Colorado & The Mountain West - The Next Firestorm States?

"Tropical regions with one day of severe humid heat now can expect 100 to 150 days by 2070, if current greenhouse gas emissions continue.  World population of 8.6 billion is forecast as 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100...in a world shrinking for human use, and more of it uninhabitable, unproductive and submerged."   - Bert Melcher, letter to the Denver Post, Dec. 2, p. 3D)

The apocalyptic scenes in the final '60 Minutes' segment last night were hair raising and outright terrifying - and that's for people watching them from afar. I refer to the horrendous Camp fire that tore through northern California leaving over 173,000 acres barren and full of ash and detritus, with recovery workers having to sift carefully through incinerated remains in search of human bones, teeth.  If they were found, they were carefully placed into paper bags then carried back to a makeshift lab for DNA analysis.   Using this technique, 41 bodies-identities were recovered from the ashes.

The scenes of the fire itself, taken by a fire brigade team, could have been out of Dante's Inferno. Flames reached everywhere and in no time - making escape almost impossible. The head of the Fire rescue team described flames two hundred feet in height - that's as tall as a twenty story building-- and "miles in width" - burning up the equivalent of "one football field a second".  A computer simulation was then rendered to show how fast it spread on a scale topographical map. The question arose as to whether this conflagration was unusual or other states could also experience it.

Ironically, barely two hours earlier I'd just finished reading an unnerving article ('Climate Change Clobbering Colorado And Western U.S.) in Sunday's Denver Post (p. 1B). The map accompanying the article (see below) made it clear western Colorado has had at least the same increase in temperature as the torched areas of California, and also many of the same conditions, especially prolonged drought, many dead or dying trees and people who are building homes close to them.


Basically, the changes in temperature as well as increased drought -  compared to California-   shows all these states are also on track for raging firestorms.  The 300 scientists who produced the National Climate Assessment, including several based along Colorado’s Front Range, point to recent ruinous climate events as evidence that global warming is affecting the United States as never before and threatening to disrupt lives coast to coast. Those impacts are pretty much locked in until 2050 due to past emissions that raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to 410 parts per million. What happens after 2050 depends on how fast humans reduce air pollution from burning fossil fuels, clearing forests and other human activities that further load the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

I already made one unpopular forecast in a previous blog post, to wit,  that humans needed to get 500 million autos out of circulation in the next few years to have any chance at all limiting a greenhouse hell. Will that happen? How can it when so many of our species see the motorcar as their primary ticket to "independence".  Even wifey admitted she'd shudder to think of doing without her Buick Encore - even for a day.  But what about it and the hundreds of millions of cars like it pumping the atmosphere full of CO2?   "Do not go there!  We are not having this conversation!"' she retorted.  Fine, then we all just agree to do or say nothing and let any 'outsiders' bear the burdens, while the planet slowly roasts and us with it.

Look, folks, no one said this was going to be easy.  And if no one is the first to act, then no one else will do so.  We could as well become like slowly boiling frogs.  According to Brad Udall, Colorado State University climate scientist quoted in the Post:

“The message just gets louder and clearer as the years go by. We have got to deal with this problem. We’ve had event after event after event over the last 10 years with climate change written all over them. We have another 80 years ahead of us. And with the current projected air emissions, the future is bleak,.. We need a sane and safe way to wean ourselves off fossil fuels over the next few decades, doing the least harm we can do to our economy but doing right by the environment. … We have to cease all greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practical.”

Jared Polis, our state's newly elected governor, added:

"States must lead the way, because the federal government has dropped the ball.  My administration will be looking carefully at various options to not only deal with the potential short- and long-term impacts from climate change, but how to do our part to combat the root causes of global climate change through bold, proactive policies to transition to renewable energy.  Climate change is a blinking red light, and we have to act now or our children will end up suffering the consequences of inaction.”

What gives in the Mountain  West?

Well, bigger wildfires and a lengthening “fire season” for starters.   These have combined with population growth and reckless home building in burn zones, making destruction of people and property more likely.  For example, as seen in California’s recent devastating wildfires and fierce burns in Colorado this summer. Additionally, the record-low mountain snow in southern Colorado and higher temperatures has accelerated a climate shift toward aridity that favors frequent ignition.

