Re: [A-List] Bad Times Coming

["tony black" <tonyb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On the theme of ' bad times coming'...: I don't believe I saw the 'secret'
Pentagon report mentioned below in a previous mailing. Nevertheless, here it
is...in conjunction with a critique of a particularly egreious
anti-environmental attitude that I have long encountered amongst the
'techno-nerd' crowd.... Tony





The Trouble With Mars

A. Black


With every minute step forward the new baby of the astrophysical world was
greeted with an enthusiasm bordering on euphoria. Mars Rover 2, after a few
tense moments, began to coo and gurgle with robust health in happy
anticipation of its bold new mission to go where no robot had gone before.


Back at NASA, it's jubilant parents shared their pride with a breathless
world. News flashes followed the infant's every developmental hiccup and
triumph. Reporters' microphones recorded the opinions of everyone from
school children to stock brokers. The conclusion was unanimous: the
colonization of the Moon, of Mars - was imminent. The dawn of a new era was
at hand. Earth, the birthplace of mankind, was now but a launching pad into
the cosmos. Where could we not venture now?


Meanwhile, in the heart of empire, President Bush, after having just
announced his own pre-election manoeuvre to fund a new mission to the Moon,
was faced with a news break which, annoyingly, grounded him once again to
this planet. A secret report written, but suppressed by, Pentagon staff had
been obtained by the English paper, The Observer.


The contents of the report were nothing less than stunning.


Climate change over the next 20 years could, it said, result in global
catastrophe. Britain could be plunged into a 'Siberian' environment,
European cities sunk beneath seas. Mega-droughts, famine and widespread
rioting could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy. Nuclear proliferation
would abound as nations attempted to defend and secure dwindling food, fresh
water and energy resources. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic
features of life," concludes the report. "Once again, warfare would define
human life."


The report, commissioned by legendary Pentagon adviser Andrew Marshall and
authored by Peter Schwartz, an ex-CIA consultant, and Doug Randall of the
California-based Global Business Network, is likely to prove enormously
embarrassing to the Bush Administration which has repeatedly denied that
climate change even exists. Moreover, as pointed out by numerous pundits,
Bush can hardly afford to ignore the insights of the Pentagon especially
when he has made national security his single highest (official) priority.


So damaging is the document that it is almost certain that it will be used
by the Democratic frontrunner John Kerry in his campaign. Indeed, the Bush
Administration has already come in for some trenchant critique from a large
body of respected scientists who claim that it has not only selectively
picked, but also distorted and even suppressed science to suit its policy
objectives.


Distortion and suppression of evidence implicating the potential for
worldwide ecological collapse has never been limited, of course, to the
present-day leaders of the world’s most powerful and influential country.
Virtually the entire corporate world has, to one extent or another, been
involved for precious decades in precisely the same ethos of ruthless
exploitation of the earth's material and human resources. The same dithering
as the planet burns.


The results are now inescapable:


A quarter of the world's topsoil has been lost since 1945. Of the world's 17
major fisheries, all are at or below sustainable yield. Fresh water sources
around the world are being depleted, diverted or polluted at such a rate as
to, by this one factor alone, imperil the very survival of human life on
this planet. Forests, wetland marshes and marine ecosystems are being
destroyed at frightening rates, and Earth's mean global surface temperature
will rise by at least 2.5° F and possibly as high as 10.4° F by the end of
the century. Moreover, the bodies of everyone on Earth are now home to over
500 synthetic chemicals that were never there before 1900. Thus, half of all
cancers are now thought to be environmentally caused.


Still, perhaps we need’nt worry. After all, won't we one day soon have new
worlds to colonize, new worlds to flee to? Doesn't Mars and the vast cosmos
beckon? If the puerility of this argument is not immediately evident let us
note two points of contention. First, even if the technology to
go...somewhere...were developed, hardly more than an tiny band of
adventurers would make the voyage.


More importantly - and contrary to the fantasies of the sci fi culture -
there almost certainly is no where else to go. Recent advances in the
geophysical and planetary sciences have begun to undo five centuries of
continuous marginalization of Earth's significance in the universe.


For though microbial life is now thought likely to be highly common 'out
there', complex life is undoubtedly highly uncommon; perhaps only a handful
of other habitable planets in the entire galaxy, if that. Earth really is a
'miracle planet'. Unfortunately, the technological / consumerist ethos
promulgated not only (and self-servingly) by the corporate culture, but also
by elements of the scientific world subservient to it, is one of planet-wide
obselescence. The trouble, then, with Mars is with all the attendant
blatherings that carry within them the ultimate consumerist notion: that the
Earth itself, surely one of the greatest jewels in the cosmos, is, after
all.....just another throw-away planet.


