August 17, 2008 by mike.

The oceans of the small blue planet are really the reservoir of all life in this biosphere. Terrapods do not evolve or survive without the miracle of the bonding of hydrogen and oxygen molecules making the splashy stuff that we all know and love. You can add salt, or deal with in the “fresh” incarnation, but the bottom line is we are water beings and life depends on water.

Continuing studies regarding the health of the oceans are reporting increasing areas of oceans that are called dead zones. These are areas where there is so little oxygen available in the sea water that normal sea life dies. There will be some anaerobic life, jellyfish and other forms of life that require lower levels of oxygen, but the basic things that we think of as living in the sea cannot exist in the dead zones. Fish, crabs, dolphins, whales, shrimp, all those sorts of animals move out of the dead zones or they become part of the dead zone.

Ocean dead zones are an alarm bell ringing around the planet. We should all be concerned that industrial, agricultural waste is being discharged from rivers that are used as sewer systems and that the waste is accumulating in sufficient quantity to create dead zones in an ecosystem as large and resilient as an ocean.

I think we are facing an amazing opportunity to recognize that we can’t continue to treat the biosphere and the oceans as an economic asset, a dumping ground for toxic levels of chemical and biological waste. We can’t harvest the fish from the oceans in ways and on scales that the fisheries can’t sustain.

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August 16, 2008 by mike.

When we are disappointed in some way we may hasten to remind ourselves that there are a lot of fish in the sea. We don’t have to have the object of our heart’s desire, the manyness of the small blue planet oneness may have its own designs for us.

That is a soothing mantra for adjusting our world view and moving from an ego-centered frame of reference where the world exists primarily in its capacity to meet our desires to possibly recognizing our own place as one of the many fish in the sea.

But in fact, there are not nearly as many fish in the sea as once existed. One of our specie’s early recognitions of our capacity to decimate an aquatic population came when whale populations plummeted in response to their wholesale harvest. These beautiful, strange and clearly sentient beings are mammals like most of us reading and writing on the small blue planet. If we try just a little bit we can feel a kinship with these beautiful beings. It’s easier to bond with a sea-going mammal, a dolphin, a gray whale, and the others than it is to feel a bond with a mackeral.

The “fishing” of the whales continues here on the small blue planet but it is reduced and the economics-driven killing of these beings is out of vogue with many of the terra-peds operating nautical devices. But the reduced killing of whales and the economics of fishery harvest has decimated many of the large fisheries of the planet. Drift nets, gill nets, industrial “fishing” have created havoc with many species trying to slosh around below the watery horizon.

Courtesy of the National Center for Policy Analysis:

• In the past 50 years, populations of large fish species - including tuna, swordfish, marlin, sharks, cod, halibut and flounder - have decreased 90 percent worldwide.
• A total of 98 species are overfished, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service; as a result, half of all U.S. fisheries and a quarter of the major fish stocks worldwide are in jeopardy of an abrupt, severe decline from which they may never recover.
• Fish stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of all ocean fisheries, and all commercially valuable world fish stocks could completely collapse by 2048. [See the figure.]

Maybe we need to think more about just how many constitutes plenty?

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August 16, 2008 by mike.

Earth is primarily an ocean planet. That may be hard for non-aquatic life-forms to wrap our fins around, but it’s true.

The oceans are the reason the planet looks blue. The planet surface is about 2/3 ocean and 1/3 land mass.

When we terra-peds make a pilgrimage to the beach we look out at a horizon of ocean, the motion of ocean, we become the slaves of waves (having a Dr. Seuss moment). There is something wonderfully soothing about standing at the edge of the two different biosphere systems - land and sea.

It may be that looking at the eternal, unchanging nature of wave and water, contemplating the zen demonstration of the oneness of the manyness of this experience stops our minds in a fundamental way. However you experience it, I hope it is as meaningful and soothing to you as it is to me and I encourage you to find time to sit at the edge of land and sea, doing nothing but breathing and being a part of the biosphere instead of the econosphere.

But, there are problems with the blueness, the oceanity of the small blue planet. These problems are not readily apparent as we gaze at the wave horizon. We may experience a sense of the unchanging nature of the planet as we contemplate wave, but in the aquatic world beneath the ocean horizon there are problems of over-fishing, of ocean acidification, and of pollution that is creating large dead zones in the oceans.

