Bob Greene asked, what is the most profound invention of the 2nd half of the 20th Century?  Television, the Interstate Highway System, or the Internet.  It’s a rhetorical question, but it’s good to realize how wondrous what I’m doing right now really is.

The Interstate Highway moved me to California in the 80’s.  But there’s only so much highway and I’ve only moved so many times since.

I grew up on Television, but there’s only so many channels, and except for On-Demand, other people get to pick what shows I can watch.

The internet lets me travel the world in an instant, wherever I choose to go.  It’s opened up worlds of knowledge.  I can take a Physics II at MIT on the internet without bodily having to go to, and pay, MIT tuition.  I can express myself to random portions of the world.  I can write.  I make a living as a Web developer on the Internet.  Revolutions and movements happen because of it.  Designed to withstand Nuclear attack, it punches holes into closed societies.  We may have our first African-American President because of it.  Miscreants around the world can no longer operate in secrecy because of it.  We have access to the greatest library in human history because of it, and we’ve become the Encyclopedia writers.  I can even take a walk on Mars, or stroll under the ocean because of the Internet.  I talk with, and mail people across the globe that I never would have met otherwise.  In real time.  You can talk to people from 20 countries all at the same time.  And now I can talk to people in space.

In the information age, we’re becoming the information consumers, and it’s all ours, whether the information is good or ill.  It is the greatest democracy the world have ever seen.

Compare that to rivers of cement or talking gekko on glass.  The Internet is by far the most profound invention of our time.

When the Iraqi Tribunal finally put Saddam Hussein on trial, he yelled out

“I am the legally-elected President of Iraq, I do not recognize your authority”.

Defiant, and fruitless, for he was tried and hanged for ordering the executions of Shiite men after their failed revolt following the 1st Gulf War.

But he had a point.

It was true in the last millenium, and still true today.  National Sovereignty is the top level of law.  There is no Global authority.  The UN claims certain powers over countries, but it’s power is backed up by economic, and then military cooperation between many countries.

Which is the reason why genocides and world-wide Human Rights violations run rampant throughout the world, and the UN, which was formed to protect Human Rights has been able only to put a few people on trial after the fact.

The fact is, a strongman or party can come to power in a country, and legalize every form of assault on human dignity – genocide, oppression, slavery, rape, torture.  Laws can be amended to turn elections into formalities.  And what can anyone do about it?

If a Country’s misbehavior affects its neighbors, the UN can impose economic sanctions.  If a country invades its neighbors, a group of countries can join together and go to war.  Sanctions and War have been the only way the UN can check rogue nations, and they seldom work.  And if a Rogue country is savvy enough to not offend its neighbors, it can murder, rape, enslave, steal the worldly belongings from any group within its borders unencumbered by world opinion or outrage, if there is even outrage – like Darfur.  What could we do about it?  Sanctions and War.

Darfur.  North Korea Death Camps.  Laws executing gays in Uganda and Rwanda.  Hutus and Tutsis.  Iran’s crackdown on protestors and Nuclear ambitions.  The Taliban and their Nuclear ambitions.  Albinos in the Congo.  Women in the Congo.  Apes in the Congo.  Heck, every living thing in the Congo.  This is a big list.

And Saddam was hung on the basis of a system of laws put into effect after he committed his crimes.

Sanctions and War is not enough.  We need a World Police.  Under their watchful eye, Saddam wouldn’t have been able to violate every tenet of Human dignity so openly, and may have gone on into old age living in spendor like an old Mafiosi, a few bodies buried, but not the wholesale jubilee of evil we watched for 30 years.

But a World Police requires nations to give up a piece of their sovereignty.  Could you imagine our President preparing to give a speech to the Nation about why we invaded Canada when a group of men in suits enter the White House and arrest him?  Would Americans allow that, even if the President invaded because he owned a lumber company and we coveted Canadian trees?

How could that be possible?  The UN sponsored numerous treaties that signatories signed in order to join.  When you join the UN, you, a country, gets the benefit of numerous free programs for education, disease-control, low-cost loans, emergency food, military protection in case your neighbor invades you.  But aside from sanctions and war, you lose no sovereignty.

But it’s on the right track.  A country will give up a little piece of sovereignty to a global body that is useful.  But what would really get buy-in if there is an economic boon.

