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Thursday, February 13, 2003
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Neale Donald Walsch writes: Humanity is facing its moment of truth. We are in the midst of a genuine crisis. Right now. Not in some far off, distant future, but right now. This is an extraordinary world we live in, but if we are not careful, we are going to destroy it. At the very least we will terribly disrupt, if not completely end, life as we know it. There is no- need for us to do that. There is no reason to. Yet the direction in which we are going is taking us right there. The crisis humanity is facing is not a political crisis, it is not an economic crisis, and it is not a military crisis—yet we continue to try to solve it with political, economic, and military means. The crisis humanity faces today is a spiritual crisis, and it can only be resolved by spiritual means. ... We will find our way to peace on earth, goodwill to humans everywhere—and we will find our way because we will make our way. For what the world needs now is not a peacekeeping force, but a peacemaking force. And that is what we intend to be. We intend to help humanity help itself, to make peace at last—peace in each human heart, and peace in the collective experience of us all. There is a place for you on Humanity's Team. I ask you to claim that place now. Without you there is little we can do. With you, there is little we cannot do. (02/13/03) | |
Correspondence with Brian Holtz | |
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Dear Brian, I found your article as the first return of a Google search for Humanity's Future. While you seem unaware of the fossil fuel depletion-overpopulation-global warming crisis, .... I would have to be living in a cave somewhere :-) not to be aware of the reasons why so many people think these three phenomena constitute crises. Indeed, I discuss all three of these challenges in a part of my Futurology writing that you may have missed. By contrast, (an admittedly brief) inspection of your site yields no evidence that you are aware of the (by far less well-known) arguments that these are not crises. The most notable work in this field of thought is Julian Simon's Ultimate Resource. If you want to remain an eco-doomsayer, I'd heavily advise you not to read Simon's book. :-) It's hard to take seriously any doomsaying presentation that doesn't address Simon's analysis. ... I am aware of the work of Julian Simon and have read parts of his book Ultimate Resource.While I would like to believe his premise, my careful reading and review of numerous equally qualified scientists makes him seem naive. I too believe in the unlimited nature of "knowing", what I do not believe in is the unlimited nature of water, air, soil and fossil fuel on a finite planet. (01/13/03) | |
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Brian Holtz writes: Humanity will enjoy increasing political and economic liberty, as well as increasing freedom from ignorance and superstition. Humanity will enjoy increasing prosperity and steady progress within the limits defined by the laws of physics. Effective immortality may result from technology allowing the human mind to sustain its brain or perhaps reincarnate itself as an intelligent artifact. Human civilization will experience neither salvation nor extermination by nature, machines, aliens, or gods. Humanity will spread throughout the Solar System and into the Milky Way, and be enriched by contact with other intelligent species and artifacts. Eventually humanity's descendants will so improve their genes and minds that Homo sapiens will exist primarily as a revered memory. (02/12/03) | |
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Yulia Latynina writes: It's worth noting that no crumbling empire with barbarians on its borders has ever managed to stave off the threat by buying off the barbarian leaders. Not Byzantium, not China. After years of courting the Bulgars, the Byzantines found King Simeon I and his army outside the walls of Constantinople in 913, armed to the teeth by Byzantine money. Every Byzantium has its "Nord-Ost" crisis. The crumbling Russian empire is now trying to buy off its third Chechen leader in just over a decade. The first was rebel President Dzhokhar Dudayev, formerly a general with the Soviet air force in Estonia. The thought was that Dudayev would control Chechnya for the Kremlin in exchange for money and arms, which were duly provided. The second was the "moderate" Aslan Maskhadov. In round three, Moscow is hastily preparing to conduct a referendum in Chechnya, rousing the ire of Europe, in order to get the "peaceful" Kadyrov elected president as soon as possible. There's no other choice. If he doesn't become president, Kadyrov is likely to make for the hills with a couple thousand fighters armed on federal government money. (02/12/03) | |
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Washington Post -- Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday that uncertainties about a war with Iraq represent the biggest cloud hanging over the nation's struggling economy. Consumers have been keeping the economy going. But businesses - worried about the war and other economic uncertainties - have been reluctant to make big commitments in capital investment and hiring, forces restraining the recovery, Greenspan said in presenting the Fed's semi-annual economic report card to Congress. "The intensification of geopolitical risks makes discerning the economic path ahead especially difficult," Greenspan said in prepared testimony to the Senate Banking Committee. (02/12/03) | |
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BBC News -- At least 14 people have been killed and several others injured in a stampede during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, a Saudi official has said. The official said the incident happened during the symbolic stoning of the devil ritual in Mina, just outside Mecca. The incident comes despite extra precautions taken by the Saudi authorities to try to prevent a recurrence of the stampedes which have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years. ... The dead included six women and nationals from Pakistan, India, Egypt, Iran and Yemen, the AFP agency reported. More than two million Muslims were taking part in the ritual, after praying at Mount Arafat on Tuesday and collecting pebbles for the stoning. (02/12/03) | |