Already, since we moved to this state in 2000, we've been affected by no less than three monster wildfires, including the Waldo Canyon fire, and the Black Forest fire, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/aaarghh-smoke-fills-air-again-more-wild.html

No surprise then the cumulative forest area burned is increasing rapidly as the graph below shows:


.
Federal wildfire analysts have calculated that the 24 million acres burned across the West between 1984 and 2015 was twice what would have burned had global warming caused by humans not happened.  Fires incepted by climate change worsen the problem of more people building homes in forests and flammable former agricultural fields. Colorado state forester Mike Lester said in an interview with the Post that house-building and other urbanization in burn zones has left more than half of Colorado’s population — 2.9 million people — threatened by wildfire. That’s up nearly 50 percent from 2 million in 2012. State task force recommendations to limit construction in what insurers designate as the “wildland urban interface” mostly have been ignored by state lawmakers and property developers.

The more people moving into burn zones, the harder it becomes to restore forest health because safety margins are narrower.   Forests need fires to regenerate, to a point, but totally suppressing fires sets up bigger fires in the future..But this shows again that a large part of the problem is too many people moving into this state, which has too little available land for them to live. (And the situation isn't helped by all the fracking that's going on, and no greater offsets allowed from homes after Prop 112 was defeated. See my post tomorrow).

Global warming is disrupting water flows, too, complicating the water supply necessary to allow more population growth in Colorado and other parts of the arid West. Rocky Mountain snowpack dipped to record low levels this year. Climate scientists have documented lower flows in rivers, including the Colorado River that farmers and urban developers tap as the main source serving 40 million people across seven states. Looming shortages already compelled state officials to prepare emergency plans for curbing use of water from the government-built reservoirs and irrigation systems that enabled settlement of the West.  And there is more and more serious consideration of adopting "toilet to tap" water recycling systems.

Beyond water conservation, some cities are pushing for construction of new and expanded reservoirs to try to store more water when rain falls.

Higher temperatures alone  have forced lifestyle changes, keeping people and pet animals indoors. Since we moved here from Maryland, the number of 90-plus degree days have increased from barely ten to more than twenty-five.  The increasing temperatures even forced us to install a central air conditioning system 5 years ago - something we didn't want to do because of the adverse impact on global warming. Up to then we'd been using a swamp (or evaporative) cooler which is much more eco-friendly.  But as daytime temperatures topped 90 degrees for consecutive days the system simply wasn't able to handle the thermal burden.  All you'd end up getting is hot air blowing out the vents.

Besides, climate scientists say the rising heat hits the elderly hardest, along with children and low-income people who cannot afford to run air-conditioning systems. Still, I already noted two posts ago  how a/c units are forecast to increase to 3.5 b or more by 2050 placing inordinate demands on power grids.  So apart from keeping older farts and kids from croaking of heat stroke, this is not necessarily a good thing.  Increasing demand for artificially cooled air dramatically pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere even as it strains electricity grids, leading to power outages.  Indeed,  at the cusp of the runaway greenhouse effect - say by 2060-  one can argue the various power grids around the world will not be able to keep up with demand - not with 40-50 day heat waves at 110-115 F temperatures.

 Add to all that the fact  the conditions are favorable for mosquitoes and ticks to spread more sickness, including the Lyme disease, and you have a vastly higher misery index. One of the newer additions is the  Asian Longhorned tick, i.e.


 that can infect humans with a form of hemorraghic fever.  The critters are asexual so one of them can lay as many as 2,000 eggs at a time without ever mating.

The Zika virus is  also spreading northward.

According to Gregg Garfin, a University of Arizona climatologist who co-authored parts of the national assessment focused on Colorado and southwestern states:

"The droughts, fires, threats to water supplies and heat waves — those things are all amplified and exacerbated by these increases in temperature,   Fossil fuel extraction is probably really good for the economy in the short term, If you look at the long term, then we have to take into account the effects of heat-trapping gases warming up the lower atmosphere. It is important to see the connections."

Will we see the connections, or will we wait until it's too late to do anything? My bet is the latter.  So long as so many view their automobiles and "independence" more important than the planet's capacity to support present day humans - and future generations - we are for the high jump.  Even Janice agrees with that but it will not be her car put on the sidelines first.

Seriously? CDC Workers Forbidden To Use the Word "Fetus"?

As I've noted in previous posts, savvy citizens must be mindful of how language has been altered to achieve the manipulation of minds, not just "elimination of bias.".  Language debasement and alteration for the purpose of brainwashing, propagandizing or plain disinformation can assume either passive or active forms.

The passive form would entail subtly replacing more apt (but blunt) normal terms with euphemisms that don't convey the same impact. Many of these were outed in the excellent book, 'Collateral Language'.  Examples include:

"Enhanced interrogation" for torture

"Death tax" for estate tax.

