Weather, Pinfeathers and Foxes

We observe. 

The sun is shining brightly in a mild morning breeze. Dry winds. It is warming.   Finally. After a week of heavy rain, it was getting to be a bit much.  Overcast, chilly and hardly springlike. Even T.T.T. and E.T.S.  (loyal readers know that would be Tilly the Tall and Ebony the Short,  the resident pups extraordinaire ) were getting tired of being wet and  traipsing through endless muddy puddles. They began walking around them.   (They like water, but not that cold dirty wet kind apparently.)
With weird, severe  weather, lives are disrupted and economic costs can be staggering.  Here the Trans-Canada Highway is still closed and supposedly will be for a couple more days.   Recent flooding in Thunder Bay, Ontario is expected to cost  $50 million in Thunder Bay alone--or perhaps a lot more with thousands of insurance claims.  It is no longer news.  Flooded basements. Ruinous loss. Big cleanup.  Official Disaster. Geographically we didn't quite dodge the bullet this time. We thank our lucky stars for our higher elevation and observe.  

 It didn't take a quantum leap to recognize that some of Mother Nature's own little critters out there-- in the same quirky weather- inevitably end up in challenging circumstance too.  The robin in our temporarily  untrimmed cedar tree hunches down into her nest, staying perfectly motionless if anyone gets too close. The nest had two  blue eggs.  A pair of robin baby blues in their perfection,  imagine that.
A couple of days ago a judicious look revealed a single,  naked chick,wrinkles dried off, homely as only a hatchling an hour old can be. The tiny one was sporting only a pinfeather or two.  Let's go with the idea that early birds get the worm.  Was hatching a day early smart, wearing only two or three less than adequate pinfeathers? Somehow it seems not.
 The second egg was still unhatched. Maybe a genetically superior, wise egg?  Was that yet-to-be born chick waiting for warmer weather?
 Was  that natural selection in a hurry, or just a thinner shell?
 Mother robin returned to keep the nest, the remaining egg, and the naked little one warm. She came right on time too.
   The temperature dropped to -5C the same night.  It made me question how anything as tiny and helpless --and buck naked-- can survive.

How does anything in nature survive?  Two red fox pups, barely bigger than small domestic cats, try  to cross the highway, playing chicken with highway traffic.  They race across the road to join a very anxious adult, waiting helplessly,  watching them gamble with their very lives.  We gamble with our lives for the same reason as foxes do don't you think? Crossing the road of life to get to the other side. 

1.0   Baby Foxes

Nature does play games with us, whacks us sometimes, surprises us once in a while-- but always challenges wildlife that seemingly cannot provide itself with the most basic protection at times. 
Are we better off than animals and birds when it comes to Mother Nature's whims? Have we grown our own feathers and learned to dodge traffic?
That's a good question.





What were we complaining about?   Oh, nothing... it was raining. Cold. The sun is shining to make up for it now. It's one of the reversals we can expect in life.    Let's do something else.  In the garden we planted cabbages first. They appreciate life. They don't mind cold and wet, they don't need feathers either.  Trenched the peas in.  Besides, it really is warming, little by little.  It's also drying out, bit by bit.  Rain, shine, rain shine!   We survive, by contrivance, with rubber boots if necessary-- but will the little ones out there survive too?

 

 

           2.0  Baby Robins   June 07 2012           

A couple of days later back at the nest, mini- robins display big, open yellow beaks and equal amounts of ' fashionable-minimalist outdoor feather-wear'-- for adverse weather and flying trials soon to come. Small wing-feathers are already visible, clearly preparation for the next big test. That was fast.
In observing, -- what is the bottom line?  What is the big hurry for?  A test of life itself?   
 Oh, wait....I was in a big rush to have coffee and get out and  plant the garden even though it was still cold and wet, wasn't I?  
Perhaps we are in a hurry to grow in thought process too, another  lesson in survival.  At Incoming Bytes we're learning to go around the puddles.


Is that incoming I hear? 


photo credits
   1.  baby foxes     www.sodahead.com
   2.  baby robins    (c) r.a. kukkee

As the World Turns: Who Shall We Believe? The Greedy? The Media?