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BBC Science -- British scientists say greenhouse gases are at the highest background levels ever recorded in the atmosphere. They say stabilising the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will be harder, because a warming world will trigger feedback mechanisms. The report's key findings include: atmospheric concentrations of many greenhouse gases reached their highest-ever levels in 2001, the three hottest years on record were 1998, 2001 and 2002, positive carbon cycle feedbacks from forests and vegetation could sharply speed up future warming. A positive feedback occurs when warming sets off a further warming trend - when thawing permafrost, for example, releases a greenhouse gas, action being taken in the UK could reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions to 23% below 1990 levels by 2010, and the world's protective ozone layer should recover by mid-century. Mr Meacher said the world faced "a serious wake-up call". (02/12/03) | |
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New York Times -- "People love hearing about snow," said Nolan Doesken, a meteorologist at Colorado State University. But too often, he and other experts say, the nonstop coverage of winter weather masks a troubling decline in reliable snowfall statistics. "The loss of snowfall data globally is a major concern," said Dr. Barry Goodison, a climatologist in Toronto. As chairman of a scientific steering group in the World Climate Research Program, Dr. Goodison depends on snowfall figures to help predict climate change. But too often, he said, the information he needs does not exist. In Russia, social and economic shifts have undermined data collection across that vast and snowy country, Dr. Goodison said. In the United States, after the National Weather Service closed many of its weather stations in the 1990's, snowfall measurements were left in the hands of untrained workers. And training is critical, meteorologists say. "Of the basic weather parameters, snowfall is the most difficult to measure," said Mr. Doesken, the author of a book and a videotape used to teach measuring techniques. The basic method — sticking a ruler in the snow — has not changed much in hundreds of years. But decisions have to be made about where and when to measure. (02/12/03) | |
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Washington Post -- A group of around 50 Western anti-war activists received visas Tuesday to enter Iraq where they plan to form "human shields" in an effort to deter a possible U.S.-led attack on the Arab state. The volunteers said at an impromptu news conference in the Turkish capital they hoped their presence and the possibility of Western casualties would encourage U.S. political leaders and military planners to re-think any plans to bomb Baghdad for its alleged development of weapons of mass destruction. "I am an American human shield on this trip to Baghdad to try and stop this war," said volunteer John Rosse. "I ask American troops headed here...not to come, they have no business being here. They do not make good ambassadors. They are here to kill, murder, devastate the civilian population of Iraq. That is not an American thing to do." The group is traveling across Turkey in a convoy, including a red double-decker bus, that is expected to cross into Syria on Wednesday before entering Iraq. The volunteers left London late last month and headed overland across Europe. On arriving in Iraq, they plan to disperse to populated areas of Baghdad and other parts of the country. (02/12/03) | |
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New York Times -- The first time the Army Corps of Engineers counted how much federally protected wetlands would be lost to a colossal new container port being planned here, it came up with more than 100 acres. The next time, the agency revised that count to fewer than three acres. That was good news for the Port of Houston, the sponsor of the $1.2 billion project. But it was bad news for environmentalists, who found that one of their main arguments against the terminal, its effects on protected wetlands, had been deeply undercut. The revision in the wetlands figure may have been drastic, but it was not isolated. For two years, the engineers, by statute the country's pre-eminent protector of wetlands, have been recalculating its authority, and what is now emerging, in places like Seabrook is evidence of a broad retreat. Along 1,000 miles of Texas coast, the wetlands over which the corps claims jurisdiction has shrunk, to 1.8 million acres, or 60 percent of what it was in 2000, according to an estimate provided by the district headquarters of the corps in Galveston. In Barnwell, S.C., where the corps once claimed jurisdiction over 76 acres of wetlands that would be affected by a proposed technology park, it now claims 1.7 acres. That opens the way for destruction of the wetlands, which are marshes, swamps, bogs and similar areas that filter and cleanse water, help retain floodwaters and provide habitats for many wildlife species. ... "This is coastal prairie habitat that's going to be cemented over 100 percent." (02/12/03) | |
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Peter R. Wills writes: Biological systems display extraordinary dynamic complexity. They are integrated both within and across multiple levels in time and space. The highest level where intricate dynamic complexity is evident is the domain of global evolution. Entire species continually appear and disappear in a pattern extending over billions of years. The lowest level of dynamic complexity in biology is the domain of elementary biochemical and molecular genetic processes. These processes occur in microscopic cells, and take times as short as a millionth of a second to reach completion. The authorities who assess the environmental and ecological impacts of genetically engineered organisms usually ignore the complex patterns of causation that are characteristic of biology. This is because no-one has sufficient scientific understanding of biological processes to analyse adequately or predict accurately change in complete systems of any size: cells, organisms, ecosystems or our planetary biosphere. As a result of this ignorance, releasing the products of genetic engineering into the environment puts the world of nature at risk of harm that we don't yet know about. (02/11/03) | |
