Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Investor: Clean Tech Is Only Hope for the Collapsing Economy

ronjon — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0700

As the mortgage and financial crisis continues to notch more victims, the question on many economists' minds is not whether a recession will happen, but how deep it will get and how long it will last. But one prominent voice thinks the high-flying finance industry isn't going to bounce back -- and that we'll need to look elsewhere to set the U.S. economy back on firm footing.

Eric Janszen is an angel investor and founder of the contrarian market website iTulip.com, which The New York Times credited with "accurately predicting that the [internet] bubble would pop." Now Janszen believes the American economy needs a fundamental restructuring away from its foundations in finance, insurance and real estate. His prescription: a new bubble based on green technologies. In a widely discussed Harper's article in February, "The Next Bubble: Priming the Markets for Tomorrow's Crash," Janszen argued that clean tech is the only sector that could create enough "fictitious value" to replace the losses from the housing bubble, if only temporarily. ...

Only Greentech Can Save U.S. Economy, Says Über-Investor

ronjon — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...We need another wealth-generating economic bubble. And that, said Novogratz, must come -- can only come -- from new energy sources and green technology.

"As the price of oil goes up, there's got to be a green revolution. I think of what will be the next driver of the American economy, and it's green energy. That's a huge growth opportunity. It's not about the pollution. It's about the energy. Gas will go to $10 a gallon," he said. ...

The end of the world as we knew it is upon us

ronjon — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0700

The oil age began in 1860. By 2006 the world¹s oil rigs pumped oil at a rate of 85 million barrels a day. They haven¹t come close since, even as prices have risen to more than $100 per barrel. -- Breaking our fossil fuel dependency will require plugging into the grid instead of pulling up to the pump. And there are some interesting energy options and others are doing a lot more about developing them than Americans.

Germany leads the world in its installed capacity of renewable energy sources (25 percent), and is the third largest producer of solar panels after China and Japan. -- The share of electricity generated from renewable sources exceeded 14 percent in 2007, an increase from 11 percent in 2006. This means that Germany has already met the European Union¹s target that 12.5 percent of electricity should come from renewable sources by 2010. -- Enercon, a major wind equipment maker, claims that the renewable-energy business will become a major part of the country¹s manufacturing business, alongside cars and machine tools. Employment in the renewables industry is now 250,000 ands expected to double by 2020. Throughout Germany, around 160 technical institutions are doing research on alternative energy. ...

Transition Network: tackling Peak Oil & Climate Change, together

ronjon — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this big question: for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to:

* significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil)
* drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?

Typically, self-determined solutions will involve some flavour of relocalisation. -- We're building a range of materials, training courses, events, tools & techniques, resources and a general support capability to help these communities. ... We're hoping that through this work, communities across the UK will unleash their own collective genius and embark on an imaginative and practical range of connected initiatives, leading to a way of life that is more resilient, more fulfilling and more equitable, and that has dramatically lower levels of carbon emissions. ...

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 6: THE DYING OCEANS

ronjon — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is Chapter 6 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first five chapters, go to:

• Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
• Chapter 2: The End of Civilization
• Chapter 3: Soil-The Basis of Life
• Chapter 4: The Forest
• Chapter 5: The Phantom Agriculture

I hope you find this book as interesting and important as I have,

~ ronjon

Cogito in the Matrix by Erik Davis

Rich — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:01:15 -0700

Erik Davis is one of the most talented authors writing on the subject of technology, culture, and spirituality. This article from the book prefiguring cyberculture from MIT University Press is representative of the insightful work he has done. The concern of this piece revolves around the construction of subjectivity in an epoch which can perhaps best be called posthuman.rc

Of all the lumbering giants of the Western philosophical tradition, none resembles a punching bag more than René Descartes. He gets it from all sides: cognitive scientists and phenomenologists, post-structuralists and deep ecologists, lefty science critics and New Age holists. The main beef, of course, is the stark divide that Descartes drew between mind and body, a dualism that, by its very claim of rationality, now appears even more obscene than the religious dualisms that stretch back to Zarathustra. Nearly across the board, contemporary thought calls us to defend and affirm the body that Descartes rendered a machine, a soulless automata under our spiritual thumb. It doesn't really matter that the body so affirmed is itself multiple and even contradictory: the materialist object of biology, the phenomenological bed of Being, a feminist site of anti-patriarchal critique, the New Age animal immersed in Gaia's enchanted web. Regardless of the framework, the song remains the same: we are bodyminds deeply embedded in the world. For many thinkers now, the sort of abstract, disengaged soul-pilot pictured by Descartes -- the "I" immortalized in the famous cogito ergo sum -- is not only bad thinking, but, ideologically speaking, bad news.

