Environmentalism: A Blogger's Track Record

If you've followed my writing on the "New Rostra" blog, you've read about natural disasters, weather, and the dangers of this beautiful planet we inhabit. I love living here, but it is not safe. The environmentalist dilemma is front and center on this forum. My record has been set here, in many different contexts:

Pardon me for quoting my previous posts on #BlogSpot via the New Rostra, but here they are...

I've detailed the incredibly dangerous lives of storm chasers: http://goo.gl/iKZCTM

There have been musings on running away from threatening storms: http://goo.gl/sAqjpV

Reflections on Hurricane Ike in the Houston area: http://goo.gl/8cTmaa

The disastrous earthquake in Nepal:  http://goo.gl/3jyBjn

Thank you reader, and if you'd like to read these previous posts you'll see that I respect the earth and her power, but I don't pretend to understand that power or predict what will happen next. It's crazy to try to do that...

Many in the environmentalist movement seemingly make fear-mongering a religion, and their know-it-all scientists have twisted statistics and theories in order to scare the public into thinking that we're ruining the habitat, and in a few years with the ice caps melted, the population is doomed to drown or be crushed by famine. [They're not sure how the bad stuff is going to happen, but they're sure that it will happen; which I call, "it's too late" environmentalism]. As an example of vague warning, climate scientists emphasize that climate change didn't proximately cause hurricanes Harvey and Irma; still, they maintain with assurance that climate change exacerbates risks posed by the storms.

This hubris is addressed by the famous thinker Kurt Vonnegut, when he said,

“For me (Kurt Vonnegut), the most paralyzing news was that “Mother Nature” was no conservationist. She needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together some different way, not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things. She set fire to forests with lightning bolts. She paved vast tracts of arable land with lava, which could no more support life than big-city parking lots. “Mother Nature” had in the past sent glaciers down from the North Pole to grind up major portions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Nor was there any reason to think that she wouldn't do that again someday. At this very moment she is turning African farms to deserts, and can be expected to heave up tidal waves, hurricanes, or shower down white-hot boulders from outer space, at any time. She has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling, but drained oceans and drowned cites or continents as well. If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.” (end quote)

I could be wrong, but I won't live to see it. After a few hundred more years when I am but dust in the wind, I think the earth will still be doing fine; although her weather patterns may have changed again after few more millennia, who knows?! My opinion won't be relevant, but that doesn't mean that as stewards of this great earth, we should not be careful about how we behave. (Balanced with human reality).

As an historically violent and unpredictable planet, the earth's recurring environmental nightmares are more common than we know: for example, Japan had been hit by tsunamis before 2011: in 1585, 1611, 1677, 1687, 1689, 1700, 1716, 1793, 1868, and 1894. The most destructive tsunami before 2011 was the Meji Sanriku Tsunami of 1896, which killed 22,000 people. Many of Japan's older residents remember the 1933 tsunami, w/ waves as high as 100 feet, killing 3,000 people. These hardy folks are not inclined to complain about weather, even in its extremes; nevertheless, she throws at Japan walls of water, every century. My point is that man didn't visit this tragedy on Japan.

Kathryn Schulz wrote in the New Yorker, in 2015: 

"The “ghost forest” is a grove of western red cedars on the banks of the Copalis River, near the Washington coast. The cedars are spread out across a low salt marsh on a wide northern bend in the river, long dead but still standing. Leafless, branchless, barkless, they are reduced to their trunks and worn to a smooth silver-gray, as if they had always carried their own tombstones inside them. 

What killed the trees in the ghost forest was saltwater. It had long been assumed that they died slowly, as the sea level around them gradually rose and submerged their roots. But, by 1987, it was discovered through studying soil layers in the ghost forest, evidence of sudden land subsidence along the Washington coast. The death of the cedars was not due to long exposure to saltwater; instead, the trees died quickly, when the ground beneath them plummeted. Scientists followed this lead to discover circumstantially, and through Japanese history that a massive earthquake happened there, and spread a tsunami to Japan, across the ocean. 

