I have a meeting tomorrow with Roel Snieder of the Colorado School of Mines to discuss a potential interview. I'm really excited as I just finished looking over his PowerPoint presentation on Global Energy, which addresses both where we are and where we're headed.
I've drawn a number of leads to additional interviews from within his presentation. He's already proven to be a great guide for my project and the road ahead.
Here's a great quote from his presentation regarding how we should approach life and learning.
“I think we have the responsibility to insist that education is more than learning job skills, that it is also the bedrock of a democracy. I think we must be very careful that in the race to become wealthier, more prestigious, and to be ranked Number One, we don't lose sight of the real purpose of education, which is to make people free - to give them the grounding they need to think for themselves and participate as intelligent members of a free society.”
- Myers, T.M., A student is not an input, NYT, March 26, 2001
peace,
d
I've drawn a number of leads to additional interviews from within his presentation. He's already proven to be a great guide for my project and the road ahead.
Here's a great quote from his presentation regarding how we should approach life and learning.
“I think we have the responsibility to insist that education is more than learning job skills, that it is also the bedrock of a democracy. I think we must be very careful that in the race to become wealthier, more prestigious, and to be ranked Number One, we don't lose sight of the real purpose of education, which is to make people free - to give them the grounding they need to think for themselves and participate as intelligent members of a free society.”
- Myers, T.M., A student is not an input, NYT, March 26, 2001
peace,
d
We’re in this together
What we’ve lost sight of in the global warming debate is that while we may be doing
terrible things to the planet, it is capable of doing much worse to us
terrible things to the planet, it is capable of doing much worse to us
BY MARQ DE VILLIERSMARQ DE VILLIERS
is the Governor-General’s Award-winning author of Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource. His latest book is Dangerous World.
is the Governor-General’s Award-winning author of Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource. His latest book is Dangerous World.
It is common knowledge — except perhaps on the wilder shores of Creationism — that everything on Earth, the plains, mountains, canyons, lakes, the very shape of the continents, is the product of processes that were, and still are, at work far below the surface. Even schoolkids, after all, learn about plate tectonics. Now, webcams on the net show molten rock bubbling from volcanoes in real time; pictures of the San Francisco expressway tottering in a big quake are commonplace; the Asian tsunami of 2004 made its way into billions of living rooms through amateur videos and cellphones.
But still ... just how very malleable, how unnervingly plastic, this seemingly solid Earth of ours really is, and how very unstable its apparently immutable surface, is something we are only recently coming to understand.
A German-American satellite recently demonstrated that the Earth’s surface can change far faster than merely drifting continents, faster even than the seasons. On its multiple passes the satellite showed that the Earth’s crust can dip a few centimeters under a heavy regional snowfall, or through changing water levels in the Amazon, or after torrential monsoon rains. Other research has shown that the deep tones of a thunderclap — not the crack that you hear but the almost inaudible infrasound rumbling that follows — can set off small seismic shocks that set the upper crust quivering. Far from being the solid thing that common sense tells us it is, the Earth breathes, shivers, throbs, and pulsates in ways no one would have believed even a few decades ago.
That the moon causes tides in the oceans is a commonplace, of course. But that it causes tides in the apparently solid surface of the Earth is less well known, yet it does — the Earth’s crust is “sucked upward” by the moon’s gravitational pull twice a day, just as the sea is. Less than the sea, obviously — rock is not as malleable as water — but it can rise by a not unimpressive 10 centimetres all the same.
Many people were astonished to learn that the 2004 tsunami was strong enough to actually change the Earth’s rotation by a fraction of a second, setting off a flurry of apocalyptic blogs on the Internet. But this is not so uncommon, after all. Changes of a few milliseconds are really quite routine. The seasonal distribution of water and ice, and even water vapour, can be enough. El Niño, in addition to causing droughts in the southern hemisphere and warmer winters in the American northeast, also changes the length of the day. Filling the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam in China altered the rotational period enough to be measured by amateur astronomers. If such a dam burst, it would not only kill hundreds of thousands of people, but make the Earth itself wobble, and slow a little.
