There is a lot to do for Dr. Chu

We here at Ecoversity would like to welcome  Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu and support Dr. Chu in his daunting task of being the new energy secretary. We believe he is an excellent choice to meet the dual and sometimes conflicting challenges in energy and climate change. 

Though very close to Al Gore in his understanding of global warming, in contrast with Gore, Chu doesn't believe that all the solutions are readily available, and he is probably right. An enormous amount of research needs to be done and not just on bio fuels from algae and cellulose (on which Chu has concentrated in the past, see the Helios Project). 

It doesn't look like Mr. Chu is swayed by the oxymoronic 'Clean Coal' slogan --he has stated that "Coal is his worst nightmare"-- and he is too smart to believe that the nuclear option provides any kind of easy way out. Effective carbon sequestration for coal is a long way off, and so is 'safe' nuclear waste storage --not to mention the problem of proliferation. 

What Steven Chu will likely concentrate on is  on renewable energy sources and the infrastructure it will take to wean America off oil. What is needed is an upgraded  electricity transmission system which removes the greatest obstacle to integrating renewables into our aging energy grid. Likely this will require of mr. Chu a deep ability to politically maneuver between states and vested bureaucratic interests.  These kinds of projects and research will be labor intensive endeavors: hopefully it will put a lot of people back to work. Problem is this: it will require a federal investment that is more or less equal to the Wallstreet bailout that has been committed so far, and in that sense the DOE  will have to compete quite strenuously with deeply ingrained old boys' interests. Good luck, mr. Chu!

Finally a word of caution. What a lot of people don't realize is that the nuclear weapons infrastructure and the National Laboratories involved in the upkeep and development of these weapons are hidden in and administered by the DOE (Dept. of Energy). A can of worms. Historically the weapons laboratories have dominated the DOE -- they  represent  roughly 30% of the DOE budget, with another 25% dedicated to nuclear cleanup closely related to the activities of the laboratories themselves. What is left of the budget is equally split between 'science' and new power generation. So you can imagine that the bureaucracy of the DOE may not always welcome Steven Chu with open arms. 

Obama has been urged to reestablish America in a global leadership position on nuclear disarmament. We understand from Obama's campaign that an Obama government will be serious not only about the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) but perhaps more importantly about starting to give the NPT (Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty)  meaning through actual nuclear disarmament measures, and by stopping any new development of nuclear weapon facilities, such as the CMRR building being planned in New Mexico or instance, and finally, by dismantlement of nuclear weapons.  

Steven Chu is key in redirecting DOE funding towards these goals.

Shamu

                                                                 SHAMUYA 11/30/2008

With great grief I have to mention here the passing of Shamuya. Unequaled intimate friend to so many of us, half handsome prince / half wild wolf, always bridging human and animal spirit.
He instantly pacified other dogs. Like a Buddha he taught kindness and unwavering love and devotion.

Shamu, may you be reborn as a human, may you always be wild, may you find ultimate liberation, may you always run with us.

Shamuya, you big being, it has been a joy and honor to spend these years together....like no other you opened my heart

Pheromones 2: the Smell of Wallstreet

Nowadays billions of dollars change hands on a daily basis, and some of it may be due to 'rational depression' as opposed to the 'irrational exuberance' it started with. 

Federal Reserve board chairman  Greenspan warned the markets then (in 1996) "....irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions...." Uncanny how accurate his insight was then, about what is truly happening now. Despite his own warning, Greenspan never put the breaks on. He believed that the market to a large extent regulates itself and let it go at that. (He says he really regrets things now).

Let's examine this a little further: 'put the breaks on'.... on what dare I ask ? The traders ?  Well....turns out that it is not exactly the traders who are to blame. A new study finds that it is their hormones. A study by John  Coates, neuro-scientist finds that successful traders (during the boom periods) were heavily influenced by positive feedback loops fueled by increasing levels of testosterone. Pumped Up !  It is like a winning streak among athletes: successive victories push testosterone levels higher and higher, which gives the winning  athletes an advantage for the next game. Until they become stupid of course and start taking risks based on delusions of grandeur.

