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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
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Dee Hock writes: How do you manage superiors, bosses, regulators, associates, customers? The answer is equally obvious. You cannot. But can you understand them? Can you persuade them? Can you motivate them? Can you disturb them, influence them, forgive them? Can you set them an example? Eventually the proper word emerges. Can you lead them? Of course you can, provided only that you have properly led yourself. There are no rules and regulations so rigorous, no organization so hierarchical, no bosses so abusive that they can prevent us from behaving this way. No individual and no organization, short of killing us, can prevent such use of our energy, ability, and ingenuity. They may make it more difficult, but they can't prevent it. The real power is ours, not theirs, provided only that we can work our way around the killing. It is easy to test this chaordic concept of leadership. Reflect a moment on group endeavors of which you are an observer rather than participant. If your interest runs to ballet, you can undoubtedly recall when the corps seemed to rise above the individual ability of each dancer and achieve a magical, seemingly effortless performance. If your interest runs to sports, the same phenomenon is apparent: teams whose performance transcends the ability of individuals. The same can be observed in the symphony, the theater, in fact, every group endeavor, including business and government. Every choreographer, conductor, and coach -- or for that matter, corporation president -- has tried to distill the essence of such performance. Countless others have tried to explain and produce a mechanistic, measurably controlled process that will cause the phenomenon. It has never been done and it never will be. It is easily observed, universally admired, and occasionally experienced. It happens, but cannot be deliberately done. It is rarely long sustained but can be repeated. It arises from the relationships and interaction of those from which it is composed. Some organizations seem consistently able to do so, just as some leaders seem able to cause it to happen with consistency, even within different organizations. (01/14/03) | |
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Dale Allen Pfeiffer writes: Venezuela is the fifth biggest oil producer in the world, and is the third largest supplier to the U.S., exporting oil to this country at the rate of 1.5 million bpd. Venezuela's oil production has dropped from just under 3 million bpd to barely more than 825,000 bpd. Little more than one month ago Venezuela was supplying one out of every ten barrels of oil that the U.S. consumed. Now the country is having troubles just meeting its own oil demands. In fact, Venezuela has resorted to the short term importation of refined gasoline to keep its economy moving. ... If the U.S. can back a successful coup in Venezuela and take Iraq quickly, Washington will be in a very powerful position and will rule a global empire for some time to come. And this prospect seems quite imminent to those who are calling the shots in Washington. On the other hand, if operations become bogged down in either Venezuela or Iraq, the result could very well be the ruination of U.S. dreams of global imperialism. In Venezuela, if Chavez retains the backing of a major segment of the population and the military, then we could see a bloody civil war, which could disrupt oil supplies for some time to come. The situation could become quite ugly if U.S. intervention led to collaboration between Pro-Chavez forces and Colombian rebels. We could easily find ourselves in a regional conflict that could make Vietnam look like a Sunday picnic. Likewise, if Saddam Hussein prepares his nation for urban guerrilla fighting, then we could find ourselves fighting a war of attrition in the Middle East. In this case, the extended warfare in oil producing regions could precipitate a global economic meltdown, for which the U.S. would be entirely responsible. For the moment, keep your eye on Venezuela. The situation there must be resolved before Bush invades Iraq. President Chavez is an amazing man, and with the full support of the people, he has thwarted several attempts to unseat him, just in this past year alone. He has also won six elections in the last four years. Hugo Chavez may retain his presidency long enough to see George W. Bush lose his. (01/14/03) | |
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The London Guardian -- The amount of ice melting from the surface of the Greenland ice sheet broke all known records last year, threatening a rapid rise in sea levels and a return of very cold winters to Britain because of a slowing down in the Gulf Stream. Already the Gulf Stream, which bathes the west coast of Britain in warm water from the Gulf of Mexico and keeps the country much milder than normal for such northern latitudes, is slowing down. Even greater melting of the Greenland ice could shut off the currents altogether, allowing depressions to dump snow rather than instead of rain in Britain and leading to a much colder continental climate, as has been experienced in the past week. ... According to scientists at the University of Colorado a very dramatic melting trend has been in progress since 1979. Extreme melt years were 1991, 1995 and 2002. The Greenland ice sheet's maximum melt area increased on average by 16% from 1979 to 2002. This year's maximum melt extent of 264,400 square miles exceeds by 2.6 times the melt area measured in 1992. In particular, the northern and north-eastern part of the ice sheet experienced melting reaching up to an elevation of 2,000 metres (6,560ft). This is the first time this area of the giant island, closest to the north pole, has suffered this kind of melting. The Colorado-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences also found that temperatures during the summer of 2002 were unusually warm over much of the Arctic ocean. (01/14/03) | |
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BBC Science -- The polar bear could be driven to extinction by global warming within 100 years, warns an ecology expert. The animal, which relies on sea ice to catch seals, is already starting to suffer the effects of climate changes in areas such as Hudson Bay in Canada. Scientists say Arctic sea ice is melting at a rate of up to 9% per decade. Arctic summers could be ice-free by mid-century. ... British polar expert Dr Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge says the bear faces a gloomy future unless it is able to change its habits. "It could be that a polar bear could adapt to a new habitat and adopt habits like the brown bear in Alaska which hunts salmon in streams and other small animals on land," he said. Scientists believe that Ursus maritimus, the "sea bear", evolved about 200,000 years ago from brown bear ancestors. Whether it can "change its spots" and behave more like a brown bear is another matter. Lynn Rosentrater, climate scientist in the WWF International Arctic Programme, thinks it unlikely. (01/14/03) | |
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Science Daily -- Scientists from Michigan State (MSU) and Stanford universities, in a fresh look at world population dynamics, have revealed evidence that increased numbers of households, even where populations are declining, are having a vast impact on the world's biodiversity and environment. Reduction in household size has led to a rapid rise in household numbers around the world and has posed serious challenges to biodiversity conservation. ... Biodiversity is threatened severely not only by increased numbers of households, but also by less efficient per capita consumption of natural resources, the researchers say. They cite examples that larger numbers of households require more use of natural resources for construction, and that smaller numbers of people per household use on average more energy and goods per person. The decline in household size, say the authors, is due to factors such as a rising number of divorces, and more "empty nesters" because kids are leaving home. They note that around the world, the proportion of multi-generational households is declining steadily. "Personal freedom and social choice may come at a huge environmental cost," says Liu, lead author for the Nature article. (01/14/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Dangerously high numbers of one of the world's rarest and most spectacular birds have died from disease in the last month. An outbreak of avian botulism has killed 71 black-faced spoonbills in Taiwan since 9 December 2002. This is more than 7% of the world population of 969 birds, according to BirdLife International. ... WBFT, the Taiwan partner of Birdlife, and its local branch, the Wild Bird Society of Tainan, set up an emergency rescue team to try to save some of the infected birds. The last dead birds were reported on 4 January, and 17 others have recovered so far. The Taiwanese authorities and WBFT are working to minimise any recurrence of the disease at Tseng-wen by changing the way organic pollution is controlled. (01/14/03) | |
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BBC Science -- ICESat (Ice Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite) was blasted into orbit on a Delta rocket from Vandenberg US Air Force Base on the central California coast. The spacecraft will give scientists the clearest picture yet of what is really happening in the Arctic and the Antarctic - whether the ice there is shrinking or growing and by how much, and the impact these changes might have on global sea levels. "The geophysical community has been waiting for ICESat for 30 years," US space agency researcher Eric Rignot, who studies Antarctic ice, has told the BBC. (01/14/03) | |
12:06:31 AM
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2003
Timothy Wilken.
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2/2/2003; 7:50:36 AM.
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