In many ways I share this urge to trace the networks that embed consciousness in phenomenal reality, and to insist on the extraordinary (though not exclusive) value of causal explanations rooted in the history of matter. But I am no absolutist. The fact that Descartes keeps popping up like a Jack-in-the-box suggests that a splinter of the cogito remains in our minds, some fragmentary intuition or insightful glimpse that we cannot accommodate and so wall off in order to reject. I am not interested in philosophically defending the cogito, or at least the metaphysical cogito we are familiar with: the rational and disengaged instrumentalist manipulating the empty machinery of matter. But I am interesting in probing for that splinter, which I suspect is lodged somewhere in the apparently yawning gap between self-conscious awareness and the phenomenal world -- a gap that, despite some hearty attacks from nondualists East and West, continues to inform subjectivity. ....

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 5: THE PHANTOM AGRICULTURE

ronjon — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is Chapter 5 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first four chapters, go to:

• Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
• Chapter 2: The End of Civilization
• Chapter 3: Soil-The Basis of Life
• Chapter 4: The Forest

I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have,

~ ronjon

The Reason Behind High Oil Prices

ronjon — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic? Consider this: You may not buy gasoline or even eat today, but by next Monday you'll probably have to do both, no matter what it costs. Basically, besides enabling the Fed to bail out Wall Street and our banks again, every time you gas up or eat you may be paying investors to cover other financial losses. We know that investors can't control their losses on mortgages, securities, or bad loans. But, demonstrably, if not restrained they can drive up the price of goods that we can't get out of buying. Odds are, that's what's really been going on. ...

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 4: THE FOREST

ronjon — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is Chapter 4 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first three chapters, go to:

• Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
• Chapter 2: The End of Civilization
• Chapter 3: Soil-The Basis of Life

I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have,

~ ronjon

Happy Days Are Here Again - Not!

ronjon — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...The risk analyst Sayajit Das has had the most insight into the financial markets dimension of this meltdown. Well before the credit crunch hit, he was warning that it was coming and what would bring it on. So what's his take now? That what's happened so far is only phase one in a massive deleveraging of a world addicted to debt. ...

It's a classic asset price cycle. Look at just about every boom and bust cycle in history, and you'll find it was built on cheap credit, easy lending and lax underwriting standards. And this boom was the biggest. The legacy is a burden of household debt without precedent. As real estate prices boomed, households felt wealthier and borrowed against their (inflated) assets. As the price of property soared way beyond the growth in wages, people borrowed more and more to break into the market, running up debts on credit cards to make ends meet. In countries such as the US, where wages were stagnant or falling in real terms, people borrowed against property to maintain their lifestyles.

Now the easy finance is drying up. If there's a serious global downturn that pushes up unemployment rates, it could get ugly, as people unable to service their debts are forced to sell assets causing a further downward spiral. Default rates will rise and financial institutions will suffer further losses. Beyond the household sector, there's the vast army of self-employed workers who set up small businesses after the corporate downsizing cycle of the 1990s. Many borrowed against their homes to do so, and have survived on thin margins during good economic times. In any downturn, they'll be the first to go. ...

Effects of the US recession on Asian growth, by Nouriel Roubini

ronjon — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

In early 2006, economist Nouriel Roubini broke rank from the prevailing consensus opinion and blew the whistle on the US housing bubble and held out grim warnings of a US ‘recession’. That contrarian bearish outlook has been proved spectacularly right two years later, and Roubini, a former White House aide and chairman of the Roubini Global Economics Monitor, is justifiably credited with having first ‘called’ the sub-prime crisis. Here are his latest forecasts:

"In the last few day I have been at the Asian Development Bank meetings in Madrid and then visited Hong Kong and China. I have presented my view on the severity of the US recession and its potential effects on economic growth in China and Asia. Will this region decouple from the US economic contraction?

The answer depends on the severity of this recession. If the US recession is short and shallow (a V-shaped recession lasting six months) then there is enough of a domestic growth dynamics in the rest of the world and in Asia that the global economic slowdown would be very modest. But if the recession is more severe (a U-shaped recession lasting 12 to 18 months) then that US contraction, together with the sharp slowdown in the other G3 economies (a good fraction of the EU could be soon in a recession - specifically UK, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal - and the rest of the EU is sharply slowing down; while Japan is also headed towards a recession) will negatively affect growth in China and Asia, much more than currently expected by macro analysts and markets. Direct and indirect trade channels, financial channels, credit crunch channels, dollar weakness channels and confidence channels would lead to a signifcant slowdown of growth in Asia. ..."

