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Timothy Wilken

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ORTEGRITY

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Buckminster Fuller

Food for Thought

In this week's guest article, we continue a theme I mentioned a few weeks ago: agricultural needs are going to be a new and important force in the world, and when coupled with energy may shift the balance of power in the world in strange a different ways. What countries are truly the have and have nots of the world? Good friend and business partner Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners suggests we look at the old equation in a new way? Food and energy resources may be at least part of the definition in the future. When, as Niels points out, Afghanistan poppy farmers are shifting to wheat farming, the world is truly a different place. I think you will find the research he has done to be truly worth a few minutes of your thinking time. And as a preface, I was reminded a little while ago that a Financial Times headline story last Friday mentioned that China is buying African farmland and building massive amounts of railroads and infrastructure to get grains to the market. I have long been bullish on African farmland. This week's article by Niels Jensen will tell you why. (05/15/08)

End Logging the Rain Forest NOW!

BBC Nature -- The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said. He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests. The prince told the BBC that the forests provided the earth's "air conditioning system". He said it was "crazy" the rainforests were worth more "dead than alive" to some of the world's poorest people. The world's forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils. ... In an interview to mark BBC World Service's Amazon Day, Prince Charles said: "When you think they [rainforests] release 20 billion tonnes of water vapour into the air every day, and also absorb carbon on a gigantic scale, they are incredibly valuable, and they provide the rainfall we all depend on." He said a way had to be found to ensure people living in the rainforest were adequately rewarded for the "eco-system services that their forest provides the rest of the world".  "The trouble is the rainforests are home to something like 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the world. In order to survive there has to be an effort to produce things which tends to be at the expense of the rainforest. "What we've got to do is try to ensure that those forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment there's more value in them being dead. This is the crazy thing." The prince called on governments, big business and consumers to demand an end to logging in the rainforest. (05/15/08)

Humans Faced Extinction 70,000 years ago

CNN -- The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence. "Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA." ... Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Don't Miss The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal. The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago. ... Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, asked, "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?" Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (05/14/08)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

BBC Biological Science -- The UK's only mountain dwelling species of butterfly could be wiped out in Scotland because of climate change, experts have warned. Warmer temperatures are driving the mountain ringlet higher up hillsides in the search for cooler conditions. Butterfly Conservation Scotland (BCS) has appealed to the public to report sightings as part of a Scottish Natural Heritage-funded project. People are also asked to look for northern dart and netted mountain moth. Paul Kirkland, BCS director, said ringlet faced a very real threat. ... The flip side of global warming has seen species which have died out in the south surviving in Scotland. They include chequered skipper butterfly, Kentish glory and New Forest Burnet moth. Mr Kirkland said: "There are already parts of Scotland harbouring butterflies that have become extinct in England, and the largely unspoilt landscape found in the uplands is an increasingly important habitat. "It is essential that we find out exactly what is hiding in the hills." There are 33 species of butterfly that regularly breed in Scotland and about 1,300 species of moths. (05/14/08)

Research Courses on Spirituality, Theology and Health

Duke University  Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health will be hosting two 5-day summer research courses on July 21-25, 2008 and August 11-15, 2008. Each course will focus on how to conduct research on religion, spirituality and health, and how to develop an academic career in this area. Leading religion-health researchers from Duke, University of North Carolina, University of South Carolina, and elsewhere will give presentations. There will also be time to discuss individual research projects with them. ... The courses are open to all interested in conducting scientific research or academic work in this area, regardless of level of training. Established researchers, new investigators, and students are welcome, including those in medicine, nursing, psychology, sociology, chaplaincy, theology, pastoral counseling, public health, or other related disciplines. Basic and advanced materials will be presented, depending on the needs of participants. Topics that will be covered include: Previous research on religion, spirituality and health Strengths and weaknesses of previous research Applying findings to clinical practice Spirituality of the health care provider Theological considerations and concerns  Highest priority studies for future research Strengths and weaknesses of religion/spirituality measures Designing different types of research projects Qualitative research Carrying out and managing a research project Writing a grant to NIH or private foundations Where to obtain funding for research in this area Writing a research paper for publication; getting it published Presenting research to professional and public audiences Working with the media Developing research and academic careers in this area  The courses will take place in Durham, North Carolina, during the summer of 2008 as noted above. (05/14/08)

Out of Gas and Superpowerless!

Tom Engelhardt of Tom Dispatch.com writes: These days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday -- $123 -- on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of "superspike" in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling "within two years." And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off. Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished. Today, it's hard even to remember not 9/11, but 11/9 -- November 9, 1989 -- the day that the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that, soon enough, after its seventy-odd year life, that Reaganesque Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, was heading for the door. In 1991, it disappeared from the face of the Earth without a whimper. Until almost the last moment, top officials in Washington assumed it would go on forever; and, when it was gone, most of them couldn't, at first, believe it. Soon enough, however, the event was hailed as the greatest of American triumphs -- "victory" not just in the Cold War, but at a level never before seen. Finally, for the first time in history, there was but a single superpower on the planet. At the dawn of a new century, the administration of George Bush the younger, packed with implacable former Cold Warriors, came to power still infused with that sense of global triumphalism and planning to rollback what was left of the old Soviet Union, an impoverished Russia, into an early grave. Almost seven and a half years later, as Michael Klare so vividly indicates below, an observer might be pardoned for wondering whether there hadn't been two super losers in the Cold War. Had the Soviet Union, the weaker of the two great powers of the second half of the last century, simply imploded first, while the U.S., enwreathed in a cloud of self-congratulation, was almost unbeknownst to itself also slowly making its way toward an exit? And, as a final irony, Klare -- author of the not-to-be-missed new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet -- points out, energy has refloated Russia, even as it's sinking us. (05/13/08)

Time to pull the Ripcord!

