Archive for the ‘CounterCurrents’ Category

Bill Gates: the Most Important Climate Speech of the Year

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

- I’ve been deeply disappointed in the past with Bill and Melinda Gates and their efforts to improve the world.

- See :arrow: and :arrow: .

- Oh, I believed that their hearts were in the right place and they were sincerely trying to use their wealth to improve the world.  But I felt that they had been misled into working on the symptoms rather than the causes.

- Their aim has improved considerably as evidenced by this speech, however. Now they are focused on one of the great drivers, climate changing emissions, that will shape the world’s future in a very negative way if we, humanity, do not confront it decisively.

- So bravo to them for correcting their course and refocusing on a cause rather than an effect.

- Having said that, I’d still like to point out that while this is a good step, it is not the last step.

- People, like the Gates, who have the idealism and power to make an impact, need to maximize their efforts by studying the entire landscape of problems confronting mankind and the biosphere and to trace the chains of cause and effect underlying these problems back to their deepest roots.

- Only, when we are dealing with the root causes of why our behaviors are so maladaptive, will we then have a genuine chance of ameliorating the problems effectively rather than just suppressing them with more bandages.

- And long time readers of this Blog will know that in my opinion, the deepest root cause of our maladaptive behaviors are our inborn biological imperatives.

- See :arrow: and :arrow: .

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When We Talk Zero, We Sound Crazy. When Bill Gates Does It, Bankers Pick Up the Phone.

On Friday, the world’s most successful businessperson and most powerful philanthropist did something outstandingly bold, that went almost unremarked: Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions.

Now, I’m not a member of the Cult of Bill myself (I’m typing this on a MacBook), but you don’t have to believe that Gates has superhuman powers of prediction to know that his predictions have enormous power. People who will never listen to Al Gore, much to less someone like me, hang on Gates’ every utterance.

And Friday, Gates predicted extraordinary climate action: zero. Not small steps, not incremental progress, not doing less bad: zero. In fact, he stood in front of a slide with nothing but the planet Earth and the number zero. That moment was the most important thing that has happened at TED.

What, exactly, did he say, and why is it so important?

Gates spoke about his commitment to using his massive philanthropic resources (the Gates Foundation is the world’s largest) to make life better for people through public health and poverty alleviation (“vaccines and seeds” as he put it). Then he said something he’s never said before: that is it because he’s committed to improving life for the world’s vulnerable people that he now believes that climate change is the most important challenge on the planet.

Even more importantly, he acknowledged the only sensible goal, when it comes to climate emissions, is to eliminate them: we should be aiming for a civilization that produces no net emissions, and we should be aiming to live in that civilization here in the developed world by 2050.

More… :arrow:

Britons find paradise in New Zealand

Thursday, June 18th, 2009
New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand has been described as a “paradise” by British expats who moved here for a warmer climate and cheaper cost of living.

A NatWest International bank survey of more than 2000 British immigrants living in 12 countries found that Britons in New Zealand rated the country highly in all areas.

In the quality-of-life index, New Zealand came ahead of Canada, which topped the poll last year.

Respondents said NZ had one of the lowest average property prices in the developed world, and many cited lower taxes than in Britain, a better quality of life and less stress as benefits.

A favourable tax regime meant that although average wages were lower, earnings went further.

NatWest International personal banking head Dave Isley said expats reported they were living healthier lifestyles while benefiting financially.

The average salary in New Zealand was $28,427, compared with $65,841 in Britain, but the average cost of a home was only $293,000, compared with $592,000 in Britain.

In both countries an average property cost the equivalent of roughly 10 years’ wages, but Britons who sell their houses find themselves with much more cash in hand when arriving in New Zealand.

Two years ago, Chris and Janice Gorman shifted from a three-bedroom house in Surrey to a four-bedroom house with a sprawling garden near the sea in Auckland.

“New Zealand and the UK are roughly the same size, but there are 56 million fewer people,” Mr Gorman said. “It makes a massive difference. Everyone has time for you.

“We find it much more sociable here. There is a huge emphasis on family life and relaxation time.”

The Gormans, who are two of more than 200,000 British-born Kiwis, said their only regret was not being able to visit family in the UK “on a whim”.

Of all the expatriates surveyed, 86 per cent believed their lives were better than before they emigrated and 92 per cent said they were happier.

Despite the global recession, 87 per cent were better off, including engineers, teachers, economists, accountants, IT professionals and those working in financial services and marketing.

“Despite the global slowdown affecting everyone, the potential to earn more money abroad is clearly one of the main benefits expats are experiencing,” said Mr Isley.

New Zealand and Canada were followed in the poll by Australia, France, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, the US and China. Singapore and Hong Kong came last.