At approximately 9pm on January 26, 1700, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest, causing sudden land subsidence, drowning coastal forests, and, out in the ocean, lifting up a wave half the length of a continent. It took roughly fifteen minutes for the Eastern half of that wave to strike the Northwest coast. It took ten hours for the other half to cross the ocean. It reached Japan on January 27, 1700: by the local calendar, the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of Genroku. In Japan it was labeled in history, the “orphan” because no one in Japan felt the earth shake prior to its arrival." (emphasis, and paraphrasing are mine)

If we need to panic, there are more immediate needs of our attention as a species than the environment; if I were to categorize things to which humans can actually affect change. There are numerous examples, but trying to wrangle mother nature is a waste of our time and resources.

In a previous post about petroleum's impact on the world economy, if you weigh that impact against the environmentalist view, the decision is forced: to lean on the side of humanity flourishing, or to limit carbon-based fuels to developing countries when they need it most:

http://goo.gl/H2uWPQ
"The need for abundant fuel is just as acute in 2017 (e.g., more than one billion people lack access to electricity and modern cooking fuels, and 75 million new cars are sold each year, globally). There is an incredibly strong correlation between the use of fossil fuels and life expectancy, and between fossil fuel use and income; one can observe the recent history of China and India as examples. Human “flourishing” requires resources, and abundant energy (points made by Alex J. Epstein in his book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” 2014)."

https://books.google.com/books?id=_ld9AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Alex%20Epstein&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=Alex%20Epstein&f=false

If you would like to discuss the environment with me, please give me a Tweet @markpills

Disclaimer: views expressed in this blog or anywhere on social media sites are my own personal opinions and express my individual perceptions. They do not represent the policies, positions, or viewpoints of my employer.

(Fair use of copyrighted work shown herein is not an infringement of copyright law, see 17 U.S.C. §107) 

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Houston Rain Event: Memorial Day (2015)

Memorial Day Rain Event, Houston Texas (2015)

(Houston) On my daughter’s 14^th birthday, May 25, 2015 she celebrated by shopping, seeing a movie at the River Oaks Theatre, and eating dinner w/ her best buddy Elizabeth. My son attended another birthday party in Fort Bend County on Monday night, and we waited for him to return home around 10p.m., just as the storms intensified.

Finally, our team congregated all under one roof; while many weren’t so lucky. The storms were fierce, the lightning struck often, and the thunder shook the house. The Rockets hung on to win Game 4 of the Western Conf. finals; however thousands of cars were stranded in downtown while the waters rose up and out of Houston’s bayous.

Our family huddled high in our tree house; Hampton watching the wx-radar on his iPad and Eliza squealing every time the lightning illuminated the room. She loves a good storm the way some people love horror stories! Towards midnight the waters rose all over the city. Over 10-inches of rain fell in west Houston, and the Braes Bayou watershed that meanders through the Medical Center peaked higher than two other major rain events: Hurricane Ike (2008) and Tropical Storm Allison, 15-years ago.

Buffalo Bayou Flood Stage

This major storm raged, but our little family unit watched it from the safety of the Master bedroom. Rain fell in sheets and the street outside our house turned into a river, carrying away the trash receptacles waiting for tomorrow’s pickup. Daddy bravely retrieved them from the intersection a block away; but he returned soaked and scared at the power of the rising water.

Just one mile away, Buffalo Bayou rose up an over the banks trapping many in their cars. We lost power for a while, but sitting together in the dark wasn’t so bad since we had the togetherness to keep us courageous. We talked about the way the bayou rose quickly at our old house in Linkwood, and we remembered fondly the night Eliza came into the world, 14-years ago.

We are a close family and we know deep in our hearts that we can survive anything together; this proved itself to be true many times over the years. God’s power is immense, but we also see his love in our union. We woke to a flooded city, HISD cancelled school, and Daddy didn’t go into work until afternoon. Hamp was still asleep; but he rested peacefully. We don’t know when the flood waters will recede, but we know how tightly we held to each other on this historic night.

Downtown Dry





Reflections on Hurricane Ike

written September 16, 2008
©Mark H. Pillsbury

(Houston, TX) Aftermath of Hurricane Ike:

I watched Hurricane Ike come through the neighborhood from the comfort of a wing-back chair. Even though the storm windows on the front of the house performed flawlessly under heavy fire, the long night witnessing the storm’s destructive power was in retrospect, dangerous. However, the past few months have been times of both reflection and danger for me. Spending five lonely hours watching the eye-wall continue to pound our little street in Houston, I reflected on a stay in the hospital in 2007 wondering, “Why God brings difficulties into our lives?”