Ethical living: finding a laugh in climate change—by James Russell

RY Deshpande — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:27:54 -0700

Greens have brought much laughter to the world, but most of it has been at their expense. The British comedian, Marcus Brigstocke, says he struggles with this problem on a daily basis, more so since he increased his riffs on global warming in his routines following his 2007 Arctic voyage with Cape Farewell, an organisation that brings together artists and scientists to raise awareness of climate change. “It’s far and away the most difficult comedy subject IR 17;ve ever dealt with,” he says. “It’s tested me to the outer reaches of my ability as a writer.” Mr. Brigstocke is one of a small but growing number of comedians trying to wrestle some humour from climate change. Fellow British comic Rob Newman has been a committed environmental and political campaigner for many years. Recently he was at Hebden Bridge, northern England, doing stand-up at the town’s monthly Climate Chaos Kitchen on the subjects of peak oil and climate change…

Peak oil and The Limits to Growth: two parallel stories

ronjon — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is a good summary of the historical and current scenarios created by computer modeling. All but a few exceptional scenarios continue to show a horrific overshoot of the Earth's ecological carrying capacity and resulting collapse of human population and civilization as we know it. This analysis is by Ugo Bardi, a chemistry professor at the University of Firenze, Italy. ...

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 3: SOIL-THE BASIS OF LIFE

ronjon — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is Chapter 3 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first two chapters, go to:

Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
Chapter 2: The End of Civilization

I hope you find this book as interesting and important as I have, ~ ronjon

Speculators blamed for driving up price of basic foods as 100 million face severe hunger

ronjon — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:00:00 -0700

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation... And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry. -- The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007 ...

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 2: THE END OF CIVILIZATION

ronjon — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:00:00 -0700

This is Chapter 2 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted "Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first chapter (including the Title Pages, Acknowledgements, Introduction & Table of Contents), go to Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have,

~ ronjon

James Howard Kunstler: April 28, 2008 - A Collective Psychic Bubble

ronjon — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:00:34 -0700

...This has been a pretty remarkable month, actually, with all the problems of "The Long Emergency" accelerating impressively. Oil is now testing the $120 mark, the airline industry is imploding (largely over fuel costs), the housing scene has reached a degree of collapse unseen since the 1930s, food shortages have strayed out of the Third World and begun to affect Japan and the USA, bats are dying of a mysterious disease in the Northeast, and the Arctic sea ice is shrinking away to nothing.

We're in a strange collective psychic bubble. We'd like to forget about all these troubling rumors of hardship and bad weather and just get on with the daily task of making a living and paying for stuff and enjoying our customary entertainments. The comforting ceremonies of everyday life seem to continue. The freeways are still full of cars. Nancy Grace comes on TV dependably at 8 p.m. and is there deploring the latest pervert arrest. The baseball season has ramped up and the teams are criss-crossing the nation in their chartered airplanes. The stock market is actually going up -- what's wrong with that?

But there's an equally eerie vibe out there that things are seriously out-of-whack. We're on the edge of something. We're at the entrance of a dark passage where some of the ceremonies of daily life meet resistance. You go to the WalMart and five of your six credit cards are refused. Uh oh. It begins to dawn on you that you're spending a quarter of your take-home pay filling up the gas-tank every week. There's no dial tone when you pick up the telephone. How could all the supermarkets in town be out of rice? The local hospital just declared bankruptcy. The neighbors down the street auctioned off all their furniture in the driveway last week. Why does the cat pick up so many ticks these days? ...

Carbon Dioxide & Methane Rise Sharply In 2007

ronjon — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:04:02 -0700

Last year [2007] alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons... Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase. -- Methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but there’s far less of it in the atmosphere—about 1,800 parts per billion. When related climate affects are taken into account, methane’s overall climate impact is nearly half that of carbon dioxide.

Rapidly growing industrialization in Asia and rising wetland emissions in the Arctic and tropics are the most likely causes of the recent methane increase. said scientist Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. -- ”We’re on the lookout for the first sign of a methane release from thawing Arctic permafrost,” said Dlugokencky. “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”

Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, contains vast stores of carbon. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and permafrost thaws, carbon could seep into the atmosphere in the form of methane, possibly fueling a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise. ...

Recipes for Disaster (NYT Sunday Book Review)

ronjon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...In light of the present [economic] crisis..., however, two eco-millenarian novels — an old one called “Ecotopia,” by Ernest Callenbach, and a new one, WORLD MADE BY HAND (Atlantic Monthly, $24), by James Howard Kunstler — are worth a look...

Literary utopias tend to emerge when an appropriate niche opens up. The niche that suited “Ecotopia” in the early 1970s and the one that now accommodates “World Made by Hand” have certain similarities. Shortages and unrest in the Middle East foreshadow the end of oil. A brewing recession gives rise to doubts about our economic fundamentals. An unpopular president wages an unpopular war. And across the country, a growing eco-consciousness raises hope that a different system might replace classic, marauding American economic progress. ...