Herman E. Daly writes: Recent increased attention to global warming is very welcome. But much of it is misplaced. We focus too much on complex climate models, which ask things like how far emissions will increase carbon dioxide concentration, how much that will raise temperatures, by when, with what consequences to climate and geography, and how likely new information will invalidate model results. Together these questions can paralyze us with uncertainty. A better question for determining public policy is simpler: “Can we continue to emit increasing amounts of greenhouse gases without provoking unacceptable climate change?” Scientists overwhelmingly agree the answer is no. The basic scientific principles and findings are very clear. Focusing on them creates a world of relative certainty for policy. To draw a parallel, if you jump out of an airplane you need a crude parachute more than an accurate altimeter. And if you take an altimeter, don’t become so bemused tracking your descent that you forget to pull the ripcord. ... We have moved from a world relatively empty of us and our stuff to a world relatively full of us, in one lifetime. In the empty world economy the limiting factor was manmade capital; in the full world it is remaining natural capital. Barrels of petroleum extracted once were limited by drilling rigs; now they are limited by remaining deposits, or by the atmosphere’s ability to absorb the products of combustion. But we continue to invest in manmade capital rather than in restoration of natural capital. In addition to this supply-side error, we have an equally monumental error on the demand side. We fail to take seriously that beyond a threshold of income already passed in the United States, happiness depends not on what we have, but on what we have relative to what our friends, co-workers and neighbors have. What we need is a stiff severance tax on carbon as it emerges from the well and mine. Besides discouraging everyone’s use of climate-altering fossil fuels, this would enable us to raise enough tax dollars to replace regressive taxes on low incomes. Let’s tax the raw material, not the value added to it by processing and manufacturing. Higher input prices bring efficiency at all subsequent stages of production, and limiting depletion ultimately limits pollution. Setting policy by first principles still leaves some uncertainties. It will require provision for making midcourse corrections. But at least we would have begun moving in the right direction. To continue business as usual while debating the predictions of complex models in a world made even more uncertain by the questions we ask is to fail to pull the ripcord. (05/13/08)

France moves to reduce Drunk Driving

BBC Behavioral Science -- France's cabinet is to hear a proposal to make breathalysers mandatory at late-night clubs and cafes from this summer when it meets on Monday. The ecology and health ministers are due jointly to present a draft decree that applies to all such establishments remaining open until 0200. Some 350 cafes and bars in western France have already run trials, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said. The move comes after a weekend of road accidents, some alcohol-related. The Pentecostal holiday weekend saw at least 17 deaths in seven accidents, AFP news agency reports. "Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot and I will present a decree to make electronic breathalyser tests obligatory in drinking establishments open until 0200 so that everyone can check their level, their condition upon leaving," Mr Borloo said on the France 2 television channel. "I hope that by this summer, it will be obligatory in all such places." (05/13/08)

Wasting Food

BBC Behavioral Science -- People are needlessly throwing away 3.6m tonnes of food each year in England and Wales, research suggests. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that salad, fruit and bread were most commonly wasted and 60% of all dumped food was untouched. The study analysed the waste disposed of by 2,138 households. Environment Minister Joan Ruddock said the findings were "staggering" at a time of global food shortages and WRAP added it was an environmental issue. The study found that £9bn of avoidable food waste was disposed of in England and Wales each year. It is mostly food that could have been consumed if it had been better stored or managed, or had not been left uneaten on a plate. Much of that food waste goes into landfill rather than into council food disposal and composting programmes, it said. ... Using the same extrapolation, they also estimated the average UK household needlessly throws away 18% of all food purchased. Families with children throw away 27%. The study also suggested £1bn worth of food wasted in the UK was still "in date". Nearly a quarter, in terms of cost, was disposed of because the "use by" or "best before" date had expired. ... Ms Ruddock said: "This is costing consumers three times over. "Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they don't eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates. And there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin." (05/13/08)

Pollution Risk for Deep Vein Thrombosis

BBC Medical Science -- Breathing in air pollution from traffic fumes can raise the risk of potentially deadly blood clots, a US study says. Exposure to small particulates - tiny chemicals caused by burning fossil fuels - is known to increase the chances of heart disease and stroke. But the Harvard School of Public Health found it also affected development of deep vein thrombosis - blood clots in the legs - in a study of 2,000 people. Researchers said the pollution made the blood more sticky and likely to clot. The team looked at people living in Italy - nearly 900 of whom developed DVT. Blood clots which form in the legs can travel to the lungs, where they can become lodged, triggering a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. The risk of DVT is known to be increased by long periods of immobility. In particular, passengers on long-haul flights have been shown to be vulnerable, but so are people who spend long periods of time sitting at their office desk without exercising, or walking around. Researchers obtained pollution readings from the areas they lived and found those exposed to higher levels of small particulates in the year before diagnosis were more likely to develop blood clots. The Archives of Internal Medicine report said for every 10 microgrammes per square metre increase in small particulates, the risk of developing a DVT went up by 70%. (05/13/08)

