Watch Ervin Laszlo shed light on the emerging changes happening today and the urgent need for technological and social cooperation and world peace.
This message and news goes beyond the fear of global warming and embraces the shift in consciousness toward not only creative networking for revolutionary solutions but a evolutionary change in the way we live together as a global family.
Ervin László (born 1932 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, and classical pianist. He has published about 75 books and over 400 papers, and is editor of World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution. Moreover, he has recorded several piano concertos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_László
World Shift 2012 Declaration. Ervin Laszlo, Club of Budapest International
This video will be shown at the London WorldShift 2012 event on 09/09/09.
“There is no doubt that we are now in a state of global emergency. This unprecedented worldwide crisis is a symptom of a much deeper problem - the current state of our consciousness: how we think about ourselves and our world. We have the urgent need, and now the opportunity, for a complete rethink: to reconsider our values and priorities, to understand our interconnectedness and to begin a new direction - living in harmony with nature and each other.”
The 999 It’s Time team has identified 9 core action areas where we can all engage with positive change. This interesting group of individuals, who are championing each cause include, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on consumerism, Sam Roddick who is tackling activism and founder Rory Spowers who will be promoting the issue of awareness. On 9th September 2009, 999 It’s Time will orchestrate 9 maximum profile events and actions, aligning itself with thought-leading activists, artists, scientists, politicians, economists and thinkers, to wed the most credible and creative ideas into the 999 It’s Time Manifesto.
On the same day, WorldShift 2012 will also be launched. This global movement is dedicated to co-creating the foundations of a peaceful, just and sustainable world by the end of 2012. The organisation believes that an enlightened government is needed to address these issues and seeks to unite and engage everyone in this process by signing the WorldShift 2012 Declaration to commit to transformational change.
Eric Giler demos wireless electricity at the TEC conference.
Eric Giler wants to untangle our wired lives with cable-free electric power. Here, he covers what this sci-fi tech offers, and demos MIT’s breakthrough version, WiTricity — a near-to-market invention that may soon recharge your cell phone, car, pacemaker.
The competition and fight for the strategic control of oil vs. the cooperative and independence inherent in renewable energy is an interesting comparison.
With this in mind… Anne Korin is a conservative worth listening too. She is the Co-Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. She points out a few key questions that are missing from many discussions about climate change, oil, coal, nukes, drilling, etc.
-Does America have the time to wait for the market to provide to solutions for energy independence?
-Are there times when government should intervene, like cap and trade?
-Why are we fighting wars that we are supporting both sides of?
-What real solutions can we do right now?
–Here is part one of seven…
And so…
-Will coal become less attractive because the Supreme Court has agreed CO2 is a pollutant and must be regulated by the EPA to mitigate climate change? Cick Here
-Will government step in with Cap and Trade to give renewable more advantage over fossil fuels?
As Obama has mentioned. Click Here
-Or will new innovations come forward that are more competitive than fossil fuels?
Like this study from Ausra about how Solar thermal power could supply over 90 percent of US Grid Plus new electric vehile auto fleet.
This is a must see video if you are at all interested in electric cars, climate change, the economy and solutions.
It is a conversation with Shai Agassi and Tim O’Reilly at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
We live in amazing times.
Peace,
Bruce
Better Place is working to build an electric car network. using technology available today. The goals? Sustainable transportation, global energy independence and freedom from oil.
“Pininfarina’s had a rough time of it lately, what with its huge debt and the death of its CEO. But now that it’s gotten a little breathing room from its creditors, the famed Italian coach builder is proceeding with plans for an electric car it will unveil at the Paris Motor Show.
Pininfarina is developing the car with French battery company Bollore and says it will be available in Europe, Japan and America by the end of 2010. The two companies are keeping the four-seater’s design under wraps for now, but let’s hope it looks more like the Sintesi (pictured) concept Pininfarina brought to the Geneva auto show last spring and less like the boxy Blue Car concept that Bollore unveiled two years ago.”
Luft calls for open fuel standard to break oil dependency, promote competition in fuel sector… video
Is an open fuel standard the answer to ending the United State’s dependency on foreign oil? Should the market be given the opportunity to choose which fuel to use? During today’s OnPoint, Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-founder of the Set America Free Coalition, explains why he believes an open fuel standard is the most viable option for our future transportation fuel policy. He discusses OPEC’s influence on current energy prices and analyzes the energy plan recently proposed by oilman T. Boone Pickens. Luft explains why he believes relying on natural gas to fuel our vehicles, as Pickens has suggested, would essentially create a new dependency issue for the U.S..
If you prefer to read, here is the transcript
From: The Rocky Mountian Institute
- Amory B. Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevich
“Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street.