"Passing" for death.

There is the more recent  use of "scandal" to replace conspiracy. Thus, we are now supposed to accept "the Watergate scandal" as opposed to Watergate conspiracy, and the "Iran-Contra scandal" as opposed to Iran-Contra conspiracy. The intention of the sanitizers is clearly to expunge the concept of political conspiracy from public consciousness.

Passive language intervention can also take the form of a "guide" distributed to entice people to change, often in a communal setting or university.  For example, back in 2015 comedian Bill Maher  cited a "bias free language guide" issued by the University of New Hampshire - ostensibly to entice students to take more care in their use of language - and strive for 'neutrality'.

Some of the examples Maher exposed:

Senior citizens to be replaced by "people of advanced age".

Poverty-stricken to be replaced by "experiencing poverty"

Obese,  replaced by "people of size"

Rich, to be replaced by "person of material wealth"

Foreigner is replaced by  "international person"

Tomboy is replaced by "gender non-conforming"

And so on. While one can object to this wishy washy tendency to speak and write indirectly, the more onerous form of language control - which is inevitably thought control- is active intervention, Generally, this assumes the form of dictates issued for words one is forbidden to use under pain of some kind of punishment. As two former Wehrmacht soldiers informed me in May, 1985, these language prohibitions were issued by the Minister of Propaganda and  violation carried sanctions ranging from boycott of business, loss of employment or minor violence (beatings) to being sent to one of the camps designated for uncooperative German citizens, (E.g Dachau).

Nazi language suppression was massive and didn't involve merely a few forbidden words. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in 3rd Reich Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.  For example, as Dieter - one of the Wehrmacht soldiers told me - a news editor who wrote in an editorial: "Jews are basically decent people" could end up in Dachau.

The objective of all such tactics has been clear since the era of PR originator Edward Bernays, who wrote:. 'Crystallizing Public Opinion'. As the title implies, the basic goal was to drumbeat the maximum number of 'the masses' into a homogeneous and consistent consent by limiting the extent of their language, and hence their thought. . But do it without their awareness. Careful use of language was the means to do this, including subtly altering the usual meaning of words.

Five years later came Bernays' definitive work 'Propaganda' - embodying those principles  which were later adopted wholesale by Josef Goebbels and Leni Reifenstahl. It was in this book that the master betrayed his intents - if ever there was any doubt before:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country."

This is why the dedicated citizen (not merely "consumer")  must always be aware of language use, given how it molds thought and perceptions.  Not surprisingly the modern use of language alteration has also seeped in, again to try to bend minds toward acceptance. Now the latest assault on language - which is also an assault on scientific thought - is the order received by he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid the use of all "forbidden words".  These words include: "fetus", "transgender", "vulnerable",  "entitlement", "diversity", "evidence based", and "science based".

Evidently, the list was revealed on Thursday in a 90 minute briefing with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget.

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested  extended phrase became:

 “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” 

What's the idea? Well, as the above phrase discloses,  science would take a back seat to the sensibilities of the particular community. 

Thus,  if the CDC were to discover a Zika outbreak near Phenix City, Alabama and it was known the "community standards" were solidly anti-abortion, the CDC would not be able to suggest abortion of the "fetus" even if scans showed microcephaly.  If CDC detected an STD outbreak in another part of the Bible Belt, take your pick, there would be limits on what they could recommend in terms of prevention, e.g. no mention of "condoms".  Where, what part of the Trumpie "empire", are these directives coming from? Well, from the Department of Health and Human Services.  In the words of one HHS spokesman, Matt Lloyd, his agency "will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans".  Adding: "HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and  budget decisions."   Translation: "It is up to us to decide if you really need another $300 million a year to fight Zika, or really need  to use condoms to fight STDs."

Indeed, if the italicized comment above is so, one is forced to scratch his head at the fact the HHS removed all information about LGBT Americans from its website. Instead, the HHS' Administration for Children and Families   archived a page   that gives alternative services available for LGBT people and their families.

Let's note here that the question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since Donnie Dotard took office. Several key departments — including HHS, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have deliberately mutated some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

At the CDC, the meeting about the banned terms was led by one Alison Kelly, a career civil servant and a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services.  This according to the CDC analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the WaPo,  because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. Kelly herself did not say why the words are being banned, according to the analyst, and told the group that she was merely relaying the information. The sentiment is that other parts of HHS are also operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these banned words, the analyst said.

At the CDC, several offices have responsibility for work that uses some or all of of these terms. The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities. The CDC’s work on birth defects caused by the Zika virus includes research on the developing fetus.