Humanity as Community versus Humanity as Individual

Timothy Wilken, MD writes: As Mr. Spock explained, “The needs of the many ... outweigh the needs of the few ... or the one.” Synergy at its most basic simply means "working together." Synergic science is then the study of "working together." As science has progressed in helping us understand the human condition, it is now clear that we are an INTERdependent species. Sometimes I depend on others, and sometimes others depend on me. Another important fact of being in INTERdependent species is we share the same environment—the same reality. At home, we share the same living space with friends or family. If I turn the heater thermostat up, the room will become warmer for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I start yelling and screaming, things will get much noisier for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I make a mess or don't clean up the kitchen, then we are all living in that mess. This is just as true in the workplace, our neighborhoods, our communities, and in fact in the whole world. We live on a single planet, we all share the same water, the same air and the same resources of the single small planet. Because control of reality is shared, if I foul the water or air, I foul your water and your air. Whatever I do, will effect you. Whatever you do, will effect me. If we work together and act responsibly, we can minimize the harm we do each other, and maximize the benefits of solving our problems together. Freedom of action in a shared environment is a privilege, not a right. ... That bears repeating! Freedom of action in a shared environment is a privlege, not a right! Which is more important? The individual's right to freedom of action or community's right to public safety? We can now see that this is a silly and false argument. Community is simply "many" individuals. My freedom of action stops at the boundary of another individual's personal space and safety. America has long been the champion of the individual's right to freedom of action. In fact, our American criminal justice system is so paralyzed by the need to protect the rights of the individual, that our streets are full of criminals, and our e-mail boxes are full of unsolicited junk mail and garbage including pornography and fraudulent offers. Why do we tolerate this? Isn't it time to grow up? Aren't we smart enough to create a society that values both an individual's right to freedom of action and the community's right to public safety. (05/11/08)

Dusk on Planet Earth

Tom Engelhardt of Tom Dispatch.com writes: Already climate change -- in the form of a changing pattern of global rainfall -- seems to be affecting the planet in significant ways. Take the massive, almost decade-long drought in Australia's wheat-growing heartland, which has been a significant factor in sending flour prices, and so bread prices, soaring globally, leading to desperation and food riots across the planet. A report from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia makes clear that, despite recent heavy rains in the eastern Australian breadbasket, years of above normal rainfall would be needed "to remove the very long-term [water] deficits" in the region. The report then adds this ominous note: "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to 10 years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change." Think a bit about that phrase -- "without historical precedent." Except when it comes to technological invention, it hasn't been much part of our lives these last many centuries. Without historical precedent. Brace yourselves, it's about to become a commonplace in our vocabulary. The southeastern United States, for instance, was, for the last couple of years, locked in a drought -- which is finally easing -- "without historical precedent." In other words, there was nothing (repeat, nothing) in the historical record that provided a guide to what might happen next. Now, it's true that the industrial revolution, which led to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at historically unprecedented rates, was also, in a sense, "without historical precedent"; but most natural events -- unlike, say, the present staggering ice melt in the Arctic -- have been precedented (if I can manufacture such a word). They have been part of the historical record. That era -- the era of history -- is now, however, threatening to give way to a period capable of outrunning history itself, of outrunning us. The planet in its long existence may have experienced the extremes to come, but we haven't. The planet, unlike much life on it, may not -- given millions or tens of millions of years to recover -- be in danger, but we are. When you really think about it, history is humanity. It's common enough to talk about some historical figure or failed experiment being swept into the "dustbin of history," but what if all history and that dustbin, too, go… well, where? What are we, really, without our records? Once we pass beyond them, beyond all the experience we've collected, written down, and archived since those first scratches went on clay tablets in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates -- now being stripped of their cultural patrimony -- at least two unanswerable questions arise. Once history has been left in the dust, where are we? -- and, who are we? Let the indefatigable environmentalist Bill McKibben, who has a powerful urge to stop us just short of the cliff of the post-historical era, take it from here. (05/11/08)

Overfishing brings Toxic Red Tides!

BBC Ocean Science -- Declining fish stocks could be partly responsible for algal blooms in the oceans, researchers have found. Scientists found that the fall in cod stocks in the Baltic Sea in recent decades increased numbers of the tiny marine plants that produce the blooms. Algal blooms - sometimes known as "toxic tides" - can be poisonous to people, fish and other wildlife, and may be on the increase worldwide. The research is reported in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B. "In recent years, the frequency of intense blooms (in the Baltic Sea) seems to have increased, and the level in summer has also been increasing," said Michele Casini from the Swedish Board of Fisheries in Lysekil, lead scientist on the new research. ... The scientific team - which also involved researchers from Germany and Latvia - assessed three decades of data on the Baltic Sea food web. Basically, zooplankton (tiny marine animals) eat phytoplankton, and sprat (small fish) eat zooplankton. Finally, cod eat the sprat. "Right now, in the last 30 years, cod have been the top predators in the Baltic, after populations of seals and other marine mammals declined because of hunting," explained Dr Casini. The data showed a simple correlation. As the cod population declined sharply from the early 1980s, the sprat population rose; zooplankton declined, and phytoplankton increased. (05/11/08)