And what would be an economic boon compelling enough to get Countries to sign an iron-clad treaty to protect the human rights of its inhabitants?

Access to Space.  Space by international treaty is open to all.  But if a global body like the UN gets police power, it can be given the ability to give and take access.  Whether by rocket or Space Elevator.  When Space Elevators are in operation, the Global Body can offer discounts, and all the assistance needed, and berths in orbit, and transit between Elevator and berths.  It could even build a giant version of the ISS for use by countries that cannot afford their own structures in Space.  This would be a tremendously valuable resource, tapping into solar energy, building habitats, production, research and development, mining asteroids.

Space is the key to the beginnings of a Global Gov’t, which has problems of its own.  But Human Rights would not be one of them.

The Descent of Man

After feeling outrage, anger, then a soul-sucking depression.  It was easy to decide to lock all the perpetrators in prison and let them rot.  But wisdom dictated that beyond an incendiary reaction, there is a question that must be asked and a mystery to solve.

How did this happen?

This was evil, and everybody involved were people who knew this was wrong.  But it seems unlikely that everybody who participated were Rapists only waiting for the opportunity to commit a gang rape to present itself.  To say the Richmond High Student Body is full of rapists is to say Richmond is full of rapists, or the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area is full of rapist.  Our area has a low violence and crime rate, it is prosperous, well-educated.  Richmond has a history of violence, but it’s not exactly gangland, and these students were not committing a gang wilding.  So, looking at evil dispassionately, I can say these Students were not rapists before that night.  I’ll go further to say these students knew that Rape was bad, that it was an act of violence.  I may even say these were not lost souls on the way to a life of crime and violence, but instead were looking forward to graduating, going to college, working for a living, raising families.

Or like all of us, knowing that there was a wide, well-marked path that is a normal life waiting for us, with a line off to the side that you cross when you hijack a car, go on a mass shooting spree, commit rape and murder, kidnap and molest children or for that matter, step in front of a speeding bus.  We all know that we can do these things in an instance, but most of us just don’t – it’s not an act of willpower to not commit a murder, murder is just an unthinkable act beyond which lays a ruined, wasted life in prison or death row, or losing everything you own and cherish, including a future.

But these kids crossed that threshold.  How did they go from being just a bunch of kids to committing a brutal gang rape nearly murdering a young girl while everybody cheered on?  These are the kind of horrified questions people asked, and never got an answer.  Some people just leave is as a tragic mystery of life.

But it’s no mystery.  Every act of evil has a seed.  The Evil Seed is a single person who plants a suggestion in other people’s heads, and then proceed to build a case for them on to commit an act of evil.  These people are called Sociopaths, and has some very infamous players – Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic, Omar Al-Bashir, the Teenager in Florida who lit another teenager on fire, Jim Jones, Jihadist Suicide bomb-handlers, William Luther Pierce (Turner Diaries).

Sociopaths either use their wiles to trap people into their control, to con or kill people.  Or, when they encounter people who are vulnerable to suggestion, they play God.  By persuading people who are not evil into committing evil.  And success validate their Godhood.  Even better when they can fade into the darkness and walk away, never suspected at being part of the crime.

These sociopaths are not common, but not rare.  And people who can be gulled into acts of evil are plentiful – practically all of you, and I have a potential to do evil.  Sometimes, a sociopath gets a partner, someone who may be a sociopath or psychopath, or very disturbed, or a chronic follower – sometimes that person is a leader of a gang, who takes action and even credit for evil just so they can still appear to be the leader of that gang.  Sometimes, in a cult, they create a physical space isolating people from the world around them, and eroding the sense of right and wrong they learned in that world.

Sometimes, it’s not charisma, but blackmail, that spurs people to cross the line.  Getting someone to commit to some petty theft for example, a Sociopath can threaten to send evidence to the police, exacting an even greater crime as the price for keeping a secret.  Sometimes, a really inspired Sociopath will use groupthink to get people to cross the threshold within the space of 2-3 hours, escalating event after event.

I think the Richmond PD needs to ask the question, who planted the original idea in these youths’ heads.  Then they need to recognize that person is a Sociopath/psychopath.  A dozen lives are ruined, there’s no going back on that now, teens who woke up the next morning realizing to their horror that it’s no dream – they wake up and realize their future is devoid of freedom, hope, opportunity.  They’ve entered hell on earth, and they deserve it.

