Timothy Wilken writes: Synergy at its most basic simply means “working together.”Synergic science is then the study of “working together.”

As science
has progressed in helping us understand the human condition, it is now
clear that we are an interdependent species. Sometimes I depend on
others, and sometimes others depend on me.

Another important fact of
being in interdependent species is we share the same environment—the
same reality. At home, we share the same living space with friends or
family. If I turn the heater thermostat up, the room will become warmer
for everyone. Control of that reality is shared.

If I start yelling and
screaming, things will get much noisier for everyone. Control of that
reality is shared.

If I make a mess or don’t clean up the kitchen, then
we are all living in that mess. This is just as true in the workplace,
our neighborhoods, our communities, and in fact in the whole world. We
live on a single planet, we all share the same water, the same air and
the same resources of the single small planet.

Because control of
reality is shared, if I foul the water or air, I foul your water and
your air. Whatever I do, will effect you. Whatever you do, will effect
me. If we work together and act responsibly, we can minimize the harm
we do each other, and maximize the benefits of solving our problems
together.

Freedom of action in a shared environment is a privilege, not
a right. …

Which is more important? The individual’s right to freedom of action or
community’s right to public safety? We can now see that this is a silly
and false argument. Community is simply “many” individuals. My freedom
of action stops at the boundary of another individual’s personal space
and safety.

America has long been the champion of the individual’s right to freedom
of action. In fact, our American criminal justice system is so
paralyzed by the need to protect the rights of the individual, that our
streets are full of criminals, and our e-mail boxes are full of
unsolicited junk mail and garbage including pornography and fraudulent
offers. Why do we tolerate this? Isn’t it time to grow up? Aren’t we
smart enough to create a society that values both an individual’s right
to freedom of action and the community’s right to public safety.

With the discovery that humanity is an interdependent species comes the
realization that we humans can no longer separate ourselves from
community. Humanity as community is larger and contains humanity as
individuals. The needs and safety of humanity as community must precede
the needs and safety of humanity as individuals. (05/14/07)
more…

Mark Morford writes: Go ahead, name your movement. Name
something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s
happening right now in the newly “greening” America and don’t say more
guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile
unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075
because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column
and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?

I’m talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I’m looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products
widely available at Target and I’m talking saving the whales and
protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every
small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation’s oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a
new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for “An
Inconvenient Truth” and even the soulless corporate monsters over at
famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they
really, really care about saving the environment because, well, “it’s
the right thing to do” (read: It’s purely economic and all about their
bottom line because if they don’t start caring they’ll soon be totally
screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal
Chinese sweatshops).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing
(albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening
in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in
D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally
warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did.

You know it’s true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet
and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature
and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health?
Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane
treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural
childbirth? Non-GMA seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of
course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the
alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from
far off the goddamn grid and it’s about time the media, the
politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered
apology. (05/14/07)
more…

James Howard Kunstler
writes: It’s hard to venture around this land and not feel like you are
living in something like an obsolete Las Vegas hotel exquisitely rigged
for implosion. The massive system that we’ve poured all our national
wealth into, and elaborated to the last limits of refinement over half
a century, is poised for failure. The prospect is so dreadful that no
legitimate authority in politics, business, the news media, or even
those cultural outlands of the arts and religion, can bring themselves
to express a plausibly coherent view of what happens next to a living
arrangement with no future and an economy of no purpose.

The system I refer to, of course, is the car-crazy infrastructure for
everyday life, and all the activities supporting it, that most
Americans now living regard as the natural and normal medium for human
existence, as salt water is the natural and normal medium for squid.
The public brings no critical reflection to being in it, and so its
failure will eventually come as a deadly surprise — as a red tide
surprises the denizens of a tropical sea. When it occurs, the public
will not be able to escape from their investments in this way of life.
Some may feel swindled, but they will not lose their sense of having
been entitled to a happier destiny, so the chances for the acting-out
of massive political grievance are high.

It’s a tragic irony that we got so good at the advertising game the
past half-century, because in doing so we rigged a sub-system dedicated
to reinforcing all our false entitlements. So when the dreadful moment
of recognition comes that we can’t possibly continue being a nation of
happy motorists shuttling between the strip malls and subdivisions, the
bewilderment will be monumental. Nobody will believe that it is
happening, or have a clue how we got ourselves into such a fix. …

The current sense of stalemate or stasis in Middle East politics the
past year is certainly promoting an air of unreality. The civil war in
Iraq grinds on no matter what the US police force does there, or what
Congress and the White House do here. We bluster about Iran, but we
don’t do anything about them, and they bluster back at us. The Saudis
bust a hundred Islamic revolutionaries every few months and keep their
operation rolling. The Holy Land is tense but quiet for now.

