The Survivalists

Senior Moment?

Old people say they are having "a senior moment" when they cannot remember something. As one of the older people, I seem to be hearing that statement from younger and younger people. It seems likely that part of the cause of such "memory loss" is a burden of mercury in their bodies (and mine) gathered over time by low dose exposures. One in 12 women in the USA have body mercury levels considered unsafe by the EPA (Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 7(3)p.121; 2009). I bet the loads are not sex specific. It's a major public health threat and the symptoms are growing..."Nation, Nation...we have a problem."

One third of the source: coal-fired power plants (and they're not going away before 2030). There are other sources, some lessening since childhood  (playing with the mercury of thermometers), others increasing (fish).

In February,2009,  countries got together and said "enough is enough" and concluded that voluntary efforts to control mercury pollution just won't work. There's a new treaty and promises to reduce mercury emissions and international trade in mercury, improve storage, and cleanup contaminated sites.

Those signing the treaty, ignoring the human crisis in the gold-mining areas where mercury is intensively used, said "let's start by 2013," having their own senior moment about their conclusion that babies are now at risk and mercury pollution is a major public health threat.

Naming the Problem

We, folks of the world, have a problem. It's too big to imagine and think about. When we use conventional thought we easily shift to finding "the cause" (whatever the problem is or might be). The changing climate and its effects and greenhouse gasses is an example of a big, multi-part, single problem. It takes work to understand, see the parts, and decide where to attack it for a solution or to prevent further destructive effects. We look for a cause. Here's an example:

In the US, transportation, and specifically motor vehicle use, is the largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions among all energy sectors. Transportation alone accounts for one-third of all US emissions. Fuel price will affect this as will a strong move to smaller vehicles and electric cars. The nations' electricity demands are very high and projected to grow by at least 30% within 25 years. Coal-fired plants are a major electricity producer. We'll fight more over the last of the oil, some to be used for electricity production. Much of that last available oil will be prized for propulsion of satellites to stabilize computer services worldwide. Nuclear power plants (now blocked) may add to the supplies, but we still have limited cooling water and no way to store the waste. Other energy sources will be developed, but the race is on between running out of coal and increasing transportation gasses as the major causes of climate changes and unimaginable costs throughout world societies due to those changes.

Too general, too future? People are the cause? People define the effects. The people of the arctic are already suffering and on the move.

World Electricity

I've lived during extended electrical outages, done special camping, manned a forest fire tower, and engaged in military operations, all without the services of electricity. I've visited villages in other countries that had no electricity ... ever. I have a deep appreciation for not having electricity.

I've told myself stories of the world without readily-available energy but I was fooling myself and could not sustain the tales. I always ended discussions of alternative sources (coal, oil, gas, geothermal, wood and other biomass, tidal, nuclear, wind, solar) with some foggy notion of all amalgamated somehow with losses over wires from whatever were the popular and most cheap sources that could be gained from holders and defenders as "electricity."

Then today I saw a map of the electricity available to people throughout the world. I am in anguish! Somehow I knew, but I had failed to accept, to internalize that this fundamental element of a quality of like ... by any criteria for "quality" ... is still missing for millions of people over vast area of the world.

There is so much to be done for so many people. How some people elect to use the last of the energy they are able to get, electricity wasting some it, will be grim stories. I cannot begin to think of a happy one for the neighborhood children or those of the world.

After You’ve Predicted, Then What?

Here are a ten ways to predict the future, to “prognosticate.” (Predicting in not "knowing.")

1. Study history. The future is likely to be somewhat like the past. Emphasize change per unit time. Generalize categories ... change of what?

Study and isolate trends and cycles. Compare related trends and cast the trend forward. 

Use statistical techniques such as time-series analyses, multiple linear regression, and non linear regression. Use logistic regression to estimate probabilities.

font face="Times New Roman" size=3>Use computer simulation (perhaps based on a good regression analysis), a model that allows you the study the effects e.g., of A changing to AA and B changing to BB and C changing to CC, then Y in the near future will likely be YY.

Assemble a team of experts and use their combined opinions and estimates about changing factors, encouraging their revisions based on opinions of their peers.

Write and study scenarios, accommodating all of the sources and results of the imagined future condition.

 Estimate the high and low limits of likely changes in local or relevant factors (soil, ore, etc. the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere including solar dimensions, and the biosphere. These define the small and large tetrahedron for life and action.

Isolate recent or pending changes (or published plan) and follow their actual or likely changes. Develop a "consequence" table. Use the results as in 4 above.

Isolate Precepts or fundamentals of how the world, business, or natural systems work. Use all of them to describe to describe a likely total system.

With experts, get their highest numerical estimate (people, size, budget, time, etc.), H, then their lowest, L, then their most likely-to-occur estimate, M, and compute the most likely future, F. F = (H + 4M + L)/6. The result is a median that works well in many situations. Round or adjust depending on whether you are risk prone or averse.

