|
|
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kirby Urner writes: With the publication of J. Baldwin’s superb volume, Bucky Works, with its detailed and appealing descriptions of the new props we might introduce on the world stage in support of more sustainable, more sharable life styles, the question becomes one of how to move these artifacts from the drawing board or, in many cases, from a realized prototype phase, to full implementation as plentifully supplied assets. Our situation today in many ways parallels the one confronting the pioneers of the personal computer era just two decades ago. Hobbyists and enthusiasts have seen the future in affordable, technologically advanced housing solutions, but a ‘user friendly interface’ is missing from the picture, such that would-be investors in this technology have no clear pathway into the experience of living in a PillowDome, for example. The risks and expenses involved dissuade any but the most committed from venturing off the beaten path of Standard Homes and Gardens, as purveyed by the mainstream construction industry and its building codes, zoning laws and attendent Yellow Pages support services (pest control, weatherization, plumbing, remodeling etc). This latter multi-billion dollar industry might be likened to the mainframe culture that dominated all computing prior to the advent of the affordable, personal alternative. Conservative, business-minded individuals simply could not afford to risk their futures on hobbyist solutions as long as Big Blue (IBM) ruled the computing world. The situation was transformed when IBM itself elected to enter the personal computer market. Today, the Yellow Pages has thickened with entries under Internet and Personal Computer that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
Donivan Bessinger, MD writes: In our work to this point, we have held that action must be resolved anew in each situation, giving due regard to all of the forces acting on the situation (the ethical field). At the level of ethical action, our reference level, the ethical impulse arises as reverence or respect for life, and seeks the good of life's system balance. Defining the goal of a decision and defining the attitude in which the problem must be solved are both major steps toward making ethical decisions. However, these are still not sufficient guidance, and do not in themselves define "right action." An additional set of considerations must be brought into play, to direct the decision process itself, to define the extent of action required, and to evaluate whether the outcome is consistent with the processes and the goals of life systems. While the conditions defining the situation are highly variable and must be individually analyzed, the life-process considerations are much more stable and structured. These considerations are derived from and are defined in the study of the life-system itself. These stable "constants" do not provide rules to be applied to the situation being decided; they provide rules for the process of making the decision. These considerations (rules) for the decision making process operate at the "meta" level, the level above ethics. It is these metaethical rules which comprise the metaethical postulates. Formally, a postulate is a statement taken as self-evident, or accepted without proof. However, these metaethical statements derive from our study of world systems, and are consistent with the natural order, as has been made evident in the work presented in Wholeness and Ethic. Here, the term postulate is not used in the meaning "self-evident," but in its other senses of fundamental principle or a necessary condition. The term metaethical statement is also appropriate. In computer programming, a statement is a line of instructions that require the computer to approach a problem in a certain way. Though a program may have many variables (designated memory locations) that contain different values at different times, the instructions themselves are constant. The instruction statements do not change, regardless of the number of different inputs, or the number of times the program is run. Similarly, the metaethical statements require the decision maker to handle each situation, regardless of the variations, in a constant and ethical way. (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
New York Times -- The United States will soon have enough heavy tanks, warships, aircraft, bombs and troops in the Persian Gulf region to enable it to begin an attack against Iraq sometime in January, senior military officials say. About 60,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, as well as about 200 warplanes, are in or near the region. The Army alone has 9,000 soldiers, 24 Apache helicopter gunships and heavy equipment for two armored brigades in Kuwait. Equipment for a third brigade is steadily arriving on ships usually based in the Indian Ocean, and some matériel will be stored at a new $200 million logistics base, Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City. By late next week, four aircraft carriers will be poised to strike Iraq on short notice, with a fifth in Southeast Asia ready to steam to the gulf in a crisis. Two of the carriers, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, are heading home, but the Navy will keep their crews together about two weeks longer than the usual 30 days after arrival in case they are ordered back to the gulf. Special Operations forces in the region are refining plans to hunt for Scud missiles and clandestine weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. About 1,000 military planners, led by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, have assembled in Qatar and other gulf states for a computer-assisted exercise that begins Monday and is intended as a model for an offensive against Iraq, officials said. General Franks met today with 200 members of his senior battle staff for a detailed rehearsal. Taken together, those are unmistakable signs that before long, President Bush will be in a position to order an attack to disarm Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, and have it carried out within days, senior military officials said. (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