Events in geopolitics — things that happen “above the ground,” as they
say in oil circles — seem kind of stuck for the moment. We forget that
these things become unstuck rather suddenly, through slippage, or a
process like phase change in physics, where conditions persist — until
suddenly they don’t. This is pretty much what happens to a
fifty-year-old Las Vegas hotel. It stands there out on the Strip year
after year, perhaps with decreasing decorum, but it persists until the
day comes when somebody throws a switch and the whole edifice comes
down, reeking carpets and all. (05/14/07)
more…

BBC Medical Science — A
dose of vitamin D may help ward off tuberculosis, research suggests. A
study of 131 people found the vitamin helped to boost the ability of
the body to inhibit the growth of bacteria that causes the respiratory
disease.

Researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Imperial College
said it could be used to target at-risk patients or added to drinks.
The study appeared in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Vitamin D was originally used to treat TB in sanatoriums before
antibiotics came in to use. But until now no study has evaluated the
effect of vitamin D on the body’s immunity to mycobacteria, the family
of bacteria that cause TB.

During the study, blood was taken from all the participants and infected with mycobacteria.

The group was then split into two with 64 given a dummy pill and the
rest a 2.5mg dose of vitamin D. After six weeks, blood was taken again
and infected with mycobacteria.

The samples of blood were analysed after 24 hours, and the growth of
the samples taken from people given vitamin D was 20% less than the
placebo group.

This new study comes as TB rose by 2% last year to over 8,000 new cases
in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. London accounted for nearly
half of the cases, with the migrant population identified as the
primary source.

TB is also a major global problem, responsible for 2m deaths a year.

Lead researcher Dr Adrian Martineau added: “This shows that a simple,
cheap supplement could make a significant impact on the health of
people most at risk from the disease.”

Professor Peter Davies, a chest specialist and secretary of the TB
Alert campaign group, said: “We have known for a while vitamin D could
help and it is good to see it being confirmed in such a study. (05-14-07)
more…

BBC Humanity and Energy — New technology means coal can be both a clean and secure source of energy, according to a UK think-tank report.

High in carbon emissions – a key factor causing climate change – coal
has typically been seen as a dirty fuel. But the environmental damage
can be reduced, says the report, and unlike some renewable energy it
can also be stored and provided on demand.

The report by the Centre for Policies Studies comes in advance of the
UK energy white paper, expected in May. “New clean technologies are
being developed around the world which can reduce the environmental
impact of coal-fired generation,” the report said. These new techniques
are “proven”, the study added.

“Powerfuel’s new development at Hatfield in Yorkshire is an example of
how a new clean coal plant can be developed in practice,” it said. The
site, near Doncaster, was reopened in 2006, as part of plans to revamp
the colliery and develop a clean coal power station.

Developing clean coal in the UK would not only be good for the domestic
market. It would also be an effective way of setting an example for
developing economies, including China and India, so they could “take
advantage of their own coal reserves” in an environmentally acceptable
way. …

It argued that ultimately, if coal were developed using new
technologies, it could mean a more reliable energy source and cheaper
electricity for the consumer. (05/14/07)
more…

BBC Environment & Humanity –
Alarmist messages about global warming are counter-productive, the head
of a leading climate research centre says. Professor Mike Hulme, of the
UK’s Tyndall Centre, has been conducting research on people’s attitudes
to media portrayals of a catastrophic future. He says strong messages
designed to prompt people to change behaviour only seem to generate
apathy.

His initial findings will be shown to a meeting run by the British
Association for the Advancement of Science. “There has been
over-claiming or exaggeration, or at the very least casual use of
language by scientists, some of whom are quite prominent,” Professor
Hulme told BBC News. His concern is that these exaggerations have given
the green light to the media to use the language of fear, terror and
disaster when covering scientific reports – even when those reports are
much more constrained in their description of the course of likely
future events.

He says extravagated claims simply generate a feeling of helplessness
in the public. “My argument is about the dangers of science
over-claiming its knowledge about the future and in particular
presenting tentative predictions about climate change using words of
‘disaster’, ‘apocalypse’ and ‘catastrophe’,” he said.

The study compared the responses of a group of people shown sensational
media coverage with those given the more sober information from
scientific reports.

The initial findings suggest that those shown doom-laden messages
tended to believe the problem could come to a head further into the
future. This group also felt there was little they could do to affect
the planet’s future.

“Not only is this not a good way of presenting climate change science,
but even in trying to effect change, it’s self-defeating,” Professor
Hulme said. (05/14/07)
more…