"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 1: PATTERN OF THE CRISIS

ronjon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:07:50 -0700

This is Chapter 1 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted "Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). The reprinting has been receiving excellent reviews:

Carolyn Baker in her national daily web site says: "Stunning" "A Masterpiece." "It was thirteen years ahead of its time. Now it is even more relevant. The book that explains the cultural basis of the present planetary crisis. William Kotke has brilliantly articulated what I would not only describe as an ‘encyclopedia of collapse’ but has skillfully depicted a vision of possibility imbedded within the core of apocalypse."

A review at Amazon.Com said: "This is an incredibly well documented and prophetic book. Prophetic in the sense that when I first read it over ten years ago, I was skeptical of many predictions. They have all turned out to come true. This book is indigenous and inspiring in the sense that it offers practical earth friendly strategies that affirm the possibility that man is part OF nature, not apart FROM it. Well written! Real history and facts, vitally relevant, and hence empowering! ..."

This first installment includes the Title Pages, Acknowledgements, Introduction, Table of Contents, and Chapter 1 (of 20): Pattern of the Crisis.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have,

~ ronjon

Anatomy of an Economic Collapse (NYT Sunday Book Review)

ronjon — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:19:43 -0700

...In his brief but brilliant book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash,” [Charles R.] Morris describes how we got into the mess we are in, with bankers making loans that they expected to sell to investors through ever more complex securities...

One of the most important aspects of the financial architecture that is now collapsing was the way it allowed investors to believe they could make perfectly safe investments when they financed very risky loans. Or, as Morris puts it, “Highly rated bonds magically materialize out of a witches’ soup of very smoky stuff.” He adds, “Very big, very complex, very opaque structures built on extremely rickety foundations are a recipe for collapse.”

The collapse is now under way. In recent years Wall Street profits were built on leverage and on taking risks that were obscure both to regulators and even to the top managements of the banks themselves. Every three months now, we see banks disclosing huge losses from risks that they had never admitted they were taking.

No one — not investors, not managers, not regulators — is sure when this process will end. And that uncertainty has created a credit freeze, with lenders reluctant to lend both because they do not know whom they can trust and because they fear they may need the money to cover losses that are yet to materialize. As the recession gathers steam, there are likely to be more corporate failures than there need to be, because credit has gone from virtually free to all but unavailable. ...

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults Recognition and Management

rakesh — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:04:59 -0700

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is considered the most common psychiatric disorder experienced during childhood. Some references indicate an incidence as high as 10% of American school-age children. Most references, however, place the incidence in this age group at around 2%–5%. Approximately 80% of children with ADHD continue to have symptoms of the condition as adolescents, and more than 60% of children experience symptoms as adults. If these estimates are correct, between 2 and 5 million adults who had ADHD as a child continue to be affected by the condition. Many adults with ADHD have not been diagnosed as such.

• "The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future," by SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kotke

ronjon — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:51:51 -0700

I just received an email from SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kotke announcing the publication of the first reprint of his underground classic: "The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future," first published in 1993. I just downloaded the E-book version (for just $6.95) and after a quick scan through its 600+ pages, I'm convinced this is a significant read for those SCIY readers concerned about Earth's sustainability crisis. As an Amazon reviewer said:

"This is an incredibly well documented and prophetic book. Prophetic in the sense that when I first read it over ten years ago, I was skeptical of many predictions. They have all turned out to come true. This book is indigenous and inspiring in the sense that it offers practical earth friendly strategies that affirm the possibility that man is part OF nature, not apart FROM it. Well written! Real history and facts, vitally relevant, and hence empowering! Good medicine for all earthlings. A powerful gift! Thanks Bill!" ...

Shift Scenario: Averting Extinction, by Jim Fournier

ronjon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:43:26 -0700

It may be possible for the global system to undergo a change in state, a fundamental shift from one of increasingly intractable interrelated crises to one characterized by mutually reinforcing synergetic solutions.

The global situation has become like a Gordian knot wherein it appears that all attempts to solve any one crisis in isolation only makes others worse. We face myriad crises, all aspects of an unprecedented breakdown in many global systems that is already coming to a head and will become acute within a decade or less. Spiraling debt, the impending end of abundant oil, global warming, overpopulation, mass extinction and a general acceleration of change verging on chaotic instability can all be seen as part of a pattern of converging indicators at a unique moment in history. Many of these trends (enumerated in more detail below) are still accelerating and are apparently characterized by logarithmic curves...

However, there is another plausible scenario. At a critical point, key trend lines could shift from curving one way, representing ever accelerating but increasingly unstable change, and cross over to begin to curve the other way, representing deceleration toward a state of greater stability. Mathematically, this phenomenon would be described as an S-curve; the point where the curvature changes from facing one way to facing the other is called the "point of inflection". ...

