Wednesday, December 22, 2004
here's a interesting op/ed piece that was in the NY Times:
Think Globally, Eat Locally
By JENNIFER WILKINS
Published: December 18, 2004
"Ithaca, N.Y. — WHEN Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human
services, announced this month that he was resigning, he made an
unexpected comment:
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not
attacked
our food supply, because it is so easy to do." He added, "We are
importing a
lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with
that."
Unexpected, but right. The United States is importing more and more
food, and
not just from the Middle East (which actually accounts for only 0.4
percent
of our food imports). Tomatoes from Mexico, grapes from Chile and beef
from
Brazil are standard fare on American tables. The Department of
Agriculture
reports that in 2005, our nation will fail to record an agricultural
surplus for the
first time in 50 years, demonstrating our rising dependency on foreign
agricultural production and distribution systems that may not be safe."
"The solution to these insecurities is to establish community-based food
systems that include many small farmers and a diversity of products.
Such systems
make large-scale contamination impossible, even for determined
bioterrorists.
Far more people have contact with the Mexican lettuce at the
supermarket, for
example, than with the locally grown lettuce at the farmers' market."
read the whole article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/opinion/18wilkins.html?th
Think Globally, Eat Locally
By JENNIFER WILKINS
Published: December 18, 2004
"Ithaca, N.Y. — WHEN Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human
services, announced this month that he was resigning, he made an
unexpected comment:
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not
attacked
our food supply, because it is so easy to do." He added, "We are
importing a
lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with
that."
Unexpected, but right. The United States is importing more and more
food, and
not just from the Middle East (which actually accounts for only 0.4
percent
of our food imports). Tomatoes from Mexico, grapes from Chile and beef
from
Brazil are standard fare on American tables. The Department of
Agriculture
reports that in 2005, our nation will fail to record an agricultural
surplus for the
first time in 50 years, demonstrating our rising dependency on foreign
agricultural production and distribution systems that may not be safe."
"The solution to these insecurities is to establish community-based food
systems that include many small farmers and a diversity of products.
Such systems
make large-scale contamination impossible, even for determined
bioterrorists.
Far more people have contact with the Mexican lettuce at the
supermarket, for
example, than with the locally grown lettuce at the farmers' market."
read the whole article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/opinion/18wilkins.html?th
IS HUMANITY FATALLY SUCCESSFUL?
excellent 34-page .pdf file.
by: William E. Rees Former Director, School of Community and Regional Planning University of British Columbia
"A framing premise of this paper is that the sustainability dilemma is not merely an ecological or technical or economic crisis as is usually assumed, but rather it is a crisis rooted in fundamental human nature. More specifi cally, it is a crisis of human evolutionary success – indeed, we have reached the point where our success is killing us!
This interpretation is not part of the conventional sustainability debate for a very simple reason. We human beings – for all that we suppose ourselves to be evidence of intelligent life on earth – really fail to understand who we are. We have a very limited understanding of what motivates us, why it is we do certain things that we do. Little wonder that human nature is hardly on the sustainability radar.
At the heart of this problem is the fact that people today rarely think of themselves as biological beings. It comes to mind from time to time if one has heart palpitations or some other illness but, on the whole, we moderns don’t like to think of ourselves as biological entities. But indeed we are – we are products of evolution, and our behaviour both as individuals and as society represents a delicate dialectic between self-conscious reasoning and deeper and sometimes darker unconscious urges and predispositions.
The fact is that we humans have a long evolutionary history and many of the traits that we’ve acquired along the way, traits that were adaptive 50,000 years ago, are with us still. But now some of these once-desirable qualities may threaten humanity’s future prospects. That is, some characteristic human qualities and behaviours may well now be maladaptive. I will try to make the case that these ancient traits are such that techno-industrial society in particular is inherently unsustainable. The world is ecologically full – but evolution has not provided us with inhibitions against extinguishing other species, against eliminating competing human groups or, indeed, against destroying our earthly habitat(s)."
by: William E. Rees Former Director, School of Community and Regional Planning University of British Columbia
"A framing premise of this paper is that the sustainability dilemma is not merely an ecological or technical or economic crisis as is usually assumed, but rather it is a crisis rooted in fundamental human nature. More specifi cally, it is a crisis of human evolutionary success – indeed, we have reached the point where our success is killing us!