This inherent instability has its consequences. We may be doing terrible things to the planet — as we’re reminded almost every day — but the planet is quite capable of doing equally dismaying things to us. We’ve sort of lost sight of this in the global warming debate. Consider these facts: The insurance giant Munich Re issued an actuarial assessment in 2005 that said we can now confidently expect three to four major calamities each year with 50,000 or more casualties. Seismologists are confident that a million-victim earthquake is a certainty in the next few decades. Most probable venue: Central Asia, whose cities have “some of the scariest building codes anywhere.” But it could be Tokyo, at the junction of three restless tectonic plates. Or California — a 2008 report said the Big One should confidently be expected in the next 20 or so years. Some 8,000 mini-earthquakes occur each day, about three million a year — every day, two greater than magnitude 2, and one really big one, a potential city killer, every year.
More than 1,500 active volcanoes have been catalogued, with 10 to 20 erupting at any one time. Yet the biggest three eruptions of the last 50 years happened on mountains that were not thought to be volcanoes at all. In December 2006 the journal Science reported on the work of Maria Pareschi, of Italy’s National Institute of Geology and Volcanology — the same researcher who traced tsunamis resulting from collapses of Mount Etna and Stromboli, among others. “A massive collapse of Cumbre Vieja, a volcano in the Canary Islands, would trigger a towering tsunami that would pummel both sides of the Atlantic,” Pareschi suggested. “Such a collapse — quite probable because it is very unstable — would be 10 times larger than the Etna slide, (itself) an immense geological event. It would overwhelm New York, Miami and Lisbon.” How tall would such a towering tsunami be? Possibly as high as 100 metres. That’s as high as many of the buildings on Wall Street. Nothing on the coast would escape.
You need to look up, too, as well as down; we’re living in a hostile cosmic neighborhood. NASA has been charged with cataloguing the billions of asteroid fragments lurking around between Jupiter and Mars, and to make some hazard assessments. After all, only a century ago a fragment impacted Siberia, near Tunguska. It was just a small thing, maybe 10 metres or so, but had it landed on, say, London, the city would have been obliterated.
In March 2007 a planetary defense conference was summoned by the U.S. Congress, whose attention had been caught by the spectacle, seen live on TV, of a comet wreaking havoc on a planet much greater by far than Earth, namely Jupiter. The assembled scientists then calculated: the probability of a “dinosaur-killer” impact — that is, one that would very possibly end life as we know it — is about one in one million this century. The probability of a civilizationending impact is rather larger — a bit less than one in 1,000 this century. For a smaller, Tunguska-class impact, near the lower size for penetration of the atmosphere, but still large enough to destroy a city, the odds are higher still: maybe one chance in 10 that we’ll get a hit this century. Those are not comforting odds. Here’s what would happen if a kilometre-sized chunk of rock hit, say, the Atlantic Ocean 500 miles off the American coast: At the given speed of 61,000 kilometres an hour (an actual observation of an Earthly near miss in 1950), the 60,000-megaton blast of the impact vaporizes the asteroid and displaces an area of ocean 17 kilometres across and down to the sea floor. Water then rushes back in and waves spread out in all directions. Two hours after impact, 120metre waves, the size of a 40storey building, would reach beaches from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras; two hours after that, 60metre waves would have hit the entire east coast and pretty much wiped out most of the Caribbean. Eight hours after impact, the waves reach Europe, where they come ashore at heights of about 10 to 15 metres.
It has always been a commonplace of science fiction that what the world needs is an external enemy to bring its quarrelling populations together. What few of those writers understood was that the “enemy” was not alien spaceships manned by malevolent monsters, but instead the uncaring, impersonal, value-free operations of entirely natural systems that, quite literally, surround and envelop us. Looked at this way, the political and religious quarrels that consume so much of our energy seem increasingly insane, and so does the ruinous “development” we are inflicting on our home.
The real question is politics. If 50 million people can be killed by a tiny mutation of a microbe we can’t even see, if an entire continent can be wiped out by a collision with something we can’t predict, if the global climate can change when a magma chamber a few kilometres square suddenly decides to erupt … why do we spend so much of our time in fruitless quarrelling? It wasn’t at all reassuring that, with the American state of Georgia facing critical water shortages in the fall of 2007, one of the most vigorous political controversies was about whether the governor could legitimately pray for rain or whether that would somehow violate constitutional norms.
