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Via Cyborg Democracy:
Karen Hurley of Grist Magazine is an interdisciplinary Ph.D. student, eco-feminist futurist, "retired" environmental planner, and board member of a community organic farm. She wrote this good story which I am quoting in full:
"Back at the turn of the millennium, the local government I was working for asked community members to contribute their vision of the municipality in the year 2025. As an environmental planner, I attended the community's presentations with some interest.
One group that responded was a gifted-students' club from an elementary school. In their envisioned future, they imagined a community with only indoor parks. Beyond these parks, there would be no trees, no plants, no birds, and no animals. Freshwater would be gone, because lakes and streams would either be dried up or too polluted to support life; drinking water would have to be created from desalinization plants on the coast. In the future these children predicted, universities and colleges would be closed because everyone would learn -- alone -- through their personal computers.
As the children spoke, I sat with tears rolling down my cheeks. Had I really just heard what they'd said? Had the appreciative and encouraging municipal council heard the same thing? Why would children who lived in an idyllic natural environment -- surrounded by trees, a rich diversity of plants and lush gardens, abundant wildlife including deer and cougars, large forested parks, and fish-bearing streams -- imagine a future that was ecologically dead?
The answer may be because this is the future collectively envisioned by most everyone, including scientists, technology pundits, fiction and documentary filmmakers, writers, advertisers, video-game producers, and those of us whose careers are devoted to trying to protect the planet. Perhaps these children envisioned a future in which their community was dead because that's the future they're taught is inevitable.
I fully understand this despair. I hit a wall of it straight-on during my tenure as an environmental planner. In fact, I remember saying things like, "Yes, we will hit total ecological collapse, but our job is to ensure that as many species as possible live beyond it." Now I see how harmful such words are.
Somehow, we need to begin to envision ecologically sound and socially just futures that reflect the great diversity of all beings, including humans. We must insist on having a say in what our futures look like. We do not have to accept the singular vision being created by those in power. This singular vision of the future is hyper-urban, with decaying cities, polluted air, and corporate and technological dominance. There is not a speck of nature. White men are still in charge. And then there are those damn flying cars.
This isn't the future I want, nor is it one I am working hard to create in my community. My vision of the future includes birds, trees, and clean flowing streams; organic, small-scale farms and lots of bicycles; conversations with neighbors at local stores and engaging educational institutions; clean air, strong women, diverse communities, truly democratic decision making, and happy children. No flying cars.
Some people will dismiss my vision as idealistic or unrealistic. But as scholar Ivana Milojevic of Metafuture reminds us, the dominant, dystopic vision of the future is seen as more "realistic" simply because it is talked about more, visualized more, and analyzed more. It is given infinite time and space in the media. It serves those in control; it is a continuation of their world. It's endorsed by our corporate culture, because people who have been made to feel powerless to contribute to a better world simply give up, becoming self-absorbed in golf games, video games, war games. Becoming relentless consumers to fill the void -- without challenging a thing.
Some people will say that my image of the future is counterproductive; that the doom and gloom is necessary to keep us all on our toes, to get us to respond to the warnings. I understand this. I have witnessed how politicians are unwilling or unable to take action until there is a crisis in front of them. But it doesn't have to be an either/or. Yes, a good cautionary tale is a powerful thing. What makes me crazy is that a cautionary tale is all we get. We also need the alternative. We need hopeful visions to give us something to work for, as opposed to always working against something. We need a diverse crop of sustainable ways forward.
Back to the children who imagined their future as dead: I went to visit them a few months later, and told them about the work I was doing at the local level, some of the amazing work being done by teams of people at the regional and federal levels, by volunteers, and by nonprofit groups. And they completely shifted. They reworked their vision to include flowing streams, trees, birds, animals, and happy people. They just needed to know that there were adults making positive change toward a flourishing earth. And then they asked me how they could help. So we set to work on a plan to create a native garden in their schoolyard.
As peace activist Elise Boulding puts it, "The sheer difficulty of imagining a future sustainability different from the present is one of our greatest problems as a society." Let's create a dialogue about our worries and our hopes. Let's share stories about what is important for us to put in place for the future, and what's happening in our communities now that provides hopeful ways forward. It will be hard work to imagine sustainable and just futures, but it is time to begin."