The ban is supposedly related to the budget and supporting materials, but in reality is a blatant effort by the anti-science, anti-intellectual knuckle draggers to control the CDC agenda.  Given Dotard's budget for 2019 is expected to be released in early February, we can expect severe cuts to the CDC - among others.. The budget blueprint is generally shaped to reflect an administration’s priorities, and Dotard's gang - as seen with arsonist Pruitt at the EPA, is definitely not there to advance science.

What is most interesting has been the reaction of CDC employees in the meeting, all expressing degrees of incredulity.  These dedicated researchers,  epidemiologists and other workers simply could not believe they were being  hijacked by a 21st century version of Big Brother and his Newspeak from Orwell's "1984" novel.

“Incredulous,” one analyst said. “It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’ ”  No one could recall anytime in recent history where actual banned words were enunciated.  According to the same CDC analyst:  "In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint,”

Well, son, with Dotard and his dolts in power you can expect many more. And, if we ever do oust these hare-brained assholes, it will likely be years -  nay, decades- before we get the country out of the decline they've instigated.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-swanson/76759/linguistic-devolution-and-ye-ol-resistance

Kiribati - Another 'Nail' In The B.S. Coffin Of Anthropogenic Climate Change Deniers

Kiribati boy tries to negotiate passage in deep waters which will soon inundate his island

A recent visit to Barbados (in April ) reminded us again  of the extent to which the island is at risk of losing its precious beaches, especially on the east and southeast coast.. With each passing year more coastal land is reclaimed due to the inexorably rising sea and now- unlike thirty years ago - you won't find one single climate change skeptic.

The degree of ocean reclamation of beach near the Atlantis Hotel had our heads spinning, as we were informed by the proprietor it had become much worse since our last buffet lunch there in 2010. He since had to move the pavilion and restaurant tables some twenty five feet further away from the beach which also reduced the total size of the area so more diners (who wished to dine outside) had to be  packed together.

Janice's older brother, a mechanical engineer, expressed the opinion of all of us in the party: "I just don't see how any of these climate change deniers have any credibility any more. It seems to me they all ought to be hooted out on a rail. "

Indeed. But Barbados isn't the only place enduring loss of beachfront land and even future inundation from rising seas. Look also at the island off Kiribati  - a collection of 23 coral islands and reef atolls in the South Pacific.  See e.g.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/kiribati-president-buying-land_n_5860064.html

In a recent Sunday New York Times article (p. A11) we learned how the future has now crashed into Kiribati and big time. Fortunately for them, no climate deniers like Kort Patterson were around to suffer like the islanders are. But as the piece informs us, for years climate scientists (real ones) has been predicting that much of the island of Kiribati proper would become uninhabitable - and within decades. This was directly because of an onslaught of problems linked directly to  climate change. 

But the islanders, much like the current climate deniers, paid little heed. They took all the advance warning with so many grains of salt and probably even believed they were coming from "alarmists", or rich white guys who merely wanted to drive them from their tropical island paradise. Now it appears a "tidal surge" last winter delivered a wake up call. Also known as a "king tide" the event shocked islanders much like the recent deluges in West Virginia, Texas and other U.S. locales have shocked residents there.  The Times quotes one pastor (of the Kiribati Uniting Church) who exclaimed "It shocked us. We realized, okay, maybe climate change is real."

To set the context, while the Pacific island nations are scattered and small, with tiny populations, they are sort of the 'canary in the coal mine' in terms of rising seas from climate change.  Indeed, these nations - in many ways like Barbados and other Caribbean island nations - are among the world's most vulnerable to the vicissitudes of climate change, especially in the economic and physical sphere. In Barbados, this has led to a general program to educate average citizens about the risks from climate change. Already, these risks have been visible in the recurring invasions of red algae and a certain species of knotty seaweed on southeast coastal beaches, such as Crane beach. The economic downside is obvious in driving tourists away.

It is a travesty of sorts that while world powers like the U.S. conduct summit meetings to negotiate carbon reduction, even if they aren't entirely successful like the Paris climate summit last December, nothing similar is being done for the micro nations like Barbados or Kiribati, the places where the most extreme climate consequences will strike first. 


This is extremely dismaying, and as we beheld in Bim, has the political establishment anxious given how the island is already suffering from credit downgrades.  Where does a tiny island state with a GDP roughly the same as Alex Gonzalez payroll on the NY Yankees go to get badly needed funds to reclaim beaches lost to the rising seas? To the IMF at 25%  interest? It simply isn't in the cards, not when there are so many other issues in play including how to ensure the island's water quality and protect it from possible sea water incursion.  