Perhaps five angels, or 50, can dance upon the point of a pin, but none of their dancing will affect the course of the tsunami that will be rolling someone’s way quite soon. Or the hurricane that will be coiling its deadly way across the Caribbean this summer. Or the earthquake that will tumble down cities. Or the volcano that will spread its pall of ash and destruction across towns and villages not yet known. Or the rising sea levels that will swamp coastal communities. This is surely where our attention must be focused.
Two excerpts from an email from my friend Hanna in Missoula, Montana. The email itself is one of the most beautiful emails I've received in a long time, mainly because Hanna takes the time to write.. she takes the time as if she were writing a letter by hand... in our fast-paced world of email and microprocessors her ability to slow down shines through.. and reminds me at least to do the same...
Love ya Hanna Hannan! (www.zootownarts.com)
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
- Charlie Daniels
"The Wild Divine is helping to transform our mass consciousness to one of peace and harmony through a very practical program that allows people to get in intimate touch with the innermost core of their being. To know that they have more power than they have ever realized, to know that they can influence what is happening in their body, in their mind, in their emotions, as well as in the world that they create everyday." - The Book of Secrets
Hanna also included this link which I think you'll enjoy :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL-uL2M3xvM&feature=related
peace,
d
Love ya Hanna Hannan! (www.zootownarts.com)
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
- Charlie Daniels
"The Wild Divine is helping to transform our mass consciousness to one of peace and harmony through a very practical program that allows people to get in intimate touch with the innermost core of their being. To know that they have more power than they have ever realized, to know that they can influence what is happening in their body, in their mind, in their emotions, as well as in the world that they create everyday." - The Book of Secrets
Hanna also included this link which I think you'll enjoy :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
peace,
d
Here's an entry from my friend Grant from Spain. I have to thank him for turning me onto Roel Snieder (http://www.mines.edu/~rsnieder/) a potential interview subject here in Colorado who he heard speaking last week in Spain. I am currently setting up a blog page for Grant so that he may become a regular contributor to the SFD Film Project.
peace,d
_________________________
Dan, glad to know you are blogging more again. I was missing your regular insights into life. Nice videos by the way... the time lapse traffic ones are appalling, conscious raisers. And, so, our mind numbed, instant oatmeal, get-something-for-nothing society is still quite in the dark about how things are going to change in the next decades. With record oil profits, "peak oil" is getting a little more in the mainstream news, so that's good. I figure in a few short years, the phrase may be as common as "global warming", indeed it should be, because the two are not mutually exclusive, and are quite inextricably linked. On the one hand oil prices are at record highs, even adjusting for inflation, and on the other, Saudi Arabia is saying, don't worry, we are not running out of oil (wink, wink... nudge, nudge), there's lots of oil! http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSSYD3274320080410
Energy
But, here's the catch, we are NOT running out of oil; that is uniformly misunderstood. We are just at or near the peak of how much we can pump out in a day, and demand is going up, but supply is leveling off. Oil in a well is a little like molasses in a big thick slice of bread. Now, take the molasses soaked bread and stuff it at the bottom of, let's see, a Pringles can. Fill the Pringles can with more bread and really pack it down there on top of the molasses bread. Pack in more bread until you can't pack any more. Now, suppose you wanted that molasses... mmmmm, yummy.... but the only way you can get at it is with a thin plastic straw. Ok, so, assuming you can even get the straw down there, without breaking it, maybe the molasses is now under enough pressure from the overlying bread that it might just shoot out, or at least ooze out of the Pringles can (I haven't tried this, just a thought experiment, but maybe worth a try), then you understand what is involved getting oil out 4km below the surface. Nowadays, they are drilling even deeper because all the "good stuff" is gone. So, yeah, well that's where we are. Most of the good, easy to get molasses is out, maybe half of the total still remains. So, it's more or less, not coming out of there, without some pressure injection (which takes lots of energy... but where does that energy comes from), you see where I'm going. Once you pop, it just CAN stop. ;)
