Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Coming Soon: The Big One in Fuku

Japan’s quake will make us subdued,
On the TV our eyes will be glued;
From watching the mess,
We’ll be able to guess
In how many hours we’re screwed.

Fuku’s like the sword of Damocles:
We’re so freaked, that Jeeze, we can’t find our knees;
Sooner or later,
That area will crater,
And then we’ll all die by slow degrees.

Someday, Fuku will shake,
Spent fuel will suddenly bake,
We’ll all die on the spot,
Or else, maybe not;
Until then, we wait for the quake.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Ballad of SFP4

In old Fukushima, Japan
The shit finally hit the fan;
A spent fuel pool
Which they tried to keep cool
Was sketchy, is how it began.

No one was worried at all
That the rods had no ceiling or wall;
The danger was greater
That sooner or later
The whole thing was going to fall.

At last, folks couldn’t ignore
What had been lying in store:
Then a quake came along
Sufficiently strong
To topple SFP4.

Collapse and worldwide privation
Resulted in upkeep cessation;
Rods elsewhere suspended,
Also untended,
Let loose lots more radiation.

Sixth extinction’s not fully explained
By the multiple rads that reigned;
As at Chernobyl,
Warming gone global
Finished off most of what life remained.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The UN on Radiation: No Worries


"Studies indicate minimal health risks from radiation in the aftermath of Japan's nuclear disaster."
H/T: Satori at Silco

Radiation helps make you strong,
It won’t hurt or do anything wrong;
UN health groups agree
That there’s nothing to see—
That is all. Now please move along.



“Few people will develop cancer as a consequence of being exposed to ... Fukushima .... based on two ... independent assessments.... by a subcommittee of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)....[and] the World Health Organization (WHO)”  *

UN health experts agree,
And they give it their guarantee;
Based on separate sources,
The UN endorses:
It’s good for both you and for me.



“Experts agree that there is unlikely to be a detectable rise in thyroid cancer or leukaemia, the two cancers most likely to result from the accident. “There may be some increase in cancer risk that may not be detectable statistically,” says Kiyohiko Mabuchi, who heads Chernobyl studies at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland.”

When problems tend to go global,
State scientists may go ignoble:
Epidemiology
Downplays pathology,
Pretty much like at Chernobyl.



“People are “utterly fearful and deeply angry. There’s nobody that they trust any more for information....People want to know whether what we say is true.”

Well, there’s a big fucking surprise!
So far there’s been nothing but lies;
It’s not easy deceiving
Those set on believing
What they see with their own lying eyes.



 “In the year since the accident, the plant has been stabilized, and radioactive emissions have largely stopped.”

At first, it seemed like we'd flop,
But of course we got it to stop;
Questions on cancer?
You’ll be fine, there’s your answer—
It’s fixed, so go out and shop.


==
*    “WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.”

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Helen Caldicott: “...nothing we can do.”

“We are now in a situation where we have harnessed the energy of the sun; it is totally out of control, and there’s simply nothing we can do.”
H/T: REDREAMER at Silco


According to Helen Caldicott,
We’re dealing with people who don’t know squat;
Between radiation
And global cremation,
The world will become two kinds of hot.

Extinction’s a dirty trick on us
We claim, as we blame and we kick and cuss;
Old Greeks, way ahead of us,
Taught about Daedalus,
But we failed the lesson of Icarus.

Fukushima sits on the ocean
Where earthquakes often cause motion;
What will I do
If the worst comes true?
I haven’t the foggiest notion.

If Japan went all fucko bazoo,
And your days left were only a few—
Say it happened right now:
How would you say ciao?
What do you think you would do?

When it comes time to give up the ghost,
There’ll be running from pillar to post;
It’s not much of a boast,
But to be doom engrossed
Should help handling it better than most.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Extinction for Geezers

“These Times of Declining EROEI”

When you’re old, thoughts of death sway emotion,
So our species extinction potion
Doesn’t cause much more stress:
It's a bigger mess, yes, 
But you’re used to the basic notion.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

M’kay?

Extinction is bad, m’kay?
It really can ruin a nice day;
Despite not much hope,
People still try to cope
Because it’s forever, they say.

Collapse will be bad, m’kay?
To make sense of so much dismay,
Many a human
Will think it’s acumen
To perceive a morality play.

Global warming is bad, m’kay?
But with cannibal life on its way,
It adds delicate char
To long pork tartar
For folks not already passe.

Doom’s going be bad, m’kay?
But it’s natural growth and decay;
So relax and accept,
And try to get prepped,
‘Cause it’s not going to go away.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Fukushima Evacuation

“... If a significant fraction of the 400+ commercial reactors (all with pools) worldwide meltdown, that is an extinction event. As in, we’re all dead.”
http://fukushimaresponse.com/

Tsunami and earthquake vibration,
Workers try to fix the nuke station;
They find that they can’t
And abandon the plant:
Fukushima evacuation.

Reactor and pool degradation
Threatens the population;
Genetic mutation
Creates malformation:
Tokyo evacuation.

It’s not just one single location,
But everywhere in that nation;
Plants aren’t maintained,
Damage can’t be contained:
Japan evacuation.

Worldwide, plant disintegration
Spreads massive irradiation;
Humans find out what’s meant
By extinction event:
No evacuation.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Irradiated Genes

"... This threat is different in kind from other environmental problems because radioactivity directly disrupts or destroys the ability of genes to accurately replicate. This is not repairable. We menace everything, not just ourselves...."

Our future’s going to be terrible,
Extinction means life is unbearable;
Just check it out, dude:
Life on earth is now screwed—
The damage we’ve done’s not repairable.


Radiation is bad for our genes,
It busts them to small smithereens;
There are no vaccines,
So our prepping routines
Are just band aids, with bullets and beans.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

A Little Advice for an Aging Empire in Slow Collapse

“...Well, that’s my advice, though I know you probably won’t listen....”

An empire in its last phase
Or a man at the end of his days:
Since their patterns are set,
We ought not to bet
That we’ll see them improving their ways.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Satellite System ‘Is At Risk Of Collapse’

“America’s ability to monitor the environment is rapidly diminishing. And if we don’t properly fund our satellite capabilities, the country could lose three quarters of its Earth observation systems by 2020.”
http://billhicksisdead.blogspot.com/2012/05/us-environmental-satellite-system-is-at.html

We're already wearing light clothes
While watching the world decompose;
We can see it all right,
Don’t need a satellite
To know which way the wind blows.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Alliances

To prep for our coming rough landing,
We use temporary group banding:
At first between nations,
Then smaller locations,
Until it's the last man standing.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Accepting Extinction

Like all animals, we had to strive,
And intelligence helped us to thrive;
Now we’ve played our short part:
It’s true, we were smart,
But not smart enough to survive.

We learned a lot during our climb,
Since first we crawled out of the slime;
Now it seems, reader friend,
That accepting our end
Is the main lesson for our time.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Near-term extinction is locked in

"...Near-term extinction is locked in because of Fukushima (times 400 and change) and the climate-change result of exponential methane release in the Arctic. Both paths of horror indicate our species has a few decades at most....but I'm trying to maintain my trademark optimism...."
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/05/arts-and-minds/

It's nicer to be optimistic,
But, although it might seem too simplistic, 
It appears our world view
Will really come true, 
So we might as well be realistic. 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Uh Oh

MIT computer simulation predicts total global economic collapse in less than 20 years

We’ve had fun thrashing out a doom view,
And what someday we might have to do;
We’ve shared what we knew
About what might ensue—
But what if this stuff’s really true?