Timothy Wilken, MD
writes: As
I watch the Beijing Olympics, it plain to see that all the athletes
participating are human. They are all members of the same race — homo
sapiens. Take a close look. They
are just like you and me.  They share the same motivations — the same
hopes and dreams — the same committment to hard work to achive their
goals. Can you see it? …

Known to the wise — Abraham, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus
understood the underlying connectedness of all humanity. Their
admonitions to us contain high awareness of our human INTERdependence.
This is why they taught us not to kill, not to steal, not to molest,
not to fraud, not to coerce. They understood that the conflict of
Adversity was not for humankind. They understood that the indifference
of Neutrality was not for humankind. They taught us to be our brother’s
keeper. …

This may come as a surprise to most readers, but humans are not and cannot be independent. We are an interdependent species. We rely on each other for nearly all our wants and needs. Independence from other is not available to the richest man with the most affluent life style. He is as dependent on the staff of servants who wait on him as they are dependent on him for their livelihoods. Only the poorest of hermits with a quality of life poorer than a cave man can achieve true independence from others. True independence from other humans, requires that he must grow and cook all his own vegetables. He must hunt, kill, skin, dress, and cook all his own meat. He must build his own home using only the materials he can gather and prepare by himself aided only by tools that he made for himself.

We humans are not an independent life form. Despite the common desire of most of us to be independent, human independence is not possible in any scientific sense. Our bodies do not contain chlorophyll and we cannot get our energy directly from the Sun. Other plants and animals serve as our source of energy. We are as dependent on others for our survival as are the animals are for theirs. We can ignore this fact of science by calling the other plants and animals — food and cooking in ways so we are not reminded of the source of our food, but we are still not independent. When we further examine our relationships with other humans, we discover that even here we are not independent. In summary then, we can say that in the lives of plants — the independent class of life, other plays no role . In the lives of animals — the dependent class of life, other serves primarily as a source of food. And finally in the lives of humans, the interdependent class of life, other is very important. Our bodies are as dependent on others for food as the animals, but socially, psychologically and economically, we depend on others and others depend on us. We humans are interdependent.

INTERdependence means that we are dependent on the actions of others to meet our needs. And, others are dependent on our actions to meet their needs.

Once, we accept the reality of our human INTERdependence, then we can get on with winning. The secret of winning then is to help others and to get others to help us. You see, we humans really need each other. As you watch the Olympics this week. Celebrate! No matter who wins, we all win. (08/18/08)
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James Howard Kunstler writes: The feeble American response to Russia’s assertion of power in the Caucasus of Central Asia was appropriate, since our claims of influence in that part of the world are laughable. The US had taken advantage of temporary confusion in Russia, during the ten-year-long post-Soviet-collapse interval, and set up a client government in Georgia, complete with military advisors, sales of weapons, and even the promise of club membership in the western alliance known as NATO. These blandishments were all in the service of the Baku-to-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which was designed specifically to drain the oil region around the Caspian Basin with an outlet on the Mediterranean, avoiding unfriendly nations all along the way. At the time this gambit was first set up, in the early 1990s, there was some notion (or wish, really) among the so-called western powers that the Caspian would provide an end-run around OPEC and the Arabs, as well as the Persians, and deliver all the oil that the US and Europe would ever need — a foolish wish and a dumb gambit, as things have turned out.

For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region — first opened to drilling in the 19th century — proved somewhat disappointing. US officials had been touting it as like unto “another Saudi Arabia” but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.

Meanwhile, Russia got its house in order under the non-senile, non-alcoholic Vladimir Putin, and woke up along about 2007 to find itself the leading oil and natural gas producer in the world. Among the various consequences of this was Russia’s reemergence as a new kind of world power — an energy resource power, with the energy destiny of Europe pretty much in its hands. (08/18/08)
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Bill Moyers speaks: Is an imperial presidency destroying what America stands for? Tonight I sit down with history and international relations expert and
former US Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich who identifies three major
problems facing our democracy: the crises of economy, government and
militarism, and calls for a redefinition of the American way of life. …

Welcome to the JOURNAL. America’s in a pickle. Our friends, the Russians, with whom we were about to conduct joint military exercises, decided instead to attack some of our other friends, the Georgians, who not only aspire to democracy but control access to lots of oil and pipelines in which American energy companies have huge investments. But when President Bush demands Russia go home and leave Georgia alone, his pal Vladimir Putin - the modern Russian czar - gets that sardonic smile on his face.

He knows that American troops are spread so thin in Iraq and Afghanistan that Uncle Sam more resembles Gulliver, tied down by too many commitments, too much hubris, and too many mistakes, than he does to Superman. It’s a pickle and a predicament, and it’s serious.

The limits of American power have never been more vividly on display. That’s the subject of my conversation this week with Andrew J. Bacevich. Here is a public thinker who has been able to find an audience across the political spectrum, from THE NATION or THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE magazines, lecturing to college classes or testifying before Congress.

Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who’s in power, which may be why those of both the left and right listen to him. Perhaps it’s also because when he challenges American myths and illusions, he does so from a patriotism forged in the fire of experience as a soldier in Vietnam.

After 23 years in the Army, the West Point graduate retired as a colonel and has been teaching international relations and history at Boston University. Bacevich has published several acclaimed books, including this one, THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM. His latest, published this week, is THE LIMITS OF POWER: THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM. He’s with me now. Watch my interview or read the transcript. (08/18/08)
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BBC Environmental Science — Coal burning in western Europe and North America has been a prime source of heavy metal pollution in the Arctic. Scientists plotted levels of thallium, cadmium and lead in a Greenland ice core and linked them to other chemicals indicating coal as the main origin.

Clean air legislation has reduced the heavy metal load in recent years. But writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the team says increased coal burning in Asia may see levels of the metals rise. These substances accumulate in the bodies of plants and animals living in the region, including whales, polar bears and caribou. Some Arctic people also carry high levels of the heavy metals, which can cause a number of medical conditions, in their bodies.

The study team, from the Desert Research Institute in Reno, US, analysed an ice core extracted in Greenland which gives a continuous record of pollutants deposited from the atmosphere back to 1772. They took readings of heavy metal levels on a month-by-month basis.

Graphs show all three metals soaring between 1850 and 1900 as the industrial age took off. The early 20th Century saw inputs 10 times higher than in pre-industrial times. The Great Depression of the 1930s saw levels dip as economies contracted, then a rise as the global marketplace recovered. But by the 1970s, all three of the metals were decreasing in abundance, broadly coinciding with the adoption of clean air legislation in Europe and North America, the source regions for most of the input to the Greenland ice. …

The new study promises to help investigators studying the health of Arctic peoples by providing a detailed record of heavy metal input to the environment over time. Whereas previous studies suggested the cadmium load was highest in the 1960s and 1970s, the new research shows the peak input occurred decades earlier.

As the global population increases, economies develop and natural gas supplies peak, the International Energy Agency predicts coal usage will increase globally, with the major Asian economies including China and India responsible for most of the increase.

Dr McConnell believes the picture of the last few years captured by his Greenland core suggests this renewed interest in coal burning is leading to an upturn in heavy metal input to the part of the Arctic he has studied. (08/18/08)
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