Let us see the Light

It never ceases to amaze  how stories and events  evolve  in unexpected ways, even 'nonchalantly'  with all  the conflicting, inaccurate, and missing  information that eventually comes to light.    At times,  it seems that lies,  partial truths, overcautious withholding of information, failure to  release important information entirely, or zealous control of information -- skews  and spins valuable information out of context and control,  both when given to the media,  and then again when passed on to the public by  media  that at times,  itself is even intentionally misled by venerable leaders, officials  and perhaps others with questionable motive.

After any huge disaster when desperate rescue efforts must be conducted to rescue the general population there is  understandably worry, confusion, fear, and hurried misunderstanding --caused by intent or not.  

By the very nature of such events,  the disruption or destruction of infrastructure and communications,  reports from different authorities and agencies  may not always coincide.  Decades ago, that used to be the case only  because it was problematic or impossible to communicate when transportation,   services and "land lines" were destroyed,  but modern society now has cell phones and portable satellite communications systems for news services. 
Why is more accurate information not available?
Is that glaring contradiction one of the main causes of  the  public  distrust of "officialdom" and the media? 

Within the media there  always remains  a responsibility to report responsibly and  avoid the creation  more fear and  panic, but it seems logical that with  a major nuclear story seemingly headed in the direction  of and even exceeding Three Mile Island  (even Chernobyl ? ) ,  a current  major event such as  Japan's ongoing  nuclear dilemma  should require information be directed  accurately to the public at all times.  
With ever more serious consequences developing,  the horrific catastrophe unfolding in Japan  quickly captured the attention of the whole world, and understandably so. The Japanese catastrophe has unfolded to be clearly an exceptional and dangerous historical event with very long-term implications. 
   Unbelievable damage caused by the quake and ensuing tsunami now has implications that remain virtually incalculable .
  Six operating nuclear power generating plants, one of them containing plutonium-enriched fuel,  suffered major damage,  including damage to critical  power systems that provided necessary cooling not only for the active reactors themselves, but for a huge water-pond storage system that stores thousands of  "spent" fuel rods  (or  did ?)--at least until recently.  For the uninformed, spent (used) fuel rods remain highly radioactive for years and must be stored carefully to avoid overheating and exposure to air, which can cause radioactive materials to be released into the air.
  At the nuclear plants, there have already been 3 major hydrogen explosions,  storage pond fires,  and failure to cool the melting reactor cores  in spite of last-ditch emergency flooding with sea water, water bombing using helicopters, fire trucks and water cannons.  Dangerously overheated reactor cores have been exposed,  dry,  partially melted.  A partial meltdown  or meltdown(s) have already occurred.
We already know there has been major releases of radioactive materials, but reports of the official "danger" and levels of radiation being  measured differ substantially.  With world Atomic Energy associations, why should there be any question?
Although already having evacuated more than 500,000 people and are advising staying more than 20km from the  nuclear hot-spot,  Japanese officials  have finally admitted it is far more serious than previously thought. 
 U.S. and  other nuclear experts were advising a range of more than 80 km and countries are advising their nationals to leave Japan. 
Why the big discrepancy? Why is it so difficult for officials everywhere to come clean, correlate data with one another, and admit the true nature of the problem immediately?  
Do owners and officials  of operating nuclear power plants not want to accept responsibility for bad design and failure?  Now that the disaster is unfolding, and they are    in charge of a dragon that escaping  their control, will  they now deny culpability, and  admit lack of capability to control the potential disaster in it's entirety?   
Who shall we believe?  The greedy, the frightened, or the media?  Perhaps we should take careful note that it is the greedy and powerful that build and operate these  potential disasters.
To be clear, we at Incoming Bytes shall  not point fingers at the Japanese as a nation.  Japan is far from alone in this phenomenon;  around the world,  nuclear plants have had leaks, accidents, and failures and will continue to do so because that is what they do.   They are mechanical systems;  it is not IF they will fail, but WHEN.  
The world must now face that reality and change course. 
When clean solar energy and wind energy is freely available, what has  compelled  humanity to ignore common sense and use  problematic, dangerous and dirty nuclear plants that produce dangerous, dirty waste products that must be stored forever?  The answer is simple. Greed.
 I offered a comment following the previous post: 

"Where big money is concerned, it seems there is little genuine concern for the results of their money-making schemes, no matter how much pollution or how many potential problems they may cause." 
 An immediate response from a very astute reader  summed it up perfectly:  

  "Selfish motives impact whole civilizations. And its time we wake up to defending our lives that are at the mercy of a handful". 

