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Burning Trees
If you want to see what poverty looks like, go to Haiti. This country ranks high on the bad list. You can see it from the air. There is no money for fuel to cook with, so they burn charcoal. Whole areas have been denuded over the years. A few pics of the transition from the Dominican Republic to Haiti:
I talked with a friend in Athens today, we spoke about the terrible air quality conditions in China. He said that Athens was suffering a similar problem. Smog, caused by people burning wood to heat homes is the issue in Greece. My friend mused:
China's rapid industrialization has created its problem, in Greece, we have the same problem, for the opposite reason. China has a booming economy and smog. Greece has a collapsing economy and smog.
The WSJ had a story on this topic, the trees are falling in Greece:
Zero Hedge wrote about the Greeks burning their trees. This Blog has an interesting perspective on life in Athens these days. A pic, and the authors caption:
This bit of modern insanity is brought to you by the technocrats in Brussels. They created a system a dozen years ago that was never intended to work in a country like Greece. It was doomed from the start. As painful as it might be for Mario Draghi, and those who still believe in the Euro Uber Alles, the reality is that the only way out for Greece, is a an exit from the Euro.
If Greece did take the bold step of divorcing a bad partner, it would bring additional pain to the citizens. The wood fires would become more necessary, more trees would have to come down. But there would at least be a future, where today there is just soot and and no hope.
A question for readers in Spain: Are trees getting cut for firewood, as is happening in Greece?
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The French people are very xenophobic, in general. I would not choose France as my first refuge from the Americam mess. The French government and all EU governments essentially have the same procedures, which take time. As a US citizen, you can come to EU land and stay for three to six months without a visa. If you intend to stay, rent a place to live and go visit the local mayor's office, where you register and file for a temporary residency visa. After a certain amount of time, you can then file for a permanent residency permit, whuch also give you a work permit, if needed. After a period of years, you can apply for citizenship.
I am fuzzy on the lengths of time because I took a different path but what is stated above is generally valid.
One very new shortcut to the process is buying in. Spain, Portugal and Ireland will grant you a permanent residency, if you buy a home for €160,000, €400,000 or €500,000, respectively. I am working on this method for my son, who escaped USA and now lives in Cambodia. He loves Cambodia but I will feel more secure if he also has permanent EU status.
The difficulty is not finding a sympathetic host country but shedding the burden of being born in the USA. The USA and Eritrea are the only two countries that claim to have the right to tax you wherever you live. As more and more people escape and renounce citizenship, the USA makes it more and more difficult but it is still possible. Again, it takes time measured in years but for me, it is the best thing I ever did for myself.
Asylum is the path I took but as a US citizen you must have a very strongly documented legal case and high political connections to support your claim.
One other method, which many people use is to marry a local.
Long rocket mass heaters!
http://www.oasisdesign.net/energy/woodheat/index.htm
I already have a long rocket.. looks a little different
Not after 4 hours---otherwise call your Doctor
deforestation is an old "tell" in human history...akin to selling the family jewels.
I forget the name of the island, but after deforestation occurred there the people descended into cannablism.
in present times, a local insult goes "the flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth"
Overshoot.
Easter Island.
The recent views on Easter Island is that the Polynesian settlers brought rats with them (as livestock, not as stowaways) and the rats ate the seeds of the tropical plants, leading to the loss of forests over centuries.
It is disputed whether the people cannabalised each other, or whether they were doing fine until Europeans brought diseases with them, and then the Spaniards enslaved the remainder to work the silver mines.
From the Greek blog "The government increases heating oil by 48% and collects 75% less tax"
And proves that those in power are complete and utter idiots
Perhaps the government is removing subsidies on heating fuel (because it can no longer afford to hold the prices down)?
I can only speak with any authority on the UK, but who needed proof?
I have never been to Greece but from the photos I have seen, there doesn't look to be that many trees in that neck of the woods.
Don't they have some reserves of natural gas in the Aegean they can tap into? What about methane from the bottom of the Black Sea? There must be something else they can do is my point.
:/
They are, it's called cold fusion. And it threatens the nuclear industry at a time when they have over extended themselves without results in hot fusion, or the reuseing of fissionable material until it's completely burnt off. They have yet to acknowledge the failure in hopes that further stimulus will solve the problem.
A cold fusion reactor capable of focusing the resulting neutron flux would make a scary-ass weapon. A Star Trek style death ray that can kill off a city (without damaging the buildings) would make truth out of the Borg saying "resistance is futile". Despite the advantages of cheap energy I hope the technology is a long way off.
I'm fairly certain America has nuetron bombs that do that already.
What part about no money for fuel you don't get? They are burning anything that is free.
so they're burning Euros from the ECB?
Those Euros don't go to the Greeks, they go to their loansharks.
From the photos it looks as if the US Border Patrol could take a lesson from Dominican Republic on how to keep out the unwashed (or keep the tax slaves in, as the real case may be).
Bilbo is that Mordor?
Third World here we come.
What is the BTU value of a wooden nickle?
Certainly more than a $1 trillion platinum coin...
God article Bruce. Another reason for the mass migrations we have been seeing the past decade.
what about Bejing China, their smog made the MSM reports in this country. the interesting thing about global warming is that higher Co2 levels promote new plant growth, so maybe the planet can adjust, and the more new vegetation we have, the more wood all of us can burn. could it be a firewood bubble?
Do you think that there might be some other things necessary for biomass growth than just Co2? I don't know, perhaps WATER and MINERALS?
The earth has a built-in recycling mechanism whereby constant rains erode soils, which then leads to an excess of Co2 in the atmosphere. This sets up a HUGE climate shift in which glaciers are formed, and it's the receding of the glaciers that effectively re-tills the soil for another big growth cycle. Based on the actors in this equation it should be clear that humans DO have an effect, the only question is how much (do we speed up the cycle by 10%, or 1% [or less] etc etc).
BTW - It's not an issue of the "planet" adjusting, the planet will be fine.
it's already been proven that higher CO2 levels do not promote faster plant growth-if you were raised in a pure O2 evironment as a child would you be 6 ft tall at age 6? nein
Otto, plants cannot grow when carbon is NOT present. No plants, no food for anyone including "food" animals.
tell that to these guys:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1804.html
If a tree falls but humans are extinct does it make a sound?
This is why the misnomer "Bleeding Heart Liberal" boils my blood. This outcome was predictable.
I think most liberals do not apply themselves to really think through the unintended consequences; they really believe they are making a good decision (speaking of the general citizenship, not the Krugmans of the world).
But when the stakes are this high, ignorance is not a good excuse...the human suffering was/is unnecessary.
Because I'm a "bleeding heart" person, I'm a libertarian
The difference between a 85 IQ country and a 93 IQ country.
Save a tree, burn a Banker.
Heck, the hillsides in Andalucía and southern Greece kind of looked like Haiti years ago..
Hate to see what they’ll look like in a year or two.