Tuesday, July 22, 2003

The Will Not to Believe In his paper titled The Problem of Denial, William R. Catton, Jr. writes: Abundant evidence suggests industrial civilization must be "downsized" to curb damage to the ecosphere by the "technosphere." Trends behind this prospect include prodigious population growth, urbanization, cultural dependence upon ravenous use of fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources. consequent air pollution, and global climate change. Despite prolonged Cold War distraction and entrenched faith that technology could always enlarge carrying capacity, these trends were well publicized. But there remain eminent writers who persist in denying that human carrying capacity (Earth's maximum sustainable human load) has now been or ever will be exceeded. Denials of ecological limits resemble anosognosia (inability of stroke patients to recognize their paralysis). Some denial literature resembles their confabulations (elaborately unreal stories concocted as rationalizations). Denial by opponents of human ecology seems to be a way of coping with an insufferable contradiction between past convictions and present circumstances, a defense against intolerable anomalous information. ... "Humans," said Edmund Burke, ... "are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. ... Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."  (07/22/03) Heterarchy—The Secret of Japan, Inc. Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Upon returning to California from my 1983 meeting with Dr. Coulter, I had a new focus. I knew a lot about Capitalism most of which I had learned as a student of Andrew J. Galambos. I was very clear about hierarchy. But I was a novice when it came to heterarchy. I immediately set out to find out as much about heterarchy as I could. In the early 1980's, the best business organizations in the world were to be found in Japan. And, I soon discovered the secret of their success was their mastery of heterarchy.  ... In 1983, the major success of Japan, Inc. was serving to focus international attention on their ways of doing business. The Japanese were employing organizing strategies that produced the highest productivity and quality of work-life in the industrial world. Their success appeared to threaten the viability of many American corporations. This threat was leading to the careful examination of the Japanese way by numerous individuals. Their findings revealed the major focus of the Japanese was long-term and wholistic. This was in striking contrast to most American corporations where the focus was short-term and particulate. As the world’s business corporations sought to compete and survive in the late 70s and early 80s, they sought the most powerful organizing strategies available. Who would be right — the Japanese, or the Americans? (07/22/03) Clouds Clearing over Silicon Valley The Christian Science Monitor --  Indeed, Silicon Valley's story is, by now, a modern-day Homeric epic, writ across the austere friezes of Wall Street in diminishing red numbers. Once the engine of perhaps the greatest economic boom in American history, techies became the untouchable caste of the national economy, seemingly defined only by the unprecedented magnitude of its failure. These days, however, Ericson is able to suppress a grin only with great effort. He cautions that he "isn't about to do handsprings," but then sets off on a verbal routine of gymnastic exuberance worthy of Kerri Strug. Good times may not yet be back, but optimism has returned to Silicon Valley. No, the nascent tech rally in the stock market is not the second coming of million-dollar stock options and all-expense-paid business trips to Fiji - at least not yet, most here say. But it may well mean that the worst times are past, and that technology will no longer inhibit the national recovery. Moreover, it is times like now, when scientists and entrepreneurs can fully turn their attentions toward a new generation of innovation, that the technological cornerstones for the next boom are laid. (07/22/03) Saving the Coral Seas The Christian Science Monitor -- For decades, marine scientists have tracked the loss of once-bountiful coral-reefs in the Caribbean Sea. But few have tried to fit the disparate pieces of the coral reef puzzle into a region-wide picture. Now a team of scientists is publishing what may be the first long-term look at changes in the Caribbean's corals. They find that hard corals - the backbone of reef systems - cover 80 percent less undersea terrain than they did 30 years ago.  Researchers say the losses of coral reefs - the marine equivalent of tropical rainforests in terms of biodiversity - affect the region in several ways. They remove havens for maturing fish and other marine organisms, and destroy buffers that can protect shoreline from the full brunt of storm tides. But the numbers also impart a ray of hope. They suggest that pollution, overfishing, and tourism are the primary causes of the decline. These local conditions are easier to handle than trying to offset the threats of long-term climate change, notes Dr. Isabelle Côté, a marine ecologist at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Britain and one of the study's researchers. (07/22/03) Perpetuating Homelessness Common Dreams -- To many people, the world today is upside down. Look at the problem of homelessness, for example. We are the richest and most powerful nation in the world, and yet there are still thousands and thousands of people who sleep on our streets each night. It doesn't make sense; it is an upside-down reality. But maybe we need to look at homelessness with an upside-down perspective, with an absurd logic that just might illuminate the immensity of this crisis and move us into positive action. Maybe the utterly absurd conclusion is this: We really want homelessness to exist in the United States. Maybe homelessness is good for our economy, since doing nothing saves us money. (We avoid paying increased taxes to feed, house and provide the homeless with job training.) Perhaps it boosts our self-image. (We need to feel positive about our own lives, so it's good to have people worse off than us.) Homelessness helps our environment since the homeless are great recyclers. (Perhaps homelessness gives us a great reason to clean out the old clothes from our closets.) It is a good object lesson for our children. (If they don't do their homework or find a job, we threaten that they'll end up like "them!") And what else would we do with our spare change? Sure, this "logic" sounds ludicrous, but so is the existence of homelessness in affluent America. If there really is an absurdist conspiracy to keep people homeless on our streets, then here are the "Top 10 Ways to Increase Homelessness in Our Community". ... (07/22/03) New Advance in Diabetes Treatment The New Scientist -- An experimental multi-tasking drug for diabetes has shown promising results in mouse experiments. It could lead to a new medication for type 2 diabetes, say US researchers. People with diabetes have difficulty balancing their body's blood sugar levels. In type 2 diabetes, people may have reduced sensitivity to the hormone insulin that enables the body's cells to take up glucose from the blood. This means that sugar in the blood can build up to dangerous levels. Most diabetes drugs act either to increase the amount of insulin in the blood or to enhance the body's sensitivity to glucose. But the team led by scientists at Hoffman-La Roche in Nutley, New Jersey believe they have found a molecule which can do both. The molecule, called RO-28-1675, acts on a special "glucose-sensing" enzyme called glucokinase (GK). It helps GK persuade the pancreas to make more insulin, and at the same time stimulate the liver to take up more glucose. "There have not been that many new diabetes drugs ever discovered, and this one is unique in its mechanism of action," says team member Mark Magnuson, at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. "It has dramatic effects in animals, suggesting it has the potential to be a very powerful new drug." (07/22/03) The South Aral Sea: Going Going Gone! The New Scientist -- The Aral Sea is disappearing even faster than previously thought, with a new study of the southern part of the sea slashing its life expectancy by decades. Since the 1960s, the sea has been drying up as a result of poor management of irrigation channels that steal water from rivers feeding it. Once the area of Ireland, it is now a quarter that size and broken into two fragments - the North Aral Sea and South Aral Sea (see map). Because of the costs involved, only the smaller North Aral has been earmarked for rescue, and several dams to stem water loss from it have been build since the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, the South Aral has been abandoned, and as it dries up it is wreaking havoc on the environment. It is leaving behind vast salt plains, transforming the climate with hotter summers and colder winters, destroying what remains of local fisheries, and producing massive dust storms that spread disease. There are projects in place to mitigate these effects, such as planting vegetation in the exposed seabed to prevent desertification. To their organisers, the sea's rapid decline is an urgent call to action. (07/22/03) 5:39:00 AM

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