Testosterone, you guessed it, is a hormone produced by the testes, cojones, your 'balls' so to speak.  It is a sexual hormone mainly in men, responsible for the unfolding of (male) sexual maturation. Once matured, an abundance of testosterone makes you feel energized,  'virile', and yes... even exuberant. This is apparently what happened to the traders on the floor --they were starting to feel they ruled the world in a euphoric, sexualized frenzy. Must have been very, very addicting.

Vice versa, when the markets tumble Dr. Coates measured a dramatic increase in cortisol production in the bodies of those same traders,  a hormone associated with a response to stress. Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands, sitting on top of the kidneys, and it is experienced as the fear that goes together with  fight or flight situations. Once triggered by pituitary gland (in the brain) the cortisol steroid immediately enters the bloodstream, increasing the blood pressure and levels of blood sugar. It is in drug culture terms "a rush" since it alters the state of mind so immediately. In the somewhat longer run high levels of cortisol may undermine the immunity system and can lead to depression and anxiety, potentially aggravated by large intake of sugars (soda pop) and junk food .

While I enjoy the direction of the thinking of Dr. Coates, there is something lacking in it. While hormones may explain some of the extreme behaviors of the individual traders on the floor, it doesn't explain the mass behavior that causes the massive swings in the market. 

I would like to suggest that there are pheromones involved here that 

communicate the particular state of mind one trader to another. Much like the bees releasing an alarm pheromone causing the other bees to act aggressively 'en mass', on wall street at times pheromones are floating around causing a smell.... a certain smell....the smell of fear, which then triggers the pituitary gland which in its turn activates the adrenals secreting cortisol. How intricate!

The nose, backed up by a whole 'olfactory system' provides for the 'chemo sensory sense', the only sense that hard wires directly through neurons into the brain. For some bizarre reason, we humans have lost touch with smell even though 20+ percent of our brains (and dna) is devoted to the olfactory system. 

Pheromone in Greek means: to bear a hormone. In other words pheromones are chemical information packages secreted by one individual,  which once they are picked up by the nose and olfactory system of another individual, trigger hormones which then determines much of the subsequent behavior, such as bidding the market up (testosterone) or bidding it down (cortisol).

So funny: Our eyes are fixated  so much  the 'scoreboard' of the stock exchange --the always creeping ticker on the bottom of our tv screens. This is our human fixation and sensory bias anno 21st century which has dictated our perception and our ability to give meaning to large conceptual constructs like 'the economy'. Yet we know so much less about the hormones which cause the large swings in the 'mood' of wallstreet. What is even more remarkable is that we are completely ignorant about the pheromones which trigger those hormones... the smell of wallstreet....ruling the world. 

Pheromones 1: the Chemical Language of Bees

One of the things I have been documenting at Ecoversity is the behavior of bees. You can see some of the material at Ecoversity TV.

When looking at the bees on a big screen tv, slowed down to about 10% of the speed you see and hear things that you miss when the bees move at their normal speed –too fast. For example you can recognize that each bee is an individual with a face and features. Bees are social animals that see, touch and recognize each other, very much like humans. The bee buzzing sound when slowed down becomes audible and differentiated to the human ear in a different way: there actually is a tremendous variety in sounds made by bees, it’s like a chorus with different singing voices weaving their way through. The bee songs at that speed are really very much like whale songs.

But the language of the bees that is probably most similar in its complexity with the human language is the chemical communication through pheromones among bees. Pheremone in greek means: 'to bear a hormone", it is a trigger of behavior.

