Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Leap Forward or Perish Barry Carter writes: As we look at the animal world and all of nature we see lose/win. One animal must die in order for another to live. Eat or be eaten is the rule. Within groups of animals there is a control hierarchy and pecking order, just like society and companies. Lion prides continuously battle for territory with other lion prides and hyena packs. This battling occurs with what appears to be the same fierce hatred as that which we've witnessed between racial, religious and ethic groups. This is the reality from whence we evolved. Though advanced society is separate from this activity, our paradigm and social institutions still reflect this reality. Lose/win then is our evolved reality from millions of years of evolution. With lose/win being our reality, how is it possible to change this reality? ... In order to see the win-win before us we must take a leap forward out of the lose/win reality from where we evolved. We must "see things differently." We must have a miracle "a shift in our perceptions; a metanoia " a shift of mind. It is possible because our expectations create reality. This can happen in many ways. Mass privatization can help us see the win-win reality because of the directness and practical reality of the win-win structure. (02/25/04) Nothing Simple about Nature ENN -- People generally like simple answers. This happened, so this happened. Cause and effect. Simple. But nature doesn't work that way. Just when we think we've got something figured out, another idea comes along that turns our preconceived notions upside down. In spite of all our scientific advances, we are only just beginning to understand how ecosystems work. (02/25/04)  Mind Over Matter BBC Science -- If you don't mind it doesn't matter. ... Fantasy worlds created by virtual reality have been shown to provide a novel form of relief to patients suffering from intractable pain. Dr Hunter Hoffman, research fellow at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, has tested his virtual worlds on victims of burns injuries who suffer excruciating pain during their daily dressing changes which conventional drug therapy fails to control. Hoffman's virtual worlds, which he calls by names such as SnowWorld or SpiderWorld, are designed to immerse the user so deeply in the virtual experience that their attention is distracted away from the pain. SnowWorld, for instance, takes users on an absorbing virtual journey through glaciers and ice caves whilst having to defend themselves from attack by polar bears and penguins. Mike Robinson, a patient who has undergone the virtual reality treatment, said it helped him to overcome the extreme discomfort he felt when his dressings were changed. "My pain when the nurse is changing my bandages is consistently extreme," he told BBC News Online. "But during the time I was in VR, I was pretty much unaware that the nurse was even working on my wound. I mean, at some level I knew she was working on me, but I wasn't thinking about it because I was inside that SnowWorld." Virtual analgesia is founded on the principle of distracting the attentional resources of the brain. Dr Hoffman believes pain contains a significant psychological element which is why distracting thoughts by virtual reality lends itself so well to pain control. "Pain requires conscious attention. Humans have a limited amount of this and it's hard to do two things at once," he said. "In this case, we try to lure attention away from the pain signals by drawing the spotlight of attention into the virtual environment leaving less available to process incoming pain signals." The psychological component is thought to interact with the physiological, according to the prevalent idea of how pain manifests itself, known as Gate Theory. This suggests that higher order thought processes descend the spinal cord and influence the amount of pain allowed to enter the brain. The use of virtual reality in related conditions such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) attests to its influence of mind over matter. (02/25/04) BBC Awarded Enviroment Prize BBC Environment -- The world's richest environment prize, the Zayed Prize, has been accepted by the BBC at a ceremony in Dubai. The $0.5m award recognises the BBC for its coverage of issues related to the environment and sustainable development. ... The IPCC is the body that has assessed the science behind global warming for world governments. This is only the second time the Zayed Prize has been awarded. The first award ceremony in 2001 honoured the former US President Jimmy Carter for his work on poverty reduction and the environment. ... The chairman of the judges for this year's prize was Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep). He singled out programmes such as Earth Report and HardTalk on BBC World for special praise, and paid tribute to David Attenborough's many wildlife series for the corporation. This broadcaster has year in and year out covered some of the most pressing environmental and sustainable development issues across the full range of its output," he said. "The BBC's reach, not only via television and radio but increasingly through its online internet service, is matched by its commitment to (42) languages." The Unep official said BBC programmes had frequently pushed politicians to reverse poorly thought out policies. "Rarely with the BBC are you allowed to duck the question or ignore the real issues," he said. ... The BBC executive was handed the winner's trophy by the patron of the Zayed Prize, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai. (02/25/04) Saudi Oil Fields in Decline! New York Times -- When visitors tour the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's oil empire — a sleek glass building rising from the desert in Dhahran near the Persian Gulf — they are reminded of its mission in a film projected on a giant screen. "We supply what the world demands every day," it declares. For decades, that has largely been true. Ever since its rich reserves were discovered more than a half-century ago, Saudi Arabia has pumped the oil needed to keep pace with rising needs, becoming the mainstay of the global energy markets. But the country's oil fields now are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years. Energy forecasts call for Saudi Arabia to almost double its output in the next decade and after. Oil executives and government officials in the United States and Saudi Arabia, however, say capacity will probably stall near current levels, potentially creating a significant gap in the global energy supply. Outsiders have not had access to detailed production data from Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, for more than 20 years. But interviews in recent months with experts on Saudi oil fields provided a rare look inside the business and suggested looming problems. An internal Saudi Aramco plan, the experts said, estimates total production capacity in 2011 at 10.15 million barrels a day, about the current capacity. But to meet expected world demand, the United States Department of Energy's research arm says Saudi Arabia will need to produce 13.6 million barrels a day by 2010 and 19.5 million barrels a day by 2020. "In the past, the world has counted on Saudi Arabia," one senior Saudi oil executive said. "Now I don't see how long it can be maintained." ... Saudi Arabia's reported proven reserves, more than 250 billion barrels, are one-fourth of the world's total. The most significant is Ghawar. Discovered in 1948, the 300-mile-long sliver near the Persian Gulf is the world's largest oil field and accounts for more than half of the kingdom's production. The company told The New York Times that its field production practices, including those at Ghawar, were "at optimum levels" and the risk of steep declines was negligible. But Mr. Price, the former vice president for exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, says that North Ghawar, the most valuable section of the field, was pushed too hard in the past. "Instead of spreading the production to other fields or areas," Mr. Price said, the Saudis concentrated on North Ghawar. That "accelerated the depletion rate and the time to uncontrolled decline," or the point where the field's production drops dramatically, he said. In Saudi Arabia, seawater is injected into the giant fields to help move the oil toward the top of the reservoir. But over time, the volume of water that is lifted along with the oil increases, and the volume of oil declines proportionally. Eventually, it becomes uneconomical to extract the oil. There is also a risk that the field can become unstable and collapse. Ghawar is still far too productive to abandon. But because of increasing problems with managing the water, one Saudi oil executive said, "Ghawar is becoming very costly to maintain." The average decline rate in Saudi Aramco's mature fields — Ghawar and a few others — "is in the range of 8 percent per year," without additional remediation, according to the company's statement. This means several hundred thousand barrels of daily oil production would have to be added every year just to make up for the diminished output. (02/24/04) 5:53:55 AM

© TrustMark 2004 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 3/1/2004; 7:31:30 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.