David Korten writes: Our economic system features long supply-lines, concentrated supplies of volatile fuels, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials, disposable workers subject to instant dismissal in a moment of disruption, core industries such as air travel subject to extreme swings of consumer confidence, and an unstable financial system built on debt and speculation. It is a disaster waiting to happen. We become less vulnerable to the extent we favor local production and procurement to shorten supply lines. Replace volatile with nonvolatile fuels, such as hydrogen. Reduce or eliminate the use of toxic chemicals and radioactive materials. Increase employee rights and encourage stable employment relations. Orient the economy toward meeting real, enduring needs that generate stable demand. Bring integrity to the financial system by limiting speculation and the pyramiding of debt. Take appropriate measures to increase environmental security by reducing the human burden on nature. (04/30/02)
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Well you’re going to need a plan …
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That Executive Pay Increased 571% from 1990 to 2000 — The average salary for production workers was $24,668 in 2000. If the average salary for production workers had increased at the same rate as executive pay, it would be $120,491. The minimum wage was $5.15/hour in 2000. If the minimum wage had increased at same rate as executive pay, it would be $25.50/hour. CEOs at 50 companies that cut 1,000 or more workers in 2000 earned on average 80% more than other CEOs. (04/30/02)
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David Korten writes: Evidence is mounting that economic growth and free trade are not leading us toward economic justice and environmental sustainability. To the contrary, they are taking us in the direction of increasing economic injustice and environmental unsustainability. … In a deregulated global market economy global corporations are accountable to only one master, a rogue global financial system with one incessant demand–keep your stock price as high as possible by maximizing short-term returns. One way to do that is to shift as much of the cost of the corporation’s operations as possible onto the community.  … The world’s most powerful corporations are also active in shaping public policy in ways that virtually forces us into a pattern of overconsumption that yields large profits to themselves at the expense of our quality of living. (04/30/02)
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A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Professor Emeritus of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Dr. N. Arthur Coulter is a synergic science pioneer. He began searching for a better way for humanity over 50 years ago. The Time-binding Trust is pleased to announce the availability of the new Revised Internet Edition of his classic: Human Synergetics. (04/30/02)
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In essence, the Cheney report makes three key points: 1) The United States must satisfy an ever-increasing share of its oil demand with imported supplies. (At present, the United States imports about 10 million barrels of oil per day, representing 53 percent of its total consumption; by 2020, daily U.S. imports will total nearly 17 million barrels, or 65 percent of consumption.) 2) The United States cannot depend exclusively on traditional sources of supply like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Canada to provide this additional oil. It will also have to obtain substantial supplies from new sources, such as the Caspian states, Russia, and Africa. 3) The United States cannot rely on market forces alone to gain access to these added supplies, but will also require a significant effort the part of government officials to overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American energy companies. … In advocating these measures, the Cheney team is well aware that US efforts to gain access to increasing amounts of foreign petroleum could provoke resistance in some oil-producing regions. By 2020, the report notes, America “will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil (it consumes) — a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America’s interests at heart.”  This means, of course, that American efforts to obtain increased supplies foreign oil will require more than trade deals and diplomacy – - it will also require the threat of or the use of force to dissuade hostile forces from attempting to obstruct the flow of petroleum to the United States. This, in turn, will require an enhanced US capacity to operate militarily in areas of likely fighting over oil. (04/29/02)
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We humans have a problem with too many people. This problem needs to be addressed soon! The linked article discusses this with a tongue in cheek approach which would be sad if the problem were not so dangerous. In just two centuries our population has grown six fold. Is it time for zero population growth? NO! It is time for Negative Population Growth. (04/29/02)
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Thinking! American researchers have found compelling new evidence that people who spend long hours in front of television are at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Research published today suggests that adults with hobbies that exercise the brain – such as reading, jigsaw puzzles, chess or knitting – are two-and-a-half times less likely than others to have the disease. … They found intellectual activities seemed particularly protective, with those whose leisure centred on mind-challenging hobbies were about two-and-a-half times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Intellectual stimulation in early and middle adulthood did not provide absolute protection against Alzheimer’s in late adulthood, said Dr Friedland, but the activities could delay the disease for years. (04/29/02)
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What’s it all about? Alfie was the title of a popular song when I was a young man. What’s it all about? This is a question that our modern science has not answered. Science’s reliance on the tool of reductionism has blinded us to the bigger picture. Reductionism means to reduce the problem being studied down to its component‘parts’. Then by understanding the behavior of the ‘parts’, you can assemble an understanding of the behavior of the ‘whole’. Historically science has divided Natureinto ‘parts’ in order to study natural phenomena. Some of these ‘parts’—light, particles, atoms, molecules, plants, animals, and humans—form the focus for the classical sciences—optics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology. Synergy is the associated behavior of ‘wholes’, not predicted by examination of the ‘parts’. So as Universe becomes more complex, reductionism fails to be as effective a strategy for understanding. This morning Elisabet Sahtouris looks past the parts for the pattern of the whole. She begins to explain: What’s it all about. (04/29/02)
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As global warming melts the Ice Caps  enormous amounts of fresh water is dumped into the oceans. This may disrupt the Earth’s thermostat swithching on the air conditioning. Brrrrrr! … This morning William H. Calvin explains: We could go back to ice-age temperatures within a decade — and judging from recent discoveries, an abrupt cooling could be triggered by our current global-warming trend. Europe’s climate could become more like Siberia’s. Because such a cooling would occur too quickly for us to make readjustments in agricultural productivity and supply, it would be a potentially civilization-shattering affair, likely to cause an unprecedented population crash. What paleoclimate and oceanography researchers know of the mechanisms underlying such a climate flip suggests that global warming could start one in several different ways.  (02/29/02)
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Ask any number of Argentines — from lawyers to maids — how much money they have in their pockets, and the answer is the same: “Just a few pesos.” Since the government took the extraordinary step of closing the nation’s banks last weekend, people from all walks of life are experiencing similar hardships for perhaps the first time in Argentina’s history. “Even the privileged are feeling the pain now,” said Sylvia Baez, a charity worker. “No one is safe from suffering, not even the rich.” Until this week, Argentina’s four-year recession had hurt mostly those at the bottom rungs of society.  …  Last weekend, President Eduardo Duhalde’s government halted all banking operations and foreign-exchange transactions until further notice, which caused most automatic teller machines to run dry. Duhalde had hoped the move would help prop up the banking system, reeling from the outflow of about $100 million a day as depositors sought to withdraw their savings before the peso tumbled further. But the measure has inflicted pain on all levels of society. Workers cannot cash their paychecks. Consumers are limiting their spending to the bare necessities. Many now walk to work rather than pay the fare for a bus or a taxi. The fortunate are the ones who can still find a merchant who will sell them goods with credit and debit cards. (04/28/02)
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Edward Frˆhlich Haskell was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on August 24, 1906 into a large family of well educated Swiss missionaries. … Haskell was instrumental in the formation of the Council for Unified Research and Education (C.U.R. E., Inc.). This was a private non-profit research organization of scientists committed to the unification of science and education. Their goal was the synthesis of all knowledge into a single discipline. Haskell served as the Chairman of C.U.R. E., Inc., from its inception in 1948 until it was disbanded in the mid 1980s.  The scientists of C. U. R. E., Inc. believed that the present universities were really multiversities, with specialists from different fields dividing knowlege into separate preserves with specialized languages and almost no communication between them. They were convinced that this division of knowledge played a large role in the division of the modern world.  (04/28/02)
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