Apocalypse Explained

American news likes to focus only on the human drama that ensues when disaster strikes. In contrast, Global National, clearly less fettered by corporate fiat, takes the time to analyse the reasons behind the disaster. The following report by Eric Sorenson explains the science behind the apocalypse engulfing California, and yes, that science includes the use of a term one almost never hears in mainstream media south of the border, climate change.

Heroes And Villains

The heroes, of course, are the ones who risk their lives fighting these conflagrations; the villains, the rest of us, for our unwillingness to force real measures to combat the climate change:

The Apocalypse Continues

This time, the California wildfires are threatening not only home and people, but the same giant sequoias reported on last week.

An Arboreal Barometer

Some of them are mute witnesses to over three thousand years of history. Towering and majestic, some as tall as the Statue of Liberty, the giant sequoia, native to a limited area of the western Sierra Nevada, California, is now under severe stress due to California's deep and protracted drought.

As the following report makes clear, although they have withstood millennia of insect infestations and droughts and will likely survive this current crisis, they are being challenged in ways that perhaps they have never been in their long history. And while they may continue to stand, lesser trees around them are dying at unprecedented rates. Just one more reminder of what we continue to do to the earth by our collective indifference to climate change.

The Wealthy Really Are Different From The Rest Of Us

Despite the over-generalization of my title, it is clear to me that many of rich really are different from the rest of us, not just in terms of their material status, but in the way they relate to the world around them. Yet they fail to recognize their spiritual aridity.

In Matthew, 19:24, Jesus says: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Now, while some interpret that strictly to mean entering heaven, progressive theologians such as Marcus Borg suggest that it has a very real application in the here and now. The kingdom of God involves communion with our fellow human beings and the world in which we live, a world thirsting for social, economic and environmental justice. When we pursue those goals, say people like Borg, we are entering the Kingdom of God. The wealthy have a harder time of it, probably, because their wealth serves to isolate them from that communion.

And so the rich folk of California have quite a journey ahead of them. According to The Washington Post, despite the terrible drought that pervades the state, they don't think that the state-imposed water restrictions should apply to them:

Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog. If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media. “We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

Yuhas lives in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Rancho Santa Fe, a bucolic Southern California hamlet of ranches, gated communities and country clubs that guzzles five times more water per capita than the statewide average. In April, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called for a 25 percent reduction in water use, consumption in Rancho Santa Fe went up by 9 percent.

The attitude expressed above seems like a clear challenge to Michael J. Sandel's thesis in his book, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, wherein he asks if there are indeed moral and social limits to what wealth should give a person access to.

Thus far, many of the 3100 residents have ignored the water restrictions, but as of July 1, more substantial financial penalties, and even restricted or terminated access to water, will be imposed. This is leaving them feeling most aggrieved:

“I think we’re being overly penalized, and we’re certainly being overly scrutinized by the world,” said Gay Butler, an interior designer out for a trail ride on her show horse, Bear. She said her water bill averages about $800 a month.

“It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture,” Butler said. “What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?”

Other wealthy communities are feeling similar outrage:

“I call it the war on suburbia,” said Brett Barbre, who lives in the Orange County community of Yorba Linda, another exceptionally wealthy Zip code

“California used to be the land of opportunity and freedom,” Barbre said. “It’s slowly becoming the land of one group telling everybody else how they think everybody should live their lives.”

Jurgen Gramckow, a sod farmer north of Los Angeles in Ventura County, agrees. He likens the freedom to buy water to the freedom to buy gasoline.

“Some people have a Prius; others have a Suburban,” Gramckow said. “Once the water goes through the meter, it’s yours.”

Clearly, the concept of shared sacrifice for the collective good is an alien one to some people. But to be fair, of course, that is an attitude not limited to one part of the socio-economic strata, is it?

What Are The Limits?

Humans, and other primates, it appears, have an innate sense of fairness. We expect, for example, in times requiring sacrifice, that no member of society will be exempted. When we are part of a long queue, for example, we expect everyone to bide their time and wait as well; someone attempting to jump the queue is rightfully deeply resented and scorned.

Of course, rules and expectations of fairness and equality are broken everyday by those with the means. If you are willing to pay for the privilege, you can buy into express lines, such as those that exist at Universal Express and Disney World FASTPASS. If you are in need of a new kidney fast, there are brokers who can arrange such transactions with dispatch.

Are there things that money cannot or should not be able to buy? That was the central question Michael J. Sandel posed in a book I read several months ago called What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. A very thought-provoking work, it explores the fundamentally alienating effects that some purchases can have, as in the above-mentioned kidney transactions, that leave us with less regard for our fellow-travellers in life. Indeed, there are some cases that really reduce them to mere commodities.

I couldn't help but think of such things this morning as I read about how some people are circumventing the tough water-rationing measures recently imposed in California, a state now in its fourth year of extreme drought.

Gardens stayed lush and lawns verdant as citizens paid tanker trucks to deliver thousands of gallons to homes in the seaside suburb of Santa Barbara. They drilled in back yards, driving the county’s tally of new wells to a record. Some simply paid fines for exceeding allocations, padding the water district’s budget by more than $2 million.

“People feel strongly about their landscaping and want to keep their homes beautiful,” said Patrick Nesbitt, who drilled a well to hydrate parts of his 70-acre estate but let his polo field go dry. “Why should anybody object?”

Actually, there are many reasons to object. One is the fact that money is being used here to opt out of good citizenship, which a healthy society requires. Why should certain parties be exempt from turf-removing initiatives that others are following as they substitute drought-tolerant plants for thirsty lawns?

Paying tanker trucks to bring in water simply postpones dealing with the drought, and one can't help but wonder where that water is coming from. Are other jurisdictions selling water for short-term profit? And what about this statistic from wealthy Montecito, California?

The top three users for Montecito in 2012/13 guzzled close to 30 million gallons alone... enough water to provide the needs of a small town

Even the drilling of wells that the well-heeled can afford are acts of massive disrespect of the greater good. The aquifers, quite frankly, cannot take it:

Measurements of water levels in wells throughout the state show that aquifers are being significantly depleted in many areas as more water is drained out than seeps back into the ground.

An analysis of groundwater data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey and two other agencies has found that, of 3,394 wells across the state, water levels declined in about 62 percent of the wells between 2000 and 2013.

As noted by Dennis Dimick in National Geographic

As drought worsens groundwater depletion, water supplies for people and farming shrink.

I am not offering any fresh insights here about the contradictory impulses of human nature; the fact that "some animals are more equal than others" was noted a long time ago by George Orwell and many others. But given the times in which we live, such behaviour does merit increased scrutiny and perhaps even condemnation.

Lest all of the above prove too dispiriting to readers, allow me to leave you with something that should leave us all feeling a mixture of both shame and hope, a captive orangutan sharing its treats with other primates:

Climate Change Adaptation

As the effects of climate change become more pronounced, adaptive measures will need to be taken alongside of measures ameliorating the rate of change (if that is in fact still even possible).

One such step has been undertaken in California, a state that has been especially hard hit by drought. Orange County has undertaken an ambitious waste water recycling regimen that will likely become the norm in other parts of the country and world facing similar conditions.

UPDATED: No Longer The Shape Of Things To Come

It's here, and it is very, very bad.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tip of the hat to my friend LeDaro, whose regular use of video clips on his blog has done a great job in graphically depicting the ever-growing crisis we call climate change.

UPDATE: Here is some grim reading to accompany the above grim video.