The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

 Michael E. Mann is one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists.  He was a principle researcher in the process of creating a record of atmospheric temperature trends over the past millennia.  Using ice core samples and tree growth ring data, he and his colleagues were able to demonstrate that the last hundred years have been the warmest in well over a millennia.  The paleoclimatological record Mann and his colleagues were able to develop has been peer reviewed and confirmed by dozens of other climate scientists. Other scientists, employing alternate research pathways, have developed data sets that affirm the conclusion drawn by Mann and his colleagues. Global climate change linked directly to elevated levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants in the atmosphere has caused a substantial and measurable increase in average, leading to sea level rise, and more extreme weather, including draughts, flooding, wildfires, and more powerful hurricanes and tornados.

Our human addiction to fossil fuel energy like oil and coal is the primary cause of global warming.  That is the conclusion of  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an institution put together by the world's governments.  The science behind this conclusion has been proven beyond any doubt. It is
undeniable.

Well actually, if you are in the business of mining coal or pumping oil, survival depends on denial.  Oil is the most profitable business in the history of the world. The barons in charge of big oil, coal, and natural gas, faced the prospect of having their industries and profits killed by what should be an inevitable transition to clean, inexhaustible alternatives to dirty fossil fuels. 

With survival at stake, big fossil energy interests have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on disinformation campaigns, whose aim is to obfuscate and  deny any link between the burning of coal and oil and the pollution that drives climate change.


The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, written by atmospheric scientist, Michael E. Mann, chronicles the way his research has been attacked by deniers, pretty much all of whom are being paid by big fossil energy.

The same hired guns and the same nefarious tactics that were employed by big tobacco to deny the link between cigarettes and cancer, are now focused on confusing the public about climate change and the link to our use of coal and oil. What this amounts to is putting the future of human civilization at substantial risk in order to protect the profitability of big coal and oil.

The story of Representative Joe Barton, (R-Tx), Chair of the Congressional Science and Technology Committee,  is particularly sordid. .  Barton, who gets massive amounts of campaign money from the fossil fuel industry, is an ardent climate denier. He has long  used his powerful position to undermine the overwhelming scientific record that links dirty fuels to climate change. The best words to describe Barton and others in the Congress that deny climate science are shameful, corrupt and contemptible.

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars offers an unimpeachable analysis of all that's wrong with American public policy where energy is concerned.  The book is well written and thoroughly researched. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand why we are still fighting this battle.  Coal, oil, and natural gas are old news. There are plenty of clean energy options emerging. Many are already cost competitive with fossil fuels. The transition away from dirty energy is already underway.

Dishonest denial in support of coal and oil profit must not be allowed to obstruct the move to clean sources of energy for even a moment longer.

Nature's Trust

Written by University of Oregon Law Professor, Mary Christina Wood, Nature's Trust provides a thoroughly researched review of the trust responsibility of government at all levels in America, to the people and to future generations.

Here is how Professor Wood puts that responsibility in the introduction of Nature's Trust.

The sovereign trust obligation offers a catalyzing principle to citizens worldwide in their common struggle to hold government's accountable for protecting life-systems. Nature's Trust and the primordial rights inculcating it create a populist manifesto that surfaces at epic times through the generations of humanity. These principles stand no less revolutionary for our time and our crises than the forcing of the Magna Carta on the English monarchy in 1215 or Mahatma Gandhi's great Salt March to the sea in 1930.  Resonating deeply and resolutely within the ancestral memory of humanity,  trust principles must now revive to stir a global assertion of citizenship in defense of humanity and all future generations.

Professor Mary Christina Wood has done an enormous service to society by reminding us how deeply entrenched the trust responsibility is in global governance.  We live in a time when the American political process has devolved in a circumstance of  'He who has the money makes the rules.'  Climate change, driven by the human addiction to dirty coal and oil, is a challenge that is not being addressed, primarily because of the failure of our elected representatives to recognize and live up to their trust responsibilities to the people and to future generations.

Trust law is no panacea. The best way to put government back on track would be a Constitutional Amendment that says, 'Corporations are not People' and 'Money is not Speech'.   That's a very tough nut to crack. For now, Mary Christina Wood's  illumination of  natural trust law has inspired a number of court challenges, demanding a proper government response to climate change.  Nature's Trust provides a solid foundation for legal remedy against our government's failure to meet it's obligation to protect nature and the commons for future generations.

This is a very important book. I give it my highest recommendation, with one caveat. The price tag - $40 for a paperback book - creates an unfortunate accessibility problem. I would love to have Nature's Trust for reference in my own library. Perhaps, at some point, they will come out with a different edition at a more reasonable cost.  For now, when I need to visit this book, I will go to the library.

Here is a link to author Mary Christina Wood, appearing on the Bill Moyers PBS Show, talking about Nature's Trust...  http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-climate-crusade/

The Sense of Being Stared At

So, here we have another book from Rupert Sheldrake, recounting his years of research into mind phenomenon like telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, and the sense of being stared  at.  Sheldrake comes to this inquiry as a Cambridge trained biologist.  His work is based on solid science, but it does not support the 'materialistic' explanation for reality that remains the foundation for modern science.

 

 

Here are a couple of facts that one cannot get around when considering things like consciousness, memories, information processing, and individual creativity.