So, what do we do? If we are smart and I have no doubt that we are, and we can work together (not so sure about that), we can make a smooth transition to a low energy future (low, because it will likely never be as high energy as it has been on oil). In its most basic sense, energy just allows us to do things. It allows us to organize society, which can be thought of as a system of related and unrelated events that tends toward disorder (natural systems have this tendency because there are many more "disordered states" than "ordered ones", keeping in mind that "order" is not completely subjective). Patterns exist in nature, which is "order" but this order is not the natural tendency, but simply because we live with a effectively limitless supply of energy from the sun. But, higher levels of organization such as society and high-tech, for instance, required something more, oil. But, what IS possible is that we can still influence the system positively within our realm of control. But, a smooth transition is more likely than not, a pipe dream, I am afraid. There will be bumps in the road, so we should accept that, but meanwhile also accept having a fulfilling, yet low energy future. It is, therefore abundantly subjective, what "fulfillment" means to you. If that means high-tech, you might be out of luck, but if you are happy with good food, good family and friends you will discover that fulfillment is all around you, you just need to look for it. For this reason, I really like the "Transition Culture" idea... a very positive message and sustainable way forward: http://transitionculture.org/
The Climate is Changing in Spain
Here, in Catalonia, Spain we are going through a severe drought, the worst in 6 decades. Basically, there is a water ban on most non-essential water usage... and it is just April... at this rate, August will be critical. Let me explain. Last week I saw the headline in Barcelona's newpaper, El Periodico, which showed the current state of the reservoirs in the Pyrenees. They are at 21%, or just above the critical level. Normally, at this time of the year, they are in the 70% full range. Just about the only thing Franco did right however, was to build scores of dams in the mountains, which double as hydroelectric plants. But, this year they are just about run dry and they are usually what gets us along for the summer... The snow pack and glacier run off, as well as the generally rainy Mediterranean winter, fills the reservoirs, and much of northern Spain relies on this for summer water, through the damn dam system. So, of course, we have this water ban... there's no point in complaining. This is an urgent situation. If we don't conserve now, it will be much worse in August when it is in the high 30's. Among other things, we cannot water gardens or green zones, public or private, fill swimming pools (6000€ fine!), wash your cars, even run certain types of air conditioners. Now, the second problem of course is that these reservoirs are running those hydroelectric plants. So, the energy grid is being forced to take up the slack by using, more coal burning plants, which of course, in the long run, exacerbates the problem by contributing to heating up the atmosphere, further inducing droughts and so on. However, other parts of Spain are doing fine, and so this is evidence of the type of things that climate change induces, not just general warming, but the related affects and how the planet (indeed, those very same wonderful laws of physics) respond to warmer temperatures. So, Catalonia has resorted to shipping in water. Yes, you read right. See here: http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=478946&lng=1 This is the epitome of unsustainable and the Catalan government (The Generalitat) knows this, so there is a plan in place to build a desalinization plant. Just hope it's not run on a coal fired electricity plant.
More evidence of the changing climate is that the glaciers in the Pyrenees are just about gone... maybe one or two more years. I saw a picture from 1980 and one from 2004 and it is absolutely shocking, when you realize that this glacier had been there for 10,000 years. Kind of brings tears to your eyes, except that you want to save them in a jar in case you get thirsty. The bears couldn't even hibernate this year in some parts of the Pyrenees, it was so mild... So, their social and reproduction patterns are out of whack.
The Universe is so complex and we have evolved only to be able to perceive it with OUR senses... basically, medium sized objects moving at medium sized speeds. There is so much happening at so many levels, all around us, but many of us seem to assert this so called "god-given right" to dominate the world around us, and our recent discovery of oil has led us to believe that we can do just about anything (ie. go to the moon, etc..., just think what an ego boost that must have been!) A famous physicist, Richard Fenyman, once commented that "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't understand quantum mechanics". Quantum mechanics is brilliant mathematically, but we simply didn't evolve to comprehend it, conceptually. Perhaps, mathematics is even the "mind of god", to overuse a metaphor. It's like, well, ok, we think of an electron as a point particle, but in fact, it's not, its more like a statistical probability... a probability cloud of sorts... because if it is a point particle, elementary in nature, then it has no size, yet... it has a measurable mass... what's more, recently there has been some talk about when the new CERN particle accelerator gets going later this year, there is the possibility of observing the Higgs Boson, which is, as of now, a theoretical particle that if it exists, would give the mechanism by which particles acquire mass. This would be revolutionary in physics! Here is a great definition of the Higgs Boson: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs2.htm
So, what would the existence or not of the Higgs Boson do for us? It may lead to future technological or philosophical discoveries, but more importantly, I think, it would for certain test the limits of what we know or, for that matter, CAN know.
