Paradigm Shift!

       There’s a tectonic mindshift going on in the science of economics right now, but you probably wouldn't guess listening to economic professors, pundits, and politicians. Our whole Economic system is based on the idea that we live on a Planet with infinite resources. Oil reserves have dwindled and are likely even lower than we had been led to believe. Climate tipping points loom, melting glaciers, eroding coral reefs, and yet today’s economists argue incessantly about how economic growth can be sustained forever on a finite planet. 

      It's a similar situation as the one five hundred years ago when astronomers following Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe were tearing their hair out trying to make sense of all their calculations of the sun, moon and stars moving around above us in the night sky. It was only when Copernicus pointed out that we are not the center of the universe – the sun does not revolve around the Earth but rather the other way around – that all their convoluted calculations fell magically into place.

Today something eerily similar is happening in the science of economics: Economists and lay people alike are realizing that our human money economy is a subset of the Earth’s larger bioeconomy rather than the other way around. Over the next few years, as this monumental shift of perspective kicks in, all the economic, ecological and financial craziness of the industrial era will evaporate, and a new sustainable way of running our planetary household will have to magically fall into place.                                           Here's how that system will look.

The Venus Project, Redisigning The Future!

The Venus Project culminates the life long work of industrial designer, social systems engineer, and inventor Jacque Fresco, now age 95 (as of 2011).

The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth’s ecosystems.

As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.

Astronomers' Say 3 Times as Many Stars as Thought!

             Scientists have recently discovered that the number of stars in the universe had been seriously undercounted, and they estimated that there could be three times as many stars out there as had been thought. The counting, of cooler, dim dwarf stars in certain galaxies gives astronomers’  an understanding of how galaxies formed and grew over the eons.

The conundrum is that astronomers cannot actually count the dwarf stars, which have masses less than a third of that of our Sun, in galaxies outside the Milky Way. So instead, they counted the brighter Sun-like stars and assumed that there were about 100 unseen dwarfs for each larger Sun-like star, as is the case in the Milky Way.

Yet obviously not every galaxy looks like the Milky Way, with its spiraling pinwheel arms. Some are blobby and elliptical, and it was just an assumption that the distribution of stars in other shaped elliptical galaxies is the same as in the Milky Way.



MilkyWay



Astronomers are now taking an innovative approach to counting what they formerly could not see. Because the dwarfs are cooler, the fingerprint of certain colors they emit and absorb is different from that of larger stars. While they could not see individual stars, the astronomers could calculate the number of dwarfs required to produce the telltale color fingerprint they detected in the light coming from the whole galaxy.

They found that in eight elliptical galaxies, the ratio of dwarf stars to Sun-like stars was 1,000 or 2,000 to 1, rather than the 100 to 1 in the Milky Way. A typical elliptical galaxy, thought to consist of about 100 billion stars, would have one trillion or more stars. Ellipticals account for about a third of all galaxies, leading to the new estimate of at least three times as many stars over all.

Basically what this mean is that Astronomers have had to abandon this notion of using the Milky Way as a template for the rest of the universe.  Also if the findings are correct, an undercount of dwarfs would mean astronomers have underestimated the masses of galaxies, and that could mean that galaxies developed much earlier and faster than currently thought. I think it’s pretty interesting and important when papers like this are published, and it reminds us how much we need to continue working to expand our knowledge of the universe.

New Plans for Solar Thermal in California

This past year represented a "sea change" as regulators ended a 20-year dry spell and fast-tracked solar-thermal plant approval helping drive the state's and nation's broader renewable-energy goals.

Developers were rushing to meet a December 31 deadline for federal incentives but Congress surprisingly extended that deadline for federal funding by another year.

The California Energy Commission approved nine solar-thermal plants, which are solar plants that concentrate heat before converting it into electricity. More commonplace photovoltaic plants typically use panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity.

Before 2010, government regulators had yet to approve any of the projects to build solar-thermal plant in California since a series of plants known as the Solar Energy Generating Systems, built mostly in the 1980’s. There are currently two solar-thermal projects under review. The 250-megawatt plants would eventually power at least 75,000 homes but environmental scientists need to conduct a two-year study of the rare Mohave Ground Squirrel at the site before proceeding with its application.

The second is under development by the city of Palmdale, north of Los Angeles. It would combine natural gas-fired turbine technology with solar technology, eventually generating 570 megawatts of power. Developers of many of the nine plants approved in 2010 haven't yet started construction as they wait to firm up environmental issues and financing.

The Futuristic San Francisco!

            San Francisco is already one of the greenest cities in the US, but check out this wild new concept from IwamotoScott Architects to completely remake the city into an ecotopia in the near future (They say 2108, but if we as a society get our proverbial “shit” together, I believe we could easily make this a reality by somewhere closer to 2050!)

