Musings

I have been scouring published data from a variety of disciplines over the last few years, ranging from modern economic theory to anthropology and climatology, looking for clues as to the future prospects of modern technical civilization.

I have concluded that complacency may well result in a future in which society self destructs a few years from now, resulting in humans surviving in greatly diminished numbers on a devastated world. History is replete with examples of famines, health, and environmental crises that humans brought upon themselves resulting in the total collapse of organized societies ranging from the natives of Easter Island to the Mayans and early civilizations of Asia and the Levant.

One of my favorite scientists, Jared Diamond, has elaborated on this sad history in his scholarly book, ‘Collapse’. It is well worth reading.

Our complacency is exemplified in the current struggle to obtain an agreement between countries regarding the global warming phenomena. Governments simply ignore the urgency and dither around, with politics and ‘junk’ science driving the process toward some ‘compromise’ solution. I believe that the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ is largely responsible for this behavior.

Everyone seems to think that technical or scientific solutions will appear like the magician pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Unfortunately, this appears very unlikely this time around.

Supporting evidence to back my assertion can be found easily if one takes the time to look. Some examples:

(a)Climatic feedback loops that are in play that amplifies climate extremes. These then trigger rapid and dramatic changes that last thousands or even millions of years.

(b)Global homogeny of food crops, whose strains are now susceptible to total global devastation from mutant viruses and/or insect ‘pests’.

(c)Worldwide dependence on certain local ‘bread baskets’, such as the American/Canadian Mid-West for corn and soybeans.

(d)Infectious microorganisms such as HIV that can mutate within hours to defeat any antibiotic measures.

(e)The global crisis that is developing over the availability of potable water, and the contamination of water and agricultural top soil with heavy metals, pesticides, and radioisotopes.

(f)The ongoing collapse of ecosystems and species vital to human survival due to overpopulation, slash & burn of forests and rangeland, the breakdown of the oceanic food chain, overfishing, human draining of estuaries and vital marshlands, destruction of coral reefs, and so forth.

(g)The enthusiastic proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that are now in the hands of societies driven by superstitious belief systems and accustomed to resolving social disagreements through conflict.

And, the world is now depending on a handful of highly educated people around the globe to come up with painless and easy solutions to these and other unknown developing problems.

Of course, the idea that we are likely to come up with unanticipated technical answers to environmental problems is not entirely bullshit, but the odds of solutions arriving in the nick of time are very poor, and it will only take a nudge from some unanticipated event like Mount Vesuvius having another major eruption, or some plate tectonic motion in the Pacific to start the cascade of events leading to global disaster.

The only hope we have, in my view, is to take off the blinders and look at the future with a jaundiced eye, then force global cooperation to make immediate and painful adjustments to human social behaviors and organization that results in a coordinated response to these developing problems. This means truth in government, including the ‘bad’ news.

As an example of the problem, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ‘father’ of Pakistan’s A-Bomb program, publicly admitted last week that China shipped to Pakistan weapons grade uranium sufficient for two bombs, along with the detailed plans to construct the weapons and start Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Khan then handed out the information to other Muslim countries. Yet, little or no mention of the new disclosure of this world-changing event has been made by governments or the mainstream press. Why? Because it is not ‘politically correct’ at the present time.

Where is the outrage? This sort of manipulation of public opinion and promotion of complacency has to come to a screeching halt, if we are to survive.

Another example can be found in the recent destruction of dams on rivers such as the Elwha River and others in Washington State (over 40 dams destroyed so far) and many in California in order to ‘rehabilitate’ habitat for species like the spawning Salmon. Pressure from environmental groups promoting ‘Ecotopia’ were the driving force, and it became ‘politically incorrect’ to offer countering arguments & suggestions.

Well, I am an avid fisherman and environmentalist, but several facts should have been considered:

Open bodies of water such as lakes and reservoirs are some of the best carbon sinks on the planet, removing millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. The ‘clean energy’ hydroelectric plants kept billions of tons of CO2 that otherwise would have been generated by coal-fired plants out of the atmosphere for decades. It is not difficult or expensive to build zig-zagging ramps up from the river bed to the surface area of the lake behind the dam that would allow the fish to reach their spawning grounds. In addition, the rivers could be ‘flushed' on occasion to simulate spring flooding that is necessary for ‘pristine’ river habitat. This is currently being done at Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.

Political correctness is one of the major evils that have been thrust on society, and it will kill us all if we don’t do something about it.

This is a major task for the social sciences, and they are just as important as the physical sciences in dealing with the developing crisis. We cannot afford to wait to get a plan of action underway, and we must prepare ourselves for the unpleasant adjustments that we must make to our current ways of life and thinking.

The alternative is for humans to become a part of the greatest extinction event since the demise of the dinosaurs.

My dear Opera friend, Isabel Wicked Lizard sent me an e-mail today with a searchable link to a great musical website that features an astounding array of quality music videos with an emphasis on Latino artists.

Your can find it here: Musica

Listening to some of the selections by artists I never heard of from Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and so forth, made me regret again the great loss to the USA of the musical cultural heritage of Cuba. The Afro-Cuban influence on the American musical scene was pretty much quashed for a long time by the politics of fear and hatred that surrounded the rise of Fidel Castro and his government.

All we had to tide us over was the great band of Stan Kenton and his classic tune, ‘The Peanut Vendor'.