Fact#1 - As hard as scientists have tried, they have never found any physical structures in the brain that can account for consciousness. The nature of human awareness remains a mystery

Fact#2 - There are no structures in the brain that can account for storage of memories.

Fact#3 - There are no structures in the brain that can account for thinking.

Fact#4 - There are no structures in the brain that can account for creativity.

The actual existence of these human capabilities is not in dispute. We are conscious. We do have memories. We do think, and at least some of us are pretty damned creative. But there is nothing in the physical brain that can account for any of it.  Traditional science ignores that reality and simply assumes that these abilities are there in the physical brain in some mysterious, yet undiscovered way.

Sheldrake offers another view. He believes that a person's conscious mind, memories, thought processes, and creativity exist separate from the physical body, in another dimensional form that remains elusive and beyond direct perception.  

In this book, Sheldrake focuses on the unexplained capabilities that some people have for connecting with the past, the future,  and with people, even at great distances.  He reviews the scientific literature and shows that statistically, there is compelling evidence that these seemingly bizarre mental capabilities that some human beings have do exist.

I am big fan of Sheldrake. I think he is on to something very profound about life and how we humans happen to be conscious, and how we are able to think, and to have memories, and to show amazing flashes of creativity. 

Here is a link to Sheldrake's webpage...  http://www.sheldrake.org/

This Changes Everything

About two weeks ago, best-selling author, Naomi Klein's new book, This Change Everything was released by Simon and Schuster.  It debuted at #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

I've been a fan of Naomi Klein for a long time. I read her first book, No Logo, when it came out about 20 years ago.  Then, her book The Shock Doctrine was released in 2007.  In a nutshell, it focused on the predatory, morally bankrupt nature of neoconservative economics; the brand of capitalism that's dominated since the days of Ronald Reagan.   I wrote a review of that book about two years ago. The link is http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.com/2012/04/shock-doctrine.html  

I just finished reading This Changes Everything.  In it, Naomi Klein makes a powerful case that we are at the end of our rope with climate change.  If we continue, business as usual, running our world on oil, coal, and natural gas, the catastrophic consequences will be unprecedented in all of human history.

Klein shows that big coal and oil and the banks that underwrite them are the most lucrative businesses in all of history. Moreover, the billions in profits these corporate giants generate have allowed them to control the media  and manipulate our political system to get the tax and regulatory policy they want, no matter the consequences.

The primary cause of air pollution is the burning of fossil fuels    That pollution has caused a warming of the Earth's atmosphere that is already driving profound changes to our environment, including the melting of Earth's icecaps and glaciers, rising sea levels, and a large increase in highly destructive weather extremes.  In order to achieve anything close to a soft landing for humanity, scientists say that atmospheric temperature rise must be limited to two degrees Celsius. To do that,  we need to limit the additional carbon air pollution to 500 gigatons.  The problem is, as Klein points out,  fossil energy producers claim to have nearly 3,000 gigatons of  carbon in found, yet to be extracted, reserves of coal, oil, and gas.  That amounts to trillions of dollars in potential profits to energy companies that are only interested in generating income for their stakeholders. As Klein puts it, "...they're determined to burn five times more fossil fuel than the planet's atmosphere can begin to absorb.'

Here's another very unsettling nugget from Klein..."In 2013, in the United States alone, the oil and gas industry spent just under $400,000 a day lobbying Congress and government officials."

So, it's clear, big fossil energy is not about to back down and forgo trillions in profit. It's also clear, if they are allowed to have their way and burn all the dirty energy they claim to have, waiting and ready to dig up, the consequences for life on Earth will be disastrous to the extreme.

As Klein points out, we have the technologies to end our dependence on fossil forms of energy and revitalize human society with a transition to a whole range of proven, clean energy technologies. To some extent,  it's already happening.  

Wall Street and the big energy players are not about to let their largess of carbon to become stranded assets. They are using their money and influence to aggressively resist any threat to their political dominance and their obscene profits.

Blunting the power of corporations requires a fundamental change to our economic system, and to do that we must first remake our political system to remove the undue money and influence.  That's a tall order.  Klein believes only an unprecedented grassroots effort can prevail.  She presents ample evidence that just such an effort is possible, though the window for massive action is closing.

Naomi Klein's worldview is entirely compatible with my own. I think she is one of the most important voices for reason and positive change in public life.

I bought This Changes Everything at Powell's Bookstore in Beaverton the day after it was released. I then learned that on Wednesday, October 1st,  Naomi Klein was scheduled to appear at that same bookstore.   Of course, I was determined to get my copies of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine signed.  Then, I had an inspiration and what happened subsequently was much more than just getting the author's autograph.  Stayed tuned, for my follow-up blog entry on Naomi Klein and This Changes Everything.

Oh, and for the record, This Changes Everything gets my highest recommendation. 

