The Wall

                                                       A Wall?

The secret is out. Someone here in the United States is determined to build a wall that will serve to protect us all from the dangers of uninvited  individuals who are 'flooding our country, causing alarm and danger to our democratic system and economy'. This wall will be built in a short time and paid for by the country that is sending these people to us. Details might be released in a few weeks. Maybe not.

 Wall of China

    Building walls and barriers is not really anything new. Walls have been used for decades. Many exist today. Everyone has heard of the famous Wall of China, built in the 14th century to stop the attacking nomadic tribes of the time. This huge barrier was 8,550 km, or 5,313 miles in length. The largest man-made barrier built.It’s still standing, but people have found other ways to get in to China..

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Berlin Wall

    The world-famous Berlin Wall was built with a different function in mind. It was erected to keep residents
in! Too many Eastern Germans were escaping to the Western side of the Berlin citylimits after WWII, and the wall stopped their immigration from tyranny. Residents on both side of the wall rebelled and, in time, forced the wall to be destroyed.Meanwhile, western German residents decorated the stark ediface with mocking graffitti before it's demise.

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    A seventy-five mile wall, known as the Hadrian

Hadrian Wall

Wall was built in England to protect their colony of Britiannia from the invasions of Scottish tribes.This wall was the north-west frontier of the Roman empire for nearly three hundred years.Built by the Roman army on the orders of the emperor Hadrian in AD 122, Hadrian’s Wall was made a World Heritage Site in 1987.
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Even in the US, The United States erected a wall dividing the border between Mexico  and the southern border of the US designed to control many immigrants who still wish to work in American fields and domestic services in order to help support their Mexican families back home. In the north, our US  Canadian border is 5,525 miles long, while our southern

border with Mexico is 1,989 miles erected on  a variety of terrain easily crossed in many locations. One southern section of our existing barrier, this desert wall runs through  ‘The Cactus Pipe National Park”.

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Another portion of the Brownsville, Texas barrier protects Americans from southern immigrants with a ‘moveable wall’. A Texas farmer is able to move a section of ‘The Wall’ to provide new grazing areas for his

farm animals, temporarily separating his horse from the barn for the moment.

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 Another section of ‘The Wall’  runs through a resident’s Texas back-yard.

Both are sections of a barricade between the US and Mexican territory covering 1,254 miles of  The Rio Grande River area.

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In Europe,

   “I can’t see a need for a fence”, Rune, the mayor of the Soer-Varanger region on the Russian-Norwegian border, told Reuters. “There are too many fences going up in Europe today.”
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Immigrants crossing into Norway.

Among our European friends, immigration has become a problem as residents are attempting to

escape war-torn countries. To ease the country’s burden of these immigrants, Russian authorities have given bicycles to escaping travelers, urging them to continue their journey into Norway. Norway has recently decided to secure that portion of this Russian-Norway border with added border security and a new fence border.This steel fence is expected to be 600 feet long and eleven feet high.

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Barriers and walls have been utilized for ages to control tribal conflicts. Raids were frequently small groups of raiders, rather then large armies, and shorter length of earth or available material served as defense and usually a deterrent.  Until the 9th century,  Scandinavian people lived in

small Germanic kingdoms and chiefdoms .  The Scandinavian people   appeared as a group separate from other Germanic nations, and at this time there was a noticeable increase in war expeditions (Viking raids) on foreign countries from the seas, which were easier to travel than Europe's inland forests.

Queen Thyra ordering the Danevirke.

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Linear earth barriers built for defense.

Legends mention a queen named Thyra, who ordered a barrier known as“The Danevirke”, to be built in the mid 930s. "Dane’s Dyke” was constructed to control the sea-borne Vikings who used their shore as a landing area. Mounds of earth in long banks were constructed to control the invader’s landing site  providing defending archers higher ground upon which they could attack the invaders who were forced to file through the narrowed approaches, providing easier targets.
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Swedish Götavirke barrer

Remains of Götavirke at the farm of Hageby, in Östergötland. In this image the remains of the dyke run from the bottom right up towards the trees and parallel with the road.
Remains of these barriers or walls have worn down in time, becoming part of the current European landscape and history. It is difficult to imagine the proposed "barriers" proposed in our country to be seen in the future as our scenery or landscape.

 US and Mexican border area.

 Perhaps, there is another way. 

What Could Go Wrong?

