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Friday, January 09, 2004
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 ECO writes: Last night I woke up as usual with thought that had become very clear. It centered around Ron Patterson writing on the Energy Resources Group: "people breeding like rabbits" (referring to the people of the developing world) and my reply to him which countered with: people in the developed world "consuming like termites". Both are true, and are representations of systems that are very much out of balance, and which are contributing immensely to the destruction of our life support system. And rather than ranting to one another with accusations of "it's your fault" "no, it's your fault" like kids in the school yard, we need to set about, in an adult manner, to work cooperatively toward rebalancing both systems, using perhaps, as I suggested yesterday some ideas from Timothy Wilken's 'tensegrities' to help accomplish this. ( Ortegrity, a Human Organizational Tensegrity and GIFTegrity, a Help Exchange Gifting Tensegrity. ... Jay Earley, gives a good overview of what is happening as different organizations and individuals try to accomplish 'problem solving', and, I think we can see ourselves reflected in this overview. As I consider this, I think about how much wasted energy is spent on the myriad of lists like Energy Resources, involving millions of people from around the world, and wonder as to whether or not there is some way we can channel this energy more productively so as to identify cause and design solution more quickly and applying it more effectively. As Earley points out in the above-referenced link, and we all know, we are under the gun to find solutions to the unprecedented in history, challenges we face today. (01/09/04)
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 Chip Haynes writes: "Ghawar is dying." Could those three simple words signal the beginning of the end for the industrialized human civilization on Planet Earth? No one in a position of knowledge or authority has uttered them publicly yet, nor are they likely to for a few years to come. So we do have some time--but not much. Then again, they may have been said quietly two years ago and we would never know. Life's funny that way. Too bad this isn't a laughing matter. Some two hundred kilometers east of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a stretch of uninhabited and unremarkable desert in the Empty Quarter. This hot, desolate landscape sits above the largest oil field in the world: the Ghawar. It's a big chunk of nothing one hundred and fifty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, but thousands of meters below its surface lie seventy billion barrels of oil patiently waiting to be pumped out. They've waited for millions of years. A few more won't matter. And after that? After that, Ghawar will no longer be dying. It will be dead. Nothing left but sand and sinkholes. Before you sit back, all smug and comfy with that seventy billion barrel figure, let me do a bit of quick math for you: that's only an 875 day supply of oil for the world at the current rate of use. (And that rate rises every year, just as the Ghawar's not unlimited oil reserves get lower.) Admittedly, the Ghawar is not our only source of oil. (And unless you happen to be Saudi, its not even your oil at all, now is it?) Still, the Ghawar is The Big One, and when it goes, things will change--forever. The only questions are: When will it happen, and how will we know? ... Measured up against the big scheme of things, the death of Ghawar and our oil-powered industrial civilization will fall somewhere between the Black Plague of 14th Century Europe and the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Unlike the plague, this will effect humans world-wide, but unlike the meteor, it will effect only humans. Chickens may some day cross the road with impunity. Animals both large and small will prosper (Hey, you try whaling in a row boat!) And the earth will undoubtedly cool off a bit. Too bad we all won't be here to enjoy it. With the death of Ghawar will undoubtedly come the deaths of humans. Many humans, it would seem, the result of probably unavoidable wars for the last remaining oil to the much-predicted pandemics and mass starvation. Estimates on the sustainable limit to humans on this planet have ranged from an utterly dismal 1/70th of the current population (about 100 million) to an almost cheerful (by comparison) two billion. Keep in mind there's six billion of us here right now, so some of you will have to leave. You'll stay for the funeral, though, won't you? I mean, after all, Ghawar is dying. (01/09/04)
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 BBC Science -- Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says. The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion. They say cutting greenhouse gases and storing the main one, carbon dioxide, could save many species from vanishing. The United Nations says the prospect is also a threat to the billions of people who rely on Nature for their survival. In a report, Extinction Risk From Climate Change, the scientists describe their study of the six biodiversity-rich regions, representing 20% of the Earth's land area. The study used computer models to simulate how the ranges of 1,103 species - plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, butterflies and other invertebrates - are expected to move in response to changing temperatures and climate. The scientists considered three different possibilities - minimum, mid-range and maximum expected climate change, on the basis of data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They also assessed whether or not animals and plants would be able to move to new areas. They concluded that from 15 to 37% of all the species in the regions studied could be driven to extinction by the climate changes likely between now and 2050. Species at risk include: Boyd's forest dragon, an Australian lizard likely to lost at least 20% of its range, South Africa's national flower, the king protea, and its relatives, Virola sebifera, a Brazilian tree whose entire range is likely to have vanished by 2050, the Scottish crossbill, found only in Scotland: its survival could demand an improbable migration to Iceland. The study's lead author, Professor Chris Thomas, of the University of Leeds, UK, says: "If the projections can be extrapolated globally, and to other groups of land animals and plants, our analyses suggest that well over a million species could be threatened with extinction." (01/09/04)
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 BBC Science -- Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And without immediate action flooding, drought, hunger and debilitating diseases such as malaria would hit millions of people around the world. ... "As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States is accustomed to leading internationally co-ordinated action. But at present the US Government is failing to take up the challenge of global warming." In Britain, the number of people at high risk of flooding was expected to more than double to nearly 3.5 million by 2080, Sir David said. And damage to properties could run to tens of billions of pounds every year. Britain was trying to show leadership by cutting energy consumption and increasing the use of renewable sources, Sir David added. But the UK was responsible for only about 2% of the world's emissions while the US, with just 4% of the world's population, produced more than 20%. The UK was asking the world's developed economies to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% of 1990 levels by about 2050, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), Sir David said. But despite declaring support for the UNFCC's objectives, the US had failed to ratify the Kyoto accord for emission reductions and "refused to countenance any remedial action now or in the future". Sir David added: "We can only overcome this challenge by facing it together, shoulder to shoulder. "We in the rest of the world are now looking to the USA to play its leading part." Sir David said climate change was the most severe problem faced by the world. (01/09/04)
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 BBC Politics -- President George W Bush will announce proposals next week to send Americans to Mars, and back to the Moon. Senior US officials say he will also reveal plans for the construction of a permanent lunar space station. Mr Bush intends to reinvigorate the US space programme following setbacks, including the Columbia shuttle disaster, the officials report. The manned mission to Mars - where Nasa successfully just landed a probe - is not expected for at least 10 years. Correspondents say Mr Bush had been expected to propose a bold new space mission as part of his re-election campaign. ... The last time the US had men on the Moon was more than 30 years ago. As the Moon is just three days away, while Mars is at least six months away, it is thought the former could become a testing ground for space equipment. "We know more about the Moon and if you want to test technology that is going to keep people alive, it's better to do it on the Moon," Chris Welch, a lecturer in space technology, at Kingston University, UK, told the BBC. "If anything goes wrong you can get back from the Moon in three or four days." As part of the Bush space initiative, there will reportedly be more exchanges of technology between the US space agency (Nasa) and the Pentagon. (01/09/03)
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10:31:37 AM 
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2004
Timothy Wilken.
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