Hybrid power systems for rural Gujarat [and Auroville]

ronjon — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:00:00 -0700

...The Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA) has already received expression of interest from 12 players, which include Supernova, Unitron Energy, Auroville and Vistar Electronics.

The capacity of these aero-generators is 2 Kwh to 10 Kwh and is in the ratio of 60:40, i.e., if the total capacity is 10 Kwh, 6 kwh will be generated by wind while 4 kwh by solar energy. -- These aero generators can be installed on rooftops and they work on solar energy during daytime and on wind at night. ...

Supercooled Ice Breakthrough in Michigan

ronjon — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:22:20 -0700

I recently received an email from my wife's sister, who was forwarded the remarkable images below by a friend living in Michigan. I'm of course wondering if this might be yet another unanticipated effect of global climate change?

Her friend made the following comment:

"Michigan has had the coldest winter in decades. Water expands to freeze, and at Macinaw City the water in Lake Huron below the surface ice was supercooled. It expanded to break through the surface ice and froze into this incredible wave. -- I've seen pictures of this wave phenomena in Antarctica, but in Michigan? Yes, it's been quite a winter..."

Arlington Institute Report on Global Demographic Shifts

ronjon — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:48:23 -0700

...the emergence of a new demographic trend has largely been ignored. Today, worldwide fertility rates are at an all time low, and in the decades following 2050 the global population is actually expected to stabilize and possibly decrease. The two factors driving this new pattern are the emergence of women’s rights on a global scale and the expectation among parents that all their children will survive to maturity.

Fertility rates, the best indicators of long term population changes, refer to the average number of children a woman will have. In order for a given population to replace itself, its fertility rate must be at 2.1 or higher. Graph 1[2] illustrates the decline of fertility rates that has occurred in the last fifty years, and shows projections for the next fifty years. ...

$516 Trillion Deriviatives Bubble a Disaster Waiting to Happen

ronjon — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:35:37 -0700

...a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession...

To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:
• U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
• U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
• Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
• U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
• U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
• World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion

Managing climate change—by Richard Stagg

RY Deshpande — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:55:07 -0700

Managing climate change first appeared in The Hindu dated 13 March 2008 in which the claims and responsibilities of the developing and advanced societies are discussed. “The issue is often portrayed as a battle between the developed and the developing world. Wrong. It is something which affects us all and which we need to address together.” It is a matter of concern for us all—says Sir Richard Stagg who is a career diplomat and British High Commissioner to India.

[Most] Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat

ronjon — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:00:00 -0800

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies published Thursday have concluded...

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.

“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.” ...

Climate experts sound grim warning

RY Deshpande — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:59:01 -0800

Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rainforests, to flash floods and droughts. Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and catastrophic collapse before the end of the century. In a comprehensive study published on Tuesday, the scientists identify the nine areas that are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or “tipping points”, beyond which they will not recover...

Russia to Become an Eco-Village Nation??

William H. Kotke — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:06:26 -0800

Vladimir Putin has indicated full support of Dmitriy Medvedev for the post of President of the Russian Federation. Medvedev, who is presently First Deputy Prime Minister has indicated enthusiastic support for the concept of eco-villages. Medvedev will be the candidate of the Edinaya Rossiya Party. ...

World food stocks dwindling rapidly, UN warns

ronjon — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:00:00 -0800

In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday. -- The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world's total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.

Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil. ...

Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million

ronjon — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 02:00:00 -0800

It happened at an academic conclave in San Francisco. A NASA scientist named James Hansen offered a simple, straightforward and mind-blowing bottom line for the planet: 350, as in parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's a number that may make what happened in Washington and Bali seem quaint and nearly irrelevant. It's the number that may define our future...

We're already at 383 parts per million, and it's knocking the planet off kilter in substantial ways. So, what does that mean?...

It means, Hansen says, that we've gone too far. "The evidence indicates we've aimed too high -- that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2is no more than 350 ppm," he said after his presentation. Hansen has reams of paleo-climatic data to support his statements (as do other scientists who presented papers at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco this month)...

[Hansen says] the weaning has to happen now, and everywhere. No more passing the buck. The gentle measures bandied about at Bali, themselves way too much for the Bush administration, don't come close. Hansen called for an immediate ban on new coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon, the phaseout of old coal-fired generators, and a tax on carbon high enough to make sure that we leave tar sands and oil shale in the ground. To use the medical analogy, we're not talking statins to drop your cholesterol; we're talking huge changes in every aspect of your daily life. ...

Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle by 2010

ronjon — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:00:00 -0800

The chief executive of the Toyota Motor Corporation said Monday that he is pushing his company’s engineers to develop a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle with a lithium-ion battery before 2010, raising the stakes in a race with General Motors...