And you have to wonder…   is there someone lurking out there who will be able to do the same to you?  And do you have the mental ability to avoid that fate?

The skill you need to cultivate now, and most of you hadn’t, is the ability to know when you are being manipulated.  This and other forms of critical thinking are important, as you navigate a life with hidden dangers.  It is also part of Sustainable living, to protect your planet, you must be able to protect your soul.

This quote caught my eye…

I picked up a hermit crab, and, spotting the sharpie, wrote the number ‘1′ on the back of his shell, and put a circle around it. I repeated this act whenever I felt a bit lonely,” Flake wrote. Later, he added, “I’ve labeled 102 at this point with a sharpie marker. I just saw number one again today. He’s remains one of my favorites, as is number 12, long since forgiven for pinching my toe.

Okay, too much to hope for.  If you believed GOP politicians have cynically voted down measures to combat Global Warming, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and use alternate forms of energy like wind and solar power, protect the environment from big money, and curb the use of helicopters and fire-and-forget heat-seeking missiles by big game hunters, you’ve believed wrong.  Oh, it’s true the GOP voted against these bills, they just really believe.

There is a culture in America that had taken root in the 19th Century.  A large portion of our population still lives in the bubble of Evangelical Christianity, who believe the rapture is imminent; Evolution is the work of the Devil and the Earth was created solely for our own use.   Or as Gene Wilder once said “they’re people of the Earth… you know… Morons”

Jeff Flake demonstrated the Ownership Attitude toward the Environment:  We can use, abuse, destroy, consume, slash and burn the environment however we want because we are God’s favorite children, and therefore the Owner of everything.

Writing numbers on Hermit Crabs may be a small thing to you, the kind of persnickety rant you expect from environmentalists.  I don’t know if the Sharpie he used was indelible or not, or whether it hurts the crabs.  But the action reveals his convictions.  How would you feel if this guy came into your home, ate your food, and marked you and the kids so he can remember who they are?  And then forgave your 5 year old because he kicked him in the shins?

Then would you trust this man with the Environment?  Or Sarah Palin?  Or the GOP?  People who believe Climate Control is a knob in their SUV?  Or don’t worry because they’re expecting Jesus to come back any day now?

People in power with this attitude must be stopped.  Shunted aside.  Or open their eyes and work to save, not destroy, the Earth.

Read the CNN Article http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/13/from-congressman-to-survivorman/

People relax.  Coffee houses fill up.  People talk about Godzilla while watching the news.  Office workers have time to write and file one more update, or two.  Subways continue running.  Tea houses, noodle houses, sushi bars fill up.  There is time to leave.

3 Hours.  People call their families, telling them to packup.  Don’t panic, everything’s alright, he’s still 4 hours away.  Office workers meet to discuss temporary furloughs and procedures.  Skeleton crews are selected.  Good meetings, lots of great ideas on how to weather the catastrophe to come.  Some jokes too, laughter rings throughout the office buildings of downtown Tokyo.

2 Hours.  People stream to the subways which quickly fill up to capacity.  Bridges and tunnels also clogged.  Conflicting reports, Godzilla comes from the North, and then, the South, from the Mountains and then the Sea.  Talk-show hosts, panels discuss the Godzilla issue.  There is a wide-range of debate, and everybody has advice – drinking black tea will protect you from radiation.  People curse the government for not cleaning off Monster Island.  Mystics bang gongs and sell crystals.   Aum Shinrikyo celebrates the coming doom.  People debate while sipping tea and watching Teelvision.  A famous actress is on, an entertainment reporter asks what will happen to her Soap Opera after Godzilla, she assures her fans that the show will go on from Osaka.

1 Hour.  Everybody is stuck in Tokyo.  Pandemonium ensues.  Breakdown of law and order.  Workers stuck in downtown, Families stuck in surrounding cities.  Nobody is going anywhere, except for Godzilla.  Smoke arises from the North.  Newscasters grow hysterical, the first footage of the great beast’s rampages come in, the first report of fatalities.

All this watched from safe distances by small groups who left the City the first they heard of Godzilla’s approach hours ago.   They watch and wait for imminent destruction.

Godzilla is on the horizon.  They see the Green lizard’s famous head belching green hellfire.  Sirens wail and helicopters dart in the distance.  The military attacks with the usual dismal results.  Godzilla blows Apache helicopters from the sky.  Patriot Missiles from Navy vessels annoy it.

