have had this situation for 5 years. Now I'm concerned.
As for the climate change talk, I assume that is to someone other than me because I haven't been talking about it. But I will say this, the population of the USA is .04 of the world population. We can continue to clean up our environment, and we should, as we have been for several decades. I personally remember the 70's when we were sure we only had 20 years left to self destruction. But if the rest of the world doesn't join us, it will be futile. How about China? They have 1.3 billion people, and they said they would be increasing C02 emissions for the next 20 years and then would level off. So we can worry fret and stop driving, but it's not going to work. Well, that's my doomsday take on it.

Well the Chinese have taken one big step which is to refuse to allow us to dump all of our waste plastic on them any longer. But I do agree this is a worldwide problem.

 

[yaldnif]

I am not hearing anyone saying that they would join up with their neighbors, pool their food and resources, and support one another in a worst- case scenario. I'm hearing, I'm gonna provide for me and my own to the bitter end, come hell or high water gonna make? But I say this is wrong. We have to hang togethe. There is great power in community and unity. Think about it.

I'm sure if things go that bad there would be a lot of that. The neighbors you share with now would be a start to expand your circle or group. A lot of people have nothing put away and don't plan. Once the shelves are empty they are going to be desperate. Other than family and a small group of friends and neighbors I won't be "pooling" anything. I'm sure the government/military will be out to raid resources also.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

The only way I know to create water from hydrogen is to burn it in an oxygen atmospere....

Same would go for lead Acid batteries.

They're called Hydrocaps. Hydrogen and oxygen are combined catalyticaly to produce water, which stays in the battery.

http://hydrocapcorp.com/

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

An overall increase in global temperature changes- well, you can read up on it for yourself, but expect worsening flooding and severe weather.

Why should we expect those things when those things have decreased as CO2 has increased? Weather was much worse in the early 20th century and earlier when CO2 was about 25-30% lower. Climate scientists were saying the same thing about hurricanes, but we recently came out of a 12-year period in which there were no major land-falling hurricanes; that was unprecedented in recorded history. And then there was talk of permanent drought, but US drought is currently the least it's been this century. And then the prediction there will be no snow, but the US was inundated with record snow this past winter, which was the wettest on record. I think Colorado received something like 1300% more snow than normal. I'm still waiting for climate scientists to get one prediction right. It's almost like mother nature is thumbing her nose at them.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Well the Chinese have taken one big step which is to refuse to allow us to dump all of our waste plastic on them any longer. But I do agree this is a worldwide problem.

They didn't do that for environmental reasons. The reason it was done in the first place is because it was less expensive to send ships returning from the US filled with garbage, and consequently make some money from recycling it, than it was to send ships back empty. For some reason the economics changed.

 

[ocap]

the crisis I am thinking about is one that lasts long enough where you can't share your food with neighbors. If you think otherwise post your address here and we will all come knocking on your door when we run out. Socialism and communism don't work, if you think otherwise pay the bill of a college student who goes to get an advanced degree in alcohol abuse. Teach your neighbor how to plan for a crisis now while there is still time, if they laugh at you then don't share your savings with them.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

...pay the bill of a college student who goes to get an advanced degree in alcohol abuse

Forgiving college student's loan debt isn't forgiveness of debt, it's saddling everyone else with their debt.