This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster.
Most remarkably, comparing all options’ ability to protect the earth’s climate and enhance energy security reveals why nuclear power could never deliver these promised benefits even if it could find free-market buyers—while its carbon-free rivals, which won $71 billion of private investment in 2007 alone, do offer highly effective climate and security solutions, sooner, with greater confidence.”
Conclusion
So why do otherwise well-informed people still consider nuclear power a key element of a sound climate strategy? Not because that belief can withstand analytic scrutiny. Rather, it seems, because of a superficially attractive story, an immensely powerful and effective lobby, a new generation who forgot or never knew why nuclear power failed previously (almost nothing has changed), sympathetic leaders of nearly all main governments, deeply rooted habits and rules that favor giant power plants over distributed solutions and enlarged supply over efficient use, the market winners’ absence from many official databases (which often count only big plants owned by utilities), and lazy reporting by an unduly credulous press.
Isn’t it time we forgot about nuclear power? Informed capitalists have. Politicians and pundits should too. After more than half a century of devoted effort and a half-trillion dollars of public subsidies, nuclear power still can’t make its way in the market. If we accept that unequivocal verdict, we can at last get on with the best buys first: proven and ample ways to save more carbon per dollar, faster, more surely, more securely, and with wider consensus. As often before, the biggest key to a sound climate and security strategy is to take market economics seriously.
###
RMI -The Pursuit of Interconnections A Solution to One Problem May Lead to Solutions For Others
“A feature that distinguishes RMI from almost every other organization is its unceasing search for interconnections between issues normally viewed as unrelated. The following story illustrates why we believe so strongly in the importance of a “vision across boundaries.”
In the early 1950s, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered from malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) had a solution: it sprayed large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far, so good. But there were side effects. Among the first was that the roofs of people’s houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT was also killing a parasitic wasp that had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckos, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by potential outbreaks of typhus and plague. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the World Health Organization was obliged to parachute 14,000 live cats into Borneo (See: “How Not to Parachute More Cats”).
The true story of Operation Cat Drop — now nearly forgotten at WHO — illustrates that if you don’t know how things are interconnected, then often the cause of problems is solutions. On the other hand, if you understand the hidden connections between energy, climate, water, agriculture, transportation, security, commerce, and economic and social development, then you can often devise a solution to one problem (such as energy) that will also create solutions to many other problems at no extra cost. Crafting solutions so that they multiply is RMI’s credo and the basis of its success.”
###
“I have summarized my discovery of the option of humanity to become omnieconomically and sustainably successful on our planet while phasing out forever all use of fossil fuels and atomic energy generation other than the Sun. I have presented my plan for using our increasing technical ability to construct high-voltage, superconductive transmission lines and implement an around-the-world electrical energy grid integrating the daytime and nighttime hemispheres, thus swiftly increasing the operating capacity of the world’s electrical energy system and, concomitantly, living standard in an unprecedented feat of international cooperation.”
“When Buckminster Fuller was asked by a 12 year old boy, “How would you suggest solving international problems without violence?” he answered: “I always try to solve problems by some artifact, some tool or invention that makes what people are doing obsolete, so that it makes this particular kind of problem no longer relevant. My answer would be to develop a world energy grid, an electric grid where everybody is on the same grid.
All of a sudden there would be no problems any more, no international troubles. Our new economic basis wouldn’t be gold or dollars; it would be kilowatt hours.”
Fuller’s Earth, 1983, Richard Brenneman
“Because energy is wealth, the integrating world industrial networks promise ultimate access of all humanity everywhere to the total operative commonwealth of earth.”
Utopia or Oblivion, 1969, Fuller
“This now feasible, intercontinental network would integrate America, Asia and Europe, and integrate the night-and-day, spherically shadow-and-light zones of Planet Earth. And this would occasion the 24-hour use of the now only fifty per cent of the time used world-around standby generator capacity, whose fifty per cent unused capacities heretofore were mandatorily required only for peakload servicing of local non-interconnected energy users. Such intercontinental network integration would overnight double the already-installed and in-use, electric power generating capacity of our Planet.”
Telegram to Senator Edmund Muskie, Earth, Inc., 1973, Fuller.