Mr. Watanabe said he welcomed a competition with G.M., which plans to introduce its own lithium-ion hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt, around 2010. -- He said the contest would help reduce the “negative aspects” of automobiles, and ultimately help the environment.

“To compete against each other” in such a battle “is something to be congratulated,” Mr. Watanabe said through an interpreter. “We dont want to be the loser in that competition, of course.” ...

"Fight Global Warming Now," a DIY handbook by Bill McKibben

ronjon — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:00:00 -0800

In his book Blessed Unrest, our friend Paul Hawken said that the movement that is rising to stop global warming and many other planetary inequities will be the largest our planet has ever seen. We want to give you the tools to ensure he’s right. Only three years ago, global warming was off the radar screen for many Americans. Today, it is in the national spotlight and a diverse network of groups is rising to the challenge of stopping it. Hundreds of colleges and universities are working to become carbon neutral, reducing emissions from campuses to zero. Community organizers in Oakland, New Orleans, Detroit, and elsewhere are taking on polluters and fighting for environmental justice. In Appalachia, rural communities are banding together to fight mountaintop removal, a heartbreaking new method for mining coal from that region. People of faith are organizing their churches, synagogues, and mosques, declaring global warming as the moral crisis of our time. Traditional businesses are greening up, while entrepreneurs are building a clean-energy alternative economy that has the potential to create thousands of new jobs. And this is just the beginning.

In 1968, observing the state of civil rights in America, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.” Today, we are feeling that fierce urgency again for two reasons. The first is that scientists are telling us that we are running out of time even faster than we thought. If we don’t act within the next few years, we won’t be able to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The second reason is a more hopeful one. Recent political changes in Washington DC and around the country have finally created an opportunity for genuine political action on global warming. There is no guarantee that this situation will last. If you’ve been a little paralyzed by the sheer size and horror of global warming, now is the time to start moving forward, fast. ...

US DOE Project Shows New Technology Can Cut Electricity Use

ronjon — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:39:44 -0800

Technology that allows consumers to respond to electricity price increases by cutting back on their usage in real time can lower customers' bills and create significant reductions in demand, a project spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has shown.

On average, consumers who participated in the project saved about 10% on their electricity bills and reduced peak power use by 15%.

The project, dubbed the Pacific Northwest GridWise Demonstration Project, involved two separate studies, both involving consumers in Washington and Oregon. In one study, called the Olympic Peninsula Project, 112 homeowners were given new electric meters, thermostats, water heaters and dryers that could be customized to a particular comfort level. -- Customers could set the devices on a spectrum ranging from complete comfort - meaning the desired temperature would be maintained regardless of the price of electricity - to complete economy. The devices were connected to IBM (IBM) software that automatically lowered the thermostats or shut off water heaters when electricity was most expensive, according to the limits set by the homeowners. ...

Many Biofuels Have More Climate Impact Than Oil

rakesh — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:26:20 -0800

Most crops grown in the United States and Europe to make "green" transport fuels actually speed up global warming because of industrial farming methods, says a report by Nobel prize winning chemist Paul J. Crutzen. ...

Auroville: A new way to live

ronjon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:53:19 -0800

Consisting of more than 100 settlements spread over 20 square kilometers, around 1900 residents from some 40 nations live together as one community in Auroville. Auroville was founded by the ‘Mother’, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, in February 1968 as an international cultural township on the outskirts of Puducherry where a community of people of different nationalities, from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds, could live and work together in a spirit of mutual respect and collaboration.

The true purpose of Auroville is a place for the realization of international understanding, peace and human unity in diversity based upon an inner discovery and transformation of consciousness, the way as shown by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. ...

Climate Change, Courage & Celebration, by Frances Moore Lappe

ronjon — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:57:52 -0800

...I’ve spent much of my life focused on learning that, in regard to world hunger, fear and guilt don’t truly motivate systemic change. Sometimes they have the exact opposite effect. Telling people “no” can intensify our craving, our grasping for even more before it’s all gone.

Yet many impassioned, well-intentioned environmentalists believe that now we must sound the shrillest possible alarm, for Americans are asleep—unaware of the now near certainty that unless we cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or earlier, the consequences of climatic disruption will be catastrophic.

But what if many of our messages are themselves trapped in mechanistic and moralistic thinking that helped get us into this mess in the first place? And what if, to make this historic turn seem possible—even compelling—we changed the way we talk and think about it?

Instead of scolding people for being wasteful, we encourage ourselves and others to shed a belief system that denies us power and happiness, and keeps us on a treadmill wasting the Earth’s plenty. In that inefficient system, only 6 percent of the material extracted and processed actually ends up in products we use. Rather than “power down” we can offer ways to “align with the Earth’s answers.” After all, the sun provides daily doses of energy 15,000 times what we currently use from fossil sources. The message might also shift from “simplify” to enrich and diversify as we make new connections in our heads and in our communities, as we learn new skills and ways of being. The challenge becomes less about restriction and more about trusting our common sense and curiosity. ...