To the original… :arrow:

The exclusive rich club trying to save the planet

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

It is the most elite club in the world. Ordinary people need not apply and there is no way to ask to join. You simply have to be very, very rich and very, very generous. On a global scale.

This is the Good Club, the name given to the tiny global elite of billionaire philanthropists who recently held their first and highly secretive meeting in the heart of New York City.

The names of some of the members are familiar figures: Bill Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller and Ted Turner. But there are others, too, like business giants Eli and Edythe Broad, who are equally wealthy but less well known. All told, its members are worth US$125 billion ($195 billion).

The meeting – called by Gates, Buffett and Rockefeller – was held in response to the global economic downturn and the numerous health and environmental crises plaguing the globe. It was, in some ways, a summit to save the world.

More… :arrow:

Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals

Monday, May 25th, 2009
- I just wrote the other day here: :arrow: about how things are in the Netherlands with respect to their medical and social systems.  And now here’s this.  Yes, folks – there are better models than we are using here in the U.S.
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The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.

The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry’s research department expects to continue for some time.

More… :arrow:

- Hat tip to Cryptogon for this story

More on Blood Pressure medicines

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

oopsI’ve published twice ( :arrow: and :arrow: ) now on Big Pharma, Blood Pressure medicines and the ALLHAT Study that has shown (and been replicated) that cheap diuretic pills are equal or superior to the expensive blood pressure medicines Big Pharma is pushing.

Well, the other day, I went in to see my GP and I carried along a copy of the most recent study replicating the 2002 ALLHAT Study’s conclusions.   I wanted to talk with him about this because he’s prescribed one of these blood pressure medicines for me (Diovan).

He agreed that if the measure is just how much the pills lower one’s blood pressure, then diuretic pills may, indeed, be equal or superior to Big Pharma’s products.  But, he also said that there was more to the big picture than just looking at the blood pressure values.

The blood pressure medicine he prescribes for me, Diovan, is part of the class of blood pressure medicines called Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers (ARB).   Other drugs in this class are: candesartan (ATACAND), eprosartan (TEVETAN), irbesartan (AVAPRO), telmisartan (MYCARDIS), valsartan (DIOVAN), and losartan (COZAAR).

He said that long term studies had been done that had showed that folks that take ARBs tend to live longer and have less cardiovascular problems – quite independant from how much the drugs lower one’s blood pressure numbers.

So, as in many things, there’s more to the story than first meets the eye.

Living Outside The Box: New Evidence Shows Going Abroad Linked To Creativity

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Living in another country can be a cherished experience, but new research suggests it might also help expand minds. This research, published by the American Psychological Association, is the first of its kind to look at the link between living abroad and creativity.

“Gaining experience in foreign cultures has long been a classic prescription for artists interested in stimulating their imaginations or honing their crafts. But does living abroad actually make people more creative?” asks the study’s lead author, William Maddux, PhD, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, a business school with campuses in France and Singapore. “It’s a longstanding question that we feel we’ve been able to begin answering through this research”

More… :arrow:

Cure For Honey Bee Colony Collapse?

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

In a study published in the new journal from the Society for Applied Microbiology: Environmental Microbiology Reports, scientists from Spain analysed two apiaries and found evidence of honey bee colony depopulation syndrome (also known as colony collapse disorder in the USA). They found no evidence of any other cause of the disease (such as the Varroa destructor, IAPV or pesticides), other than infection with Nosema ceranae. The researchers then treated the infected surviving under-populated colonies with the antibiotic drug, flumagillin and demonstrated complete recovery of all infected colonies.

More… :arrow:

- Research Thanks to Bruce S.

5 Years After: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Street drug–related deaths from overdoses drop and the rate of HIV cases crashes

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006,  according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

“Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they’re learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely,” report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what’s known as a “Dissuasion Commission,” an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

Each three-person commission includes at least one lawyer or judge and one health care or social services worker. The panel has the option of recommending treatment, a small fine, or no sanction.

More… :arrow:

A community of alternative thinkers

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

- Blogging has been good very for me.   Not financially but, rather, in the connections I’ve made to people out in the world whom I would have never met otherwise.

- In addition to writing for this Blog, Samadhisoft, I also publish occasional articles over on The Seitch.   I like what they are doing there and I feel honored that they let me use their site to express some of my thoughts.   A number of people contribute to The Seitch and two stand out in particular to me; the Naib, who founded the site and who is its most prolific author, and Keith Farnish, who also writes extensively there.

- Keith also runs various Blogs of his own, including The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog. 

- Recently, Keith published a book entitled, “Time’s Up! an uncivilized solution to a global crisis“.  He announced his new book on The Seitch here.