Two decades
ago, the late R. Buckminster Fuller
proposed interconnecting regional power
systems into a single continuous global electrical
energy grid. • While this vision is still years away, tech-
nological advances have made the linking of international and
inter regional energy networks practicable today. • Transmission
lines allow utilities to level the peaks and valleys of demand. This is
accomplished between East-West time zones, as well as North-South
seasonal variations in demand. • The origin of the energy grid initiative
emerged as the highest priority of the World Game™. Its stated purpose
is “to make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible
time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or the
disadvantage of anyone.” Research reveals that these major benefits will
result from expanding electrical networks. • Increase in everyone’s stan-
dard of living • Reduction of fossil fuel demand and the resultant pollu-
tion • Relief of the population explosion • Reduction of world hunger
• Enhancement of world trade • Promotion of international
cooperation and peace • The purpose of GENI, Global
Energy Network Institute, is to educate all people,
especially world leaders, to the potential
benefits of this global
solution. •
THE CASE AGAINST NEW NUKES as a CURE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Debunking the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ (Jan.2008)
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C. based Nuclear Information Resource service ( http://www.nirs.org/ ), talks about the many reasons that the claim - made by such pundits as James Lovelock and Stewart Brand - that a crash buildout of a new generation of nuclear power plants is a rational and necessary response to global climate change is a dangerous fallacy. He ticks off the list of counter-arguements - including waste storage, cost overruns, terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation - and builds the cast for using our dwindling resources to develop renewable energy sources, rather than squander them on a ‘nuclear power renaissance’ which is doomed to fail.
The reason I started this thread was to forget nuclear and ReThink Solar. Or in other words… support our solar industry and allow the nuclear industry get out of our way.
No matter what the debate is about nuclear the fact is that if congress continues to pour good money after bad into a failed technology such as nuclear they are NOT helping our baby Citizenre walk or eventually to fly.
The real solution is all the renewables and conservation.
I am all for looking at as many solutions to the energy crisis as possible. Nuclear has played out it’s role and it is time for it to fade away. We have new and better technologies that will FAR out shine the toxic, unsafe and mushrooming expense of nuclear energy. (funny analogy huh?)
In it’s current incarnation or anytime soon… I don’t see nuclear as a viable part of our future… it does not make sense or cents.
Below is a five part educational program on “Good Nukes.” Well worth your time if you want to know more about the nuclear energy industry’s propaganda. It an older piece of anti-nuke propaganda that is full of facts still valid today…. in fact even more so.
They are eye openers not only on why more nukes would be a mistake on their own… but most importantly… why we need to focus on renewables NOW!
1832-1839
Scottish inventor Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.
1835
American Thomas Davenport is credited with building the first practical electric vehicle — a small locomotive.
1859
French physicist Gaston Planté invents the rechargeable lead-acid storage battery. In 1881, his countryman Camille Faure will improve the storage battery’s ability to supply current and invent the basic lead-acid battery used in automobiles.
1891
William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa builds the first successful electric automobile in the United States.
1897
The first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City early in the year. The Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut becomes the first large-scale American electric automobile manufacturer.
1899
Believing that electricity will run autos in the future, Thomas Alva Edison begins his mission to create a long-lasting, powerful battery for commercial automobiles. Though his research yields some improvements to the alkaline battery, he ultimately abandons his quest a decade later.
1900
The electric automobile is in its heyday. Of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States 28 percent are powered by electricity, and electric autos represent about one-third of all cars found on the roads of New York City, Boston, and Chicago.
A Ford Model T 1908
Henry Ford introduces the mass-produced and gasoline-powered Model T, which will have a profound effect on the U.S. automobile market.
1912
Charles Kettering invents the first practical electric automobile starter. Kettering’s invention makes gasoline-powered autos more alluring to consumers by eliminating the unwieldy hand crank starter and ultimately helps pave the way for the electric car’s demise.
1920
During the 1920s the electric car ceases to be a viable commercial product. The electric car’s downfall is attributable to a number of factors, including the desire for longer distance vehicles, their lack of horsepower, and the ready availability of gasoline.
1966
Congress introduces the earliest bills recommending use of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution. A Gallup poll indicates that 33 million Americans are interested in electric vehicles.
1970s
Concerns about the soaring price of oil — peaking with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 — and a growing environmental movement result in renewed interests in electric cars from both consumers and producers.
1972
Victor Wouk, the “Godfather of the Hybrid,” builds the first full-powered, full-size hybrid vehicle out of a 1972 Buick Skylark provided by General Motors (G.M.) for the 1970 Federal Clean Car Incentive Program. The Environmental Protection Association later kills the program in 1976.
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar 1974
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar makes its debut at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Washington, D.C. The CitiCar has a top speed of over 30 mph and a reliable warm-weather range of 40 miles. By 1975 the company is the sixth largest automaker in the U.S. but is dissolved only a few years later.
1975
The U.S. Postal Service purchases 350 electric delivery jeeps from AM General, a division of AMC, to be used in a test program.
1976
Congress passes the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act. The law is intended to spur the development of new technologies including improved batteries, motors, and other hybrid-electric components.