Then suddenly, a cloud springs up.  Godzilla is agitated, then turns away.  Later on, an intrepid reporter traced the cloud to one person who realized that releasing Gamera scent in steam would repel the beast.  But the military took responsibility for turning Godzilla away, politicians already held reward ceremonies honoring admirals and generals, surely a single person couldn’t be responsible, and how ludicrous an idea.  And then the city sued that lone hero for water damage and the stench, he is driven from the city, broke and is soon forgotten.

Now imagine Godzilla is the tipping point, when the Tundra thaws, releasing gigatons of methane into the air, ice diminishes and thermal energy is absorbed rather than reflects back into space.  When even a concerted effort, no matter how massive, is not enough to reverse the trend, which leads to climactic change that may last thousands, even 10’s of thousands of years.

Now imagine we spend the time we have, when we can make a difference, debating over coffee.  Where anyone with an opinion throws it out, even if said opinion came in a dream from a furry creature.  Where defrauders murk the debate to protect industry profits, and hawksters try to sell magic solutions.

There is lots of debate, lots of chatter.  But the time is beyond debate and chatter.  We all need to make simple, but long-term changes, and stick to them.  A four-day work week, LED lights.  Using the car less and walking/riding/bussing more.  Cutting down on water consumption.  Making industries accountable.  Moving away from fossil fuel and coal as energy.  Shipping off pompous elected officials to continue debating among themselves while real people start doing real work.  Millions, even billions of people, need to adopt these simple measures and commit to them for the next few decades.  Godzilla is on the horizon, either flee or figure out what works.   It starts now.  When his ugly face looms over Tokyo, it’s too late.

Go0gle created the first global climate tour, and from there can go to anywhere.  What would be great is to have forms you can fill in to play with the numbers and see an apocalyptic Earth.  That’s probably coming in the future.

And now, Global Warming?  Google is adding tours to show the effects of global warming on the planet using data from climate research computer models.

Google is on to something.  A visual way people can relate to Global warming, and also be reminded that the entire globe is interconnected.  Which is why fighting Global warming will require people in many different nations to do the same things, diligently, for decades to come.  Lots of people use this, but the big question is, do lawmakers and leaders?  Do the proponents of clean coal use this?  Or Oil company CEOs?  And if they do, are they cackling ‘kill the fish!  kill the frogs!  chop them trees! Woohoo!’.

Pluses – visual, emotional connection to globe, wow factor, display complex data in ways anyone can understand.  Google Earth is a social network.  Impact on scientists uncertain, but could have profound impact on global policy-makers.  Unsticky – using this will not have significant impact on environment – some, but not significant.

Minuses – need a computer, need Google Earth, need to know about the Global Climate tool.  Only small number will stumble into it, the rest would be using it because they’re already involved in Global Warming.

Thanks to:

http://www.greenlivingideas.com
http://ow.ly/15Shec

http://www.twitter.com/twilightearth

Think about Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites.  Never heard of him?  Burt and company built Voyager, Global Voyager and SpaceShip One.  It’s still a small company located in the Mojave Desert, but it is now an international Space powerhouse.

NASA announced it’s new Lunar exploration craft and intention of a trip to Mars.  Both will take decades to happen.  In the meanwhile, people are waiting for the building of vast habitats, hotels, solar power satellites, and thriving industry in orbit, and do not want to wait for NASA.

In 1971, Gerard O’Neill released ‘The High Frontier’.  He was an astrophysicist who laid out the technological and economic scenario by which all this could happen in 30 years (by 2001).  It didn’t happen because it was up to NASA, a very large gov’t bureaucracy held sway by politics and an unsteady budget that’s constantly under the axe.  NASA has many brilliant people, but is hostage to public opinion which is ever changing.

NASA no longer has a monopoly on Space.   Burt Rutan proved it.  Now there is a patchwork of individuals, businesses, nonprofits dedicated to grand enterprises.  The Space Elevator is a great example.

The Space Elevator is a slender filament connecting Earth to satellite orbiting 22,000 miles above, in Geostationary orbit, or GEO.  Supplies are lifted to space, and the journey takes up to 3 weeks to GEO.  But the first floor is lower earth orbit and can happen from a few hours to within a day.  This means humans could go up too.  This would happen at a fraction of the cost, energy, and environmental damage from a Space Shuttle launch today.