Mangrove Loss put Burma at Risk

BBC Science -- Destruction of mangrove forests in Burma left coastal areas exposed to the devastating force of the weekend's cyclone, a top politician suggests. ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said coastal developments had resulted in mangroves, which act as a natural defence against storms, being lost. At least 22,000 people have died in the disaster, say state officials. A study of the 2004 Asian tsunami found that areas near healthy mangroves suffered less damage and fewer deaths. Mr Surin, speaking at a high-level meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, said the combination of more people living in coastal areas and the loss of mangroves had exacerbated the tragedy. ... Mangroves have been long considered as "bio-guards" for coastal settlements. A study published in December 2005 said healthy mangrove forests helped save Sri Lankan villagers during the Asian tsunami disaster, which claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people. Researchers from IUCN, formerly known as the World Conservation Union, compared the death toll from two villages in Sri Lanka that were hit by the devastating giant waves. While two people died in the settlement with dense mangrove and scrub forest, up to 6,000 people lost their lives in a nearby village without similar vegetation. "Mangroves are a very dense vegetation type that grows along the shore," explained Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist for IUCN. Where the saltwater and freshwater meet, that is where the mangroves grow; they often extend from several hundred metres to a few kilometers inland. Especially in river deltas, mangroves prevent waves from damaging the more productive land that are further inland from the sea." A recent global assessment found that 3.6 million hectares of mangrove forests had disappeared since 1980. (05/11/08)

Optimizing Human Organizations

Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Within this half century, we humans have developed ergometric science to help us improve our tool-making.  Ergometric scientists tell us how to best design tools to fit the human form. By carefully measuring both the physiology and psychology of the human body, today's scientists are seeking to determine the best designs for new tools. They know that the best tools are those that fit you like a well-tailored glove fits your hand. Recently ergometric science has been much advanced by a breakthrough in our understanding of human intelligence. With the development of the "dual mind" model of human intelligence it is now possible to design tools that fit the human "mind-brain". In other words, we can now ergometrically engineer tools to fit the way we humans think. We humans are the toolmakers, and in our history we have made many tools—both simple and complex. The most complex and complicated of all our tools are our organizations—the corporations, institutions, militaries, and governments of earth. These are also the most important tools in all our lives, for they significantly influence both the quality and quanity of our lives. Of all the tools we might seek to ergometrically engineer to fit the human "mind-brain", there exists no greater potential benefit for all mankind then by applying this science to our most complex tools—the organizations. One such tool has recently completed development, and is now available to organizations for immediate application.   This first ergometrically designed tool for human organizations is called the "organizational tensegrity" or simply ORTEGRITY. The ORTEGRITY is a "mind-brain" compatible " system of organizing humans. It can be used by a small group of individuals or a giant corporation with hundreds of thousands of employees. The ORTEGRITY is a "system of human organization that creates a conflict-free environment for decision making and action implementation". This is an environment so ergometrically suited to human thinking that efficiency and productivity are predicted to increase 10 to 1000 times. Yes, that's 10 to 1000 times more efficient and productive. The ORTEGRITY achieves its great power by creating an ideal psychological environment for human thinking. One important finding of recent mind-brain research, is "that whenever humans experience conflict they lose access to their full intelligence". When humans are confronted with conflict, their mind-brains shift to a very primitive and highly reactive way of thinking called the survive mode. The survive mode evolved in the jungle to insure physical survival. Its primary skills are fighting and fleeing. Its extremes are rage and terror. All humans thinking in the survive mode will find their intelligence to be severely limited. Access is lost to the faculties of reason and intuition. In severe conflict, many of us lose even our ability to speak. Unfortunately, the survive mode turns on with the slightest conflict, and instantaneously our intelligence begins to decrease. It is not simply on or off. It is more like the rheostat dimmer switch controlling a dinning room light. A little conflict will produce a little loss of intelligence, while a large conflict will produce a large loss of intelligence. If we remain in conflict for weeks, then we will operate at limited intelligence for weeks. And in full rage or terror, we humans access only a tiny fraction of our potential intelligence. Conflict is to organizations as friction is to machinery.  The power of the ORTEGRITY results then from its unique ability to create a conflict-free state. It is this conflict-free state that optimizes human intelligence and creativity. It is this conflict-free state that maximizes efficiency and productivity. It is this conflict-free state that increases the quality of work-life. It is the conflict-free state that allows all relationships between all members to become win-win. In the difficult political-economic times ahead organizations must learn to work smarter. Only by optimizing the human factor can they hope to survive. The ORTEGRITY promises to increase efficiency and productivity by 10 to 1000 times. It accomplishes this by increasing the intelligence and creativity of all members in the system. This is working "smartest". The ORTEGRITY was designed to fit the human "mind-brain" like a well tailored glove fits your hand, it could change the way we all work and live in the future. (05/08/08)

Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

David Cohen writes: The disconnect between peak oil concerns and the presidential race is almost total. As prices at the pump rise, each candidate is now talking about their so-called solutions to the problem. Despite clear new warning signs from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Nigeria that peak oil is nigh, the candidates remain unwaveringly oblivious to the true causes of rising fuel prices, preferring instead to dwell on irrelevant—actually, counterproductive—measures like suspending the federal gas tax during the summer months or taxing Big Oil. This is akin to putting a band-aid on a melanoma. Our nation's capital is a self-reinforcing bastion of ignorance about the longer term oil supply issues, Roscoe Bartlett (R, Md) and a few others excepted. The candidates and their energy advisers are full-fledged members of the "Washington Insiders" club, a group that only talks to each other and gets all of its information from inside the Beltway or pollsters. A brief example suffices to demonstrate the problem. Everybody in our nation's capital reads the Washington Post. If you want to "know" what's going on, it's in the Post. Here are the results of a Google advanced search survey of references to the exact phrase "peak oil" in four newspapers — Wall Street Journal: 3820 Hits, New York Times: 1970 Hits, Houston Chronicle: 617 Hits, and the Washington Post: 389 Hits. The Wall Street Journal has about 10 times more allusions to "peak oil" than the Post does. Bear in mind that this informal survey includes comments by readers, guest editorials, and assorted other references that are not part of the newspaper's reporting. You will be hard-pressed to find a news article in the Washington Post that uses the term "peak oil." Earth to the Post's Editors, this is Earth calling—"peak oil" is a growing concern outside the Beltway, so it's time to get with the program. Examining the "oil dependency" positions of the candidates' energy advisers gives us little hope our newly elected government will meet the peak oil challenges head-on in 2009. ... Mitigating anthropogenic climate change is the imperative driving the policies of all the presidential candidates, so their primary energy initiative is a carbon emissions cap & trade system. Problems arising from our oil dependency take a backseat—these are not perceived as urgent and thus can be solved gradually. This approach to our "oil dependency" only makes sense from a climate perspective, which requires us to change our energy consumption and infrastructure over several decades. The soaring oil price and its underlying causes are the invisible elephant in the room in the presidential race. While many of the candidates' proposals can be chalked up to pandering in an election year, there is no evidence that I can find that any of the candidates gets this "peak oil" problem. For example, Robert Hirsch and Roger Bezdek briefed two low level Clinton staffers on the dangers of a dwindling oil supply. No evidence supports the idea that this briefing has had the slightest effect on thinking in the Clinton campaign. We are all being sold down the river in this year's election. As the first DOE secretary James Schlesinger said, "We have only two modes—complacency and panic." Complacency rules, and panic awaits. I don't know who the next president will be, but I can foresee that anxious day when our leader-to-be (or Jason Grumet?) exclaims "Oh, no! Oil is $161/barrel! The economy is falling apart! What do we do now?" Don't say we didn't warn you.  (05/08/08)

Time for Public Transport

Tom Whipple writes: With crude oil now above $120 a barrel and threatening to go higher, it is clear that our preferred and convenient means of going places, our car, the airplane and the rental car soon are going to be parked because they will be too expensive to operate. Like it or not, most of us are going to be riding some form of mass transit or multiple passenger vehicle – trains, buses, trolleys, car pools, van pools etc.- while waiting for our cars to be replaced with electric or higher mileage vehicles. As there are currently about 220 million cars and light trucks registered in the U.S. and 700 million or so elsewhere, the replacement process is going to be lengthy one. In America, our accustomed daily transportation needs are so diverse that it is difficult to foresee how new transportation methods and patterns will come about. For some simply accepting the inconvenience of taking public transit to work or joining a car pool will save enough gasoline each week that much higher prices, shortages and ultimately rationing can be accommodated without undue hardship. For others whose livelihood depends on a large vehicle that moves frequently throughout the work day there is more of a problem for mass transit as currently configured is unlikely to be of much use. At some point driving around at 10 mpg to mow lawns will no longer be economically viable for customers will no longer be willing to pay the fuel surcharges. Someday there probably will be satisfactory electric or ultra high mileage vehicles, but it is likely to be a while before they filter down from better off organizations such UPS, FedEx and the grocery stores to local maintenance contractors. One day soon, it will simply be too expensive for electricians, plumbers and a myriad of other household service providers to drive 50 or 60 miles in large, inefficient vehicles to perform some relatively minor maintenance task. The very nature of such services will have to change, be localized, and planned so that travel is minimized. Someday, your electrician may arrive on a city bus pulling his tools and parts behind. The speed with which we have to transition from unlimited, cheap, personal travel to some form of public or at least multiple passenger transport will determine how transit works in the coming decades. (05/08/08)

Better Medicine?

BBC Medical Science -- Scientists have been looking at ways liver disease could be treated using embryonic stem cells, reducing the need for transplantation. The research is one of two projects at Edinburgh University receiving £3.6m from Scottish Enterprise and the Medical Research Council (MRC). The second project, which also involves embryonic stem cells, will look at new ways to repair damaged bone. Liver disease is the fifth most common cause of death in the UK. Professor John Iredale, of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "In the first instance, the successful development of liver cells from embryonic stem cells will revolutionise and improve the way we are able to test drugs and novel therapies both for the liver and other organs and ultimately may lead to a stem-cell based approach to regenerate the liver. "This would have a significant impact on reducing the need for donated organs and provide less invasive and traumatic treatment for those patients for whom transplantation is currently the only option." Scientists will research how liver cells derived from embryonic stem cells can be used in therapies for acute and chronic liver disease. The research will gain greater understanding as to how embryonic stem cells differentiate to become liver cells, and how these can be made to repair damaged livers. (05/08/08)

Some Like it Warm!