Having spent valuable time on such predictions, then what do you do with them? Use them in feedforward, part of a systems approach. Feedforward  is a special input and process to a decision. It is what you really believe (and will defend and stand by) the conditions are going to be like for the period affected by your decision (e.g., a building, a 5-year budget, a bridge, a by-law). Practical feedforward is making a bold decision about the believed future.

 

A small office system can be created for assisting in doing the above 10 easily and efficiently, thus increasing the chances for doing them, doing them with improvements (feedback), and increasing the goodness of decisions in a very dynamic world.

Notes on Falls and Falling

My wife has fallen ... badly. I visit my 99 year-old Mom at an assisted living home full of stories of falls. I still hurt from an old fall. I don't think falls are a disease. I have dreams of anti-falls action as part of an old-folks organization called The Old Codgers that might be part of Rural System.

"Hey! Don't fall down." That what parents used to say. It means more than ever when you reach a ripe age. An amazing number of people are hurt each year from falls. There are lots of reasons why falls occur. All are not "just an accident." Most can be prevented and they need to be, no foolin'. They hurt. They break bones and it takes a long time for old bones to knit. Bones produce good blood cells and we need all that we can get as we get older.

The death rate (about 37/100,000 in 2003) from falls has risen for old people (65 and older) since the 1990s. People are living longer and those have chronic conditions like cancer and heart disease. Falls are the 24th worst cause of death among the elderly.

The ways to reduce falls (some of these are from the U.S. Center for Disease Control):

1. Clean up the stairs. Don't leave stuff on the steps. It just makes sense. You'll trip over stuff!
2. Get rid of the pretty throw rugs. You can hardly keep them from slipping, even once, eventually. The one time that they slip can be the disastrous one. "Pretty" is not worth the risk of a fall.
3. Need warm feet? Get a big rug that will not slip.
4. Don't wear socks! They are slippy things. Wear rubber sole slippers.
5. Don't climb up on things. Even young people fall off of things. Step-stools and ladders are valuable, but get rid of them in the house. They are dangerous. Put things within reach. Get a "reacher-tool" for less than a dozen bucks. It is cheap compared to the price of a hip replacement. Out of reachis a label for a fall.
6. Exercise your ankles (twisting, turning, standing on tip-toe, bouncing on tip-toe, rocking back and forth sideways while standing) to keep them strong.
7. Install grab bars next to the toilet, bath, and at the doorways. Not pretty or too expensive? Compared to a medical bill?; compared to the beautiful roof of a hospital room? Install them.
8. Put a non-slip mat in the bathtub and shower floor. News flash !! Soapy, wet floors are slippery!
9. Get things well-lit. Keep them well-lit. Put the switches within reach or, better, install a motion detector so that you do not have to remember to hit the switch. You get light when you walk within the dim areas.
10. Install strong handrails on the staircases.
11. Slow down!
12. Dizzy? Tell someone. Get it checked by the doctor.
13. Limit alcohol consumption. 
14. Get someone to carry stuff for you. (awkward or heavy packages prevent you from grasping the aids that keep you from falling). They are not helping you (we know you do not want to be "helped"); they are preventing a fall.
15. Get your eyes checked and corrected. Wear sun glasses in the open sunlight. Not seeing things that trip (TTT) may be the cause of falls, not the things themselves.
16. Large pets can bump you or cause tripping. Consider whether the pleasure of pets is worth the risks from surprise moves, tripping, bumping, and slips related to their food and water. 
17. Carry a cane, especially for going over irregular ground outdoors.
18. No matter what Granny told you, if you do fall, apply ice to the bruised place for 2 hours to reduce bruising. After that, (if you do not see a doctor and get specific advice) start using heat on the bruised spot(s). Don't take aspirin for the pain associated with the bruise until after seeing or discussing that action with a doctor.

Tending someone who has fallen and has an injury is tough duty. Fix up the place; go over the above suggestions. It will be worth it over the short- as well as long-run.

More or Less Oil

I'm pessimistic but still looking for the good news about the future of oil supplies. Cambridge Energy Research Associates suggested there is more oil available than we thought and thus presumably we should be optimistic.

I'm 75 and I know how fast the years fly by. I retired in '98 and that's only about 10 years ago. Daughters are about 50 and that seems like yesterday. So optimism that real declines in oil will occur no earlier than 2030 is hard to sustain. That, to me, is tomorrow ... morning. I picked up arrow heads from men poking around my cabin grounds about 10,000 years ago just after the big glacier melted. That seems now a short time ago relative to known Earth time, human time, and recent animal-time. There has been time for several "the rise and fall of the xxx empire" since then.

I cannot fathom 1.07 trillion barrels of oil "yet to be discovered" since presumably undiscovered,  I prefer "a billion billion" yet to be discovered. So I'm pessimistic.

