Vietnam, Hoi An Weather

Vietnam, Hoi An Weather

Whatsorb

Thanks for reading our stories about the weather. I think in all cultures small talk about the weather is a popular subject.

At the moment talks about the weather has a changed ‘tone’. It’s more tensed! It’s now about climate change! We all have our opinions about it and at the moment there seems to be two camps. The one who believes humans are the cause of changed weather patterns. The other camp seems to think it has always been there. Why not to say that both are true?

Below I will give you my idea about the changing world of weather and climate, the consequences and what we have to do!

My idea!

I want to start with writing to you and our politicians that it doesn’t matter so much what the reason is why our climate is changing. Start doing something instead of wasting time! There is a lot of unemployment in the world. Creating jobs in a new sector as alternative energy doesn’t harm! For the US and other countries it could be a wonderful solution for their unemployment problem. It could help people giving a job which they lost by all the business who outsourced their activities or collapsed because of the greed of their CEO’s and stockholders. In mean time we can blame each other who is polluting the most, the longest and who has to pay the bills.

• First of all what do we really know about our climate? What do we know about El Nino, La Niña, volcanic activity, the Pacific and Atlantic conveyor belt, earth quakes and the sun activity which all can influence weather patterns?

• Second what do we know about short and long time changes in weather and even in climate change?

• Third, what do we know about human interference in nature, ecology, changes in the economy and exhausting of agricultural land?

I believe history can tell us a lot about our future. For example:

• The Wary (Pre Inca) civilization disappeared because of economically problems, decrease of the population and the effects of El Nino!

• The Maya’s created big draughts and lost of crops because they were cutting so many trees for building temples and creating agricultural land.

• The Tiwanaca and Akkad experienced big draughts around 2200 BC. Coursed by a change in rain patterns.

Same for the ‘Old World’ in Egypt. The Sahara started and the population migrated to live along the Nile.

• The Roman Empire. Struggle for power, big land owners suppressed the population. Religious problems. Economical downturn, climate change, exhaustion of the soil, collapse of prices, social unrest.

• The Vikings concurred other territories because a lack of food. Vikings living on Island where cutting too much wood and created land erosion followed by famine.

• In China between 25 and 1644 a lot of dynasties disappeared because of a decrease in temperature. There where food shortages in China and Mongolia. Mongols attacked China in their search for food!

• India had around the 17^th and 18^th century had a big population. There was a lot of pressure on the food supply. A change in monsoon patterns resulted in miss harvest and feminine.

• Between 1600 and 1604 there was a food shortage in Russia caused by an outburst of the Huaynaputina volcano. The following winters were very cold and the summers to wet. Crops got lost! The economy collapsed because of speculations with food. People left villages and went on a rampage in other villages and towns.

• Recently the world temperature went down because of outbursts of big volcanoes. Especially between 1809 and 1815.

• Between 1995 and 2006 the temperature went up in an unusually way. The average temperature went up with 0, 74 C. The sea level rose with 17 cm. Changes in ice covering at the polar area’s, temperature change, salt concentration differences in the oceans, changes in air flows, draughts, intense cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons.

• It was 125.000 years ago that polar area’s heated up for a longer time and the sea level rose between 4 and 6 meters.

Consequences:

If our land ice is melting - for what ever reason - (glaciers, Antarctica, Green land) sure some people have to move!

If there is no rain anymore in some areas, sorry people you have to move!

You live in Vietnam like me, sorry Hans if you would make it till the end of this century your families in the Red River Delta and Mekong Delta have to move.

You live in the Netherlands!? Give me a break! Who decided to live in an area which is for 2/3 below sea level!??

Reading all above I come to the conclusion that

ü      Change in weather patterns have always been there.

ü      Civilizations always came, prospered and disappeared for economical, political, social unrest, natural and climate change reasons.

Do you see similarity with above and the time we are now living in?

What makes it extra difficult now is that:

v     Nowadays our whole way of life is based on fossil fuel and we are yet with 7 billion people and growing!?

v     We live in a globalized world.

v     We believe technical solutions will be a way out in our engineered Western society!

I believe with basic resources in decline - drinking water, food, fuel for heating & cooking - we have to accept that somewhere in the near future tension about above will raise and could lead to what happened in the past.

The good thing is that new cultures & civilizations arise and are building on past obtained knowledge and mistakes.

This is the respiration of our world and universe which is called evolution!

What to do?

Try to survive the transmission from the time were we live in now to the next ‘step’ as good as possible. That means that every step done in finding and developing new techniques, living in a sustainable way, bringing back diversity etc will help future ‘civilizations - your grand children -  to continue life in a more balanced way with each other and with nature!

How Societies Choose

One more thing!

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequences:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;

2. from spiritual faith to great courage;

3. from courage to liberty;

4. from liberty to abundance;

5. from abundance to complacency;

6. from complacency to apathy;

7. from apathy to dependence;

8. from dependence back into bondage”

Given the nature of our elections, it’s evident we’re somewhere in complacency/ apathy/dependence stage. 

Is free health care, government run education, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and perhaps one day soon, a free Soviet-style bread line worth it?