Antony Black

tonyb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx







----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Totten" <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Totten Bill Notes" <BillTottenNotes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Ugly New World"
<UGLYNEWWORLD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "A-List" <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 5:09 PM
Subject: [A-List] Bad Times Coming


>
> by Charley Reese
>
> King Features Syndicate (March 03 2004)
>
> One of the things the Bush administration is ignoring is the coming
> catastrophe that is likely to impoverish the world and plunge it into
> global warfare.
>
> It will be the end of civilization as we know it, and it will occur in
> this decade or the next. Not since the fall of the Roman Empire will
> human progress so forcefully and quickly reverse itself. I'm talking
> about the end of the oil age.
>
> Several experts now agree that world oil production will peak soon and
> begin an unalterable decline. The price of oil will skyrocket, and as
> the supply dwindles, some of the nations that can't afford it will try
> to take it. Nation-states will be like starving hounds fighting over a
> few scraps.
>
> Things we take for granted, like electricity, the family car and air
> transportation, will become unaffordable for the great mass of people.
> Petroleum permeates our economy, not only in the form of gasoline,
> diesel fuel and heating oil, but also in the myriad of petrochemicals
> that are made from it. Many of these are essential to large-scale
> agricultural production.
>
> The impact of the loss of oil would be better understood if someone had
> not mislabeled the Industrial Revolution. It was instead a fossil-fuel
> revolution. Prior to that, in the course of human history, poverty had
> been the norm. The only sources of energy were human and animal muscle,
> wind and water. Oil and coal existed, of course, but no one knew how to
> convert them into energy that could do work. That's why for most of
> human history, slavery was universal.
>
> Whatever work was to be done - agricultural or construction - had to be
> done by human muscle, assisted, if they were available, by animals.
> Water could be used to grind grain, and wind was the principle source of
> propulsion on the seas. Since the human population was small, slaves
> were considered simply as the spoils of war, a valuable commodity.
>
> The invention of the steam engine, followed by the internal combustion
> engine, the diesel engine and the electric motor, allowed mankind to use
> fossil-fuel energy to do the work of civilization. At first the main
> fossil fuel was coal, until cheaper oil put it into a secondary position.
> Now our civilization is dependent on oil, and so is development. The big
> net importers of oil today are the United States, China and Japan. As
> other countries try to develop, they will need cheap oil, and so even as
> supply peaks and then dwindles, demand is constantly increasing. That
> spells skyrocketing prices, conflict and poverty.
>
> For a more academic discussion, you might read the new book "Out of Gas:
> The End of the Age of Oil" by California physicist David Goodstein.
> Others in the petroleum industry are also forecasting the same thing.
>
> President Bush, instead of trying to increase the profits of his
> corporate oil buddies by opening up new areas for exploitation (which
> won't amount to a drop in the bucket), should be mobilizing the nation
> to face the coming crisis. Uninformed talk about hydrogen won't do it.
> Goodstein points out that it takes the energy of seven gallons of
> gasoline to produce enough hydrogen to do the work of one gallon of
> gasoline.
>
> What is needed is the equivalent of a new Manhattan Project, the
> extraordinary government effort to develop the atomic bomb. The best
> brains in America need to be mobilized to prepare the country for that
> soon-to-come day when the world demand for oil exceeds the world supply.
> Unless we can find alternatives - cheap, mass-produced alternatives -
> Americans face a catastrophic decline in their standard of living, not
> to mention a dangerous world in chaos and conflict.
>
> If you think I paint too grim a picture, imagine what your household
> budget will be like when the price of oil has climbed to a $100 a barrel.
> It is an unfortunate truth of history that nations sometimes face
> extraordinary challenges just when their political leaders are poorly
> equipped by nature and nurture to deal with them.
>
> http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20040303/index.php
>
> Please also see:
>
> "The Coming Implosion of the American Empire" by Gary North,
> lewrockwell.com (February 23 2004)
> http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north249.html
>
> "The Coming Financial Train Wreck (A Tale of Peters and Pauls)"
> by Steven Yates, lewrockwell.com (March 06 2004)
> http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates91.html
>
> "The Trade Tightrope" by Paul Krugman, New York Times (February 27 2004)
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/022804E.shtml
>
> "The social costs of globalisation" by Joseph Stiglitz, Financial Times
> (London, February 25 2004)
> http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind0403&L=vicug-l&F=&S=&P=52
>
> "The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation" by Vandana Shiva,
> ZNet Commentary (February 19 2004)
> http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-02/19shiva.cfm
>
>
>
>