tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post8383906922259422184..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: The unfathomable universeKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-79760440601856338142009-07-28T23:35:54.248-04:002009-07-28T23:35:54.248-04:00I'm on an OMD kick. Here's another classic...I'm on an OMD kick. Here's another classic.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urbCLKmcNe0" rel="nofollow">Electricity</a> (1979) <br />by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark<br /><br />Our one source of energy<br />The ultimate discovery<br />Electric blue for me<br />Never more to be free<br />Electricity<br />Nuclear and HEP<br />Carbon fuels from the sea -<br />Wasted electricity!<br /><br />Our one source of energy<br />Electricity<br />All we need to live today<br />A gift for man to throw away!<br />The chance to change has nearly gone!<br />The alternative is only one -<br />The final source of energy:<br />Solar electricity!<br /><br />Electricity!<br />Electricity!<br />Electricity!<br />Electricity!<br />Electricity!<br />E . . .Henry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-4588324863744240462009-07-28T23:24:28.791-04:002009-07-28T23:24:28.791-04:00The New Stone Age (1980)
by Orchestral Manoeuvres ...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2bNV35UD_k" rel="nofollow">The New Stone Age (1980)</a><br />by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark<br /><br /><br />This is the room!<br />This is the wall!<br />This is the body<br />I’ve been hoping for!<br />These are the words<br />I’ve been longing just to say!<br /><br />So this is my goal<br />The aim of my life!<br />This is the feeling<br />They warned me about!<br /><br />Oh my God,<br />What have I done this time?<br />Oh my God,<br />What have I done his time?<br /><br />The things that you’ve done<br /><i>Real heart, stop in,</i><br />You don’t understand!<br /><i>The arms to be,</i><br />The feeling the longing<br /><i>Everything shouting</i><br />The failing that’s gone!<br /><i>In the new stone age.</i><br /><br />Oh my God,<br />What have we done this time?<br />Oh my God,<br /><i>We’ll start living</i><br />What have we done this time?<br /><i>In the real stone age...</i>Henry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-16155774998030022402009-07-28T23:16:54.343-04:002009-07-28T23:16:54.343-04:00Of All the Things We've Made
by Orchestral Man...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYM4XrSkrMc" rel="nofollow">Of All the Things We've Made</a><br />by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)<br /><br />CHORUS:<br />To want this.<br />Of everything we've made.<br />The times its worked before...<br /><br />Of all the things we've said.<br />Times that worked before today.<br /><br />To want this.<br />Of everything we've made.<br />The times its worked before...<br /><br />Of all the things we've said.<br />They've always worked before... today.Henry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-14742030342534203682009-07-28T23:12:17.251-04:002009-07-28T23:12:17.251-04:00and since people are waxing poetic, here's som...and since people are waxing poetic, here's some Good Ones for you. Only, as usual, I'm more into song lyrics.<br /><br />The first one:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q95rcdH0huc" rel="nofollow">Nothing But Flowers</a><br />by Talking Heads<br /><br />Here we stand<br />Like an Adam and an Eve<br />Waterfalls<br />The Garden of Eden<br />Two fools in love<br />So beautiful and strong<br />The birds in the trees<br />Are smiling upon them<br />From the age of the dinosaurs<br />Cars have run on gasoline<br />Where, where have they gone?<br />Now, it's nothing but flowers<br /><br />There was a factory<br />Now there are mountains and rivers<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />We caught a rattlesnake<br />Now we got something for dinner<br />we got it, we got it<br /><br />There was a shopping mall<br />Now it's all covered with flowers<br />you've got it, you've got it<br /><br />If this is paradise<br />I wish I had a lawnmower<br />you've got it, you've got it<br /><br />Years ago<br />I was an angry young man<br />I'd pretend<br />That I was a billboard<br />Standing tall<br />By the side of the road<br />I fell in love<br />With a beautiful highway<br />This used to be real estate<br />Now it's only fields and trees<br />Where, where is the town<br />Now, it's nothing but flowers<br />The highways and cars<br />Were sacrificed for agriculture<br />I thought that we'd start over<br />But I guess I was wrong<br /><br />Once there were parking lots<br />Now it's a peaceful oasis<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />This was a Pizza Hut<br />Now it's all covered with daisies<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />I miss the honky tonks,<br />Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />And as things fell apart<br />Nobody paid much attention<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />I dream of cherry pies,<br />Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />We used to microwave<br />Now we just eat nuts and berries<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />This was a discount store,<br />Now it's turned into a cornfield<br />you got it, you got it<br /><br />Don't leave me stranded here<br />I can't get used to this lifestyleHenry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-15830686726949394582009-07-28T23:07:05.461-04:002009-07-28T23:07:05.461-04:00as usual, you are reading my mind, and I don't...as usual, you are <i>reading my mind</i>, and I don't like that....