The bees have a series of 15 different glands that can each secrete a series of chemicals that are known as pheromones. We humans understand the meaning of some of the distinct chemicals in terms of bee behavior. For instance we have identified the koschevnikov gland which produces a powerful alarm pheromone which is secreted when bees are stinging and which induces many other bees to behave aggressively. Or the nasonov gland which produces a sweet rose smelling attractant that orients worker bees in foraging, hive identification and stabilization of swarms.

It seems to me that the bee pheromones are similar to letters in human language. Different combinations have different meanings. Though we humans can kind of decipher the pheromone letters individually, we have no idea how complex and 'intelligent' the bee chemical language may truly be.

One day my friend Stephen from Biomagic and I were talking about the bee pheromones in the context of the Colony Collapse Disorder. (Before I go into this heavy subject let me first say something positive: the topbar hives at Ecoversity seem very healthy to me. I looked at them this morning and in the unusually warm November here in Santa Fe the bees are still busy collecting.)

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been mysterious...whole colonies of bees are disappearing altogether all at once.
Isn't it reasonable to speculate that all kinds of chemicals set loose in our environment are interfering in the subtleties of pheromone based communication among bees? Not just a few of the really terrible culprits such as the nicotinoid pesticides that are being produced (by the same people who bring us aspirin (Bayer) among others). All kinds of petrochemicals that are set loose in our high intensity fossil fuel society, may well interfere in the language between bees.... they may even disturb the chemical communication between flowers and bees.

For years there have been reports of disoriented bees, one way or another. Could it be that the bees are experiencing their version of the tower of Babel?




In some of the coming blogs I would like to speculate more about pheromones, and their role not just in bee behavior, but also in humans and other animals.

Bubbles and Green Investments

Yesterday on the 21st of october the business pages of the NYT you could read that ".......investment capital for big renewable energy projects are likely to get tighter..."

Why do you think this is the case?.....could it be falling oil prices perhaps....? I have this funny feeling that I have seen this movie before --remember Carter ?

Let's learn a lesson from history: regardless of where the oil prices may land, we as a society, we the people should insist on federal investments --much larger than any bank bailout-- into greening the economy. Let's not get suckered any longer by the oil companies and think that the current drop in prices has anything to do with a rosier future of the fundamentals: The reality is, that we are running out of oil and whatever window the last little bit of oil gives us needs to be spend on reforming the economy by way of infrastructure development necessary to be real about the carbon reduction goals that were set at Kyoto and Rio.

Reagan took the sledgehammer to Carter's attempts towards a greener economy. Bush finished the whole greener vision off with a sustained nightmare of war, war economy, war culture (violence on tv) etc......and look where it got us.

Let's face it: we need the money that is now being spend on war, to be spend on education, families, and economic justice. We need the money that is now being spend on bailouts and invest it in a much more modest approach to life where happiness comes from using less and living in whole different ways than what we have become used to since the second war.

One thing is becoming clear: we don't need any more wars.

Let's tell Obama to tone down the rethoric on Afganistan and Pakistan and keep his commitment to leave Iraq as soon as can be agreed upon with the Iraq Government.

Then we should direct our focus to greening our economy and retooling our way of life.

Even the Buddha spoke of bubbles: "Life is like a bubble in a stream --it is an illusion"

Willem

Francisco Mahua, Shaman Extraordinaire

It is with great sadness and regret that I have to mention the killing of Francisco, 'Pancho' Mahua. I don't quite understand what happened but what I gather is this: Pancho Mahua, singer , Shaman, lineage holder of the Shipibo Konibo tribe, only 48 years old, was on his way back from his urban home close to the Yarina Cocha, Pucallpa to his ancestral home in Pao Yan, deep in the forest. He had been working steadily for months on end, doing ceremonies, hosting visitors, teaching and odd jobs. Finally he had saved some funds and was on his way to back to his love Isabella, and some of his children including a handicapped new born baby girl.

On this long boat ride over the Ucayali river it is not uncommon that arguments break out amongst a fair amount of drinking. This must have been the case, since in a scuttle Pancho Mahua was killed and thrown overboard. His body has yet to be found, though it is sure that Pancho Mahua died from his injuries.