1988
Roger Smith, CEO of G.M. , agrees to fund research efforts to build a practical consumer electric car. G.M. teams up with California’s AeroVironment to design what would become the EV1, which one employee called “the world’s most efficient production vehicle.” Some electric vehicle enthusiasts have speculated that the EV1 was never undertaken as a serious commercial venture by the large automaker.
1990
California passes its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, which requires two percent of the state’s vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003. The law is repeatedly weakened over the next decade to reduce the number of pure ZEVs it requires.
1997
Toyota unveils the Prius — the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid car — in Japan. Nearly 18,000 units are sold during the first production year.
1997 - 2000
A few thousand all-electric cars (such as Honda’s EV Plus, G.M.’s EV1, Ford’s Ranger pickup EV, Nissan’s Altra EV, Chevy’s S-10 EV, and Toyota’s RAV4 EV) are produced by big car manufacturers, but most of them are available for lease only. All of the major automakers’ advanced all-electric production programs will be discontinued by the early 2000s.
2002
G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate first passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins that suit.
Crushed EV1 electric cars 2003
G.M. announces that it will not renew leases on its EV1 cars saying it can no longer supply parts to repair the vehicles and that it plans to reclaim the cars by the end of 2004. 2005
On February 16, electric vehicle enthusiasts begin a “Don’t Crush” vigil to stop G.M. from demolishing 78 impounded EV1s in Burbank, California. The vigil ends twenty-eight days later when G.M. removes the cars from the facility. In the film “Who Killed the Electric Car” G.M. spokesman Dave Barthmuss states that the EV1s are to be recycled, not just crushed.
2006
A few pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids are in limited production and new ones are on the horizon. Experts differ on how soon rising oil prices, peak oil forecasts, changing fortunes at car companies, and public demand for cars that run without gasoline will resurrect the mass market for electric car in the twenty-first century. The success of the gasoline hybrid Toyota Prius is a promising sign.
Sources: Hybridcars.com: History, Electric Auto Association: Electric Vehicle History, IEEE Power Engineering Society: “Electric Vehicles In The Early Years Of The Automobile” by Carl Sulzberger, About.com: The History of Electric Vehicles, Econogics: EV History, Smithsonian Institution: Edison After Forty, Who Killed the Electric Car?
I just found my new green ride!… car?…. motorcycle? …road jet?
A very cool, green and simply FUN!
This revolutionary green vehicle allows you to “Fly The Road”.
Check this out!
•100 + mpg
•100-120 mph
•120 to 350+ mile range
•0-60 in 7 seconds or less
•Hybrid or full plug in electric
•45 degree tilt
•Airbags, steel roll cage, side impact rail
•Holds two people, fully enclosed, windows all round and above, like a jet cockpit
This Dutch based company has been working on this design for the last few years but in late 2008 - and 2009 California is going to be offering the new design. I can see myself in one of these fun vehicles…
a fleet of these driving all around our new manufacturing plant…
and smiling ECO’s all around the country having a good time driving them and explaining to all the onlookers how they are powering their VehicleOne from their REnU solar system!
EnergyIndependenceToday (empowured.net)
July Newsletter
Hello everyone!
I hope your summer is going great…
there are wonderful things happening at Citizenre…
and in the World!!!
We will be doing our first Citizenre solar installation on the Living with Ed show. The installation is scheduled to be recorded in three weeks. The Living With Ed show is on theHGTV channel which starts their fall season at the end of August. We do not know the exact time it will be aired, but we will let you know.
Since our plant is not online, we will need to use panels from another manufacturer, but the show will focus on our rental model and how we make solar simple. The installation will even be done by our own Stephen Gates.(Ecopreneur)
This will be an exciting milestone in the growth of our mission.
… and here are a few websites with very interesting renewable energy-techno news….
Ford Announces Hydrogen-Electric Plug-in Hybrid Drive and Airstream Concept http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/ford_announces_.html
GM Introduces E-Flex Electric Vehicle System; Chevrolet Volt the First Application http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/gm_introduces_e.html
As some of you may or may not know…
we have a very special golden birthday coming this Saturday…
07.07.07
It is very special for me because my little boy, Sequoia, will be two years old!
…—…
It is also a very special day for the world because it is a day
of climate awareness through the LiveEarth concerts
on seven continents across the globe. please visit http://www.LiveEarth.org
…—…
Hope you have a very joy filled 7.7.7!
Best regards,
Bruce Marshall-Jones
SolarEnurgy.net is powered completely by solar, wind and renewable energy to the tune of 130% of the data center power consumption, so we're not only neutralizing our carbon footprint, but also pumping an extra 30% of green energy back into the power grid! A light footprint.
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