Meanwhile, in Kiribati, as in Barbados, climate scientists warn that rising seas are also likely to worsen erosion, trigger groundwater shortages and increase the intrusion of salt water into freshwater supplies.  Then there are the impacts from natural invasions that are accompaniments of climate change. In Barbados there are two: 1) ever more Sahara dust  clouding the skies and causing respiratory distress in residents - the dust arriving in greater concentrations due to droughts in Africa, and 2) the arrival of tropical pests including giant African land snails that consume vegetation as well as the Zika virus and dengue fever.  Again, as Janice's brother Anthony put it "Only an idiot or uneducated twit would believe climate change isn't real, or isn't human-engendered." 

What to do? Barbados top Minister for the Environment is already drawing up plans if the worse comes to the worst, including evacuations of affected citizens to other  (higher altitude) parts of the island. In the case of Kiribati we learn (ibid.)  it has actually been "drawing up plans for its demise".  In doing so, the government has "been promoting migration with dignity" and has been urging residents to acquire employable skills before they move abroad.  Already, the government has "bought up nearly 6,000 acres of land in Fiji" - an island nation more than one thousand miles distant. This is as a potential refuge given Fiji is at a higher elevation and has a more stable shoreline.

Yes, some people in the world, not so blessed as to inhabit rarefied ivory  towers of unaffected areas, don't have the luxury to pen codswallop about "climate alarmists". The threat to their very way of life is real and very personal, involving how they can live and where they can actually survive.   But one thing is true: eventually everyone on the planet will be affected, even the most hidebound, stubborn deniers - who might well be yelping "There is no climate change it's just a big conspiracy!"  even as they are carried away by rising seas.

Can LED Technology Control The Spread Of Zika Virus?

A new weapon proposed to combat the spread of the Zika virus is light-emitting diode (LED) technology. This emerged by way of an article in FORTUNE (June 1, p.. 44, 'Into the Light') by Corinne Iozzio.  In respect of the techno proposal at hand, let us concede - as she points out - that "blanketing our population centers in toxic bug spray isn't exactly a comforting solution". Indeed, basically you are exchanging a short term, high impact condition like microcephaly or Guillen Barre syndrome for long term cancers, including of the breast, liver, prostate.

See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/america-toxic-1.html

Lest anyone believe or think the latter is more of a 'cakewalk' kindly google "salvage therapy" for prostate cancer recurrence. If you can read through the horrific side effects of all those treatments, well, all I can say is you've got more moxie than me. (I will posting on the MRI biopsy in a few days).

Anyway, LED provides a way of escaping the toxic chemical morass as a solution to everything, from controlling insect pests and weeds, to cleaning showers, tubs, toilets and sinks.  How or where did this solution emerge? We are informed that Travis Longcore, "an assistant professor at the University of Southern California who studies the effect of light on insects" has the needed insights.

Quoted in the piece, he says:

"With LEDS, the great promise is control. It's control on illumination, on timing, on spectrum"

The key, essentially, about finding the perfect light to attract - and distract- insects. In fact, LEDs are already being used to disinfect water, and steer sea turtles away from highways so they don't become reptile road kill.

The principle followed by all LED traps or devices is simple: different species (including bugs) are attracted to different wavelengths of light. Find the right wavelength and you can therefore control the critters, get them to avert a planned destination (like sea turtles) or - fly into an attracting trap, ni the case of mosquitoes. (Though even here, different mosquito species are attracted t different wavelengths)

The company out front on this now is Lighting Science Group, a Florida company specializing in the application of light -emitting diode technology. LSG is also part of a growing number of companies  that seeks to control pests using light.

How is the research going, and how soon can we expect LED technology in our homes to keep out the pesky varmint Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes? Well, as Iozzio notes, LSG "began testing it bug traps this spring" but we're informed (by USDA entymologist Daniel Kline) "there is room for improvement".

We are assured in the piece that "traps with LED-tuned for certain species (e.g. Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes) will eventually be field tested" and "a consumer version will follow within a year". Well, it can't happen soon enough for me, as I hate the fuckin' bug sprays, including that vomit-inducing shit called DEET.

The sooner this new weapon against pests comes into practical use the better, since as the FORTUNE author observes "warmer temperatures around the globe are helping tropical insects survive in temperate zones".