   As the world turns,  it is becoming more apparent that civilization in it's entirety may now be forced to  forever pay the  gargantuan and endless  economic and human costs of these disasters,  --and  only now at the very last moment in civilization,   try to discourage and disengage  a  foolish  energy policy that was followed only to satiate the endless greed of "a handful".   

So be it. We CAN do it.  We HAVE to do it.

Third Explosion: Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsens: Now What?

I  imagine everyone  following the crisis in Japan  is already quite aware that a third  hydrogen explosion occurred yesterday at one of several  nuclear reactors damaged by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake .  This tragedy is already in epic proportions; in strength of aftershocks,  in loss of buildings and infrastructure damage. IN terms of  human losses , the horrific death toll from the earthquake and the tsunami  has now been estimated to exceed 10,000, and there are potentially greater problems developing. 


Radiation levels are rapidly on the rise as seemingly futile attempts are made to cool the damaged reactors.  The reactor cores have been exposed with no cooling systems or backup power generation systems  in working order,  causing severe heating and potential meltdown. 
Sea water has been pumped into the reactors, in a desperate, last-ditch  attempt to cool the overheated cores to prevent the zirconium-encased uranium fuel rods from melting.  Pumping in sea-water creates  hydrogen, which when mixed with oxygen, causes powerful explosions.   
The inevitable has happened, the inability of the nuclear facility operators to vent the build-up of hydrogen and pressure resulted in the latest explosion.  Bottom line, radioactive particulate matter is being dispersed on the winds. 

 Ever heard of "Three Mile Island?"  Ever heard of "Chernobyl",  the worst nuclear accident in history? The Japanese crisis has already been likened to Three Mile Island and the worst is yet to come.   A storage pond is on fire, spewing radioactive  contaminated material into the air.  Even spent fuel rods are dangerous; containing plutonium, cesium, and strontium,  the fuel rods, although encased in zirconium, can ignite and burn, releasing radiation into the atmosphere.  Spent fuel rods are stored in deep water pools to keep them cooled down.  In Japan, the 4o' deep storage pools are located about ten stories up, on the rooftop of the reactors. 

Imagine that. Just how clever was that design?   That seems like it might be "a little problematic "  to put it lightly.  One such pool has lost cooling capacity and is already burning, spewing radioactive matter into the sky.

The World Meteorological Organization (W.M.O.), reports that for now, radiation is blowing away from Japan and eastward into the Pacific Ocean.   Should the winds turn westward, a very large area of Japan can be very adversely affected. Approximately  500,000 people have already been evacuated. 


How far does radioactive particulate matter  travel?  Being pumped high into the atmospheric winds, such materials can travel thousands of miles.   If winds are predominantly east,  clearly the west coast of North America will eventually be subjected to some degree of risk.  The question is only "how much" and "when".   If the winds turn westward, great areas of Japan may be contaminated.  Why is this so critical?
  For the uninformed, radioactive material does not simply "go away".   It is dangerous  particulate matter, and cannot be  diluted in the same manner a liquid spill can be.  Although radioactivity can be measured carefully, monitored, or  dispersed,  it should not be foolishly ignored.   It can be  blown away by dry winds or  washed back  into the soil, "out of sight, out of mind",   --- but it does not "go away".  Radiation can can enter the food chain, causing mutations,  cancers, and death.  
It will be with us for 200,000 years or longer.  
This disaster was inevitable.  How can we prevent such horrific tragedies from happening again that involve nuclear facilities?

It seems to me this tragedy is an extremely good reason for humanity to re-think the whole approach we take to the generation of energy.  The biggest nuclear generator around, the sun --is  a few million miles away--and the energy we get from it is free.  

Let's get with it, people,  we CAN do it;  solar energy IS the way to go.

At Incoming BYTES  we continue to offer our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the people of Japan for their lost family members and extreme difficulties in this tragedy.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you.