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May 4, 2008 by mike.

We sat down and watched Flock of Dodos recently and we recommend this movie. It’s a documentary about the American culture war to teach creationism and creationism’s cousin, intelligent design, as basic science, on a par with the science regarding Darwin’s thoughts on natural selection and the origin of species.

It’s a film by an evolutionary biologist, so it definitely leans toward respect for the scientific method and that does not bode well for the creationists, but the filmmaker expended a fair amount of effort making the point that the scientists are wonderfully inept at conveying the science.

In the end it becomes clear that there are dodos on both sides of the argument. The creationists are hoping to hang on to the notion that there is a controversy about natural selection and the origin of species despite the scientific record and the evolutionary scientists sputter, pontificate, talk over each other in a way that makes it painfully clear that the scientists wouldn’t know a talking point if it evolved or was created right in front of them.

The even-handed and friendly approach of the film-maker made all of the characters on both sides of the controversy seem likable. The message of the film could teach both sides to bring a little more rigor to the public presentation. The creationists might want to base their presentation on facts, they might be better served not to say that a discredited scientific set of plates known as Haeckel’s Embryology are showing up in every textbook and being taught every day unless they can find a textbook in use today that actually presents Haeckel’s work as useful in understanding biology.

And the evolutionary scientists might want to take a simple communication class or two from time to time so that they can figure out how to present their science in simple language when the situation calls for that.

I think that’s a hard one for the scientists because the interesting areas of science are the areas of controversy, the cutting edge of knowledge, the work where things are not certain and when enthusiastic scientists talk about their work, they usually talk about the stuff they are working on right now, largely settled areas of science are not attracting large numbers of publication submissions.

Darwin was not anxious to publish his thoughts and science on natural selection and the origin of species. He understood that the science would be challenging the creation story in much the same way that early astronomers got in trouble when their observation indicated that the earth orbited the sun and not the other way around. That argument appears to be generally settled these days and the settlement of the astronomical “controversy” suggests that someday there may no longer be a need for an assault on the sciences based on Darwin’s work and the body of science that has followed Darwin’s publication regarding natural selection and the origin of the species, but we are clearly not there yet.

I hope this film will be shown in basic high school science classes as a lesson in the need to present facts accurately and also as a lesson that scientists need to remember to step back from their cutting edge work when the occasion calls for it and to communicate clearly about science and the scientific method.

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December 30, 2007 by mike.

Interesting news on the solar technology front courtesy of The Guardian:

Solar energy ‘revolution’ brings green power closer

Panels start solar power ‘revolution’

• 
• • John Vidal, environment editor
  • The Guardian,
  • Saturday December 29 2007

The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called “a revolution” in generating electricity.

The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.

Yesterday Nanosolar said its order books were full until mid-2009 and that a second factory would soon open in Germany where demand for solar power has rocketed. Britain was unlikely to benefit from the technology for some years because other countries paid better money for renewable electricity, it added.

“Our first solar panels will be used in a solar power station in Germany,” said Erik Oldekop, Nanosolar’s manager in Switzerland. “We aim to produce the panels for 99 cents [50p] a watt, which is comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal. We cannot disclose our exact figures yet as we are a private company but we can bring it down to that level. That is the vision we are aiming at.”

He added that the first panels the company was producing were aimed for large- scale power plants rather than for homeowners, and that the cost benefits would be in the speed that the technology could be deployed. “We are aiming to make solar power stations up to 10MW in size. They can be up and running in six to nine months compared to 10 years or more for coal-powered stations and 15 years for nuclear plants. Solar can be deployed very quickly,” said Oldekop.

Nanosolar is one of several companies in Japan, Europe, China and the US racing to develop different versions of “thin film” solar technology. It is owned by internet entrepreneur Martin Roscheisen who sold his company to Yahoo for $450m and, with the help of the founders of Google, the US government and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, has invested nearly $300m in commercialising the technology.

At the moment solar electricity costs nearly three times as much as conventional electricity to generate, but Nanosolar’s developments are thought to have halved the price of producing conventional solar cells at a stroke.

