Sunday, March 09, 2003

DYMAXION: Doing More with Less Timothy Wilken writes: When we examine the biological needs of a number of single celled organisms surviving as individuals versus the needs of the same number of cells working together within the body of an organism, we find the cells working together are able to reduce their biological needs by 100 to 1000 times. The bodies of all living systems are organized synergically. That means the cells work together and solve the problems of survival as a unified team. Imagine, what could be possible if the entire human species were a single organization. The synergic strategies of Ortegrity could be used to organize all of humanity into a single level 12 Ortegrity up to a limit of 13,841,287,201 humans. In our present world, with its obsession with growth and growing larger, whenever I have presented the Ortegrity to business people, they have been excited by the possibility of increasing production. However, they tend to overlook the point that these systems could be 100 to 1000 times more efficient. Now being more productive doesn't mean you have to produce more. It also means you could produce what you need in less time and then have more time for yourself and your family. Being more efficient means you can do with a lot more with less energy and matter. ...What this efficiency means is that the ecological footprint of 6 billion synergically organized humans could be as low as that of  60 million to 6 million of today's adversary-neutrally dis-organized humans.  (03/09/03) US Intentions in Iraq Dale Allen Pfeiffer writes: Matthew Simmons is the president of Simmons & Co. International, a company which specializes in investment banking to the energy industry. ... Mr. Simmons was discussing his email correspondence with a senior assistant to former secretary of energy Bill Richardson. The senior assistant informed Mr. Simmons in 1999 that she was accompanying Secretary Richardson on a visit to every OPEC country. Mr. Simmons told her that if he was undertaking such a tour, he would ask each country what was their spare oil capacity. Upon returning to the United States, the senior assistant called Mr. Simmons and told him that she was quite shocked by the responses to this question. In country after country, she was told that they were already pumping at or near capacity. For practical purposes, OPEC has no spare capacity. Several of my associates have suspected as much. But in this interview, Matthew Simmons verifies the fact that OPEC is already pumping at or very close to full capacity. This means that to meet growing demand, oil must be found somewhere else. And OPEC most probably cannot increase output to cover a crisis such as the Venezuelan strike, or the disruption of Iraqi oil production in the event of another Gulf War. In fact, it was only a year after Secretary Richardson made his OPEC tour that world oil production appeared to peak, beginning the cycle of rising oil prices and tanking economies which we have been in since. Though Matthew Simmons did not spell it out, this is the clearest indication to date that we are at peak oil production. The second revelation was more political than technical. Matthew Simmons states in this interview that he advised the Bush campaign and the subsequent Bush administration of the energy situation. This admission makes it very clear that George W. Bush and his administration knew about the approaching energy crisis before even stepping into the White House. Thus, as we have said at From The Wilderness, oil depletion has loomed in the background of every decision made by this administration and every action undertaken. (03/09/03) Do you remember Lobsters? New York Times -- The count of baby lobsters in the western end of Long Island Sound was the lowest last year since Connecticut environmental regulators began their annual surveys in 1983, scientists said today. That, they said, is bleak news on two levels. First, they said, the numbers indicate that the sound's lobsters, which had been showing early signs of recovery after a disastrous die-off in 1999, are not bouncing back. Females are not laying enough eggs to fill the void. Second, they said, the recovery might not happen anytime soon. Immature larval lobsters — free-swimming creatures that have not yet taken up a life of scavenging on the bottom — require five to seven more years of growth before harvesting. "The cavalry is not coming," said one of the scientists, Penny Howell, a marine biologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. The daylong symposium on lobster health, held at a hotel here a few blocks from the sound, was meant to be a public session for scientists to share what they have learned and where the 17 projects looking into the lobster die-off are leading. While scientists said repeatedly that much has been learned about the lobsters and the environment, many of the remarks echoed Ms. Howell's report that no recovery was on the horizon. The lobster catch in Long Island Sound has declined about 70 percent since 1998, and even more in the western end of the sound. (03/09/03) Oops! Global Warming Could Cause Rapid Sea Rise New York Times: Science -- New evidence from a rapidly warming part of Antarctica suggests that ice can flow into the sea much more readily than had been predicted, perhaps leading to an accelerated rise in sea levels from global warming. Many polar and ice experts said the new study, to be published today in the journal Science, suggested that seas might rise as much as several yards over the next several centuries. They called that prospect a slow-motion disaster, the cost of which — in lost shorelines, salt in water supplies, and damaged ecosystems — would be borne by many future generations. The new analysis focuses on the recent breakup of one of the floating ice shelves fringing the 1,000-mile Antarctic Peninsula after decades of warming temperatures there. The loss of the coastal shelves caused a "drastic" speedup of the seaward flow of inland glaciers, the researchers say. (03/09/03) What about the Euro? Terence R. Wilken writes: Now that you have learned how to keep the dollar strong, it is important to see how this fits in with the rest of the world.  The strong dollar made Japan, China, and many other Asian countries very happy.  They were able to build up their country by having companies that could easily sell into the American economy.  It helped them weather a potential downturn in their economies.  They shipped goods to America in exchange for American dollars.  The problem they had was what to do with the dollars that they were accumulating?  The best choice at the time was to invest those dollars in the American stock market.  After all, it was on its way to new highs, and there was no end in sight.  This of course was thanks to the Fed cranking up the printing presses and creating more dollars to keep this scheme going. It also became smart for American companies to send their factories overseas.  That way they could take advantage of the weaker foreign currencies in the manufacturer of their goods.  This was especially true of the horrible energy business.  We could send our refineries overseas so that we did not pollute here in the USA.  We would just allow the pollution occur in other countries so that we did not have to see it.  That way gasoline could just magically appear in our gas tanks when we wanted to go somewhere. As Yakov Smirnov would say:  WHAT A COUNTRY!   (03/08/03) 7:10:38 AM

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