BBC Science -- At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food. Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars. Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust. Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise. The research uses a long record of great tits in a breeding site at Wytham Woods near Oxford, where observations began in 1947. ... The RSPB and other conservation bodies have regularly warned that climate shifts could have a devastating impact on some species; and they believe the new research does not change that picture. "It's great to hear that the great tit is able to keep pace with the rapid rate of climate change, but then it's probably in the best place to do that," observed RSPB spokesman Grahame Madge. "They're abundant birds, they can live in gardens, woodland and open country, and they churn out large numbers of young in a short space of time, so they're better able to learn changes in behaviour." The organisation believes - as do others - that climate change is one of the main cuplrits for the abrupt declines in some seabird populations around UK coasts in recent years. The Oxford and Heteren groups are now planning to collaborate on a study to elucidate why some populations apparently adapt well to climate change, and others do not. (05/08/08)

Beyond Money — A Win-Win Economic System

Timothy Wilken, MD writes: As a synergic scientist I study how systems work together. How the parts composing a system relate to each other. Those parts that work against each other produce the weakest whole systems. Those parts that ignore each other do better, but still are quite limited producing only average or fair systems. Those parts that work together to mutual benefit create the post powerful whole systems. Parts that hurt each other and work against have lose/win or lose/lose relationships. One fox plus one rabbit equals only one fox. Parts that ignore each other and work independently have draw|draw relationships. We trade things of equal value. We have our anonymous great market. One plus one is always equal to 2 or a little less for our fair profit. Parts that help each other and work together have win-win relationships. One plus one is always more than two, sometimes many more than two. Synergic scientists are strongly biased towards win-win engineering. For many years I imagined what would a win-win economic system look like? What kind of money or currency would it use? Imagine my suprise, to discover that a win-win economy transcends money. (05/06/08)

Moving the Earth

Timothy Wilken, MD writes: There are three types of humans to be found in our present world. Which type you are depends on what you believe about how the world works. Adversaries believe there is not enough for everyone and only the physically strong will survive. They believe humans are coercively dependent on others, and they best understand th language of force. Neutralists believe there is enough for everyone, if only you work hard enough and take care of yourself. They believe humans are financially  independent and should be self-sufficient unless they are too lazy or defective. They best understand the language of money. A new type of human is emerging called synergists. Synergists believe there is enough for everyone, but only if we work together and act responsibly. They believe humans are interdependent and can only obtain sufficiency by working together as community. Synergists best understand the language of love. But, to be successful in our present world, the synergist must understand all three languages and know when to use them. Synergists must sometimes use the language of force, and sometimes the language of money, it depends on whom they are talking to. However, when synergists are seeking allies—when synergists are seeking to build community—they must speak the language of love. Synergists are trying to heal the wounds inflected by those who don't understand how the world could work. This then is the essential challenge to the synergists. Can we work together and act responsibly in time to save our ourselves on this planet ? ... Not without levers! (05/20/05)

The Risk Economy

James Howard Kunstler writes: As the West's industrial regime sputters toward a cheap-energy-crackup conclusion, there have been attempts to recast what our economy is actually about, how to account for whatever wealth we manage to produce, and project what our society will actually be organized to do in the years ahead. For a while in the 1990s, the idea was a "service economy," kind of like the old fable of the town whose inhabitants made a living by taking in each other's laundry -- only in our case it was selling hamburgers to tourists on vacation from their jobs making hamburgers elsewhere, or something like that. Then came the idea of the "information economy" in which making things of value would no longer matter, only the processing and deployment of information (sometimes misidentified as "knowledge"). This model seemed to suggest a yin-yang of software engineers who made up games like "Grand Theft Auto" serving the opposite cohort of people who bought and played the game. If nothing else, it certainly explained how lifetimes could be frittered away on stupid activities. That illusion yielded to the housing bubble economy, which actually did produce a lot of things, but not necessarily of value -- for instance, houses made of particle board and vinyl 38 miles outside of Sacramento. It was a tragic and manifold waste of resources, as well as an insult to the landscape. But the darker side of the housing bubble lay in the world of finance, where a vast empire of swindles was constructed to support the Potemkin facade of production homebuilding. Now we are in a strange period when those swindles are unwinding. The people who run the finance sector -- the Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds and ratings agencies, the Federal Reserve, and the US Dept of the Treasury -- in desperately trying to prevent the unwind, have rapidly ramped up another new economy based entirely on the buying and selling of risk. Risk, as a pure abstraction unconnected to any real capital activity, is all that's left to buy and sell after all other plausibly practical vehicles for finance have failed. (05/06/08)

Cubans Allowed to own Computers

BBC Social Science -- The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but a ban remains on internet access. This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. Crowds formed at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana, though most had come just to look. The desktop computers cost almost $800 (£400), in a country where the average wage is under $20 (£10) a month. But some Cubans do have access to extra income, much of it from money sent by relatives living abroad. Since taking over the presidency in February, Raul Castro has ended a range of restrictions and allowed Cubans access to previously banned consumer goods. In recent weeks thousands of Cubans have snapped up mobile phones and DVD players. But only now have the first computer stocks arrived. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island. The government says it is unable to connect to the giant undersea fibre-optic cables because of the US trade embargo. All online connections today are via satellite which has limited bandwidth and is expensive to use. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, Cuba's ally and a critic of the US, is laying a new cable under the Caribbean. (05/05/08)