So, the truth is all around us and we have proven that we are a "super-species", we have done some change for bad, but we can choose to also make a change for the good. Much has been said about how "fighting climate change is an industrial challenge" or "it will hurt the economy", well, let me stress, that conserving is always cheaper than spending. We many times underestimate the power of conservation. So, conserving is necessarily good for the economy. And, those areas that will be negatively affected by the changes necessary to move forward will be offset by those that are needed to move us forward to begin with. Building windmills and insulating houses creates jobs. CO2 gas sequestration creates jobs. Finding better, sustainable ways to feed the planet creates jobs. There is no single answer, there is every and all answers. We just have to do the job.
Peace,
Grant
____
Grant Buffett did a BSc in Earth Science at Memorial University and then spent 6 years in both private and public sectors working as an exploration geophysicist in Canada where he researched the application of reflection seismology to finding oil and gas, base metal and diamond deposits in various geological settings. Currently he is finishing a PhD in Earth Science at the University of Barcelona in Spain where he studies the application of reflection seismology to image oceanic thermo-haline fine structure. which he hopes will tell us something about how the ocean transports heat and therefore, its consequential effect on climate.
Grant is interested in promoting human rights and moral issues such as climate change, alongside environmental and economic sustainability, in the face of the pending global energy challenge. He lives with his wife near Barcelona. In his spare time he plays acoustic guitar and works in the garden.
peace,d
_________________________
Dan, glad to know you are blogging more again. I was missing your regular insights into life. Nice videos by the way... the time lapse traffic ones are appalling, conscious raisers. And, so, our mind numbed, instant oatmeal, get-something-for-nothing society is still quite in the dark about how things are going to change in the next decades. With record oil profits, "peak oil" is getting a little more in the mainstream news, so that's good. I figure in a few short years, the phrase may be as common as "global warming", indeed it should be, because the two are not mutually exclusive, and are quite inextricably linked. On the one hand oil prices are at record highs, even adjusting for inflation, and on the other, Saudi Arabia is saying, don't worry, we are not running out of oil (wink, wink... nudge, nudge), there's lots of oil! http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSSYD3274320080410 Energy
But, here's the catch, we are NOT running out of oil; that is uniformly misunderstood. We are just at or near the peak of how much we can pump out in a day, and demand is going up, but supply is leveling off. Oil in a well is a little like molasses in a big thick slice of bread. Now, take the molasses soaked bread and stuff it at the bottom of, let's see, a Pringles can. Fill the Pringles can with more bread and really pack it down there on top of the molasses bread. Pack in more bread until you can't pack any more. Now, suppose you wanted that molasses... mmmmm, yummy.... but the only way you can get at it is with a thin plastic straw. Ok, so, assuming you can even get the straw down there, without breaking it, maybe the molasses is now under enough pressure from the overlying bread that it might just shoot out, or at least ooze out of the Pringles can (I haven't tried this, just a thought experiment, but maybe worth a try), then you understand what is involved getting oil out 4km below the surface. Nowadays, they are drilling even deeper because all the "good stuff" is gone. So, yeah, well that's where we are. Most of the good, easy to get molasses is out, maybe half of the total still remains. So, it's more or less, not coming out of there, without some pressure injection (which takes lots of energy... but where does that energy comes from), you see where I'm going. Once you pop, it just CAN stop. ;)
So, what do we do? If we are smart and I have no doubt that we are, and we can work together (not so sure about that), we can make a smooth transition to a low energy future (low, because it will likely never be as high energy as it has been on oil). In its most basic sense, energy just allows us to do things. It allows us to organize society, which can be thought of as a system of related and unrelated events that tends toward disorder (natural systems have this tendency because there are many more "disordered states" than "ordered ones", keeping in mind that "order" is not completely subjective). Patterns exist in nature, which is "order" but this order is not the natural tendency, but simply because we live with a effectively limitless supply of energy from the sun. But, higher levels of organization such as society and high-tech, for instance, required something more, oil. But, what IS possible is that we can still influence the system positively within our realm of control. But, a smooth transition is more likely than not, a pipe dream, I am afraid. There will be bumps in the road, so we should accept that, but meanwhile also accept having a fulfilling, yet low energy future. It is, therefore abundantly subjective, what "fulfillment" means to you. If that means high-tech, you might be out of luck, but if you are happy with good food, good family and friends you will discover that fulfillment is all around you, you just need to look for it. For this reason, I really like the "Transition Culture" idea... a very positive message and sustainable way forward: http://transitionculture.org/