A few really great artists such as the trumpeter, Arturo Sandoval, were able to slip the noose and expose us (primarily New Yorkers) to the exciting talent emerging in that island nation; and of course, Carlos Santana, Mongo Santamaria, Pete Escovedo, and other giants of the genera finally let us have it right between both ears.

But, it was a long time coming, and I often wonder what the state of America music might have been today, had this trend toward 'Salsa' been allowed to flourish unimpeded. Now, please understand that I am definitely NOT a fan of Hip-Hop, Grunge, Heavy Metal, and the other noise that masquerades as music nowadays. I am sure there may be selections by individual artists that transcend the norm, but I simply can’t wade through the ear-splitting garbage to get to it.

But, I was very pleased to follow-up on Isabel’s kind e-mail. No doubt, I’ll learn a lot.

And so, Isabel, here is my response as a way of thanking you. The artist featured in the attached video is long dead. He could not read music and was without any formal schooling on the piano, but he was a GIANT in the progressive jazz scene. I’m sure most of my readers have never heard of him.

According to the laws of physics, all of the earth’s heavy metals should have sunk to the planet’s interior, with the densest elements such as Uranium residing at the core. Very little should have been found in the earth’s crust, and hydrothermal transport and plate tectonics really can’t account for the rich ore bodies that we currently mine today.

This makes a good case for the hypothesis that these ore deposits are the direct result of asteroids and comets impacting the earth in the distant past. A similar theory has been advanced for the near-surface petroleum deposits that fuel modern society.

The exhaustion of these resources presents a danger for our future every bit as urgent as that of global climate change. It follows that our advance as a global civilization can only be maintained by replenishing these resources from outer space.

I read this week that Russia is working on a nuclear rocket that it hopes will facilitate rapid and less expensive transit of humans and robots from the earth to the outer reaches of the solar system. I applaud this development as, in my estimation, it is the only power system that makes sense, given the vast distances to be crossed and the diminutive power that will be available from the sun near the orbits of the asteroid belt and the gas giant planets such as Jupiter.

It is in these outer reaches that rich sources of our vital hydrocarbons and heavy metals will be found in nearly unlimited quantities.

In 1960, NASA and the AEC created the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office to manage project Rover/NERVA. In the following decade, it oversaw a series of reactor tests: Kiwi-A, Kiwi-B, Phoebus, Pewee, and the Nuclear Furnace, all conducted by Los Alamos to prove concepts and test advanced nuclear propulsion ideas.

Aerojet and Westinghouse tested their own series: NRX-A2 (NERVA Reactor Experiment), A3, EST (Engine System Test), A5, A6, and XE-Prime (Experimental Engine). All were tested at the Nuclear Rocket Development Station at the AEC's Nevada Test Site, in Jackass Flats, Nevada, about 100 miles west of Las Vegas. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Nixon Administration cut NASA and NERVA funding dramatically.

The cutbacks were made in response to a lack of public interest in human spaceflight, the end of the space race after the Apollo Moon landing, and the growing use of low-cost unmanned, robotic space probes. Eventually NERVA lost its funding, and the project ended in 1973.

We have a lot of catching up to do, and the politicians in Washington have foolishly spent our future on banking bailouts and schemes to keep our outmoded industries afloat. In 2004, NASA proposed Project Prometheus, and the Nuclear Space Initiative. The programs would have developed new types of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), as well as performed research on nuclear propulsion.
But they were shot down by politicians blinded by their own home state pork barrel projects, and by rabid and ignorant civilian organizations such as The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, based in Gainesville, Florida.

Sometime ago, I made a post herein titled ‘Keeping things in perspective’. You can find it here: Perspective

Had the trillion-dollar deficit been applied to the development and implementation of long-range plans for the sustainable expansion of space exploration and the human occupation of our solar system, we might have been in a position to truly re-mediate all of earth’s environmental problems by the beginning of the next century.

And, the deficit would have surely been repaid in short order, rather than becoming a lingering millstone around the necks of our children and our children’s children.

New and unimaginable industries would have arisen to replace the archaic system we have today, and the future of mankind would have likely been assured. But, given our lack of foresight, we are now faced with widespread poverty and the rationing of diminishing resources for the foreseeable future.

And, no defensive system for the inevitable future bombardment of earth by more asteroids and comets from outer space.


A nuclear rocket engine. The fuel could be hydrogen or a variety of other gases, and would greatly reduce the fuel required as well as have a higher specific impulse than existing rocket engines. The hydrogen is plentiful in the solar system, and could be derived from frozen water in nearby comets and asteroids, as well as the surface of the Moon.

In lieu of making an actual post of my own thoughts today (buying me a few more weeks to have an original idea), I decided to offer an excellent film presentation on the evils of fiat currencies---the paper money traded around the world today. It is an introduction to modern economic theory, and why much of our ‘wealth’ is an illusion.

This system is a continuing danger to our way of life. Historically, fiat currencies were always manipulated by governments and individuals to enable control of the population and restrict individual freedom of choice and action. In every historical case, crashes of the economy ensued, and horrific clashes, wars, and general disruption of peaceful society occurred.

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it” —Albert Einstein

Remember, knowledge is power. Empower yourself to make better choices for your financial future by viewing this film: Money as debt