What is everyone think of this?
How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth.
In many ways it is the exact opposite of transhumanism. However, there are so many things said that are so correct and wise, that I can't really argue with it. What do you think?
I wrote something about this particular divide in 1998 called "Gaians vs Transhumans" Here is an excerpt:
Regarding Gaians vs Transhumans, there is really is no conflict and I consider myself to be both. I see no reason why we as children of Gaia shouldn't be able to survive, prosper and grow, while harmoniously restoring the biosphere to a pre-human paradise. If done right, nanotechnologies are the most environmentally friendly technology that could possibly exist. It is the perfect emulation of life in everyway, while also possessing an evolutionary unfoldment of ever- increasing intelligence. In no time at all, nanotechnology could reverse every "damaging" thing we've ever done, while simulataneously bootstrapping life and intelligence to the stars, which is by far holistically, cosmically and universally the most sustainable thing life could ever do. Life is about balance, beauty and harmony, but it is also about evolution, growth and awakening. Let a thousand worlds flourish!
Thanks Sunface for the link. :)
Thanks to Harlan, maker of 11:11 Diamond Portal (Burning Man 2004/05), for reminding me of the upcoming Bioneers Conference coming up next month (San Rafael, California, October 14th-16th, 2005). There will be nearly 100 speakers there. I can't think of a more important conference to attend.
Here is the schedule lineup:
FRIDAY PLENARIES
9:00am - 1:00pm
What Life Knows: New Ideas from Biology that Could Change the World
JANINE BENYUS
You Are Where You Eat: Growing Urban Food and Community
WIL BULLOCK
From Russia with Snow Leopards: The Future of Wilderness Protection
VYACHESLAV TRIGUBOVICH
Global Warming: A Climate of Fear and Opportunity
BILL MCKIBBEN
An UnReasonable Woman: UnReasonableness and Where It Gets You
DIANE WILSON
FRIDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
2:45pm - 4:15pm
Nature's Recipe Book: Re-Imagining Industrial Chemistry (A1)
Food Security: A Blueprint for Sustainable Food Systems (A2)
Social Entrepreneurship: Making Dreams Come True (A3)
The Coming Plague: A Public Health Response to Infectious Disease (A4)
Beauty Made Me Do It: Art and Social Change (A5)
Connecting the Drops: Watershed Protection (A6)
Busted: Whistleblowers, Power and Democracy (A7)
Interactive!
Revolutionary Communication In Theory and Practice (A8)
New World Water Tour of ‘Toxic City’: Anti-Oppression Training & Alliance
Building (2 session workshop)
FRIDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
4:30pm - 6:00pm
High Noon: Showdown over Global Warming (B1)
Eater Beware: Food Safety (B2)
Click Here: Movement Building on the Internet (B3)
Mission-Driven Companies: The Inside Story (B4)
First Peoples: Protecting and Restoring Indigenous Cultures (B5)
Restoring Balance: When Women Lead (B6)
Wild Heart: Wildlands and Wildlife Conservation (B7)
Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities (B8)
Interactive!
Herb Walk with 7Song (B9)
New World Water Tour of ‘Toxic City’: Anti-Oppression Training & Alliance
Building (2 session workshop)
FRIDAY EVENING
7:00 - 8:30pm
Young Bioneers Mixer
7:30 - 10:00pm
Bioneers Moving Image Festival
SATURDAY PLENARIES
9:00am - 1:00pm
Intelligence in Nature: A Predator's Inquiry
JEREMY NARBY
Bold Precaution: The Precautionary Principle Gains Traction
CAROLYN RAFFENSPERGER
Greening the Inner City: Jobs, Health, Justice and the Environment
OMAR FREILLA
Beyond Framing: How Deep Neuro-Linguistic Programming Communicates
THOM HARTMANN
Who's Got Next? Cultivating Feminine-Centered Leadership in a Hip-Hop Era
RHA GODDESS
SATURDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
2:45pm - 4:15pm
Diversity at the Table: Food Justice and Access (A9)
Blogs, Wikis and Indies: Citizen Media and the Fate of Democracy (A10)
Power Play: Innovative Anti-Corporate, Pro-Democracy Strategies (A11)
Campaigning Women: Building an Environmental Health Movement (A12)
Urban Dreams: Remaking Cities for Sustainability (A13)
Connecting the Dots: Defending Indigenous Lands and Cultures (A14)
Peace Technologies: The Art and Science of Compassion (A15)
Interactive!