Immigration Fueling TB Epidemic

BBC Science -- Drug resistant tuberculosis is posing a growing threat in the UK, probably fuelled by immigration, say experts. A Health Protection Agency team examined 28,620 TB infections in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between 1998 and 2005. They found the proportion of cases resistant to any of the first-line drugs rose from 5.6% to 7.9%. The British Medical Journal study also found a small increase in cases of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). However, although the number of people becoming infected with drug-resistant TB has almost doubled, from 170 in 1998 to 336 in 2005, they still make up a small proportion of the total number of TB infections. The HPA researchers found a significant increase in resistance to one particular drug, isoniazid, outside London. Many of these patients came from sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, where they may have developed immunity to the drug. The researchers said measures to control outbreaks of TB among prisoners and drug users were not up to scratch. They said the shortcomings of the current system were illustrated by the fact that an outbreak of drug resistant TB among prison inmates and drug users which began in London in 1999 was still producing new cases. The HPA team, led by Dr Michelle Kruijshaar, concluded: "The observed increases highlight the need for early case detection, rapid testing of susceptibility to drugs, and improved treatment completion." (05/05/08)

Tropics Insects face Extinction

BBC Science -- Many tropical insects face extinction by the end of this century unless they adapt to the rising global temperatures predicted, US scientists have said. Researchers led by the University of Washington said insects in the tropics were much more sensitive to temperature changes than those elsewhere. In contrast, higher latitudes could experience an insect population boom. The scientists said changes in insect numbers could have secondary effects on plant pollination and food supplies. In the research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the US scientists studied how temperature changes between 1950 and 2000 had affected 38 species of insects. Unlike warm-blooded animals, cold-blooded organisms cannot regulate their body temperatures by growing a coat of fur or shedding it when it gets warm. They are instead limited to either seek shade when hot or sun themselves when cool. The scientists predicted such species would struggle to cope with the 5.4C rise in tropical temperatures expected by 2100. "In the tropics, many species appear to be living at or near their thermal optimum, a temperature that lets them thrive," said Joshua Tewksbury of the University of Washington. "But once temperature gets above the thermal optimum, fitness levels most likely decline quickly and there may not be much they can do about it," he added. (05/05/08)

What is Synergic Science?

Timothy Wilken, MD explains:  Synergic Science is the study of how systems work together — physical systems, biological systems and social systems. This involves a careful study of the relationship of the "parts" of a system to the "whole" of the system.  “Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately. … Synergy is the only word that means this. The fact that we humans are unfamiliar with the word means that we do not think there are behaviors of "wholes" unpredicted by the behavior of "parts".”      —R. Buckminster Fuller Synergic Science makes much of the relationships between the "parts" and their relationships to the  "whole". For human beings there can be no other more important "parts" than Self and Other. From my perspective I am self and you are other, but from your point of view you are self and I am other. This is a very simple way of looking at things. Our relationships then are major importance in determining the quality of our lives. From the point of view of the individual joining in relationship, I can be hurt, I can be ignored, or I can be helped by the relationship—there are only three ways. Relationships that hurt are adversary. Relationships that ignore are neutral. Relationships that help are synergic. Therefore all human choices and all human relationships can be described as falling on a continuum. Adversity — • — Neutrality — • — Synergy We humans are conditioned by our life experience. The propensity of the types of relationship we encounter can well determine how we believe the world works. Adversaries believe there is not enough for everyone and only the physically strong will survive. They believe humans are coercively dependent on others, and they best understand the language of force. Neutralists believe there is enough for everyone, if only you work hard enough and take care of yourself. They believe humans are financial independent and should be self-sufficient unless they are too lazy or defective. They best understand the language of money. And, finally a new type of human is still emerging. Synergists believe there is enough for everyone but only if we work together and act responsibly. They believe humans are INTERdependent and can only obtain sufficiency by working together as community. Synergists best understand the language of love. (05/01/08)