I can hardly comprehend any optimism in getting oil from 7000 feet below the ocean (a mile is 5280 feet) partially because I know that it will cost a lot of energy to do so and I tire after first thoughts about the human, environmental, and "expected" costs of bringing thousands of barrels of it to a refinery. Alaska sources are small; alternative innovative sources are surely worth a wish; tar sands are a low net production, last ditch source ...  if Canada is still friendly.

I see no significant reduction in oil use since the election campaigns began (about 5 years ago); I know big oil things move slowly for many reasons. Alternative sources emerge slowly and, risky, they develop even more slowly. I have seen in my life, and now expect, undulations in oil supplies and prices. It's about 2010. How many undulations can occur between now and 2050? What are the optimist thinking that I cannot? What am I ignoring? What are others ignoring?

Alternatives to Environmental Regulations

From Science and Environmental Health  Network April 7, 2009 (with permission): Much of SEHN's work on the rights of future generations is the result of a 2 ½ year collaboration with Harvard Law School’s Center for International Human Rights. Together, they recently released two documents.  The first is a model statute and constitutional provision granting future generations a legal, enforceable right to a healthy and clean environment.  This document can be used by any governmental body that seeks new and innovative ways to mold its environmental policies.  The second document describes mechanisms like the legal guardian for carrying out the rights of future generations. 

Future Higher Education

Whether getting ready to go to the college or university, taking an Internet pathway to education, advising people about aids and resources to help, using knowledge effectively after getting started, or making network connections for the educational system for the future, there is an excellent emerging resource now available. It is AcademicInfo - Online Degrees, Online Schools and Student Resources. It is a vast, diverse resource.

From the history of online education within the site: In the 1990s  Jones International University, was launched as the first accredited fully web based university. AcademicInfo, maintained by Mike Madin, launched a free accessible resource for teachers, students and researchers. In the 2000s with the millennium a distant memory, Microsoft released its new classroom curriculum management platform called, Microsoft Encarta Class Server with designs to help “integrate daily curriculum with the digital age.” It released version 4.0 in 2005.

Bad lectures placed on the Internet do not make them better ... or even ok. Reading is usually faster than listening to lectures, but it still takes time to internalize material. Whether potential learners will take the time (if they can find a quiet place) to do the memory and making connections and analogical work remains an open question. I'll bet on an optimum combination of personal education and that via the Internetfor individuals and small groups.

Charging for Environmental Services

Roanoke Times presented my recent ideas on ecological Services .

There has been several articles in the mail in a few months, too many suggesting that this concept will not go away and that many new articles will emerge in "environmental economics" about the topic of ecological or environmental services..

Ask, is "pumping" a service of the heart? What is a heart to the person if not with "pumping?" Things provide service. Service is also a function, a namable action. Can they be separated; need they be separated?

Are  "retarding erosion" and "providing housing for insect-eating birds" not services of forests? The forest with its trees is a resource. It provides many goods and services, among a list of other generalized "benefits."

If we must pay for the benefits derived from forests, let us pay for forests, the well-known resource and then let each person benefit and appreciate as they may be able.

If we need forests for many public benefits, then let us deduct from landowner real-estate or land-use taxes an amount that wise people think appropriate, the amount we the people are willing to forego in public tax income for the likely un-named gains we will receive. The public thus pays for the general public welfare gained from the retained forests of the land owners. If they remove and convert them to other land uses, then let those new  tax rates prevail.

Take erosion, costs or water treatment, loss of crop land richness, damage of certain floods as the costs of not having retained forests.

Dare we say "providing many logging jobs" is a service of the forests of the state?

Take the statewide taxes on the financial gains (I-O analyses)from the forest industry and the forest-game hunting industry as the extra monetary gain from forests.

There are alternative ways to value and "pay" for goods and services. Trying to separate them for specific charges requires too many "Solomons," and there are few.

Things Change

Two days ago there was a convergence. A retired professor friend bragged of being computer illiterate. A relative, expert at e-mail, had no notion of what a "web site" was and was astonished that the 20th birthday of www had occurred during the week. I told him of the start so few years ago, sharing my amazement; he thought it had been over 50 years ago. Another person asked me what a "blog" was, quite uninterested in the answer, and late in the day's night, Craig Ferguson of TV's Late, Late Show joked about "blogs on the tweetie," I presume having heard about Twitter and tweets.

The convergence: I do not know my audience, perhaps never have. Aspirations for the benefits of an Internet-based social network are fanciful. Dreams of improved decision making aided by computers and their data bases were just that. "Globalization" rolls out of every conversation while nationalization is at work. The world is not flat and has hidden spaces like those for broadband reception; many people hear nothing. And now computer users pass non-users in the dark, speeding to ever-increasing social differences in knowledge, safety, comfort, and freedom.

Tomorrow will be a better day.