“This is the world’s lowest-cost solar panel, which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as 99 cents a watt,” said Roscheisen yesterday.

However, the company, which claims to lead the “third wave” of solar electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions about its panels’ efficiency or their durability. It is quite open about wanting to restrict access to the technology to give it a market advantage.

Jeremy Leggett, chief executive of Britain’s leading solar energy company, Solar Century, said that it would be “breathtaking” if the technology proved as efficient as projected by the company. “This is a revolution. But people are going to be amazed at other developments taking place in solar technologies. We will be thrilled if this technology is as efficient as the company says. It will not change the direction of solar power in itself. Spectacular improvements are also being made in other parts of the industry,” he said.

Figures released yesterday by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington showed that solar electricity generation was now the fastest-growing electricity source, doubling its output every two years. It is now attracting government and venture capital money on an unprecedented scale.

The technology is particularly exciting because it can be used nearly everywhere. “You are talking about printing rolls of the stuff, printing it on garages, anywhere you want it. It really is a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar,” said Dan Kamman, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.

“The next industrial revolution will be based on these clean green technologies,” said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth. “If the UK wants to be part of it, as Gordon Brown says it does, then it needs to rethink its strategies. Ministers have so far shown a distinct lack of vision.”

Power from light

Photovoltaic (PV) devices convert light into electrical energy. PV cells are made of semiconductor materials such as silicon. When light shines on a PV cell, the energy is transferred to electrons in the atoms of the PV cell. These electrons become part of the electrical flow, or current, in an electrical circuit. First wave photovoltaic cell used thick silicon-wafer cells but were cumbersome and costly. The second generation of photovoltaic materials were developed about 10 years ago and use very thin silicon layers. These brought the price down dramatically but still need expensive vacuum processes in their construction. The third wave of PV, now being developed by firms such as Nanosolar, can print directly on to other materials and does not use silicon.

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December 27, 2007 by mike.

Benazir Bhutto was the secular and democratically elected leader of Pakistan a couple of decades ago. The Pakistani military staged a coup and forced Ms. Bhutto out of the country. General Musharraf has been in charge of Pakistan and their nuclear weapons since that time. Ms. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan recently because it seems apparent that the country is ready to be done with General Musharraf as leader, either as a military strong man or as a leader elected through rigged elections. She is now dead.

Ms. Bhutto was hated by the fundamentalists in Pakistan in much the same way that Hillary is hated by the fundamentalists in the US. The hatred directed at a secular woman who has the temerity to try to wield power is frightening in its irrationality and deadly in its intensity.

Ms. Bhutto was also a target of the military juntas types in Pakistan. The generals in Pakistan believe they know best in much the same way that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney believe they know best in our country. Democratic processes are belittled by this type of autocrat and the essential corruption of the autocratic system appears to be invisible to the autocratic eye.

Part of Ms. Bhutto’s legacy relates to her ability to succeed against the patriarchy. She could succeed, but not survive. I think our world is a potentially better place if women have the opportunity to lead as women, to manifest the nurturing female world view in world politics. The world is probably a better place even if women can simply have the opportunity to lead, to distance themselves from the kinder gentler world that might exist in the presence of an ascendancy of a matriarchy, but that’s a tougher sell to me.

The folks who really believe in the use of force, whether it is in the guise of self-defense, or the cold rationality of world economics, or the political application of fundamentalist politics, or the law and order of a strictly monitored and controlled society can kill us. Ms. Bhutto’s passing illustrates that fact. It remains to be seen if the politics of caring, the nurturing politics of a leader like Benazir can be driven to extinction.

I am feeling a little low today about the death of Benazir Bhutto.

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December 22, 2007 by mike.

Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote a book a decade or two ago titled How to Get What You Really, Really, Really Want.

I recommend the book. You can also get the DVD from Netflix and elsewhere if you want to be entertained by Dyer’s charm and style as you work on your inner and outer life.

Part of Dyer’s teaching is that what you pay attention to you will get more of in your life.