John 15:2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

During trials, God prunes us like a tree, even though at the time pruning seems painful, it allows one to become stronger and able to produce more in the long term: to be more fruitful for His purposes. The concept of spiritual discipline is not very popular, but it is apparent to me over the last year how God’s providence in pruning can lead to better living.

The process of getting in shape is slow and painful. By gradually losing weight and eating right, God transformed my body; I not only feel better but my long-term health is improved. Daily pruning off bad habits, over the course of a year, not only increased longevity but gave me a fresh outlook on life. Even more, my family did not just witness this blessing but participated in it. During this period of change it was apparent that God is a faithful, but pruning God; constant like a rock but allowing our world to evolve. He is a God of change and hope and new beginnings (as Paul wrote to Ephesus, “You can start living an entirely new life, as a person regenerated…”). The Gospel gives us the chance at new life in Him if we believe by faith alone.

"It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before....to test your limits....to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." –Anais Nin

Thoughts on my favorite tree

There is one tree in our front yard; a majestic southern live-oak tree that my old neighbor says grew from a solitary acorn. It was just me and my tree during that dark storm. Sheltered inside my house, I watched her fight with Ike all night long. The oak tree did gyrations and swayed in the wind, slapping, twisting and contorting in extremes I thought impossible to survive. At times the branches looked like strands of spaghetti, boiling in a pot, whirling like a dervish! However, after all the swaying subsided, there was only one branch hanging loosely from her limbs. There were many trees in our neighborhood with dozens of branches littering their yard, but not ours. If any neighbor could assess this tree like God can, in geological time, they would see it leap out of the ground and turn to the sun and spread its arms and bask in the joys of being an oak tree in Texas. (thanks, Marilynne Robinson).

"A dictator sees the truth as a matter or will; anything he says or dreams is the absolute truth and soon the people are forced to go along with him.

For the so-called democrat, the truth is the will of the people. Whatever the majority says is the law and that law becomes the truth for the people.

But for men like us, the only truth is the truth of the tree. All trees. Because the truth of the tree is its roots in the ground, and the wind blowing, and the rain falling. The sun is the tree's truth, and even if it is cut down his seed will scatter and those roots will once again take hold." --Tolstoy McGill

In the five years we have lived in our house we paid expert arborists to prune our lone live-oak twice. These were expensive and painful but all the unnecessary branches were taken away and the strength of the tree grew until she was ready when the real trial came. When light finally broke the horizon and the worst of Ike moved on, the large canopy drooped all the way down so her branches almost touched the ground. I never saw a living thing so tired from fighting, yet so proud to have survived. There was quite a scattered mess in our front yard, but the branches and limbs I cleaned up were not from the tree pruned, they were from trees not so well prepared.

Thoughts on the future of Houston

The city can take two paths during the aftermath. One is outward, blame-centered, and passive. The other is an active, self-sustaining, collaborative time of healing and growth over the next year, a chance at a new beginning. My hope is the city can focus on the priorities of its citizenry and prune away the petty arguments and wasteful bureaucracy hindering the execution of the city’s daily priorities. Many neighborhoods discovered unity after they were all leveled by the storm, living two weeks without power connected to their homes. The cooperative force of political leaders working together for provision of city services inspired the citizenry, and showed us the best purpose of government.

"The flight crowd is created by a threat. Everyone fleas; everyone is drawn along. The danger which threatens is the same for all. People flee together b/c it is best to flee that way. They feel the same excitement and energy of some increases the energy of others; people push each other along in the same direction. So long as they flee together they feel the danger is distributed..." --Elias Canetti (Crowds & Power 1960) [reminded me of *Hurricane Rita* when the whole city left and nothing happened]

Unlike New Orleans, this city has already rolled up its sleeves and started the entrepreneurial work that rebuilding and re-visioning requires. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, Houston begins the cleanup with the mindset that it could have been a lot worse; and we will patiently work until life is back to normal and the economic engines of this great city churn again. Like live-oak trees, all of us were severely pruned during Hurricane Ike, but this trial in the end will be thought of as a good thing. One day we will tell of how we rose out of the rubble and blossomed into a better place, one more fruitful for future generations.

If peace be in the heart,
The wildest storm is full of solemn beauty,
The midnight flash but shows the path of duty,
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story,
The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory,
If peace be in the heart.
--Charles Francis Richardson