Both/And: Cultivating a Common Home in the Scorched Earth of Politics (A16)
Educator's Forum: Educating Our Children For a Sustainable World
SATURDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
4:30pm - 6:00pm
The Eco-Agricultural-Industrial Park: The Intervale Project (B10)
Fast Food, Slow Food: From Addiction to Health (B11)
What's the Story? Reframing Progressive Media (B12)
Corporate Rights vs. Human Rights: New Directions in Challenging Corporate Power (B13)
Better Safe Than Bankrupt: Precaution Pays (B14)
Restoring Cultural Balance: Raising Women's Voices (B15)
Nature's Treasures: Preserving and Restoring Large Ecosystems (B16)
Interactive!
Pan-Global Indigenous Peace Technologies (B17)
Seeding the Present: Youth Taking Action
SATURDAY EVENING
6:30 - 8:00pm
Food and Farming Community Reception
7:30 - 10:00pm
Bioneers Moving Image Festival
8:00 - 9:30pm
Visionary Activism (C1)
8:00pm - midnight
Drumming and Dance Party
SUNDAY PLENARIES
9:00am - 1:00pm
Field of Plenty: A Farmer's Journey to the Frontiers of American Agriculture
MICHAEL ABLEMAN
Return of the Ancient Council Ways: Indigenous Survival in Chiapas
OHKI SIMINE FOREST
Restoring Los Angeles: Healing the Nature of Our Cities
ANDY LIPKIS
The Fifth Revolution: Teh Evolution of Ecological Design Intelligence
DAVID ORR
"And, there are those of us who straddle..."
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
2:45pm - 4:15pm
Ecological Design: Nature's Operating Instructions (A17)
Certified Orgasmic: Fertility from Soil to Markets (A18)
Larger Than Life: Food and Farming at the Movies (A19)
From Value to Values: Fair Trade and the Marketplace of Relationship (A20)
The Politics of Psychoactive Plants: Religious Freedom, Shamanism and Sacred Plants (A21)
Embracing the "Other": Cultural Diversity and Resilience (A22)
Money Talks: Transforming Attitudes Toward Money and Philanthropy (A23)
Interactive:
Transforming the Mainstream Media: Training and Practice (A24)
Interactive:
Herbal Street First Aid with 7Song (A25)
Art in Action: Igniting the Power of Community and the Spirit of Joy (2 session workshop)
SUNDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS
4:30pm - 6:00pm
Mystery, Complexity and Ambiguity: Native Education for Sustainability (B18)
The Future of Green Building (B19)
Genetic Roulette: Tinkering with Creation (B20)
Cooperatives: The Economics of Mutual Aid (B21)
Young and Wired: Youth Media, New Voices (B22)
Reclaiming Faith: Spirituality, Religion and Keeping the Faith (B23)
Deep Water: Saving the Oceans (B24)
Art in Action: Igniting the Power of Community and the Spirit of Joy (2 session workshop)
VAYA CON GAIA - CLOSING CEREMONY
6:30PM
Hall and Exhibits close at 8:30pm
From Mindfully.org:
In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really.
"This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."
Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true.
"Everybody says that," says Appel. He is a tall, affable entrepreneur who has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing.
Read the rest of the article (with pics and diagrams of the TDP process) here.
Since so many of us are in a funk, I thought I'd share some news over the past few weeks of positive things happening in the world, or just some fun and weird inspirational tidbits:
Putin Signs Kyoto - It's official. President Putin signed Russia into the Kyoto treaty today. It was the last country needed in order for the treaty to go into effect; ninety days after Russia submits the paperwork to the UN, the treaty goes into effect for the 126 nations that signed it. See the NY Times article for details. - What's so ironic about this now, is that the US in it's refusal to sign it, will now have devastating results on America's economy and its ability to do business with those countries who did sign it. Stupid.