Hope on Earth

Hope on Earth, is a highly engaging dialogue between two  remarkable human beings,  Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich, President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology,  and global ecologist/author/anthropologist/filmmaker Michael Tobias.   Ehrlich is best known for The Population Bomb, a book co-written with his wife Anne more than four decades ago.  I should mention that I was a young man when I read the Ehrlich’s book back when it first came out.  Chilling as its message was, then and now, that book had a profound impact on my understanding of the world.  Dr. Tobias’ work is also well known to me. He is the author of more than fifty books, including World War III – Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium and, with his colleague, partner, and wife, Jane Gray Morrison,  Sanctuary – Global Oasis of Innocence. Tobias has also had a distinguished career as a film maker – more than 150 productions - on subjects (mostly non-fiction, but some fiction) related to animal rights’, biodiversity, and humanity’s tenuous relationship with the environment.  Tobias is also the long-time President of The Dancing Star Foundation, a global animal protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental education non-profit.

 

 

 

Both men have spent much of  their lives investigating and reporting on the massively expanded pressure on our biosphere caused by human population growth.  To put this in perspective, the number of people on Earth when The Population Bomb was first published in 1968 was 3.5 billion. In all of human history, it took till then to get to 3.5 billion. In the 46 years since that time, the population has more than doubled to 7.25 billion. This massive human expansion is not sustainable. The Earth’s resources are finite. We humans are pushing our freshwater, our farmland, our forests, our marine resources rapidly  to exhaustion. Our dependence on fossil fuels like oil and coal is pumping billions of tons of pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a planetary warming that puts the very livability of our tiny dot in the galaxy at great risk. Human exploitation is pushing unprecedented numbers of plant and animal species to the point of extinction.  In fact, the consensus seems to be, for humanity to live within the planet’s long term ability to provide sustenance for most sentient beings, including Homo Sapiens,  the human population should no more than about one to two billion.  The current condition for humanity is one of extreme overreach.  Can we turn it around? Can we change our ways sufficiently to roll back  human demand so it does not exceed the planet’s ability to provide?   

Ehrlich and Tobias are skeptical. Despite that, they remain hopeful. They have both  been aggressively sounding a warning for decades. They both clearly detest the general state of public indifference, and even hostility in some cases,  despite the powerful warning signals we are getting from nature; signals like the melting of our glaciers and the collapse of the polar icecaps, the increasing incidents of extreme draught, wildfire, floods, and massive and highly destructive weather events like Hurricane Sandy and Super Typhoon Haiyan. 

In Hope on Earth, Ehrlich warns, “The past is over. We’re here now, and we’d better damn well make our ethical decisions.”  He goes on to say, “If we don’t solve the issues of population growth and consumption, all the rest of these issues won’t stand a chance of being remedied.”

Ehrlich and Tobias agree that humanity must find a path to achieving critical mass in awareness, and beyond that, a thoughtful, ethical approach to the unprecedented global-scale challenges that have emerged. The course we are on is a dead end.

I really enjoyed reading Hope on Earth. In the end, it is a dialogue about ethics. I loved being a fly on the wall, absorbing this great conversation between two exceptional minds, who understand and care deeply about the ugly turn human history has taken. Their prescription: Wake up and embrace a life-affirming cultural paradigm built on a foundation of compassion, and commitment to planetary stewardship. Do it now, before it is too late.

I give five stars to Hope on Earth. Highest recommendation.

__________________________
 

The Zero Marginal Cost Society

The sub-title of Jeremy Rifkin's latest book is The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Collapse of Capitalism. Provocative to say the least.  This new book is a logical and worthy successor to Rifkin's last, which was titled, The Third Industrial Revolution. Rifkin has become something of a world class guru on the clean energy revolution that is well underway.  It's about fossil fuels and a market driven economy giving way to a world powered by clean, inexhaustible renewable energy resources like solar, wind, and hydropower.

 

 

 

In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, Rifkin sees industrial capitalism and materialism as giving way to an era that is far more inclusive, empathetic, and sustainable;  a new age in which the cost of goods and services are driven down to near zero by technological innovation and the very market forces that have shaped the world that we know. The millennials, the first generation raised in this new era, are less interested in the accumulation of property and possessions, and far more interested in seeing the world as a collection of commons - like the air, the water, and the biosphere -  that we all depend on and all have a collaborative stake in nurturing.

Many of those that have gotten rich as the facilitators and minions of market capitalism are often quick to dismiss Rifkin's suggestion that they are on their way to being marginalized. But the case he makes is exceedingly compelling.  The profound, global scale changes underway are built on the information internet, the emerging internet of energy, and the just developing internet of things.

Rifkin's credentials are formidable. His more than 20 books have been translated into 35 languages. He has been an advisor to the European Union for more than a decade and has had a significant influence on Europe's adoption of his 'Third Industrial Revolution' vision.

I find the transition Rifkin sees as already underway as reason for hope. Rifkin believes that humanity can weather the storm we have created for ourselves with regard to fossil energy dependence and climate, egregious human overpopulation, resource scarcity and conflict that arises from it, and the perversion of governance by a small number of super rich sociopaths, who use their wealth to prevent change that is contrary to their own personal interests.  The latter, to me, is the biggest threat to Rifkin's positive vision. An example of this: the Koch Brothers, two pathological siblings, who are worth $100 billion between them.  They and their ilk are determined to use their money to pervert history and stand in the way of the kind of change that is critically needed in our world.  The Kochs - who own a massive part of Canada's tar sands -  are heavily involved in fostering climate skepticism and bolstering the Republican party, which has become an almost entirely obstructionist force in American politics.