Energy & the Future of Health Care

Dan Bednarz, PhD, speaking to Nurses and other health professionals, explains: My intent is to give you a realistic take on the future of your profession by explaining why healthcare and nursing will be transformed by rising energy costs. Is there danger ahead? You bet. It’s going to be difficult, probably life-changing for all Americans. Here’s why: the scale of our energy predicament is enormous, unprecedented and grossly misunderstood by institutional leaders and most of the media. I know some of you may be wondering, Energy scarcity? That’s someone else’s problem; put this guy in touch with geologists and politicians. So let’s step back for the big picture: The amount of crude oil pumped out of the ground has been on a bumpy plateau since May of 2005. Until then oil production was steadily increasing about 2% a year –with periodic declines - and the world had a daily surplus, or emergency cushion. That surplus is gone, everything produced, supply, is immediately purchased, demand. Whether or not the world has reached “peak oil” –the point at which yearly total worldwide extraction cannot be increased - this 3 year plateau indicates that the era of cheap energy is over. Oil is now over $100.00 a barrel. It was $10.00 a barrel in November 1998. Oil powers 90% of all transportation and it is essential to food production and distribution; it is the primary ingredient in many products –think plastics, petrochemicals, and clothing. It is fair to say that all our institutions, especially medicine, are dependent upon oil, the lynchpin resource that keeps the economy humming and allows it to grow. And it’s not just oil that’s getting scarce. Natural gas in Pittsburgh went up 30% on April 1st, to $12.50 per MCF (thousand cubic feet); it was $2.50 in 2001. Typically, the cost of natural gas drops after the winter but here we are facing higher prices during the summer. Coal is becoming scarce in many countries and more expensive here; its price has about doubled in the past year. It is our main source of electricity. In about 15 years the world may hit a peak in its production, and this combined with the fact that natural gas –the secondary source of electricity generation - simultaneously will be at or past its peak, poses a threat to our supply of electricity. To put a human face on this, a polling agency found in December 2007 that 12% of Americans planned to put their winter energy bills on their credit card –no wonder Christmas spending was down. An article in this past Saturday’s New York Times details the rising number of people unable to pay their winter utility bills and now facing service cutoffs. Many hospitals in California are on the verge of bankruptcy; rising energy costs –in tandem with other increasing costs - could be a breaking point for them. Further, we are merely at the beginning of what some of you recognize as Jim Kunstler’s poetic phrase “The Long Emergency.” Now let’s look at energy use in hospitals and then use the issue of record keeping, a biggie for nurses, as one small but significant example of how energy scarcity will shape the future of healthcare. Then we’ll close with some comments on where medicine is heading and my claim that nursing stands to become a force in reforming the healthcare system. The EPA estimates that hospitals use twice as much energy per square foot as do office buildings. Until recently hospital administrators have not paid attention to the cost of energy because they think –mistakenly - that it represents less than 2% of their operating expenses. Therefore, they have considered rising energy costs a nuisance, not a threat. However, a few weeks ago a former AMA (American Medical Association) official told me hospital administrators are getting worried about energy costs because sharp increases are eating into profits. For example, all energy costs in the US rose 17% in 2007, with the cost of oil climbing 57%. The first quarter of 2008 shows no change in this trend. How many years can our society –and hospitals - absorb these increases? (05/01/08)

Not the End of the World

John Michael Greer writes: You know that things are beginning to heat up when both sides of a controversy declare victory at the same time. Over the last week or so, that’s happened in the peak oil scene. On the one hand, quite a number of cornucopians – those enthusiastic souls who believe that we can get ourselves out of the hole we’re in by digging faster and paying less attention to where the dirt lands – have trumpeted the discovery of a few new oil fields as proof that peak oil is a myth. The Bakken shale, a geological formation down in the basement of the northern Great Plains, has attracted the bulk of this cheerleading in the last few weeks. Mind you, the Bakken’s a significant discovery; there’s apparently a fair amount of oil down there, though the technical challenges involved in extracting more than a tiny fraction of it are immense, and nobody’s yet sure if the energy that can be extracted from it will be more or less than the energy cost needed to extract it. Even if it turns out to be the oil find of the decade, though, and North Dakota oil millionaires start showing up as a recognized type in American popular culture, the most the Bakken can do is make up some of the production losses from older oil fields and slow, for a time, our descent from Hubbert’s peak. Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, the number of voices proclaiming the imminence of total collapse has skyrocketed. Typical is a recent post in Sharon Astyk’s useful peak oil blog. Astyk claims that recent events have decisively settled the debate between the fast-crash and slow-grind models of post-peak oil reality, in favor of the fast crash – and we’re already in it. Her argument is basically that the drastic spikes in food and energy costs over the last few months have outrun the limits of the slow-grind scenario; ergo, the fast crash is here. I’ve commented several times in these essays about the way that linear thinking distorts our view of the future, and Astyk’s prediction makes a good example. The drastic price spikes in many commodities over the last few months offer a warning that shouldn’t be ignored, but treating them as evidence that industrial society is about to implode imposes a linear model onto the complex realities of socioeconomic change. The fact that change is happening quickly right now does not mean that it will continue to happen at the same pace, or even in the same direction. ... The end of the global economy may make life a good deal harder for those of us in the United States and those other industrial nations, such as Canada and Australia, that have become used to the absurdly lavish energy and resource expenditures of the recent past. It bears remembering, though, that people in Europe maintain a standard of living in many ways higher ours on roughly one-third the energy per capita Americans seem to think is necessary for civilized life. We can get by, and get by tolerably well, on much less energy and many fewer resources than we think. This is likely to be a crucial point to keep in mind as the present crisis unfolds. It’s not the end of the world, or even the end of industrial civilization, but if history is anything to go by, we could be in for a couple of very rough decades. (05/01/08)

Dymaxion Innovation

Buckminster Fuller coined the term Dymaxion to mean "More for Less" or producing the most benefit with the least action. BBC Science -- Details of an entirely new kind of electronic device, which could make chips smaller and far more efficient, have been outlined by scientists. The new components, described by scientists at Hewlett-Packard, are known as "memristors". The devices were proposed 40 years ago but have only recently been fabricated, the team wrote in the journal Nature. ... Memristors were first proposed in 1971 by Professor Leon Chua, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. They are the "fourth" basic building block of circuits, after capacitors, resistors and inductors. "I never thought I'd live long enough to see this happen," Professor Chua told the Associated Press. "I'm thrilled because it's almost like vindication. Something I did is not just in my imagination, it's fundamental." The memristors are so called because they have the ability to "remember" the amount of charge that has flowed through them after the power has been switched off. This could allow researchers to build new kinds of computer memory that would would not require powering up. Today, most PCs use dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which loses data when the power is turned off. But a computer built with memristors could allow PCs that start up instantly, laptops that retain sessions after the battery dies, or mobile phones that can last for weeks without needing a charge. "If you turn on your