<br /><br />=:-O<br /><br />best,<br /><br />HWHenry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-4562422994543090382009-07-28T20:53:42.513-04:002009-07-28T20:53:42.513-04:00link
http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/
ashram/sr...link<br /><br />http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/<br />ashram/sriauro/writings.phphermanvmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-40305557157478589842009-07-28T20:04:11.309-04:002009-07-28T20:04:11.309-04:00DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE 3
Our science is an abstra...DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE 3<br /><br />Our science is an abstract cold and brief<br />That cuts in formulas the living whole.<br />It has a brain and head but not a soul:<br />It sees all things in outward carved relief.<br /><br />But how without its depths can the world be known?<br />The visible has its roots in the unseen<br />And each invisible hides what it can mean<br />In a yet deeper invisible, unshown.<br /><br />The objects that you probe are not their form.<br />Each is a mass of forces thrown in shape.<br />The forces caught, their inner lines escape<br />In a fathomless consciousness beyond mind's norm.<br /><br />Probe it and you shall meet a Being still<br />Infinite, nameless, mute, unknowable.<br /><br />Sri Aurobindo<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE 1<br /><br />Only by electric hordes your world is run?<br />But they are motes and spark-whirls of a Light,<br />A Fire of which your nebula and your sun<br />Are glints and flame-drops scattered eremite.<br /><br />Veiled by the unseen Light act other Powers,<br />An Air of endless movement unbegun<br />Expanding and contracting in Time-hours,<br />And the intangible Ether of the One.<br /><br />These surface findings - screen-phenomenon -<br />Are nature's offered reasons but behind<br />Her occult mysteries lurk safe unknown<br />To the crude handling of the empiric Mind.<br /><br />All yet discovered are but mire and trace<br />Of the eternal Energy in her race.<br /><br />Sri Aurobindo<br /><br /><br />--------------------------------<br />DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE 2<br /><br />How shall ascending Nature near her goal?<br />Not through man's stumbling tardy intellect<br />Patient all forms and powers to dissect,<br />But by the surer vision of his soul.<br /><br />An algebra of mind, a scheme of sense,<br />A symbol language without depth or wings,<br />A power to handle deftly outward things<br />Are our scant earnings of intelligence.<br /><br />The Truth is greater and asks deeper ways:<br />A sense that gathers all in its own being,<br />A close and luminous touch, an intimate seeing,<br />A thought flung free from the words' daedal maze,<br /><br />A tranquil heart in sympathy with all,<br />A will one-pointed, wide, imperial.<br /><br />Sri Aurobindo<br /><br />from: http://intyoga.online.fr/<br />special poems page<br /><br /><br /><br />From<br />http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/ashram/sriauro/writings.php<br /><br />You can download a book The Human Cycle in PDF format; In The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo traces the evolution of human society and suggests where it is headed.<br /><br />hermanvm@hotmail.comhermanvmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-83075873413741376962009-07-27T08:57:12.546-04:002009-07-27T08:57:12.546-04:00Hi Kurt, you are right that "the universe wil...Hi Kurt, you are right that "the universe will remain unfathomable." But we are certain that we are rapidly depleting oil, which fuels our main life support systems: water, food, heating, waste water treatment, and medical care. There are few indications that government, scientists, business, and media leaders, nor but a few in the public recognize the problem. Most blogs on Peak Oil, including yours, lack a focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts.<br /><br />THIS IS WHAT WE MUST PLAN FOR: With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, water distribution systems, waster water treatment, and automated building systems. <br /><br />Tony Eriksen's study of declining oil production, which is summarized in this Figure, <br /><br />http://www.theoildrum.com/files/ccst20090515.png<br /><br />shows a slow decline in global crude oil production currently and then accelerating after December 2010.