They’s be by far the largest structures ever built by man, 22,000 miles tall, 22,000 miles long.  It would surpass the Kuala Lumpur towers by nearly 22,000 miles.  19,000 miles longer than the Great Wall of China.  Long enough to gird the Earth above the equator, it would look like the mystical noodle factory – we could call it the Space Noodle.

Fantasy?  It isn’t.  People are working on it.  We have the technology for it, it’s a matter of figuring out how to produce the carbon nanofiber ribbon, and what system of laser-propelled climbers will serve as the elevator.  We’d launch a satellite or something already in orbit, (the counterweight) with a huge spool of ribbon to GEO.  It would unplay the ribbon Earthward, describing a long, gentle curve.  Slowly the ribbon goes down until we catch it.  And the Ground floor?  2 vast aircraft carrier-sized rafts tied together on the Ocean near the equator.

And guess what?  If you want to be involved, there are non-profits, small businesses, individuals working on this and other projects.  All you have to do is look for them on the net.  And volunteer, using whatever skills you have.  It may take as short as 15 years to happen, and in those years, you can grow and contribute more to the project and end up as one of the proud parents sitting on the podium on opening day.

Whether it’s space, or fighting global warming, or biomedical research, or the fight against overpopulation, hunger, cruelty, greed, unhappiness, dysfunctionality – you can take on something grander than yourself, and your old life.  A grand challenge, and a grand passion to go with it.  To do these two things is to live a life rich beyond dollars, to put behind you all the petty worries that eat you alive and leave you dead inside.

And in this day and age when individuals have access to the technology to work together on these projects, they are all available to you, at anytime.  An age of miracle and wonder, bought to you by… you.

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011

But the biggest danger is Methane trapped in the thawing Tundra and Ocean mud.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3647

Methane is 20x more potent Green-house gas than CO2.  Methane is one of the Natural Gases.

It is vital to start reversing global warming now.  To prevent the thawing of European, Russian, American and Canadian Tundra.  What would it take?

Reduce your use of Fossil fuels.  Drive less.  Use public transit.  Carpool.  Go elecric.  Ride a bike.  Work from home.  Fly less, use trains more.  Drive the Chevy Volt no more than 30 miles/day.

A leading Scientist involved in Environmental Certification once told me that if enough people give up driving for a month (at the same time), that will reduce NOx (Nitrous Oxide) that aids and abets CO2 and Methane’s warming effect, we can achieve significant cooling in 1-2 years.  But that would require millions to give up driving for a month, and would probably have to become an annual tradition.

People who practice Sustainable living would have no problem giving up driving for a month.  I can tell you, having not driven for 12 years, it’s harder to get around, but you can still get around by mass transit.  So if millions practice Sustainable Living, why not choose a car-free month?

What could it hurt?  Maybe we could break the planet’s fever.

This time, it’s a different story.

Jaws captured our fear of the oceans.  For 2 hours, we became our ancestors who dreaded the night.  The shark was the monster, it was evil and must be destroyed.

But something wonderful happened after people left the theatre.  It inspired a fascination with Sharks.  It inspired us to study, not destroy Sharks.  It inspired Shark Week.  One season, the commercial showed people standing poolside, afraid to enter the water.  Another season, at a beach, a woman cried out ‘Shark!!’, and everybody ran into the water.  People know that sharks can be dangerous, but know that very few people get killed by sharks while many get killed driving.  Even victims of shark attacks speak out to save them.  Sharks belong in the water, it’s their home, and we are only visiting.

Jaws captivated the imagination of kids all over to become Marine Biologists.   Some on the water right now off Cape Cod.  They ordered the beaches closed.

Only this time, was there fear?  Dread?  No.  Those same Marine Biologists who saw Jaws saw opportunity and successfully tagged 2 sharks.  Now they can study their migratory patterns.  And the beaches?  Nobody can swim this weekend.  But guess what?  People are probably there now to watch the Sharks.  Not to bother them, not to hunt them down, not to scream to the authorities to kill them so they can swim.  But to thrill in a Nature that is wild, that could kill them, but of which they are part.

A relationship with nature, based on learning, acceptance, and respect, is a core part of Sustainable living.