'Tipping Points' in Global Climate Change: Latest report from AGU SF Mtg. of Dec.07

ronjon — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:28:02 -0800

This recent report, from the session on 'Tipping Points' at the important Dec.07 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, illustrates the complexity of current technical discussions about the validity of the increasingly disruptive climate change scenarios being projected by various Climate Change computer models. The bottom line is that our models may be seriously underestimating the rapidly of the coming changes, as indicated in the previously posted article re the melting of arctic sea ice. ~rj

...In Hansen's talk, he did try to clarify what he meant by a tipping point. His notion of this has less to do with what mathematicians understand as "bifurcations," and more to do with a kind of inertia in the climate system. He means things like having passed a threshold of CO2 which, given warming in the pipeline and the lifetime of CO2, commits a certain discrete event — e.g. loss of perennial sea ice or the Amazon rainforest– to occurring even if we were to later reduce emissions to zero. He tried to distinguish between reversible and irreversible tipping points...

...where things get interesting is where you try to explain a magnitude of signal this big in terms of basic physics. This is important because there is a perception that GCM's vastly underestimate the amplitude of the response to total solar luminosity, leading to a perception that there is some "missing physics" (whether it be exotic amplification of a stratospheric response, or something like clouds and cosmic rays)...

But — the take-home point is that at this point the study of solar cycle response very strongly supports the notion that there is no need to invoke any mysterious or exotic missing physics (like cosmic ray modulation of clouds) in order to represent the response of climate to solar variability. If some models underestimate the response, this is likely to have more to do with errors in the vertical mixing of heat than any missing fundamental physics. ...

Could Arctic summers be ice-free 'by 2013' !?

ronjon — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:32:36 -0800

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. -- Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.

Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times. -- Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC. -- "So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative." ...

Nanosolar begins large-scale printing of revolutionary non-silicon 'nano-ink' PV

ronjon — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:57:59 -0800

Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap... Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar [has] created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality... With backing from Google’s founders and $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year.

Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity... even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy... To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt. Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt.

“You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.” ...

The Malthusian energy-trap: old Europe, new China

ronjon — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:25:58 -0800

Thanks to Rich for recommending the excellent openDemocracy.net, in which this article appeared. ~ ronjon

The price of oil is approaching $100 a barrel, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is accumulating faster than the most pessimistic scenarios are predicting, anthropogenic climate change is occurring. The recognition that the world's scientists, diplomats and media gathered at the Bali climate-change summit are arguing over - the necessity of moving beyond dependency on a fossil-fuelled, carbon-emission-based global economy - is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Where is leadership in the quest for a new model to come from? The results of a BBC opinion-poll inviting the views of 22,000 people in twenty-one countries, released in November 2007, included the striking discovery that the Chinese were the most willing to change their lifestyle and accept higher energy prices in order to save the environment. ...

U.S. Resists Calls for Emission Cuts, Threatening [Bali] Climate Talks

ronjon — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:06:48 -0800

The U.S. is resisting calls from the European Union and developing nations to commit to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming, threatening progress on a new accord to fight climate change.

Ministers from more than 130 nations are meeting in Indonesia this week to decide on guidelines for two years of talks to write a successor to the Kyoto climate-change treaty, which expires in 2012. The European Union, a group of 77 developing nations and China say they want industrialized countries including the U.S. to agree to reduce emissions by as much as 40 percent by 2020.

The Bush administration says talks should begin without a set emission target. Without U.S. support, the negotiations may not be completed in time to replace the Kyoto treaty, said Munir Akram, a Pakistan ambassador and spokesman for the group of 77 nations. The lack of an emission-cut target threatens investment in power and carbon-trading markets, UN officials say. ...

Gore Urges Bold Moves in Nobel Speech

ronjon — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:39:30 -0800

OSLO, Dec. 10 — He has said it again and again, with increasing urgency, to anyone who will listen. And on Monday, former Vice President Al Gore used the occasion of his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize lecture here to tell the world in powerful, stark language: Climate change is a “real, rising, imminent and universal” threat to the future of the Earth.

Saying that “our world is spinning out of kilter” and that “the very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed,” Mr. Gore warned that “we, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here.” But, he added, “there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst — not all — of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.”

The ceremony marking the 2007 prize, given to Mr. Gore and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comes as representatives of the world’s governments are meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali to negotiate a new international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The new treaty would replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. ...