If the reassuring vision that Jeremy Rifkin illuminates so persuasively in The Zero Marginal Cost Society is to be fully realized,  the ability of the super rich to use their money to derail the transition to a post-market, collaborative future will need to be blunted.   Here again, as I have written in so many of these blog pieces, we have to look at a Constitutional Amendment to turn back the sell out of citizen rights driven by recent decisions of the Supreme Court. The five conservative judges on the Roberts court have opened the floodgates to political influence spending by the Koch Brothers and their super rich friends.  Two decisions,  Citizens United and more recently, McCutcheon vs. FEC
assured that 'he who has the money makes the rules'.

I am inspired by the trends Jeremy Rifkin has identified. As a means of protecting the biosphere, I want to see his hopeful vision  fully blossom.  That is why I  choose to support Move to Amend, an activist organization that is focused on achieving a Constitutional Amendment that says Corporations are not people and money is not speech.  That kind of change would neutralize the ability of big corporate money and the super rich to distort our political process.  If you aren't already on board with this, I urge you to educate yourself then get with the program and be part of the solution.

Jeremy Rifkin's book gives  us reason to hope for a better future. Read The Zero Marginal Cost Society,  then stand with Move to Amend, and do your part to help make it happen.

Here is a link to the webpage for The Zero Marginal Cost Society     http://www.thezeromarginalcostsociety.com/  


Here is a link to a one hour presentation Jeremy Rifkin made on his latest book to the leaders of Google... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-iDUcETjvo&feature=youtu.be

Lost Cat

So, our longtime friend, Alexandra Paul has a twin sister named Caroline, who is a very gifted writer. Caroline has written a couple of books, including one about her years as a firefighter in the city of San Francisco. 

Caroline’s latest book, Lost Cat is a story out of her own life. It begins as she is recovering from a very serious leg injury. One of her housemates is a cat named Tibby. Like all kittys, he is a bit of an enigma. For thirteen years, he was pretty much a homebody. Then, while Caroline is hobbled and on crutches, Tibby disappears. Caroline and her partner Wendy MacNaughton search frantically for Tibby, without success.   Then, five weeks later, when all hope is gone, the missing kitty returns, looking healthy, as if not a day had been lost. 

 

 

This is a wonderfully engaging, and amusing, true detective story.  It’s about the emotional distress that comes with the sudden, unexplained loss of a much loved, feline friend, and it’s about solving the mystery of where the venturesome kitty had been during his unexplained absence.

Last Cat is a simple tale. At heart, it is a love story. Caroline Paul tells it in a delightful way, that delivers lots of smiles. Her narrative is exquisitely complemented by Wendy MacNaughton’s sometimes quirky, always endearing illustrations.

 If you are a person with a soft spot for animals, particularly kitty cats, this is a book for you.

 

 

The Crash of 2016

Thom Hartmann's new book, The Crash of 2016 offers evidence and historical context for yet another economic collapse of our society. What happened in 2008 is about to happen again, only this time, it will be much worse.  That's the unambiguous conclusion of The Crash of 2016.  

I have read many of Hartmann's books. His worldview is built on solid research. In a nutshell, as he sees it, human civilization is on the precipice. Too many people, too few resources, and a  political system that is corrupt to the core.  What Hartmann calls Economic royalists have brought America to its knees before. In fact, there's a pattern. Hartmann's calls it the great forgetting, where every fourth generation removed from an economic meltdown caused by the hubris of corporations, banksters, and individuals exercising unrestrained self-interest, it happens again. In 1929, the world fell into a great depression, driven largely by the excessive gaming of the economic system by the rich.  In response, the people elected Franklin Roosevelt. As President, he launched a recovery with his progressive 'New Deal' ideas. Then World War Two came. In it's aftermath, America and the rest of the world moved into an extended period of economic growth and broadly realized prosperity.  Then, in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President. He and his neo-conservative cabal cut taxes on the rich and launched an era of deregulation that set us on an inevitable course for another collapse.  The American middle class has been eviscerated by conservative, 'supply-side' economic policy.  The first reckoning came with the 2008 economic meltdown. Unfortunately, the response was entirely inadequate. The neo-conservatives who caused the meltdown were not held accountable.  Because of inadequate policy reforms, the recovery from 2008 has been tepid at best.   Now, as Thom Hartmann so effectively points out, we are headed toward another collapse. This one will be much more severe than what happened in 2008.  Hartmann makes a very strong case for another economic breakdown in 2016, give or take a year or two.

So, what do we do?  First, we brace for what appears to be inevitable; another collapse of our economic system.  As before, there will be a lot of finger pointing. The neo-conservatives will blame everyone but themselves. We will have a choice.  We can stay the course and allow corporations, the banksters, and the rich to run roughshod over what's left of our civilization, or we can elect leaders who will choose a progressive course and make much-needed reforms to our system of governance...reforms that will restore 'of, by, and for the people' to our way of life.

Thom Hartmann's The Crash of 2016 delivers  a clear prescription for what we as citizens must do to rebuild from the ashes of the crash that's coming. His vision offers hope for a new order that is both life-affirming and sustainable over the long term.

Highest recommendation.