This interpretation is not part of the conventional sustainability debate for a very simple reason. We human beings – for all that we suppose ourselves to be evidence of intelligent life on earth – really fail to understand who we are. We have a very limited understanding of what motivates us, why it is we do certain things that we do. Little wonder that human nature is hardly on the sustainability radar.
At the heart of this problem is the fact that people today rarely think of themselves as biological beings. It comes to mind from time to time if one has heart palpitations or some other illness but, on the whole, we moderns don’t like to think of ourselves as biological entities. But indeed we are – we are products of evolution, and our behaviour both as individuals and as society represents a delicate dialectic between self-conscious reasoning and deeper and sometimes darker unconscious urges and predispositions.
The fact is that we humans have a long evolutionary history and many of the traits that we’ve acquired along the way, traits that were adaptive 50,000 years ago, are with us still. But now some of these once-desirable qualities may threaten humanity’s future prospects. That is, some characteristic human qualities and behaviours may well now be maladaptive. I will try to make the case that these ancient traits are such that techno-industrial society in particular is inherently unsustainable. The world is ecologically full – but evolution has not provided us with inhibitions against extinguishing other species, against eliminating competing human groups or, indeed, against destroying our earthly habitat(s)."
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
WEIRD WIRED: Ecobot Eats Dead Flies for Fuel
Researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol, are working on creating autonomous robots that power themselves using substances found in the environment. Professors Chris Melhuish and John Greenman plan to give robots their very own guts -- artificial digestive systems and the corresponding metabolisms that will allow robots to digest food.
Doing away with solar cells and batteries, their robot Ecobot II has a stomach consisting of eight microbial fuel cells, or MFCs, that contain bacteria harvested from sewage sludge. The microbes break down the food into sugars, converting biochemical energy into electricity that powers the robot. With bacteria breaking the food down and a type of robotic "respiration" in which air provides oxygen to the fuel cells to create useful energy, the whole system mimics real digestion as closely as possible.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66036,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
Doing away with solar cells and batteries, their robot Ecobot II has a stomach consisting of eight microbial fuel cells, or MFCs, that contain bacteria harvested from sewage sludge. The microbes break down the food into sugars, converting biochemical energy into electricity that powers the robot. With bacteria breaking the food down and a type of robotic "respiration" in which air provides oxygen to the fuel cells to create useful energy, the whole system mimics real digestion as closely as possible.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66036,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Horizontal Resistance
Return to Resistance, and
> Self-Organizing Agro-Ecosystems by Raoul A. Robinson (available free
> online as PDF's from http://sharebooks.ca)
> Self-Organizing Agro-Ecosystems by Raoul A. Robinson (available free
> online as PDF's from http://sharebooks.ca)
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Limits of Physics to be Probed by Device
UK physicists have completed the first crucial element of an experimental device designed to probe the forces that shape our Universe.
The Atlas experiment will explore the fundamental properties of matter and look for "new physics" beyond the limits of our current understanding.
It will be housed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, due to begin operating in 2007.
The LHC could create mini-black holes as particles collide at high energies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4035747.stm
The Atlas experiment will explore the fundamental properties of matter and look for "new physics" beyond the limits of our current understanding.
It will be housed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, due to begin operating in 2007.
The LHC could create mini-black holes as particles collide at high energies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4035747.stm
ENERGY: A New Type of Solar Cell
Scientists in Japan have made the first device that can convert solar energy into electricity and then store the resulting electric charge. The "photocapacitor" designed by Tsutomu Miyasaka and Takurou Murakami at Toin University in Yokohama could be used to power mobile phones and other hand-held devices (Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 3932).
Conventional solar cells need a secondary device, such as a battery, to store the electrical power generated from light. The photocapacitor combines the photoelectric and storage functions in a single structure.
"The photocapacitor is twice as efficient as traditional silicon-based solar cells in utilising weak light," Miyasaka told PhysicsWeb. "This means that it can utilise indirect sunlight, for example on cloudy or rainy days, and even indoor light. Moreover, it can release electrical energy anytime, even in the dark."
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/11/3
Conventional solar cells need a secondary device, such as a battery, to store the electrical power generated from light. The photocapacitor combines the photoelectric and storage functions in a single structure.
"The photocapacitor is twice as efficient as traditional silicon-based solar cells in utilising weak light," Miyasaka told PhysicsWeb. "This means that it can utilise indirect sunlight, for example on cloudy or rainy days, and even indoor light. Moreover, it can release electrical energy anytime, even in the dark."
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/11/3