The Presidential Climate Action Project

ronjon — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:34:53 -0800

...Leading climate experts estimate that the international community has 10 years to make dramatic changes in greenhouse gas emissions if we wish to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. A similar need for action in the next decade is being created by the growing international competition for oil, the approaching peak in world petroleum production and America’s increasing dependence on oil from unstable or hostile regions. Left unaddressed, these problems may create unprecedented economic and environmental hardships and increasing global tensions.

By the time the 44th President takes office, the window of opportunity to prevent these crises will be one-third gone. The people of the United States, as well as other nations, will be looking for an early indication of whether the President intends to lead the world’s largest energy-consuming and greenhouse-gas emitting nation on a responsible course of action.

To help the President launch effective Federal leadership on these issues, the University of Colorado and several partner organizations are engaging the nation’s science, policy, business and civic leaders to produce a Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP). ...

Xohm's law: Can WiMAX defeat cellular’s resistance to change?

ronjon — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:00:00 -0800

...What makes WiMAX so special? Think of it as WiFi’s big brother. But where a wireless network in a home, hotel lobby, airport lounge or coffee shop can provide reliable wireless connections at speeds of one or two megabits per second over distances of a few hundred feet, WiMAX is good for at least 10 megabits per second over five miles or more. Better still, in its latest guise, WiMAX can “hand off” connections from one radio tower to the next as users roam around—just like a cellular network.

WiMAX can thus fill the gaps in internet coverage, especially in rural areas and developing countries, where laying cables or telephone lines is too expensive. WiMAX can also provide internet access to mobile users from nearly anywhere. That opens up a whole new market for mobile carriers as well as for makers of internet-access equipment and suppliers of web services.

But WiMAX is not just for people on the move or in remote places. It can also provide internet connectivity to all sorts of devices. Intel wants to put its cheap WiMAX chips in traffic lights, surveillance cameras, television sets and medical equipment. Expect to see them also in digital cameras, iPods and dozens of other portable gizmos. ...

New Climate Change Performance Index: Sweden Best, US Second Worst

ronjon — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:00:00 -0800

A new report rates the climate-protection performance of 56 countries that account for 90 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. While Germany came in at second best, the US ranked second worst.

Traditionally, environmentalists have reserved the majority of their climate-related bile for those countries belching the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But with the world gathered in Bali this week (more...) to figure out a way to combat climate change, the annual Climate Change Performance Index, released on Friday, once again reminds us that other factors should be taken into account.

When government policy and long-term trends are considered, Germany rises all the way to second place on the list, which ranked the biggest emissions offenders in the industrialized world -- meanwhile, weak policies in the US are only enough to lift it from last place to second-to-last.

The index, compiled by Germanwatch, a nonprofit climate research institute based in Berlin and Bonn, evaluates and ranks the climate-protection performance of 56 industrialized nations that account for 90 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. On this year's list, Sweden retained the top spot, while Saudi Arabia was deemed the most irresponsible emitter among the world's major economies. ...

Electricity Revives Bali Coral Reefs

ronjon — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:30:52 -0800

Just a few years ago, the lush coral reefs off Indonesia's Bali island were dying out, bleached by rising temperatures, blasted by dynamite fishing, and poisoned by cyanide.

Now they are coming back, thanks to an unlikely remedy: electricity. ...

Forecast of Major Financial Disruption

ronjon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:25:18 -0800

...The actual solvency of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is relatively indecipherable due to the fact that their treasury management processes (and the risks of their own investment strategies) are not uniformly disclosed with sufficient transparency. The FDIC was set up for isolated problems with a few bad banks but is NOT prepared to “insure” the system in an industry-wide crisis. The actual liquidity reserve of the “insurance” that Americans view as their safety net is 1/100th the actual exposure of outstanding deposits. The actual coverage ratio for the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) fell below 1.25% in 2002, the same year that less stable credit practices were adopted by America’s leading banks.

The funny part is that the Federal Government will be on holiday when all of this happens. There will be no one to put freeze actions and moratoria on actions. The only way you stop the cataclysm is to put together civil actions on deposit withdrawals.

As I discussed previously, the Chinese currency wild-card may become relevant far sooner than expected. An effort by China to convert its $1.4 trillion U.S. Treasury holdings into euros is not viable for many reasons – not the least of which is the European Central Bank’s inability to absorb such an event. As China continues its rush away from supporting U.S. Treasuries and as Middle Eastern investors are buying them up in more diversified holdings, a new “currency exchange” is unfolding. Realizing that they cannot liquidate their holdings, it appears that the Chinese are currently using their U.S. Treasury holdings as collateral for euro denominated purchases and long term infrastructure transactions. In other words, they may be “liquidating” their holdings as collateral and, in so doing, effectively migrating to non-dollar value without ever having to officially dump their current Treasury holdings. ...