Here is a link to Thom Hartmann's website and radio show...  http://www.thomhartmann.com/

Biotopia

In the interest of full disclosure, the author of Biotopia, Michael Charles Tobias, is a much valued friend and mentor.  For that reason, I wanted to like this book,  In fact, I did like it, a lot. I wrote the review pasted in below for Amazon.
 

One caveat: Michael Tobias is the smartest person I have ever known. He is an intellectual gymnast extraordinaire and his writing reflects that.  It requires the full engagement of the reader. For those willing to make that mental investment, the reward is very much worth the effort.  Take a moment to acquaint yourself with Biotopia and its author, Michael Tobias.

A Splendid Elixir

When I started reading Biotopia, by Michael Charles Tobias, I wasn't sure what to expect. The title implies something like a living world fully realized. In fact, Tobias is a wordsmith of the highest order. Much of this book reflects on the beauty and wonders the author has experienced in his travels.  Tobias is truly a citizen of the planet.  His knowledge of history; anthropology; plants and animals, taxonomically and otherwise; literature, music and the arts, is remarkable and on full display in Biotopia.   But, while this book is in part a celebration of the sublime in nature and the human culture, it is even more a pained lament; a lament over the human squandering of the planet's biological blessings,  and of  our mindless, historically rooted penchant for destruction. We are experts at soiling our own nest and at killing our own kind,  and even more so at willfully rolling over the other creatures with whom we share this Earth.  As an example, annually, we humans reduce about 50 billion living creatures to drumsticks and cuts of meat, with nary a thought.   Michael Tobias has experienced a lot in his life. He is clearly haunted and very weary of the suffering he has seen firsthand, much of it caused by our own hubris.  Yet, in the end, Tobias  makes the case that the awareness of both the beauty and the suffering demands compassion and a commitment to be a champion; to be a force for nature, pushing back against indifference and corrosive human inertia.  Tobias himself is a wonderful example of just that kind of unswerving courage. 

The work of a remarkable intellect, Biotopia evokes both awe and inspiration. Ultimately, it is a splendid elixir; balm for those who are dispirited by the troubled world we know.

Here is a link top the Amazon listing for the book... http://www.amazon.com/Biotopia-Michael-Charles-Tobias/dp/0927379228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386115511&sr=8-1&keywords=Biotopia



 

Dancers Among Us

Clumsiness comes easy to me. It also helps me to appreciate the grace and beauty of people who dance for a living. It's takes discipline, talent, and perseverance to be a dancer.  I just ran across a photographer - Jordan Matter - who has created a unique platform to capture dancer's being who they are in one interesting place after another.  It started as a book titled, Dancers Among Us.   This book has morphed into a media franchise.  There are now multiple Dancers Among Us books, calendars,  and videos featuring dancers doing what they do in many places around the world.

Here is a link to Jordan Matter's very appealing website... http://www.dancersamongus.com/index

Here is a link to a video that showcases Dancer's Among Us... http://vimeo.com/76484966

Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture

I have been a fan of Thom Hartmann for close to two decades. He writes about what is wrong with America and what needs to happen to make it right. He does it eloquently, persuasively, courageously.

I just finished Threshold, the fifth book I've read by Hartmann.  I admire the man tremendously. 

 

 

 

Many well-meaning  people are toiling in the trenches to make a difference on a broad range of global scale challenges. Though many of these issues are unprecedented, climate change being just one example, they are really symptoms of a broken human culture, largely disconnected from the  natural world. Thom Hartmann cuts to the core. He focuses on  the bloated brand of legalized bribery that has perverted our political system. He makes the case that our system of governance has been hijacked by multi-national corporations  and the super rich,  who use their wealth and undue influence to shape public policy for their own narrow interests.   Corporate conservatives employ two morally bankrupt legal constructs to get away with their pathological behavior...

1. Money is treated as a form of speech under U.S. law, which allows the rich and powerful to use their wealth to pervert our political process.  

2. Corporations are considered 'persons' under the law,  giving them 'rights' that should be reserved for human citizens.

In Threshold, Thom Hartmann offers a thoughtful curative prescription for restoring democracy to America; a genuine democracy built on a foundation of compassion, inclusiveness, reconnection with nature, and  governance that is accountable to all citizens rather than a privileged few.

Five stars for Threshold.  Another powerful, enlightening, life affirming book by an author whose work illuminates a pathway to a sustainable future worthy of our best human instincts.


Thom Hartmann is the progressive radio antidote to the bilge spouted daily by right-wing radio icon, Rush Limbaugh. 

Thom Hartmann's weekday radio talk show can be heard at his website...  http://www.thomhartmann.com/tv/watch

Ramez Naam

Until about six weeks ago, I had never heard of Ramez Naam. He's not a celebrity. At least not yet. He is an author, who at one time was a senior software development executive at Microsoft.

Ramez Naam

After I read a review of Naam's book, The Infinite Resource, I decided to  read it myself.  I've read a fair number of what I would call the 'Earth is in deep trouble and here's how we make it right' books. As these things go, Naam's book is designed to reassure.

After I started reading The Infinite Resource, I learned that Naam also had two new science fiction novels recently published. The first is Nexus, and the second, a sequel, is called Crux. Anyway, I felt compelled to read both. These two novels are balls to the wall; exciting, and thoroughly engaging.  I've already published blog entries reviewing each of Naam's three books. Clicking on the titles earlier in this paragraph will take the reader to those reviews.