<br /><br />Because oil is used to produce oil, we should focus on net oil production, which is what we have left after oil is consumed to extract, refine, and deliver oil products to market. The rate of decline in net oil production is much steeper than for all oil produced, as shown in Murphy's Figure 3.<br /><br />http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Net%20Hubbert_6.png<br /><br />The drop in net oil production will probably be steeper than Murphy forecasts. Matthew Simmons estimates that 100 trillion dollars of investment is need to replace the globe's rusting infrastructure of pipelines, drilling rigs, platforms, and refineries. Much of this investment will consume oil to manufacture, transport, and assemble this infrastructure. And everyone who works on these 100 trillion projects will use their pay to buy products made out of oil or transported by oil. Currency is a ticket to buy oil. Thus less net oil will be produced than shown in Murhpy's Figure 3.<br /><br />Also, as oil exporting nations consume more oil domestically they export less to the developed nations; <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model<br /><br />hence, the oil supply available to developed countries will be considerably less than shown in Murphy's Figure 3.<br /><br />This analysis indicates that oil supplies for the developed world will decline precipitously beginning in the next two years and the decline will accelerate over time.<br /><br />This suggests that a rapid economic global collapse will occur in less than 10 years. Now go back to (above) THIS IS WHAT WE MUST PLAN FOR, because it is less than 10 years away.<br /><br />Time to focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts.Clifford J. Wirth, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of New Hampshirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00604482549497831495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-41297673340336788772009-07-27T06:23:55.301-04:002009-07-27T06:23:55.301-04:00"Those who proclaim that human nature is such..."Those who proclaim that human nature is such that even though we know how to build a sustainable society, we won't; and, they say they know this because our evolutionary psychology has made us little more than automatons unable to make the hard choices needed to get to such goal."<br /><br />The first part of this could have been describing me in an argument I had at TOD just the other day.<br /><br />But when I argue that "we won't" e.g. have a massive renewables buildout, I don't cite anything like evolutionary psychology. I don't need grand theories for it; I simply have the overwhelming evidence of today's politics.<br /><br />The evidence (from financial policy, health care, war, agricultural policy, just to name a few) does seem incontrovertible:<br />The system is so irrevocably bottlenecked, jammed with such feudal obstructions, that nothing, not even modest reform, seems possible.<br /><br />When such a trivial no-brainer detail as killing the F-22 is hailed as a miraculous accomplishment, and when even that was so hard to do, we can see how hopeless things are.<br /><br />Even among more mainstream economic writers like Harold Meyerson (not Peak Oil-aware so far as I know) the meme is creeping in that the system may be broken beyond repair, and it is now simply impossible to accomplish anything within this system.<br /><br />So I at least am not making things up out of thin air when I say nothing will be done within the parameters of this system. My narrative here has all the evidence behind it.<br /><br />But I'm not drawing the conclusion from this: "do nothing" (although all too many do draw that conclusion).<br /><br />The conclusion I do draw is: if nothing can be done with this system, it follows that new organizations must act on the dual track of (1)relocalizing as self-starters - I take it everyone agrees with that part, but also (2)engaging in a systematic critique of the existing structure, seeking power as an alternative politic (probably first at the local/regional/state level), and in the meantime trying to hold the line on the core issues of agricultural policy and civil liberties (which are the most important to us).<br /><br />The only way this second part would be unnecessary would be if we really did have the complete "fast crash", but I don't think any serious person believes this is likely.<br /><br />So "power", whether anyone likes it or not, is probably going to continue to exist for a while yet. If people just leave it without a fight in the hands of those who currently hold it, it'll only be used more and more fascistically as resource depletion bites, and everyone's preparation measures will have been for nothing, as it'll all be "requisitioned" anyway.<br /><br />As much as people don't like to hear it, I don't think anyone has a "choice" in the matter. The whole notion of staying out of the way, keeping your head down, laying low, sounds like a recipe for being rounded up one by one, each man all alone when they come to get him.Russhttp://attempter.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com