The Olympics are over and all events have been completed and evaluated. Competitors trained for years to reach their peak and expected a successful ‘finish’. After all that work, what could go wrong?

A high-diving athlete had trained for years, perfecting a polished routine. The graceful approach to the board was as expected and the diver poised and tested the board with little bounces.Then, something unexpected happened. The diver slipped, falling off the the board, and attempting to regain control, plunged into the
water much as a common cannonball . After all that practice and expecting to score highly, the scoreboard recorded “Zero”. With high expectations, what went wrong?

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The US men’s relay confidently ran their event after long hours of perfecting their time and technique and were happily expecting to, at least, qualify for a medal. Looking at their scoreboard, they were shocked to see “DQ”- “Disqualified” . Electronic monitors detected that

the baton was,at one time, exchanged  outside of the designated exchange area. After all that practice, how could that happen? No one could possibly expect these results. All preparations and routines seemed to be progressing smoothly.  Who knew?

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This has been a very unusual year. Record-high temperatures in one area, floods caused by unusually extreme rain amounts for others while  another area suffers drought conditions all within our US boundaries. While some will say “There’s the way it goes. Just a cycle”, others suspect “There’s something in the air.”  Climatologists have recorded changes in the atmosphere and the presence of heavy smog at times.  We enjoy the products and tend to think these good conditions will never end. But, perhaps, the unexpected is happening.

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Smog is a type of air pollutant. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century as a combination of

the words ‘smoke and fog’ sometimes known as 'pea soup' fog, a familiar and serious problem in London from the 19th century to the mid 20th century. Much like our Olympics, factories around the world have been accelerating their production  for public consumption and profit . Cars and traffic have provided happy travelers and all is well until we begin to see air quality change and problems grow. Who knew this could be a problem?

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Our politicians protect constituents' business interests and are naturally slow to suggest changes,

but changes are ‘in the wind’. Solar and wind energy have been topics of discussion to lessen the need for fossil fuel, but even Wisconsin is reported to be at the bottom in both projects according to the American Wind Energy Association. Electric cars are being produced and improved. Drivers of these ‘electric powered ‘ vehicles comment on high horse-power, but disappointed in range of travel and improvements are desired. The change from ‘fossil fuel’ is slow. Our ‘overseas’ relatives seem to be more highly ‘energized’ to make the change. They seem to know!

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The Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfven, has announced that his country will work towards becoming "one of the first fossil fuel-free welfare states in the world," in a speech to the UN General Assembly.

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 Nordic countries already lead the world in renewable energy, with Sweden generating around two-thirds of its electricity through renewable sources.
On one unusually windy day in July, Denmark produced 140 per cent of its electricity needs through wind power alone, exporting the rest of the energy to its neighbors, Germany, Sweden and Norway (one of the biggest oil producers in the world).

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 Almost 100 per cent of Iceland's electricity comes from renewable sources, due to its investment in hydropower and geothermal energy production.Nordic countries already lead the world in renewable energy, with Sweden generating around two-thirds of its electricity through renewable sources

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 But the change is not cheap nor easy.

Making the jump to eradicating fossil fuels entirely in Sweden is a much more difficult task altogether.

In a speech to the Swedish Parliament in which he announced these green policies, Löfven said: "Children

should grow up in a toxin-free environment. The removal of dangerous substances and the idea that the polluter should pay are the basis of our politics."

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In Sweden's planned budget, the government announced it would allocate 4.5 billion kronor next year to  funding  solar panels and wind turbines that will utilize a smarter energy grid and energy storage system. They are getting serious!

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Perhaps this will send an "important signal" to the West. In 1917, Alexander Graham Bell suggested the use of  ethanol from corn, wheat and other foods as an alternative to coal and oil, stating that the world was in ‘measurable distance’ of depleting these fuels. Biofuel and Ethanol are plant-derived gasoline substitutes for powering vehicles.Even algae can be a biofuel  derived from algae( produced quickly in Olympic diving pools, much to the chagrin of RIO Olympic officials). Geothermal energy of the earth's internal heat can be used  to boil water for heating buildings or generating electricity. There are several sources of alternative energy available to replace our fossil fuels.

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Perhaps concentrating on these sources might improve our environment before we find our aquatic athletes diving into pristine green water while‘scoring a zero’ and track-runners unable to see in the smog and we realize that we can no longer cleanly ‘hand off the baton’ to the next generation.

Maybe we already know!