So, now with a little time having passed since I read Ramez Naam's books, I've been able to reflect on what motivates him. Money is not likely what he's after.  I'm guessing he has a snoot full socked away from when he was at Microsoft.  His wealth is probably what allows him to pursue a public life as a successful and influential author.  I think he wants to be influential.  I think he wants to be a change agent of the highest order.   Without question, Ramez Naam is exceedingly well informed. His choices as a writer suggest that he wants to get his readers thinking about the dysfunctional world we know. He wants to reassure them that as unsettling as things look at the moment, there is plenty of reason for hope. He wants his readers to see things through optimistic eyes, just as he does. He believes progress starts with an informed and motivated citizenry.

Naam's two novels, Nexus and Crux are very entertaining. They are also grounded very effectively in a revelatory scenario that may foreshadow a conflict that could emerge before we are halfway through the 21st century. The dark human dynamics at work in Nexus and Crux are also very much in evidence in the sociology and politics of our own time.

Ramez Naam is on his way to becoming a literary force. That will be a very good thing.  If I had his ear, I would urge him to give much of his attention to writing fiction. He's very good at it. Moreover, I would encourage him vigorously to focus his writing on stories about the times we live in now. If he does that; if he engages his readers on the vexing challenges that are impacting our world right at this moment, he can become one of the world's great champions for a life-affirming, sustainable future;  a future that reveres the natural world, while putting the welfare of the many over that of a privileged few.

Here is a link to Ramez Naam's website...  http://rameznaam.com/

Inequality For All

Robert Reich is an economist. He was Secretary of Labor under the Clinton Administration. He is now a Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Robert Reich isn't the tallest of men, but he towers as a warrior for the fallen middle class in America. His view of what's wrong with America and what is required to make things right fits very much with my own view of things.

Robert Reich is now at the center of a new, feature length theatrical advocacy film titled,  Inequality for all. 

Here is a link to the movie trailer  for Inequality for all...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9REdcxfie3M&feature=player_embedded

Here is a link to the movie webpage...    http://inequalityforall.com/

Badass Neuro Shit - Part Deux

A few days ago,  I wrote a blog entry about a novel I just read titled, Nexus. It is the first novel written by a very gifted writer named, Ramez Naam.  I found that story so compelling that I went out and got a copy of the recently published sequel to Nexus, which is titled Crux.   This morning (three days later), I finished reading Crux. At 500 pages, Crux is a daunting read. But, having been drawn into the world Ramez Naam has created, I found myself unable to put the book down.

Nexus and Crux are set in the near future, the year 2040. The world Ramez Naam creates is based on real science, seriously advanced from where we are at the moment, but eminently plausible given what we already know.

If anything, Crux is even more of a wild ride than Nexus.  At the core of this relentless action adventure is a struggle between humanity as we know it, and the emergence of a new augmented reality; post-humans with strength, intelligence, resilience, capabilities far beyond the mortal limitations of the homo sapiens species that has dominated the Earth and the biosphere for the last 250,000 years.

In the future Ramez Naam as created, the ascendance of post-human intelligence is taken as a mortal threat to the cultural status quo. The established powers that be are determined to strictly limit access to advanced neural, nano, and human augmentation technologies,  except where they can use these technologies to stifle descent and manipulate history for their own benefit.

If anything, Crux is even better that it's predecessor, Nexus. The writing is crisp, lean, thoroughly engaging.   The action is gripping. The characters terrific. The abuse of power is like a dark spector driving the plot forward in both of these stories.  As with Nexus, there is much in Crux that one can see at work beneath the everyday headlines of our current era.

Crux is much more than just an entertaining read.  For that reason, like Ramez Naam's first novel, Nexus, the sequel Crux, gets five stars from this reader.  If you like science fiction, Crux is  a must read.

Badass Neuro Shit

So, I just finished reading Nexus,  a new (2013)  sci-fi novel, the first by former Microsoft executive Ramez Naam.

Here is the tease from the back cover flap...

In the near future, the experimental nano-drug nexus can cause humans to link together, mind to mind.  There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who want to exploit it.

When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust way over his head into a world of danger and international espionage, for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes.

Crisp, intelligent writing, delivered in highly engaging fashion.  Nexus is the badass neuro shit the story is built around. If you believe what futurists like Ray Kurzweil say,  the kind of neural connectivity fostered by Naam's fictional nano-drug, Nexus could become a reality, perhaps around the year 2040 as postulated in this story. The ramifications are mindboggling. That is precisely the point presented very effectively in this entertaining yarn.

Nexus is  Ramez Naam's first novel.  It's a very auspicious beginning.  While the story takes place about 25 years in the future,   the morality questions at play are not new. In fact, the good versus evil ambiguity at work in Nexus is very much at play on the global political stage we know today.  The most obvious similarity is in the feckless 'War on Drugs' that has devastated American society since Richard Nixon was President.