Kiwi Power - New Zealand Wind Farm Delivers 90 Mega Watts - Meridian Energy's Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararua ranges is now capable of delivering its full 90 MW capacity to New Zealand's national grid, enough to power some 45,000 average homes. The project's 55th and last wind turbine has now been fully commissioned almost exactly a year after construction began on the country's -- and the Southern Hemisphere's -- largest wind farm.
Kiwi Zorbs - This looks like a blast. Here is a video from National Geographic.
Hermit Tunes In, Turns on and Drops Out on Los Alamos Land - Roy Michael Moore, a 56-year-old who grew up in Amarillo, said he came to Los Alamos about four years ago for a "very distinct reason": to get the attention of scientists working on the most complex cosmological problems of the universe and introduce them to his unifying theory. Mike, as he calls himself, has come to be known as either the "caveman" or the "hermit," depending on to whom you talk, since he was discovered on Oct. 13 living in a well-appointed cave in a deep, wooded canyon on Los Alamos National Laboratory property. "I think it is just heaven on earth," he said about his former home. What the intruders found was a bit startling. Moore had made himself a home in a south-facing cave— "the most beautiful views in town, no irritating neighbors"— complete with photovoltaic solar panels, batteries to store the solar energy, satellite radio, wood-burning stove, a bed and a glass door sealed across the cave's entrance. Here's Mike personal website which is very extensive and goes over all of his theories, philosophy, and autobiography.
Hydrogen Car Powered By Sunlight - A teacher called Cory Waxman and his students have built the only self-sustaining hydrogen vehicle that uses a conventional internal-combustion engine. The truck is hydrogen-powered and creates its own fuel from solar energy and water, a technical feat that rivals the advanced technology being researched by major auto companies and universities. The four-cylinder engine is tuned to run on hydrogen, which is produced by a hand-built electrolysis system mounted in the bed.
Solar Energy UK: Solar Power for All New Homes - Here's a link to the Gaurdian Article.
Car That Runs on Compressed Air
Self Sufficient Desert Home - Last summer, eight students at the University of Utah's College of Architecture and Planning designed a three-bedroom desert home that generates its own electricity and water and is situated in Bluff, Utah, 22 miles from the nearest town. The house is built of an energy-efficient material known as rammed earth. Solar panels generate enough electricity to light the house and power small appliances, while the stove and fridge are fueled by propane. But the most striking element is the 2,500-square-foot "butterfly" roof floating over the house to collect rainwater. One inch of rainfall fills the house's cistern, which supplies water to the kitchen and bathroom. Construction of the house, done with volunteer student labor and recycled materials, took 16 weeks and cost $21,219.58.
High Tech Buildings Use Sunlight, Sea Water to Save Energy
Open-Source Currency - Future Hi pal Douglas Rushkoff has a new piece in The Feature. Handheld wireless technology stands ready to enable what's known as the "complementary currency" movement in ways so powerful that the dominance of national currencies such as the dollar and the euro may soon be called into question. This is not as preposterous a scenario as it sounds. After all, it's only been since the Renaissance that nation-states have been powerful enough to corner the money market. Before then, most municipalities developed their own currencies, often basing them on very different principles than the ones we use to justify our currencies today.
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity - I especially found this one particularly relevant - A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. As one of the major themes of this site, I think human stupidity is the world's biggest problem over all other problems combined. If intelligence and the critical thinking skills that go along with could be increased across the board, all of other problems could be solved.
Smart Drugs are Back - At least 40 potential cognitive enhancers are currently in clinical development, says Harry Tracy, publisher of NeuroInvestment, an industry newsletter based in Rye, New Hampshire. Some could reach the market within a few years. For millions, these breakthroughs could turn out to be lifesavers or, at the very least, postpone the development of a devastating disease. In America alone, there are currently about 4.5m people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and their ranks are expected to grow to 6m by 2020. Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), defined as memory loss without any significant functional impairment, is estimated to afflict at least another 4.5m people. Because the majority of MCI patients will eventually develop Alzheimer's, many doctors believe that intervening in the early stages of the disease could significantly delay its onset.
(Link via Technoccult, via R.U. Sirius)
Electric Currents Boost Brain Power - New research has found that running a mild electric current through your brain can significantly boost your verbal skills, with no side-effects, as far as anyone knows so far. Very interesting. It appears to decrease the firing threshold of neurons in the path of the current. This research was applied mainly to the frontal lobe of the brain. I wonder what it might do to other brain regions? Fascinating discovery.