            The design, which is as visually stunning as it is thought-provoking, recently won the History Channel’s City of the Future competition. It’s a full-scale urban system that combines the most innovative green technologies with San Francisco’s unique microclimate and geologic conditions, to produce a compelling vision for the future. Hydro-Net, as the project is known, will bring the lovely city-by-the-bay squarely into the 22nd Century with algae-harvesting towers, geothermal energy ‘mushrooms’, and fog catchers which distill fresh water from San Francisco’s infamous fog.

            San Francisco’s Hydro-Net is perhaps the most remarkable, modern and futuristic concept ever envisioned for the City. And considering the hunt for alternative energy sources in the coming century, it’s extremely important! It is an extensive network of above ground and underground systems that fulfill infrastructural needs for the movement of people, water, hover-cars, and energy throughout the city. This network would connect water, power collection, and distribution systems across the city, forming one giant super-system.

           The hydrogen would in turn be used as fuel to run hover-cars in the underground tunnels. The network also includes fog catchers that harvest air moisture, ecotowers, and more. Sound crazy? Designers Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott, the partners of San Francisco-based design firm IwamotoScott, don’t think so, and frankly neither do I. The concept recently won the $10,000 grand prize for their entry in the City of the Future competition, organized by the History Channel.

     -Jean Claude

S510 "The Food Saftety" Act, DANGEROUS.

S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

 This is what's scary about s510 

1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.

 

2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S 510 says:

 

COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

 

Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

 

3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into "the United States." Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, "entry of food into the US" covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and "entering into" it by virtue of being produced.

 

4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.

 

5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds ­ How to criminalize them, for more details.

 

6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared. S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.

 

7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production ­ put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.

 

8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.

 

9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil- based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed the Five Pillars of Food Safety are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.

 

10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review.

 

For further information, watch these videos

 

Food Laws ­ Forcing people to globalize?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PwqUQ_HIlg&feature=related Corporate Rule? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXoJHG-er7A&feature=related Reclaiming Economies?

TOXIC TAP WATER

Dr. Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University in New York, gives a damning interview on the history of water fluoridation, the involvement of major industries to put certified toxic waste into our drinking water, and why government health authorities refuse to conduct scientific studies into the dangers of fluoridation. After watching this video I will never look at tap water the same way again.

Connett describes how he initially thought people who opposed fluoridation were “a bunch of whackos,” before conducting his own research which found that sodium fluoride was a toxic substance that contributed to a wide array of health defects. Heavy industry is barred from dumping this toxic waste into the sea by international law, but being able to sell it enables them to remove its hazardous characteristic and it becomes a product, explains Connett, polluting not only our water supply but also toothpaste and thousands of different foods.

Connett provides a detail run down of the many health problems caused by fluoride consumption, including dental fluorosis, which the Centers For Disease Control just recently announced was a problem for 41 per cent of children aged 12-15 in the United States, clearly indicating that children are being over-exposed to fluoride and that this is affecting other tissues and organs in the body, including bone disorders, a problem also wreaking havoc amongst adults in the United States as one in three now suffer from arthritis, which again is being caused by a build-up of toxic fluoride in the body. Connett also points to fluoride’s connection with thyroid disorders.

There have now been over 100 studies involving animals which show that fluoride damages the brain, stresses Connett, which is a particular concern for newborn babies who are susceptible to fluoride build up because of their weak blood-brain barrier. Connett cites numerous studies which prove a link between moderate exposure to fluoride and lowered IQ in children. Another important fact is that when studying the dental health of people in fluoridated areas and non-fluoridated areas, research shows that there are no health benefits at all that can be achieved through fluoridating the water supply.

In my opinion Fluoride’s most detrimental impact is on the pineal gland, which is a piece of brain tissue that sits in-between the two hemispheres of the brain. The reason it’s so important is because fluoride attracts to our pineal gland like a magnet! Researchers have found through animal studies that fluoride lowers the ability of the pineal gland to produce the hormone melatonin. The pineal gland has also been described as our spiritual third eye so the calcification of this gland can have dramatic effects on our ability to acess higher levels of consciousness. 

        Connett shows how out of control health authorities in the United States have become, putting out studies that claim vaccines containing mercury is perfectly safe for babies’ brains, while regulating mercury emissions in every other field because it is highly toxic. They have taken a similar approach in the fluoride debate, issuing studies that claim sodium fluoride, a toxic waste which has been heavily regulated in the industrial world for decades, has many beneficial health advantages when ingested into the human body. This is fostering widespread distrust in government health agencies because scientists involved with them are overseeing a “sickening” cover-up of the fluoride issue, states Connett.

The case against fluoride demolishes the notion that fluoride has any rightful place in our public water supply!