The fictional scenario Ramez Naam presents in Nexus could become a very unsettling part of the cultural landscape within a few decades. If so, will this brand of augmented reality become accessible exclusively to a privileged few or be something available openly for the benefit of society as a whole?  Will it make the world better or worse? Ramez Naam's Nexus offers useful insight into those questions, while holding the reader's attention with a relentless succession of twists and turns, punctuated by lots of pulse-pounding action.

Five stars for Nexus by Ramez Naam.

Twilight of the Elites

Just finished reading Chris Hayes'  book, Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy.   The idea behind the book is rooted in human nature and is pretty self-evident. It is this: People like to get ahead, and when they do, they like to stay ahead.  In America we have evolved a meritocracy to provide opportunity for the best and brightest to achieve the American dream. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work.

Chris Hayes is a very skilled wordsmith. Combine that with a very compelling and well researched argument,  you get a terrific book.   Twilight of the Elites is a terrific book.

At this point, I'm going to defer to some quotes pulled right from the book, interspersed  with some thoughts of my own.

'...the iron law of meritocracy (predicts) that societies ordered around the meritocratic will produce inequality without the attendant mobility ideal... over time, a society will grow both more unequal and less mobile as those who ascend its heights create means of  preserving and defending their privilege and find ways to pass it on across generations.'

This is not rocket science. Kings, Emperors, and war lords have been operating this way since the beginnings of agriculture, 10,000 years ago.  Elites entrench themselves in positions of power and privilege and  they stay there by any means necessary. In the world we live in, it's people like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson, who wield their power and influence to maintain the status quo that favors them while diminishing the masses.

'...one of the lessons of the (past decades) is that intensively competitive, high reward meritocratic environments are prone to produce all kinds of fraud, deception, conniving, and game rigging.'

'...we cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.'

'While the basic logic of democracy is one person one vote, our entire system of representation  heavily weights the preferences and interests of those with the most money.'

'...in the three decades after 1979, the top 10 percent captured all of the income gains, while incomes for the bottom 90% declined.

'The challenge, and it is not a small one, is directing the frustration, anger, and alienation we all feel into building a trans-ideological coalition that can actually dislodge the power of the post-meritocratic elite.'

So, corrective action is required; disruptive corrective action.  Where to focus the attention of the disaffected to deliver meaningful change?  In Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes talks about building coalitions across ideologies; bringing the disaffected tea party types together with  progressive change agents  like the 'Occupy Wall Streeters' to disrupt the gravy train the elite have created for themselves. That's a tall order to be sure.  This is where Hayes' book falls a bit short.  He talks about altering the code for income taxes and about restoring the estate tax  to reduce the extreme advantage people like Paris Hilton gain through massive inherited wealth. Problem is the already wealthy are experts at using their money and influence to thwart any efforts to undermine their dominant position.

How to get around this problem?  The answer to me is not complicated.  You have to disrupt the ability of the elites to use their wealth to get what they want. The way to do that is to get the underwhelming masses of people affected to focus on one straightforward action that would induce the change that is so badly needed. I'm talking about a constitutional amendment that eliminates 'corporate personhood and the idea that 'money equals free speech'.  These two corrupt legal constructs  are the foundation on which rests the perverse reality that  'he who has the money makes the rules.'

A group called 'Move to Amend' is pressing for just such an amendment. It's language is brief and unambiguous...

House Joint Resolution 29 introduced February 14, 2013

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.
Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

  _____________________________

Here is a link to Move to Amend's webpage...   https://movetoamend.org/

However Long The Night

I just finished reading a marvelous non-fiction book, beautifully written by Aimee Molloy.  However Long the Night is the story of Molly Melching and the extraordinary work she and her non-profit educational outreach organization, Tostan, have been doing, mostly in Senegal in West Africa.

Molly Melching in Senegal

Tostan is a word in Wolof, the most widely spoken of several languages particular to Senegal. It means 'breakthrough'.  That is exactly what Molly Melching and Tostan have facilitated in villages throughout Senegal, and in several other African nations. Tostan's work centers on using education and awareness of human rights as a platform for empowering the people to make thoughtful and informed decisions that might improve their lives.  Tostan's outreach is community based and most often begins with the women. Traditionally in virtually all African cultures, women have a subservient role to men.  They are often treated as chattel, sold into marriage at a young age, considered unworthy of education, good mostly for birthing and raising children.   One very unsettling aspect of life for females throughout Africa is something called, 'the tradition'. It involves the ceremonial cutting of a girl's genitals,  specifically the clitoris and the labia around the vagina opening, at a very young age.  For perhaps a thousand years - no one know exactly how long -  this practice, called female genital cutting, or FGC, has been a rite of passage for a girl,  thought to be crucial to a girl child's worthiness for marriage and motherhood.  Those who endure FGC are subjected to extraordinary suffering. Beyond the terrible pain that comes with having these most sensitive tissues mutilated, almost always without anesthetic, FGC is often done with an unsterile blade that has been used for the same purpose multiple times.  The health effects of FGC, including severe hemorrhaging and infection, are often permanently debilitating, even deadly. 

World Health Organization studies indicate that 140 million women around the world have been subjected to FGC,  101 million of those in Africa. 

Aimee Molly's book,  However Long the Night is a powerful narrative of a young woman, a Caucasian American, who arrived in West Africa in 1974, pursuing a master's degree in French language, hoping for a future as a linguist/translator. Almost forty years later,  Molly Melching has created of one of the most effective educational outreach non-profits operating on the African continent. 