It is hard to describe the incredible loss of such a bright light as Pancho Mahua, skilled in so many aspects of the complex inheritance of the Shipibo tribe. Pancho could fish, he could built traditional houses, he chanted like no other, and was singled out for his healing acumen and advice. He was a tribal leader, a great friend and father and lover of many, with an uncanny sense of humor and flawless theatrics.

Oh God, How we all will miss Pancho,


ps. check out some of his videos on the Youtube channels Ecoversity and Kanseki1 (in particular Report from the Forest)

Erratic Times: Weather Report

Remember the story about the butterfly’s fluttering wings in the Amazonian
rain forest causing a hurricane in Texas? Well it turns out to be true that
climate is a network of finely responsive relationships and in its
complexity unpredictable.

Now people estimate that a one degree Fahrenheit increase in Earth’s surface
temperature as recorded over the last century can cause electric storms that
are 10 times as fierce. Small changes, big consequences. Many of the
relationships that go into the ‘weather equation’ are still poorly
understood such as the relation between ocean temperatures, ocean current,
earth rotation, melting ice caps and wind.

The shift towards extreme weather types has been well documented, and in its
totality is considered proof that ‘Global Warming has arrived irrefutably.
Just to remind you of a few: The heat wave of 2003 settling over Europe
caused the death of 35.000 people. The worst floods in memory in India,
Bhutan and Bangladesh happened just last year and left 30 million people
homeless. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (how time flies) was the most
devastating storm ever recorded in the history of the US. An ongoing endless
drought has settled over the continent of Australia. And these are just the
larger events that everyone knows about. On a much more local level people
in the Amazonian rain forest are trying to cope with rivers drying up one
year (a disaster for the transportation), alternated with abnormal flooding
(a disaster for food security) the next, Pacific island communities are
wiped out due to rising sea levels, Polar bears loose their habitat, etc.
These kinds of events are treated as footnotes in history and most of us are
oblivious to the reality of it.

Heat waves, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, icecap melting affecting sea
levels, droughts, etc.- they all form part and parcel of ‘Global Warming’
and obviously that that concept doesn’t quite do justice to the complexity
of what is happening. Global Warming gives the idea that we are dealing here
with a gradual process going into one direction, but that is not the
experience of many people. ‘Global Weirding’ has been proposed as an
alternative, more accurate expression of what is happening, but perhaps it
is too weird to be generally accepted as a term.

Human responses to climate events associated with what we will here still
call Global Warming do not just require emergency teams, but a whole series
of measures aimed at the longer term prevention of catastrophes plus the
adaptation to a whole new set of circumstances. It is questionable if we
humans are wired to understand the consequences of our own actions deeply
enough to be able to respond to the scale of havoc in a collected and
comprehensive manner –but without that, we are condemned to live in a more
and more fragmented situation of resource wars, mal nutrition, insecurity,
human conflict on all levels, etc.

What is required now is to dream a whole new ‘societal gestalt’ affecting
everything from agriculture to (city) planning, from energy to
infrastructure, from architecture to transportation, from wealth
distribution to conflict resolution, etc. We have to find simple principles
that can guide us in this transition. Al Gore’s proposal to tax carbon
instead of labor may be one of those principles --but only one of many. We
need to seek new consensus based on a deeper understanding on who we are as
human beings. What makes us happy? What makes us tick?

Unless we are able to engage and enter this challenge, we will live more and
more in what in the Hopi prophesy is called the ‘Erratic Times’. Erratic
Times covers our situation perhaps better than the Global Warming. When
asked what Erratic Times means the Hopi elders will tell you: it means that
there will be flowers blooming in winter and it might snow in summer. That's
it: the Erratic Times.