- His new book can be read on-line, here.   I’m reading it now and enjoying it.  It’s full of keen analysis of the world’s current problems and what we might do about them.   Recommended.

- On another front, I’ve recently become on-line friends with a fellow in Germany named Clinton Callahan who is the driving force behind an intentional community called Possibilica.   He also runs the Callahan Academy and has written a book (which I’ve not yet read) called, Radiant Joy Brilliant Love.

- In a recent E-Mail, Clinton included a list of things people can do if they want to directly and personally address the world and the state it is in.   It is radical and courageous stuff, just as the recommendations in Keith Farnish’s book are.

- These are creative thinkers and people who believe that words must be matched by action if one’s convictions are to be graced with integrity.   In truth, I am still playing “catch up” in this respect.   Thus far, I’m long on words and a good deal shorter on action.   But, as they say, all of the rest of my life still lies before me.

- So, I encourage you to follow and explore the links I’ve scattered here and I also encourage you to have a good look through the list of actions Clinton suggests, below.  

- Not all of us will be able to rearrange our lives so powerfully as he suggests but all of us can benefit, I think, by becoming aware that there are folks out there creating new ways of living – and calling the rest of us to join them.

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SCIENTISTS WHO TRUST THEIR OWN EVIDENCE TAKE ACTION

By Clinton Callahan

Einstein’s bomb worked, remember, so he may also be right when he said, No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. How much longer will you continue believing that the same system that created global warming and financial collapse has the ability to fix it? Here are actions to take:

It seems to me that we are at the go/no-go moment in terms of preventing the methane tipping point from avalanching into unstoppable global warming.

It could be the moment for scientists around the world who trust their own global warming evidence to withdraw from the system that propagates the global warming.

Withdrawal from the system is neither symbolic nor philosophical. Withdrawal is swift, total and drastic. The intention is to proactively collapse the carbon economy to give humanity a chance to change direction.

This would require great personal efforts and sacrifice on the part of the scientists. It would impact our families, teams, companies and organizations with a radical change of plans. It would also require you to take your own work seriously. If you do not trust your evidence enough to take direct personal action, why should someone else?

If our withdrawal could critically disable the carbon economy, its rapid demise would avoid even greater suffering from flood, draught, worldwide famine, and continued resource wars.

Abandoning modern culture proactively as a result of trusting scientific evidence would prove that human intelligence exists. It would be like steering a careening brakeless automobile into the hillside to stop it rather than doing nothing. By intentionally crashing the car someone might survive. Flying off the cliff is suicide for all.

The choice is not actually up to political authorities. The choice is up to the creative powerhouse behind the industrial machine: you, the scientists, engineers, programmers, designers, technicians and researchers keeping things going.

To continue a carbon-hungry consumer lifestyle in the face of recent climate-change knowledge makes us no more intelligent than bacteria, consuming beyond the carrying capacity of our resources and dieing in our own wastes.

Withdrawal is simple and effective. It is nonviolent noncooperation with whatever is nonsustainable. This would include:

  • Quit your job, because almost no organization including corporate,  government, military, and education are sustainable – business assumes it is  possible to externalize true costs.
  • Sell your car, change to bicycle, public transportation, horse, and  walking.
  • Become basically vegetarian.
  • Create community; learn the soft skills of village  weaving.
  • Find your people, create sustainable culture – not money-based but  collaboration-based – collaboration is wealth, power and  satisfaction.
  • Establish local authority and local  autonomy.
  • Move out of your house or off-the-grid, e.g. straw bale passive  solar, etc.
  • With your people grow most of your own food without fertilizers,  pesticides, or tractors.
  • Avoid imported foods such as bananas, pineapples, out of season  fruits, spices, coffee, chocolate, sugar.
  • Avoid fast food chains – they abuse third world labor and  resources, pumping money away from third world economy and your local  economy.
  • Move away from mainstream pharmaceuticals and learn alternative  healing and preventative health care.
  • Home school the children, learning together how to heal yourselves  of TPP (technopenuriaphobia – the  fear of the loss of technology, as explained in the book Radiant Joy Brilliant Love www.radiant-joy.com).
  • Recognize  the Second Copernican Revolution,  that people  do not own nature. Nature owns people. Nature and people both have more value  than money.
  • Learn to make or grow most everything you need: shaving cream,  soap, toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, etc.
  • Shift from the disposable mentality (throw away things when they  break) to repairable mentality.
  • Stop using petrochemical plastics, packaging, newspapers, mail  order catalogues.
  • Refuse to make any garbage at all, recycle everything (look in your  garbage – it reveals the nonsustainable part of your  lifestyle).
  • Stop air flights, boat trips, exotic vacations – reorient towards  pilgrimage, restoring nature, and local outdoor adventures by  foot.
  • Get rid of most of your stuff, anything you have not touched in the  past year.
  • Avoid TV and canned entertainment – instead get with friends and  create living theater, sing, retell legends, build musical instruments, dance,  make art, engage authentic transformational processes, explore new territories  of experience.
  • Learn new communication skills; expand your abilities to be  physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually  intimate.
  • Avoid the paradigm of money and adopt a local paradigm of creating  abundance through giving to each other.
  • Sell your stocks, securities and investments, and deal openly with  your addiction to gambling.
  • Divest your interests in buildings or land that you do not inhabit  full-time.
  • Direct your time and energy towards befriending and nurturing  children, plants and animals, collaborating with your neighbors and effective  organizations; celebrate together a lot.
  • Change your orientation so that work is about what matters to you  rather than working to pays the bills.
  • Transform your relationship to fear so you can enter states of raw  creation and invention.
  • Implement cultural innovations that develop every person’s  beneficial potential.
  • Shift from increasing having to increasing being. Give presence rather than  presents.
  • Reorient towards personal development rather than personal possessions.  
  • Reorient from consuming  to renewing the natural  environment.
  • Develop your capacity to experience and express  love.