(Link via Nova Spivack)
One of the most recent and striking crop circles yet.
My theory is that these are human made and that when all the evidence is examined, the stalks are getting microwaved on only one side, which would cause them to create tension an therefore bend downward. This would allow them to continue growing because their stalks are not broken. The patterns are generated using a complex pre-designed template that tells the microwave been precisely where to paint the image. Who knows where this beam comes from. I suspect it comes from some kind of very high altitude dirigible. This would be an ideal platform since it is both stable and undetectable from the ground. There is some compelling evidence that such very large, very high altitude dirigibles exist. A few years ago some striking daytime footage (video link) from Northern Arizona showing what appears to be a very large cigar shaped object slowly moving across the ski at very high altitudes. Jim Dilettoso of Village Labs, who specializes in advance digital image analysis concluding the object is probably in excess of a mile long and flying at an altitude of at least 80-100,000 feet! Who knows what these guys with black budgets do with all their money. Did you know that the SR-71 project cost more than the Apollo Moon project and nobody knew of its existence for 25 years?
High Oil Prices Might Be A Blessing In Disguise - An increase in the price of oil will cause great short-term hardship to all the industrialized economies. It will also throw the emerging economies into recession or depression. However, the increase in prices also undoes the second half of Saudi planning. Alternative energy and technology become affordable at the higher price point. Instead of solar prices falling to the "magic number". Oil prices have risen to create a new "magic number". Doubling oil prices has almost the same same effect as halving solar prices. Increases in oil prices make solar power more competitive. The same applies to other alternative energy sources such as wind, hydrogen, hydro, geothermal, biomass, tidal, and biodiesel. Each increase in prices increases the viability of other energy sources. It may not be necessary for the other source to be cheaper, just cheap enough.
The Longevity Gene - Technology Review reports that MIT Professor Leonard Guarente may have found the genetic factor that allows mice undergoing 'caloric restriction' to live up to 30% longer. It's long been known that cutting down food intake by about 1/3 can extend the lifespan of mammals by up to 50%. Professor Guarente has found that manipulating a single gene -- the SIRT1 gene -- can produce longer mice lives without caloric restriction. What's more, all mammals -- including humans -- have a similar gene.
Drugs and the Nation - The election results show there is still substantial support for liberalizing the nation's drug laws – just not too far or too fast.
I can hear the train wailing through the valley maybe a mile away. A long, dark cry, drawing a line of deep blue night between the redwoods rolling down & out to the coast. This stroke of coal burn is the only echo of blackness on a beautiful sunny Sunday. Indeed, the train itself, if we believe the signs thrown up for this weekend outside of Roaring Camp, is none other than cheery educational steam engine Thomas The Train. Thomas, it seems, in spite of his happy exterior, knows well the loneliness of the rail.
The trees themselves seem to be steadily marching towards the sea, streaming down through hills & valleys, their rooty toes dipped in the cool soft waters of the San Lorenzo River and its myriad web of tributaries. They carpet these lands in fuzzy green shag. On this shaded porch I can feel the gentle breeze stirred up by their movement. With it the sun's force is diminished slightly sparing the garden flowers from certain dessication.
Wind chimes are dancing softly nearby, swaying against each other and gently intoning their musical identity into the fluid air. Their cadence advances and retreats, quickened one moment, silent the next. Washing away, the air brushes branch and shrub, like a chorus of sandpaper underwater or a thousand shakare milling about in a Brazilian rain forest. Birds chirp and tweet and occasionally warble, calling and laughing with each other, perhaps mocking the acrobatic squirrels leaping through the canopy as if they themselves were so fortunate to have wings.
Hyperdimensional electric insect drones cut buzzing through the soundscape. When I look I can see hundreds, if not thousands of bugs making their rounds through the lillys, echinaceas, and naked ladys, each resonant and sensual draped in color, dripping with nectar & pollen. I've read that many flowers have ultraviolet markings visible only to the insect eye. Like cryptic neon club signs they call out to those in the know, the initiated.