-Willem Malten

A Confluence of Crises

What we are seeing is the confluence of different but related crises: peak oil and peak food, both exacerbated by global warming - the overarching crisis that humanity is facing. Whereas people are now increasingly aware that we are just past the point of peak oil, most people don't know that we passed 'peak food' in 1998 - already ten years ago. What is meant by that is that at that point in time there was the largest surplus of grain stock available in the world and since that time reserves have been dropping. Grain storage now is at the level of 1947-48

The sense that global food stocks are running low of because of scarcity has only recently become an issue of wider concern - not just to the poor and starving nations, but even in the US there should be an acute sense of imminent collapse of the current food system - without alternatives being in place. Twenty eight million people on food stamps sounds like a very loud alarm.
A weak dollar continues to increase the exports of farm commodities including wheat dramatically, and make the wheat increasingly unaffordable for the internal American market itself. This hollowing out of the food and grain supply is further exhausted by the production of subsidized bio-fuels from food crops - one of the dumbest 'green solutions' ever.

People have recently identified the housing crisis as the main reason for the coming depression. But the real causes of the coming depression lies much deeper. They are rooted in the fact that the neo-con capitalism has chosen resource war as its main economic vehicle and legitimacy. The puppets at the top are there solely to perpetuate a state of disinformation, secrecy, denial, betrayal, and brutality such as threats of torture and imprisonment - in order to at once hide and at the same time legitimize the pervasive corrupt cronyism robbing the resources from everything in sight and turning them into war diplomacy: bullies and bullets. The Iraqi war itself may cost as much as 3 trillion dollar over time. Three trillion on borrowed money - just try to imagine that even for a moment... and that is the true cause of tightening credit, affecting all the hanky panky we have lived from for awhile - like easy credit in the housing market.

An old saying says: “the warring nation becomes infertile”.

Eventually the war modus operandus turns itself on itself, exhausts the land and kills the imagination. it was not very long ago the people were gloating over the american 21st century and the permanence of the unequaled superpower. Look at it now: the once richest nation in the world is trying to hold on to a 2nd rate status desperate to not immediately tumble into third world economic status. The housing crisis bad as it is didn’t do that.

Lies, torture, militarism, criminal leadership, corruption - they all carry a price in credibility that is eventually felt in the wealth of a nation and ultimately in the pockets of increasingly disenfranchised masses. Models suggest that once passed peak oil the available supplies of oil may drop off by as much as 6% each year, due to the fact that the geopolitical interests are shifting because of the acute sense of scarcity. If fuel competes with food it is time to invest all our last resources into food security rather than military dominance or empire.

The ultimate nightmare for the United States is a dollar collapse - after all the dollar represents the value of our credibility - and that is what is dropping. The true reason behind our economic crisis is in this crisis of values- like betting on the wrong horse way too long - the horse of protracted war as economic vehicle.

The problem with such an escalation of folly is in its logical conclusion: having, promoting and eventually using a nuclear arsenal to secure energy resources. The US in that sense is not to be trusted. No doubt that the renewed pressure to develop a pit production facility in Los Alamos, is an example of where the true intent of the US lies. Imagine if the Iranians in this day and age would develop a factory for 50 -80 pits per year - how would we feel?

Despite paying lip service to being 'green' the New Mexican Political Representatives in Congress are not actively creating economic alternatives to the nuclear destiny of New Mexico: ultimately they bet on re-prossessing, nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, military spaceports, nuclear weapon design and storage to secure the main Federal income stream for New Mexico . They could easily stop the new nuclear pit factory - but they won’t - so that is what they really stand for regardless of what they say.

What we have to realize about 'green' is that it includes a social dimension: from now on we need to critically evaluate all policies against one looming reality: How will this policy impact and affect the poor? The technology we want to invest in creates jobs, opportunity, lifts people into meaningful work, promotes environmental re-mediation, and a sense of common destiny and justice. That is the social dimension of 'green' and is incompatible with the warring war economy.

-Willem Malten