As of April, 2013,  in Senegal, 5,423 communities have abandoned the practice of female genital cutting.  Much of the credit for this goes to Tostan.

 

 

 

 

Tostan employs a patient, culturally respectful style in its community based education, conducted by Senegalese facilitators, in the local language. Reading, writing, basic math, farming technique, water management,  hygiene, and personal health are at the core of the Tostan learning. Perhaps the most important lesson imparted to the women who participate is the knowledge that they, as human beings and citizens, have certain 'inalienable rights'.  When they learn this, illiterate women from the smallest backwater villages begin to rethink their lives.  This process has led to the renunciation of FGC in thousands of communities in Senegal,  the widespread repudiation of early childhood marriage, and a new acceptance of women in community leadership roles.

I love However Long the Night.  My admiration for Molly Melching and her team is boundless.   How can one not be inspired by a person, whose tireless commitment and perseverance has transformed an entire nation in dramatic fashion in one generation? 

I'll save the rest of what I have to say on this subject for the next blog entry,  which will tell my own personal revelation on this subject and how my recent connection with Tostan, and one of its leaders, Gannon Gillespie, has been a great benefit to my own writing.

Here is a link to the Tostan website    www.tostan.org

Upcycle - Living Like Dersu

The sub-title for Upcycle, the new book by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, is Beyond Sustainability, Designing for Abundance.  McDonough is a celebrated, American architect/designer. Braungart is a German born design chemist. In this book, they tell the story of Dersu, hero of a Japanese movie, Dersu Uzala.  In this movie, Dersu is a woodsman who becomes guide to explorers passing through his remote forested region.  When a storm comes up, he leads them to shelter in a long disused cabin deep in the wilderness.  There they find dry firewood stacked inside, waiting to be used to warm the place.  After the storm,  Dersu is shocked when the explorers prepare to leave without replenishing the firewood for the next visitors. This is a wonderful metaphor for the way the society we know exploits the earth's resources relentlessly, without regard to the impact on those that will come after.

McDonough and Braungart believe that we humans must go beyond just lightening our footprints on the earth we are totally dependent on. We can, indeed we must, actually leave things better off when we depart than they were before we arrived.  It's a wonderful. idealisitic paradigm for living. 

Upcycle is not the first book from McDonough and Braungart.  A decade ago, they published Cradle to Cradle.  It offered their first reflections on learning to live with the biosphere instead of cravenly exploiting it and leaving it exhausted for future generations.   We have been mindlessly exploiting our planet's land, water, air, and biological resources for a very long time.  That is clearly no longer a viable approach to living. 

In their latest book, the authors seem almost giddy as they present case after case of upcycle thinking that showcase design processes that actually leave things better off than they were before the processes were initiated.  Improving what we were gifted with by generations that came before seems like a very worthy paradigm for humans to embrace.

The ideas showcased in Upcycle are not entirely new.  Urban farming in high rise structures or even below ground, using cost effective, artificial light sources has been around for awhile and has been demonstrated in various settings.  The Dutch model of growing food in greenhouses is especially compelling. What is new is the focus on designing processes and products that make the resources used in those processes and products readily available for recycling at the end of useful life. 

Here's an example from the book. Michael Braungart analyzed a TV set to see how many chemicals went into its production. The answer was 4,360. Most TV sets these days still end up in landfills. They are simply not designed to be reduced to reusable resource form at end of life.  Michael Braungart participated in a program with Phillips Electronics that resulted in the Econova TV, which was designed to be easily disassembled at end of life. It is also PVC-free and its cables are halogen-free.  This is a big leap forward.  All products and processes should be designed this way.  

Here is a lovely quote from the book...

The goal of the Upcycle is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil, and power - economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.

I find this to be an incredibly noble sentiment and a motivation entirely worthy of we humans as a species.

I give this book my highest recommendation. I also include William McDonough and Michael Braungart on my list of most admired people. 

Lesterland

Lawrence Lessig is a Harvard Law School Professor and an expert on Constitutional law.

Lawrence Lessig

In his new book Lesterland, Lessig writes about the corruption of the Constitution and the people we elect to public office. Lessig shows clearly and unambiguously that the cause of this corruption is the unethical influence of money in our political processes.

 

The Supreme Court, dominated by corporate conservatives,  has upheld not only the idea that money is speech, but that Corporations are people. Designated as citizens by the court, corporations armed with bottomless coffers are free to manipulate the American political process without consequence.  Bribery is legal in America, at least where elected officials are concerned.


Here is a link to Lawrence Lessig's Lesterland TED presentation...  http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2013-04-06&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_button

Life, Incorporated

Life, Inc. is the title of a book by Douglas Rushkoff, a man who thinks about our world in bold, insightful terms.   What he has to say resonates with me.

Here is a link to a video that features Douglas Rushkoff talking about Life, Inc.   http://vimeo.com/4655092#at=0

Here is a link to an appearance Douglas Rushkoff made with Stephen Colbert when his book Life, Inc. first was released.  http://www.rushkoff.com/press-individual/2008/3/27/press.html

Here is a link to Douglas Rushkoff's webpage... http://www.rushkoff.com/life-inc/