Those like the insufferable Kort Patterson (and others) can argue all they want that "there is no normal temperature for Earth", but one thing we do know is that biospheric balance exists only within certain parameters. Hence, so long as a relative temperature differential exists (e.g. between temperate zone and tropics) pests like dengue fever, Zika mosquitoes and bilharzia snails (as well as parasitic brain worms) will stay where they belong - in the tropics. But once temperature increases lead to thermal equilibrium worldwide, thereby disrupting those geographical barriers,  all bets are off. It is one thing to be a T-Rex in Jurassic times with much higher temperatures and adapting to slightly different vegetation, It's quite another for arrogant humans facing a "new normal" for which any long term adaptation may be impossible, short of converting humans to cyborgs, especially if the runaway greenhouse kicks in.

Let's hope the LED solution for effective tropical pest control is ready long before then!

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/biological-nightmares-of-climate-change.html

Zika Virus Pathology Will Require Even More Use Of Birth Control - Possible Abortions

The news that Barbados has now been named one of 17 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean with severe outbreaks of Zika virus has prompted serious cause for concern especially among tourists thinking of visiting. Though the incidence of illness has not reached the levels reported in Brazil, authorities are taking no chances and have instituted dawn to dusk spraying for the Aedes Aegypti mosquito (above left)


This mosquito carries dengue fever as well as Zika and is specifically being targeted for extermination- despite the fact these little beasts have been known to find hiding places almost impervious to the insecticide (malathion) which often wreaks more havoc on humans.

Meanwhile abortion clinics and family planning services are working overtime to inform younger women of the risks. As I noted in a previous blog, Pope Francis has now given special dispensation for at risk females to use artificial contraception to reduce the risk of infection and hence impregnation leading to infants exhibiting microcephaly.  Francis intimated also that artificial contraception may be morally acceptable to avoid spreading the Zika virus.

This microcephaly condition is now linked to Zika by  "numerous lines of evidence" according to a recent WHO report.  Microcephaly leads to shrunken heads and brains that render the person almost totally cognitively impaired - and with an abbreviated life span.


In one study carried out at FSU, Johns Hopkins and Emory University several types of stem cells, including "parental" (which give rise to brain neurons), were exposed to a strain of Zika. The results showed that the virus infected and "hijacked" the cells driving them to generate more copies of the virus at the expense of healthy cells. Essentially the pre-neural cells became a non-stop Zika virus factory. This was according to Guo li-Ming one of the study authors and a professor at Hopkins.

Meanwhile, many of the already infected cells died while others showed gene disruptions that made it impossible to generate new cells effectively, according to Guo. Thereby the infected cells themselves become the vehicles for the destruction of the fetal brain -causing the massive shrinkage, and also of the still plastic skull that holds it




The forlorn victims often don't survive to adulthood but those that do are either warehoused in sanatariums at enormous cost because they cannot care for themselves, OR  (if minimally functional) they end up as circus freaks (such as the several depicted in Tod Browning's 1932 flick 'Freaks', e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVXTKkjsxA)

Others suffer in continual pain and agony and indeed, it would be better if they'd never been born, Hence, the need for the abortion option as well, say if an at risk female still becomes pregnant despite using contraception and tests show a microcephalic fetus. We have already seen in the news  several months ago that a young Slovenian woman - returning from Brazil (and after having sexual relation there),  did a test for microcephaly - and found it to be positive.  Unwilling and unable to bear the costs of future care, she had the fetus aborted.

Many women in Barbados are now gearing up for such hard choices as well. Given the island nation's extraordinarily low mean income level, high unemployment level (22%)  and lack of health resources, it is about the only practical option left to many in the working class (85 % of the population). As Zika spreads, including to the U.S. by this summer, these are  choices American women will have to make as well

As for the general pattern of infection, the incubation period  is likely to be a few days. The symptoms are similar to other arbovirus infections such as dengue, and include fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache. These symptoms are usually mild and last for 2-7 days.  The worst outcome for an adult is the neurological condition called Guillain- Barre syndrome in which the immune system attacks the nervous system causing temporary but sometimes severe paralysis as well as inability to speak. It is not known how many such cases are in the Caribbean islands right now but estimates range from 15- 100.

One hopes that as the information of Zika's depredations - especially on fetal brain tissue - is more widely disseminated, the  Pope will allow exceptions for Zika -based abortions as well. Such a move would follow the original Church canons that allowed them to be performed up until the third trimester (at least until 1869. when the rule was changed)

The larger point here is the fact the Church has already changed its doctrine on abortion thereby showing its moral positions are malleable and not set in stone. In this case, it is much better to prevent added suffering in the world - by ushering in thousands of babies with malformed brains-   than to enable its spread.