Sometimes when the breeze is soft and the air warm, time slows against the rising tide of the eschaton. The seeming acceleration of life reveals itself as a human creation, a byproduct of quicker minds and faster fingers driven towards reunion with the hologram. Days like this remind us that the sun will keep burning, the air will continue moving, water will flow and earth will crumble, long after we've left it all for the infinite eternity of afterlife.
The Green Century Institute (GCI) is developing an initial study and general proposal for a model ecocity community of 7000-10000 people to be built in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Califia will combine a revolutionary "arcological" (architecture-ecology) design integrating cutting edge sustainable development and technology resources with community innovations. These innovations include extended family communal housing configurations, new kinds of public facilities and services, advanced power generation and recycling systems, permaculture farms and greenhouses, non-traditional financing and "social capital" programs. The dramatic, integrated complex will meld natural environments with dense urban spaces. It will be built in phases over a 10 year period.
I spent 18 rewarding months at Arcosanti between 1994-96. While I was there I had two project I was aggressively promoting. The first was a more integrated approach with living technologies to treat waste water and create sustainable permaculture, the second was a more supportive atmosphee for small-scale free-enterprise. At the time, both of these projects were rejected by Paolo Soleri and the long-time residents. Despite their anathema to free-enterprise, I took over and grew a small business, and divided the profits between arcosanti projects and my skydiving habit. It became clear at that time, that those who has made this there home were not particularly interested in seeing it grow. Despite that, the nature of an Arcology with it's mixed use urban plan, makes for a very dynamic and lively community. More than anything else, that sense of connection and community, plus the fantastic beauty of the area, made my time there the best year and a half of my life (so far).
Now 10 years later, it looks like they are taking living machines seriously.
What Arcosanti might look like if it gets completed.
This photo above is a real picture with a CAD drawing of the proposed additions overlayed. Just to the right of the picture is some small living quarters near a small river where I lived. For 50 miles in almost every direction, is nothing but raw nature and no sign of civilization. In fact, if you were to head directly east from this picture, you could walk for at least 75 miles and not cross a single road. Most of the time it felt like I was living on a remote 24th Century Federation research colony. It gave me a good sense of what life aboard a space colony would be like.
For those of you following the news lately, there was a recent study that concluded that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. I read this with some dismay, even though I've been aware of it happening for years. This study was the most extensive ever done that confirmed it. However, Wired Magazine interviewed Stuart Pimm:, the author of the study, and he says it's not inevitable and would take very little to stop it. Here are some salient snippets from the interview:
WN: What can be done to slow the rate of species loss?
Pimm: We have to stop doing stupid things like subsidizing economically and ecologically damaging activities. For example, the global fish catch is worth about $50 billion at the dock, but government subsidies to the fishing industry amounts to $100 billion.
The Florida Everglades are in trouble because we prop up the sugar industry, which spews huge amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemicals into it. We pay higher sugar prices, we pay to clean their mess and we lose the natural amenities of the Everglades. That's a stupid thing and we should change it.
Tax subsidies are also responsible for much of the clear-cutting that goes on in the Amazon rainforest. And we have to stop selling off natural resources like the Tongass National Forest for 5 cents on the dollar.
We have to be smart, be informed and understand where the connections are.
WN: What do you think the future will bring?
Pimm: Actually I am optimistic about slowing the rate of extinctions. These are not unmanageable problems. Tropical forest deforestation could be almost entirely stopped by buying out the logging permits. It would cost $5 billion, which is a lot of money, but not an enormous amount.
The mismanagement of the global fishing industry could be fixed fairly easily and would save governments money.
There are lots of big things that could be done right away to help keep the world a more enjoyable place. And that's the kind of world people want to live in.
Wow, only $5 Billion to stop tropical deforestation! I hope this isn't a smudged figure. With the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund moving trillions of dollars around, what's $5 billion? What I find more shocking than deforestation, is that it would take so little to stop it, yet it hasn't happened yet. Why hasn't the UN with it's billions upon billions of dollars in aid done anything about it? With only $5 billion to completly stop it, their inaction defies description. If this figure is right, then I hope enough people are moved enough to get the worlds politicians to take action. The Bill Gates Foundation alone has already spent some $25 billion on third-world causes.