The Climate is Changing in Spain
Here, in Catalonia, Spain we are going through a severe drought, the worst in 6 decades. Basically, there is a water ban on most non-essential water usage... and it is just April... at this rate, August will be critical. Let me explain. Last week I saw the headline in Barcelona's newpaper, El Periodico, which showed the current state of the reservoirs in the Pyrenees. They are at 21%, or just above the critical level. Normally, at this time of the year, they are in the 70% full range. Just about the only thing Franco did right however, was to build scores of dams in the mountains, which double as hydroelectric plants. But, this year they are just about run dry and they are usually what gets us along for the summer... The snow pack and glacier run off, as well as the generally rainy Mediterranean winter, fills the reservoirs, and much of northern Spain relies on this for summer water, through the damn dam system. So, of course, we have this water ban... there's no point in complaining. This is an urgent situation. If we don't conserve now, it will be much worse in August when it is in the high 30's. Among other things, we cannot water gardens or green zones, public or private, fill swimming pools (6000€ fine!), wash your cars, even run certain types of air conditioners. Now, the second problem of course is that these reservoirs are running those hydroelectric plants. So, the energy grid is being forced to take up the slack by using, more coal burning plants, which of course, in the long run, exacerbates the problem by contributing to heating up the atmosphere, further inducing droughts and so on. However, other parts of Spain are doing fine, and so this is evidence of the type of things that climate change induces, not just general warming, but the related affects and how the planet (indeed, those very same wonderful laws of physics) respond to warmer temperatures. So, Catalonia has resorted to shipping in water. Yes, you read right. See here: http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=478946&lng=1 This is the epitome of unsustainable and the Catalan government (The Generalitat) knows this, so there is a plan in place to build a desalinization plant. Just hope it's not run on a coal fired electricity plant.
More evidence of the changing climate is that the glaciers in the Pyrenees are just about gone... maybe one or two more years. I saw a picture from 1980 and one from 2004 and it is absolutely shocking, when you realize that this glacier had been there for 10,000 years. Kind of brings tears to your eyes, except that you want to save them in a jar in case you get thirsty. The bears couldn't even hibernate this year in some parts of the Pyrenees, it was so mild... So, their social and reproduction patterns are out of whack.
The Universe is so complex and we have evolved only to be able to perceive it with OUR senses... basically, medium sized objects moving at medium sized speeds. There is so much happening at so many levels, all around us, but many of us seem to assert this so called "god-given right" to dominate the world around us, and our recent discovery of oil has led us to believe that we can do just about anything (ie. go to the moon, etc..., just think what an ego boost that must have been!) A famous physicist, Richard Fenyman, once commented that "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't understand quantum mechanics". Quantum mechanics is brilliant mathematically, but we simply didn't evolve to comprehend it, conceptually. Perhaps, mathematics is even the "mind of god", to overuse a metaphor. It's like, well, ok, we think of an electron as a point particle, but in fact, it's not, its more like a statistical probability... a probability cloud of sorts... because if it is a point particle, elementary in nature, then it has no size, yet... it has a measurable mass... what's more, recently there has been some talk about when the new CERN particle accelerator gets going later this year, there is the possibility of observing the Higgs Boson, which is, as of now, a theoretical particle that if it exists, would give the mechanism by which particles acquire mass. This would be revolutionary in physics! Here is a great definition of the Higgs Boson: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs2.htm
So, what would the existence or not of the Higgs Boson do for us? It may lead to future technological or philosophical discoveries, but more importantly, I think, it would for certain test the limits of what we know or, for that matter, CAN know.
