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“You’re Only As Young As The Last Time You Changed Your Mind” Whole Earth Discipline – Stewart Brand

John — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:40:47 +0000

Update 9/9/10 Finished it! A little dry for all the facts but a very important read for me. It’s helped me realize my biases, and we can’t afford biases. Stewart provides a summary at the end of his book I hope will serve to whet your appetite to read this important book.

Ecological balance is too important for sentiment. It requires science.
The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity, it requires engineering.
What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable. We live one life.

Stewart Brand’s new book has a great accompanying website with a million cool links
and enough of the book to let you know you’re going to love reading it. But just in case
you’re not sure, check out the talk (and great questions afterwards) from The
Long Now Foundation. (Click arrow to listen, right click to download) Stewart Brand Rethinking Green

Are you a nuclear over reactor?

Saul Griffith, “Climate Change Recalculated”

John — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:41:26 +0000

According to Saul’s calculations, in order to reach a goal of 450 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide in time to limit a global rise in temperature to 2 degrees C., we’ll have to reduce the amount of burned fossil fuels to 3 terawatts (of power). That means we’ll need to replace 11.5 terawatts with new clean sources.

From Stewart Brand’s Long Now Blog:

That would mean the following. (Here I’m drawing on notes and extrapolations I’ve written up previously from discussion with Griffith):

“Two terawatts of photovoltaic would require installing 100 square meters of 15-percent-efficient solar cells every second, second after second, for the next 25 years. (That’s about 1,200 square miles of solar cells a year, times 25 equals 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic cells.) Two terawatts of solar thermal? If it’s 30 percent efficient all told, we’ll need 50 square meters of highly reflective mirrors every second. (Some 600 square miles a year, times 25.) Half a terawatt of biofuels? Something like one Olympic swimming pools of genetically engineered algae, installed every second. (About 15,250 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of wind? That’s a 300-foot-diameter wind turbine every 5 minutes. (Install 105,000 turbines a year in good wind locations, times 25.) Two terawatts of geothermal? Build 3 100-megawatt steam turbines every day-1,095 a year, times 25. Three terawatts of new nuclear? That’s a 3-reactor, 3-gigawatt plant every week-52 a year, times 25.”

All of it! Please listen to Saul’s Long Now Lecture to hear how, despite the odds, he remains an optimist.

Calculate and compare your own power consumption at WattzOn.com.

Check out the very cool 100 mpg, charge-overnight-from-a-wall-socket, ready-for-the-carpool-lane, 3-wheeled (California only) Aptera.
(As mentioned in Saul’s talk.)

Nuclear Power Plants finally over by Amory Lovins of the RMI

synthum molyart — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:16:04 +0000

This is amazing! Lovins was on the Charlie Rose Show saying this too. This is in complete contradiction to supposed “Greens” like Stewart Brand, James Lovelock (Mr Gaia , himself!), and others, saying we have to go Nuclear Power Plants to save ourselves!? WTF?! And a 4th media hit! Neil Young on Letterman mentions Lovins!

from Democracy Now

Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

There’s one issue that President Bush and presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama all agree on: expanding the use of nuclear power. We speak with Amory Lovins, the co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, who has been described as “one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers.” [includes rush transcript]

Also see RMI site Rocky Mountain Institute with Amory Lovins

Paolo Soleri honored this weekend in San Fran.! Digital Be-In & EcoCity conf.

synthum molyart — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:12:49 +0000

After 40+ years San Francisco seems to be the first city on the Planet Earth/Gaia to get a clue about Soleri’s work and ideas! Bucky Fuller mentions somewhere that on average it takes 50+ years for an Innovation to really catch on….so 10 more years to go! Stewart Brand featured Soleri way back in the Fall of 1968 in the Whole Earth Catalog! Arthur C. Clarke in his farewell video last Dec., 2007, said that it only took 25+ years for 1/2 of Humanity to get cell phones! That’s over 3+ billion people! A video last month showed the first cell phone being used 35+ years ago…. The Digital Be-In is pleased to be honoring urban designer Paolo Soleri,who is appearing at the Ecocity World Summit in San Francisco, with a special presentation on his major contributions to the sustainable city movement.

http://www.be-in.com/

and today at 5 PM

5:00pm

Short Break

http://www.ecocityworldsummit.org/program.htm

See one of Soleri’s earliest Arcologies, Asteromo! One of the first space colonies ever designed, circa 1969?! fromhttp://pruned.blogspot.com/2006/02/asteromo.html

Seminars About Long Term Thinking

John — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:25:56 +0000

I’ve mentioned this before, but these lectures are just SO GOOD I think it worth repeating.
http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

And check out what’s coming up.

02007
- Dec. 14 (Friday) – Jon Ippolito & Joline Blais, “The Edge of Art”

02008
- Jan. 11 (Friday) – Paul Saffo, “Embracing Uncertainty: the secret to effective forecasting”
- Feb. 4 (MONDAY) – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought”
- Feb. 25 (MONDAY) – Craig Venter, “Joining 3.5 Billion Years of Microbial Invention”
- Apr. 25 (Friday) – Niall Ferguson & Peter Schwartz, “Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress”
- May 21 (WEDNESDAY) – Iqbal Quadir, “Technology Empowers the Poorest”
- Jul. 23 (WEDNESDAY) – Edward Burtynsky, “The 10,000-year Gallery”