In 1971, Buckminster Fuller and a team of architects began the design for a new city. The project was called Old Man River City. It was to be a single community dwelling machine for 125,000 humans. The following description in Fuller’s own words is excerpted from the book Critical Path published in 1981:

Fuller’s mission was to: “To make the world work in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”  (06/29/08)
more…

In 2002, Dean Robertson
wrote: The United States, is heading at almost full steam, toward the
biggest calamity of it’s entire history, due, in part, I think, in the
very poor structure of our current government.

It would be much better,
if it really was a democracy, but alas, it is not. I could quote ream
on ream of various rhetoric, that has defined our current state of
affairs, but it would change nothing.

Someone with substantial
charisma, and a following of people, say 10,000 individuals, with many
many dollars, must build a sustainable community, from the ground up.

My home state Iowa, would be a good place, since there are some older
communities that are slowly disintegrating, as people move to larger
communities, making them larger still. In doing so, they must exceed
all building codes, that are in place, in any community, that currently
uses building codes. [ I know that, ( inroads ) have been made, in the
Universal building codes, by various builders and city engineers, that
are beginning to allow (off normal designs), that do exceed existing
code ]

At the present time, NO SUCH COMMUNITIES EXIST. And, NO amount
of RHETORIC will make it happen. Some people must actually make it
happen. (06/29/08)
more…

Bill McKibben writes: I ALMOST NEVER write about writing—in my aesthetic, the writing should disappear, the thought linger. But the longer I’ve spent working on global warming—the greatest challenge humans have ever faced—the more I’ve come to see it as essentially a literary problem. A technological and scientific challenge, yes; an economic quandary, yes; a political dilemma, surely. But centrally? A crisis in metaphor, in analogy, in understanding. We haven’t come up with words big enough to communicate the magnitude of what we’re doing. How do you say: the world you know today, the world you were born into, the world that has remained essentially the same for all of human civilization, that has birthed every play and poem and novel and essay, every painting and photograph, every invention and economy, every spiritual system (and every turn of phrase) is about to be . . . something so different? Somehow “global warming” barely hints at it. The same goes for any of the other locutions, including “climate chaos.” And if we do come up with adequate words in one culture, they won’t necessarily translate into all the other languages whose speakers must collaborate to somehow solve this problem. …

When the Northwest Passage opened amid the great Arctic melt last
summer, many scientists were stunned. James Hansen, our greatest
climatologist, was already at work on a paper that would try, for the
first time, to assign a real number to global warming, a target that
the world could aim at. No more vague plans to reduce carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, or keep it from doubling, or slow the rate of growth—he
understood that there was already enough evidence from the planet’s
feedback systems, and from the quickly accumulating data about the
paleoclimate, to draw a bright line.

In a PowerPoint presentation he gave at the American Geophysical
Union meeting in San Francisco last December, he named a number: 350
parts per million carbon dioxide. That, he said, was the absolute upper
bound of anything like safety—above it and the planet would be
unraveling. Is unraveling, because we’re already at 385 parts per
million. And so it’s a daring number, a politically unwelcome one. It
means, in shorthand, that this generation of people—politicians
especially—can’t pass the problem down to their successors. We’re like
patients who’ve been to the doctor and found out that our cholesterol
is too high. We’re in the danger zone. Time to cut back now, and hope
that we do it fast enough so we don’t have a stroke in the meantime. So
that Greenland doesn’t melt in the meantime and raise the ocean
twenty-five feet.

For me, the number was a revelation. (06/29/08)
more…

Michael Klare writes: At the hastily convened global oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 28, top officials of producing and consuming nations from around the world attempted to find a combination of solutions that would somehow extricate us from the current crisis over sky-high energy prices. These proposals ranged from increased output by major producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to restrictions on the activities of international oil speculators.

But all were based on the premise that the crisis can be resolved through the right mix of actions, thus restoring an environment of cheap and abundant oil – a premise that is fundamentally flawed. More and more, the evidence suggests that this is not just a temporary crisis. It is the beginning of the end of the Petroleum Age.

How do we know that the Petroleum Age is drawing to a close? Two key indicators tell us that this is so. First, many of the giant fields that have satisfied our massive thirst over so many years are experiencing diminished output. Second, although the major oil producers are spending more money each year to discover new reserves, they are finding less and less oil. Either of these factors by itself is cause for significant worry; the combination is deadly. Dangerous Reliance

Few people understand how reliant we have become on a relatively small number of mammoth fields for the lion’s share of our daily petroleum intake. Though the world possesses tens of thousands of operating fields, a mere 116 of them – each producing more than 100,000 barrels per day – together account for nearly one-half of total global output. Of these, all but a handful were discovered more than a quarter of a century ago, and most are showing signs of diminished capacity. Indeed, some of the world’s largest fields – including Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, Burgan in Kuwait, Cantarell in Mexico, and Samotlor in Russia – appear to be now in decline or about to become so. The decline of these giant fields matters greatly. Compensating for their lost output will take increased yield at thousands of smaller fields, and there is no evidence that this is even remotely possible. …

Consider: In 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, world “liquids” demand is expected to reach 117.6 million barrels per day. Of this amount, unconventional fuels – synthetic liquids derived from tar sands, shale rock, and biofuels – may provide a total of 10.5 million barrels. That leaves 107.1 million to be supplied by conventional petroleum. But what if global oil output has fallen to 60-70% of that amount by 2030, as projected by many analysts? Under those circumstances, no amount of oil from Alaska or the outer continental shelf will be able to save this country (or the rest of the world) from a catastrophic energy crisis.

Some say that any palliative is worth the expense as we head toward certain disaster. But this is not a logical response. Knowing that the age of petroleum is drawing to a close, it is far better to devote our talents and investment dollars on hastening the arrival of its successor, rather than prolonging the agony of oil’s decline. (06/29/08)
more…

BBC Environmental Science — Martian soil appears to contain sufficient nutrients to support life - Nasa scientists believe. Preliminary analysis by the $420m (£210m) Phoenix Mars Lander mission on the planet’s soil found it to be much more alkaline than expected. Scientists working on the spacecraft project said they were “flabbergasted” by the discovery. The find has raised hopes conditions on Mars may be favourable for life.

“We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life, whether past, present or future,” said Sam Kounaves, the project’s lead chemist, from the University of Arizona. Although he said further tests would have to be conducted, Mr Kounaves said the soil seemed “very friendlyÖ there is nothing about it that is toxic,” he said. “It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard - you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well.”

As well as being far less acidic than anticipated, the soil was also found to contain traces of magnesium, sodium, potassium and other elements. “We were all flabbergasted at the data we got back,” said Mr Kounaves. “It is very exciting for us.” …

The Arctic location where Phoenix touched down is thought to hold large stores of water-ice just below the surface. Last week, scientists said they were positive there was ice on the planet after eight dice-sized chunks were seen melting away in a series of photographs. But Phoenix has so far not detected organic carbon - considered an essential building block of life. (06/29/08)
more…