Pope Francis' Zika & Contraception Remarks Show There Are NO Moral Absolutes

Amidst the recent uproar over "building a wall" and whether Trump is a Christian, many people may have missed an even more significant papal comment, to do with artificial birth control. To fix ideas, Pope Francis suggested  last week, on his way back to Rome from Mexico, that artificial contraception may be morally acceptable to avoid spreading the Zika virus.  In framing his answer to a reporter's question, he intimated the use of such contraception as "not an absolute evil". So ah, what? It's an intermediate evil? Or a lesser evil?

One can surely argue that if it is not an absolute evil in this case, it shouldn't be in any other. To go one better in terms of situational ethics (which is what the Pope is interjecting) he noted that in the 1960s Pope Paul VI permitted nuns in the Belgian Congo to use artificial birth control to prevent pregnancies because "they were being systematically raped."

But again, why is this ethical dispensation for a nun superior to that for a working class mother, already burdened by 4 or 5 children, who simply cannot afford one more mouth to feed (and with Repukes in charge of the House she can't expect anything more from the SNAP program) . The fact is, it isn't and hence there is no reason other than sophistry to split the issue into more and less evil parts.

In the case of Zika virus, the Pope's pronouncement was quite justified given there is now strong suspicion as well as some hard evidence (which I will get to) that Zika infections - as in Brazil- are increasing the chances for a horrific birth defect known as microcephaly. This is a condition in which affected infants are born with extremely small heads, as well as brains.  Often they don't survive to adulthood but those that do are either warehoused at enormous costs because they cannot care for themselves, OR  (if minimally functional) they end up as circus freaks (such as the several depicted in Tod Browning's 1932 flick 'Freaks', e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVXTKkjsxA)

Does a papal dispensation,  say to a Brazilian woman whose pregnancy is threatened with Zika,  trump that for a mother - or even a single woman in the U.S.- who doesn't wish to be burdened with an unwanted pregnancy? Especially as she can expect no medical or other support from the Republicans. I don't believe so and indeed made the case in previous posts (as well as in my atheist books)  that there is no moral violation to do with the use of artificial contraception.

This is despite a number of Catholic bishops and others in Latin America proclaiming it is "immoral". Meanwhile, Francis' comments have the Vatican's dino heads ready to explode with at least one spokesman (the Rev. Federico Lombardi) forced to try to clarify (WSJ, Feb 20-21, p. A7) asserting: "the Pope was speaking of exceptional circumstances" then explaining that the pontiff meant that "in situations of grave urgency a well-informed conscience can see if there is the possibility (or not) of recourse to contraception".   But cutting through all this convoluted, qualifying bafflegab,  the point is the Pope - as Paul VI before him - did allow an exception and it only takes one to disprove the rule,  i.e. that artificial birth control is invariably "evil".

Where do the Vatican's moralists get this nonsense anyway? As a matter of theological record the anti-artificial birth control dogma was based on "natural law". The problem is that there is no genuine theological or other (scientific) basis for this antiquated belief. It rests entirely on reducing human sexuality to the state of lower animals, at the behest of their "natural" reproductive cycles. But it ignores that, unlike the lower animals, humans have the intellectual capacity and sense of novelty to introduce a vast variety of pleasure-play into their sex relations - none of which require conception. Thus humans aren't yoked to  primitive instincts to simply mount and hump at specific times.

As observed by Biologist Elizabeth A. Daugherty,  ('The Lessons of Zoology'. in Contraception and Holiness, pp. 96-97):

"Humans are free from physiologically determined sexual desires so we possess a more or less permanent sexuality from adolescence to old age."

So this lays waste to the whole natural law moral underpinning, which is more subjective moralism.

Historically, Catholic impediments to a sane birth control policy began with the misguided encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. Paul VI, the Pope at the time,  issued this document in direct opposition to his own specially appointed Papal Commission on the matter. Author David Yallop, in his book In God's Name, has portrayed Humanae Vitae in stark terms indeed, as well as its paradoxical consequences^[1]:

On a disaster scale for the Roman Catholic Church, it measures higher than the treatment of Galileo in the seventeenth century

The implicit assumption in Humanae Vitae and later Pope John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis Splendor, has been that procreation takes precedence over any other function of sexual intercourse. This is observably true in most other animals (with estrus cycles) but it certainly doesn’t apply to humans who exhibit a diverse array of sexual play.