If you already see the perfect storm about to hit humanity and trust your own findings, then immediately and completely extricating yourself from the system that generates the problems is appropriate. Let the system fail. It was not well thought out. Our combined population growth and harmful technological waste products grew so quickly we did not have time to make other plans. By redirecting your incredible creative capacity towards generating sustainable culture then we Homo sapiens could be true to our name.

What do you actually think about this? Does it make sense?
What are you willing to say and do along these lines?
What can you stop now? Next week? Next month?
What do the people you know say and do about this?
Many people criticize the idea of proactively collapsing the carbon economy.
Are you ready to take action even if others won’t?
How much longer will you wait before you replace talk with personal action?

For creative collaboration and support in your choices assemble a Just Stop Team www.just-stop.org.
Thank you for considering this.

Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management and Phoenix Process, author of Radiant Joy Brilliant Love, founder of Callahan Academy, empowers responsible creative leadership through authentic personal development. He has traveled, lived or worked in 36 different countries, and is co-creating a sustainable-culture research ecovillage in Southern Germany called Possibilica.

Cold fusion experimentally confirmed

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

- This is a tough one to know how I feel about.  On one hand, a real solution of the fusion conundrum, would change the world for the better in an incredible way.  So, for that reason, I’d be very excited about this.  

- But, on the other hand, cold fusion has been a huge disappointment ever since the initial Fleischmann & Pons debacle in 1989.  

- Stories about cold fusion since then have reminded me of those Christian film makers who go off every year and make a film about how they’ve finally ‘found’ Noah’s original ark up on some mountain.  But then some freak event happens and they lose its location or they lose their their film or something.  Darn!

- Well, three separate labs now say they got ‘proof’ of cold fusion.  Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t.  The next year, as others try to replicate their results, will tell the story.

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PORTLAND, Ore. — U.S. Navy researchers claimed to have experimentally confirmed cold fusion in a presentation at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting.

“We have compelling evidence that fusion reactions are occurring” at room temperature, said Pamela Mosier-Boss, a scientist with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (San Diego). The results are “the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons from low-energy nuclear reactions,” she added.

Cold fusion was first reported in 1989 by researchers Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, then with the University of Utah, prompting a global effort to develop the technology. Normal fusion reactions, where hydrogen is fused into helium, occur at millions of degrees inside the Sun. If room temperature fusion reactions could be realized commercially, as Fleishchmann and Pons claimed to have achieved inside an electrolytic cell, it promised to produce abundant nuclear energy from deuterium–heavy hydrogen–extracted from seawater.

Other scientists were unable to duplicate the 1989 results, thereby discrediting the work.

The theoretical underpinnings of cold fusion have yet to be adequately explained. The hypothesis is that when electrolysis is performed on deuteron, molecules are fused into helium, releasing a high-energy neutron. While excess heat has been detected by researchers, no group had yet been able to detect the missing neutrons.

Now, the Naval researchers claim that the problem was instrumentation, which was not up to the task of detecting such small numbers of neutrons. To sense such small quantities, Mosier-Boss used a special plastic detector called CR-39. Using co-deposition with nickel and gold wire electrodes, which were inserted into a mixture of palladium chloride and deutrium, the detector was able to capture and track the high-energy neutrons.

More… :arrow:

- research thanks to Bruce S. (a way down in New Zealand)