So, the truth is all around us and we have proven that we are a "super-species", we have done some change for bad, but we can choose to also make a change for the good. Much has been said about how "fighting climate change is an industrial challenge" or "it will hurt the economy", well, let me stress, that conserving is always cheaper than spending. We many times underestimate the power of conservation. So, conserving is necessarily good for the economy. And, those areas that will be negatively affected by the changes necessary to move forward will be offset by those that are needed to move us forward to begin with. Building windmills and insulating houses creates jobs. CO2 gas sequestration creates jobs. Finding better, sustainable ways to feed the planet creates jobs. There is no single answer, there is every and all answers. We just have to do the job.
Peace,
Grant
____
Grant Buffett did a BSc in Earth Science at Memorial University and then spent 6 years in both private and public sectors working as an exploration geophysicist in Canada where he researched the application of reflection seismology to finding oil and gas, base metal and diamond deposits in various geological settings. Currently he is finishing a PhD in Earth Science at the University of Barcelona in Spain where he studies the application of reflection seismology to image oceanic thermo-haline fine structure. which he hopes will tell us something about how the ocean transports heat and therefore, its consequential effect on climate.
Grant is interested in promoting human rights and moral issues such as climate change, alongside environmental and economic sustainability, in the face of the pending global energy challenge. He lives with his wife near Barcelona. In his spare time he plays acoustic guitar and works in the garden.
Just another vid I've been puttering on. Enjoy!
What makes a sacred space? Is it a place from which we draw our energy to create the world? These are the beginnings of some of the questions I'm exploring.
peace, d
What makes a sacred space? Is it a place from which we draw our energy to create the world? These are the beginnings of some of the questions I'm exploring.
peace, d
Good article & Link.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/yourbusiness/story
Are you an overspender? Take the test!
http://www.burnrate.ca/
I'm reposting this link to the story of stuff as well. How easy we forget the true costs of all our glorious 'stuff'.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
peace,
d
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/yourbusiness/story
Are you an overspender? Take the test!
http://www.burnrate.ca/
I'm reposting this link to the story of stuff as well. How easy we forget the true costs of all our glorious 'stuff'.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
peace,
d
Here's a great article on the serious issues that are surfacing in regards to global food production and consumption.
http://bugleobserver.canadaeast.com/rss/article/251838
"In Thailand, farmers are sleeping in their fields after reports that thieves are stealing the rice, now worth $600 a tonne, straight out of the fields. Four people have died in Egypt in clashes over subsidized flour that was being sold for profit on the black market. There have been food riots in Morocco, Senegal and Cameroon.
peace,d
http://bugleobserver.canadaeast.com/rss/article/251838
"In Thailand, farmers are sleeping in their fields after reports that thieves are stealing the rice, now worth $600 a tonne, straight out of the fields. Four people have died in Egypt in clashes over subsidized flour that was being sold for profit on the black market. There have been food riots in Morocco, Senegal and Cameroon.
Last year it became clear the era of cheap food was over: food costs world-wide rose by 23 per cent between 2006 and 2007. This year, what is becoming clear is the impact of this change on ordinary people's lives."
If we look at the collapse of civilizations throughout history most often they result from over complexity and no single one factor. Food has always played a major role in the ebb and flow of human populations and in today's reality as we face some very significant global issues, we should pay attention to this increasing complexity, and pray that history is not repeating itself once again.peace,d
Finally have a solid internet connection and some time to work.. lots going on in my life.. and a deep and beautiful blog is on it's way.. but in the meantime I'm just posting this vid I made a few months back. It's bleak in feel, since it's a comment on how cheap fuel prices and the incessant driving of the industrial revolution is coming to an end. We've gotten a lot accomplished in our short glut of hydrocarbons, but we better wake up to the new post hydrocarbon reality, otherwise all of our ingenuity will have lead us nowhere.
peace,d
peace,d
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