Robert Redford speaks: From the moment Bush stepped into office, he's been leading a sly and extremely disciplined campaign to destroy, dismantle, unravel, undo 30 years of environmental-regulations development. I know because for the last 30 years I've been a part of the organizations and activists fighting tooth and nail for those regulations. The current assault on environmental policy is unspeakably disturbing and shortsighted, and we're going to be paying for it. Is there any upside? In the absence of any federal-level leadership on these issues, that's where something like Vote Solar comes in. Last year San Francisco residents voted to spend $100 million on solar installations on buildings like schools, libraries, even sewage treatment plants. Now this initiative is catching on in cities and states nationwide. So that's cause for optimism? It's hard, but I do see the positive, otherwise it would be too hard to keep going. I find hope coming from the bottom up now, when the Bush administration is making it virtually impossible for the smaller groups to have a say and we're surrounded by so much apathy. Apathy? Yeah, it's like people skim right past all news about the ozone hole and the wetlands being drained and junked by developers and the Glacier National Park in Montana that could have no glaciers by midcentury. They skim past the fact that the reservoirs along the Colorado River will be more than a third lower in the next 20 to 50 years -- in our lifetimes! My God! The Colorado River is drying up in our lifetimes! How does the Bush administration get away with it? They are very, very shrewd in couching it in patriotism. Nearly every statement that comes from this administration includes the phrase ''the American people.'' Every time I hear that phrase I just substitute ''industrial interests.'' Look at the people who are calling the shots -- you've got Cheney, you've got Rove, you just look at the murderer's row there, and the handwriting is on the wall. (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
New York Times -- EJIDO EMILIANO ZAPATA, Mexico — Manuel López Gómez is watching the green world around him disappear, ravaged by people whose only path from starvation lies in slashing and burning the jungle to plant a patch of corn. "We are out of balance here," said Mr. López, 60, a local farmer turned conservationist. "We are trying to stop the destruction. If nothing changes, all the land around here will be destroyed." Five miles up a muddy trail from Emiliano Zapata, in southeastern Chiapas State, is Mexico's largest unpolluted lake, Laguna Miramar, and beyond that stands the last rain forest in Mexico. But today almost half a million poor people, speaking six different languages, live in that dying forest. For some here in Chiapas, the issue is turning from saving the trees to saving the people. A century of government reaching into this most remote corner of Mexico has left most citizens with next to nothing. President Vicente Fox's plans to build dams, railroads, highways and industries linking Chiapas to the outside world in a 21st-century free-trade network are grand but unrealized. And in Chiapas, development often means destruction. Starting in the late 19th century, the government sold foreign companies the right to tear the great mahogany and cedar trees from Chiapas. In 1972, the government deeded what was left — a forest as big as Connecticut — to the tiny and untrammeled Lacandón tribe, a few hundred people, who farm by trimming the forest canopy, not erasing it. Since then, more than two-thirds of the Lacandón forest has been sawed down, first by timber companies with heavy machinery, then by peasants — some from Chiapas, some from farther north — all seeking a little land by which to live. (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
New York Times -- THIS summer, Americans were moved by the bravery of nine men trapped in a watery coal mine and the rescuers who finally freed them. Their ordeal was a fresh reminder of the price that some people pay for our collective dependence on coal. A new book, "Coal: A Human History" (Perseus Publishing; $25), due in stores next month, aims to further raise awareness of this dependence. The book looks at how coal transformed England and then the United States into an industrial superpower and how coal is reshaping developing giants like China. "The industrial age emerged literally in a haze of coal smoke," writes the author, Barbara Freese, "and in that smoke we can read much of the history of the modern world." (12/10/02) | |
|
|
|
New York Times -- LELYSTAD, the Netherlands — When the telephone rings in this Dutchman's car, chances are that it is a windmill calling. A windmill? "It's telling me there's a problem, maybe it has stopped," said Herre van der Meulen, a technician at Nuon, a Dutch utility. He searches through his laptop, checks the disturbance and sends a telephone signal back to the computer aboard the windmill. Moments later, the blades are spinning again, yielding electricity. "Usually I can fix most problems from a distance," he said. That he can do his job from afar is a good thing — soon technicians may have little choice. Across wind-swept Northern Europe, hundreds of high-powered turbines are being planned or are under construction offshore, beyond the easy reach of engineers. "Going offshore is the new trend, and it's huge," said Bruce Douglas of the European Wind Energy Association, an industry group based in Brussels. "The demonstration projects out at sea have been a success. Now people are going for full-scale marine wind parks. Some are close to land, some are so far you can't see them." In the business, the talk is of a veritable rush offshore. Power companies are staking out suitable tracts of sandbanks, reefs and shallow open waters from the shores of Ireland to the Baltic Sea. They are joining with traditional offshore oil and gas companies, including giants like Shell, that have the capability to drill and rig up the 100-ton towers at sea. Engineers say that wind parks at sea have two main advantages: the wind blows harder and more steadily than on land and there are no residents protesting against great wind parks marring the landscape. On the Dutch coast near Lelystad, 28 windmills stand in a perfect lineup near the shore, anchored in about 20 feet of water. The swoosh of the wind going over the blades is barely audible, even drowned out by the squawking of the sea gulls. (12/10/02) | |
5:07:01 AM 
|
|
|
|
© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
1/1/2003; 4:07:01 AM.
This theme is based on the SoundWaves
(blue) Manila theme. |
|
|