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David Potorti writes: As I write, it's February of 2003, and the United States is preparing for a short, decisive battle in Iraq. But in February of 1945, the United States was preparing for another short, decisive battle. It was to take place on a small island in the South Pacific called Iwo Jima. Iwo was a critical step in our nation's wartime advance toward Japan--a nation which at the time had brutalized its own people, its neighbors, and our own territory of Pearl Harbor. Though the island was small, it was heavily fortified by the Japanese, who knew well in advance that its control was a strategic necessity for the Allies. Nevertheless, some in the U.S. predicted a short battle--lasting from 72 hours to four days--to secure the territory. Others predicted heavy U.S. casualties--an estimated 15,000 service people--and were ridiculed. They were wrong on both counts. Iwo Jima took 26 days to secure. And there were 25,851 Marine casualties in that battle, only one battle out of the countless battles of World War II. Those are the recollections of William Manchester, in "Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War," published in 1979. Manchester was himself a Marine who saw combat on Guadalcanal and Okinawa. Rather than being a walk in the park, Manchester writes, "The deaths on Iwo were extraordinarily violent. There seemed to be no clean wounds, only fragments of corpses. It reminded one battalion medical officer of a Bellvue dissecting room. You tripped over strings of viscera fifteen feet long, over bodies which had been cut in half at the waist. Legs and arms, and heads bearing only necks, lay fifty feet from the closest torsos. As night fell, the beachhead reeked with the stench of burning flesh." (02/11/03) | |
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CNN World News -- President Hugo Chavez threatened Sunday to jail thousands of oil workers fired for leading a two-month strike against him. "Fired is nothing! Many of them should go to prison for sabotaging the Venezuelan economy," Chavez said of the more than 9,000 workers dismissed from the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. His threats came one day after more than 100,000 Chavez opponents protested in Caracas in support of the fired oil workers. ... Still, the oil industry -- the world's fifth-largest supplier before the strike -- is slowly recovering. Chavez, who spoke at the El Palito refinery in western Venezuela, said production is at 1.9 million barrels a day. This compares to over 3 million barrels a day before the strike and just 200,000 at the height of the strike. Dissident executives say production is nearer 1.3 million barrels a day, and gasoline shortages continue. Motorists wait hours outside the few stocked service stations, while many citizens have taken up cycling to save on fuel. Several thousand Chavez foes rode bicycles around Caracas on Sunday in support of the fired oil workers. Many wore red, yellow and blue clothes -- the colors of Venezuela's flag. (02/11/03) | |
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New York Times -- Delegates attending a United Nations environmental conference here last week endorsed a global crackdown on pollution caused by mercury, although the United States blocked efforts for binding restrictions on its use. Mercury, a highly toxic heavy metal, is particularly dangerous for infants and children, and it can be passed from pregnant women to their fetuses. Human exposure to mercury comes from a variety of sources — consumption of fish, occupational and household uses, dental fillings and some vaccines. The United Nations Environment Program will begin assisting countries, particularly those in the developing world, in devising methods for cutting emissions of mercury from sources like coal-fired power stations and incinerators. Further action, possibly including a binding protocol, was put off until 2005. The decision followed the release of a report outlining a significant global threat to humans and wildlife from mercury, a naturally occurring metal. Mercury exposure can cause development problems and can affect the brain, kidneys and liver. (02/11/03) | |
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CNN News -- According to a survey released Sunday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline nationwide has gone up more than 11 cents during the past two weeks. Americans paid an average of $1.60 per gallon of self-serve regular, the Lundberg Survey said. Publisher Trilby Lundberg said that is the highest price at the pump since June 2001. The price increase is in keeping with the rise in crude oil prices, which have exceeded $35 per barrel -- up more than $8 per barrel during the past two months, Lundberg said. (02/11/03) | |
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CNN Science -- On the second day of the shuttle Columbia's flight, a small object separated from it, NASA has learned, and officials are investigating whether it provides a clue to what caused the shuttle's disintegration upon re-entry. An Air Force tracking station captured images of the object separating from the shuttle at 5 miles per second January 17, a NASA spokesman said. The agency is checking the data against a record of flight activities to see whether it was something routine like a water dump or whether the crew or onboard computers reported anything unusual at the time the object separated. (02/11/03) | |
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
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2/28/2003; 12:46:57 AM.
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