All of which reinforces the point that there is no moral dimension to the use of artificial birth control at all, irrespective of the situation. It is a carryover from Aristotelian thinking (which permeates Church canons and dogmas) .  Julian Pleasants has observed (op. cit., p. 88) the Vatican has always been hostage to:

"Aristotelian modes of thought which tend to fix behaviors within very limited and fixed definitions and categories."

Thus, the Church once believed it "natural" that some men be enslaved because they were “unable to manage their own affairs”  (ibid.)So why be surprised when the same Church seeks to ordain all her members abide by a sexuality more fitting of lower primates?  Clearly, the Church changed its natural law position on slavery as it now needs to do so on contraception. At least the Pope's recent pronouncements on allowing exceptions to the dogma (invoking the Zika virus) allows the door to be flung wide open to finally rid  the Church of this ridiculous baggage. (And let's not forget that back in 2010 Pope Benedict XVI allowed that using condoms to prevent HIV infection "can be a first step in moralization". In fact the very act of connecting the two discloses the 'horse has already left the barn'!)

What about abortion? In the same general response as the one for birth control, Francis did insist that:

"Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. That's what the Mafia does".

But indeed, abortion is and can often be the lesser of two evils. It is certainly the lesser of two evils if a woman, denied access to affordable contraception, has a child she can't cope with and ends up brutally beating it to death.  This actually happened here in Colorado barely a month ago  as one young woman hurled her 2 month old infant against a wall to shut it up .  Given that a two month old infant is more developed than a 4 month old fetus say, abortion is clearly a lesser evil than outright murder. (Specifically defined by our laws for killing an ALREADY born person).

In the case of this Zika virus, we have already seen in the news that a young Slovenian woman - returning from Brazil (and after having sexual relation there),  did a test for microcephaly on her return to Europe and found it to be positive.  Unwilling and unable to bear the costs of future care, she had the fetus aborted. Was she right or wrong? She was right insofar as it was far better to eliminate the primitive fetus than to, say, murder the suffering microcephalic person later.

In this case, she did one better and gave the fetus to medical specialists in Slovenia to further research into the effects of Zika virus. The researchers were also able to genetically sequence the virus from the fetal brain tissue. A step which can mightily help future projections for the spread of the disease, especially in the U.S. (predicted for the Gulf states early this summer with mosquito season onset.)

Little reported in the media (but in Europe) a post- abortion autopsy found the Zika virus nestled in the fetus' brain but in no other organs. This showed the medical team that Zika zones in on the brain . These researchers at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia found that the fetal brain was totally "devastated".  Not only was it a fraction of the proper size but it lacked the usual neural folds that enable a brain to manifest consciousness and thought. The entity - had it been allowed to be born - would have been a literal vegetable with absolutely no life quality of any kind to look forward to, and few resources to depend on from its parent.

The error made by Pope Francis  in condemning abortion as a crime inheres in committing  the "genetic fallacy",  as first described by Antony Flew ('Thinking About Thinking'). That is, arguing that because a thing is going to become something, it IS something. It would be like me picking up an acorn and claiming it's an oak tree. A   person, a human person, must have at least minimal capacity for basic cognition and rudimentary choice. It must possess a brain, at the very least, which evinces definite brain waves. Anything that doesn't is a proto-human entity, but clearly not a person. The microcephalic fetus aborted in Slovenia was such a proto-human entity - reduced to that state by the Zika virus.

Lastly, the current crop of Catholics ought to be reminded that the Church DID ALLOW abortions to be performed up until the third trimester, and until 1869. John Connery, S.J.,  a leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, has been quoted as citing a long standing collection of Canon Law that “it was not until 1869 that abortion for any reason became grounds for excommunication” (See, e.g. Druyan and Sagan, PARADE, April 22, 1990)

The larger point here is that clearly, the fact the Church has already changed its doctrine on abortion shows its moral positions are malleable and not set in stone!

What this means is that the Church itself cannot be free of errors in faith or morals if it has already made one that was since covered up. Obviously, if you can alter a position, it is hardly "absolute". In his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung observes (p. 143):

" No one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently cannot be erroneous."

So my point remains: there are no moral absolutes. There is rather such a thing as a provisional ethics which changes, alters in response to circumstances over time. The Church's changing moral positions are proof of it.  Conservative Catholics will, of course, object and have apoplectic reactions to this, fearing that moral provisionalism or the exercise of conscience means "licentiousness". But they are the ones who really need to expand their own purview outside the bounds of a solipsistic, self-ingratiating sanctimony.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/08/absolutist-ethics-needs-to-be-replaced.html