For instance, if I pay a lot of attention to the fear mongering about personal safety, terrorism, the need to be armed to protect myself and my family, I start thinking maybe I should buy a firearm. Then I remind myself that firearms are so dangerous to children, I try to weight the safety/risk factors of dangerous intruders to my home versus a dangerous device that lives with me and the next thing I know I am reading news stories about children dying through firearm accidents. Holy smoke! I could have been reading Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr. or Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

Is that guy laughing at me?

A corollary wisdom in Dyer’s book is just like you can get more of what you want in your life by attending to it, you can also get more of what you don’t like in your life by attending to it.

Here is great recovery poem that reflects some of that wisdom:

Life in Five Short Chapters

CHAPTER 1

I walk down the street.
There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk.
And I fall in.
I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

CHAPTER 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It takes a long time to get out.

CHAPTER 3

I walk down the same street and there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there, and still I fall in.
It’s a habit.
But my eyes are open and I know where I am.
It is my fault and I get out immediately.

CHAPTER 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

CHAPTER 5

I walk down a different street.

By Portia Nelson

So I walk down a different street.

I want to pack the kind of heat that these guys packed, Satyagraha, Soul Force.

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December 4, 2007 by mike.

Quite a lot of water went over I5 around mile post 78.  You can see that the lane dividers have rearranged themselves a bit and they are a little heavy.

another look at same area

There were a few vehicles in motion in this stretch, but most of us were on foot.  

Looking to the west at mile post 78 you are usually looking at the airport:

That is the airport building, pretty high, but kind of stranded.  The hangers to the right do not look as high and dry.  The planes have been moved to a little patch of high ground on Louisiana Street:

In the foreground is the airport pumping station.  In the background are the planes and all around is the Chehalis River.

Looking north from mile post 78 at Exit 79 you see that Washington State Patrol is dry, but parking lot has disappeared:

To the east side of I5 the businesses did not do as well:

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December 4, 2007 by mike.

We have a little bit of water piling up on us. Here is the proof. These pictures from Dec 4th at about 9:00 am at mile post 76 on I5.

I like the composition of this one: 

That is Dillenbaugh Creek and the Chehalis River merging southwest of I5 at milepost 76.  There are a few folks living out there on Rice Road.  Keep a good thought for them as they try to ride out the weather.

Here is the area just southwest of Greenhill School, Department of Corrections.

    Looking north at I5, water over the road in the distance. Pavement reported to be gone in some areas.

Looking west at Stan Hedwall Park at I5, milepost 76

Ballfields and buildings are underwater.

Pictures from the Lewis County Courthouse Law & Justice Center from Dec 4th about 9:00 am, more rain is arriving after a few hours of little or no precipitation.

Sandbags around the doors, but I don’t the water got quite this high, east side of the courthouse buildings.

Here is look down the same street to the south from the same location: Jail is on the right.  Prisoner relocation vehicle on the left side of the street.  Water in the neighborhood south and slightly east of the courthouse did not smell good.  The old Cross Arm mill was over in this area.

Here’s a picture on the west side of the Law and Justice Center.  Note the debris in the road that shows the highwater mark as of Tuesday 9:00 am.  Water has receded a bit, but the rains are starting again. 

County command center is operating from the Law and Justice Center.  Thank you, folks:

I guess we have nothing to worry about, FEMA has arrived:  

More to follow later.

I am stuck, can’t get north to Olympia to work today, so am doing a little citizen journalism and taking care of a few loose ends around the homestead.  Stay high and dry everybody.  We have space, beds, electricity, heat and the amenities as we know them (no cable television) if you need a space to dry off.

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September 27, 2007 by mike.

Our Moral Footprint

By VACLAV HAVEL

Published: September 27, 2007 in the NY Times

Joseph Hart

OVER the past few years the questions have been asked ever more forcefully whether global climate changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we humans contribute to them, what threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them. Scientific studies demonstrate that any changes in temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale could mean danger for all people on all continents.

It is also obvious from published research that human activity is a cause of change; we just don’t know how big its contribution is. Is it necessary to know that to the last percentage point, though? By waiting for incontrovertible precision, aren’t we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to those we would have to adopt after further delays?

Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing warnings that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back. There is little point in asking whether we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayments. Anyone with a mortgage or a bank loan can easily imagine the answer.

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