HOME - The Movie

HOME is a beautiful documentary of our planet Earth and the impacts of humanity on it's life systems. The cinematography- by the  renowned Yann Arthus-Bertrand, is gorgeous,  the narrative excellent, the soundtrack very cool. The film is like an offspring of Koyanisqatsi and An Inconvenient Truth, with some edgy Buddha Bar thrown in.  

All the major elements of human depredations and their ramifications are covered, including critical natural  feedback loops. It's a dire appraisal, but an epilogue offers signs of hope that we may rise to the challenge.

Watch this beauty online in high quality full screen format here.

Bailout total 12.8 trillion

Bloomberg today reported the total cost of the bailout so far to be 12.8 trillion dollars. (story)

We are definitely in uncharted territory now! This is a near incomprehensible number. It is, for example, the number of miles travelled by light in 2 years, at 186,000 miles per second.

Or consider this: to give away this much money, you'd have to give away a million dollars a day, every day, for 35,000 years; you'd have to have started when we were hiding in caves from saber-toothed tigers to reach 12.8 trillion.

It's also three times the current value of all the gold in the world.

Who knew we were so rich! We really could have made education first-rate and free, provided universal affordable health-care, and switched to 100% green energy years ago! Who knew?!

Steps toward an energy solution: Redefine Useful Work and Wealth

a thoughtful post by George Mobus over at Question Everything- something we need to think about - SM

"...Suppose we define useful work as that work which allows society to maintain a steady flow of exergy (net energy available to do work) at a level sufficient to maintain a steady-state population at a reasonable level of material comfort with equitable distribution of that material wealth. In other words, work which maintains a stable social environment without growth that robs non-human parts of the Ecos. This does not preclude development of new and better forms of material wealth, increasing the true satisfaction of every human, since that might be achieved through science and technology — doing more with less.

"What it does mean is that the total population of the planet must remain at the carrying capacity, the sustainable number that can live in balance with the rest of nature for as long as we can envision. It means obtaining energy from truly renewable sources rather than fossil fuels (which establishes an upper bound on the size of a sustainable population). And it means identifying the kinds of products and services that sustain human well being rather than self-indulgent hedonism. It means abolishing the notions of rich and poor. It means abolishing the notion of profits and interest as we understand them now. It means recognizing our mental, intellectual, and individual wisdom limits and establishing a form of governance that will prevent those who would succumb to irrational desires (like the desire to get rich!) from doing so. We already have laws that prevent us from doing direct harm to one another. We will need laws that prevent us from doing indirect harm as well.."

Read Dr. Mobus's full article here

Time Out for Play

related:
Cetacea: Mind-Bending Theories About the Planet's “Other” Intelligent Life

Google Earth Views: Greenland and Arctic

Remote Exploration #4

I was poking around the ocean floor with the new Google Earth 5.0 the other day, in the area southeast of the Azores, and I found this strange, what... formation? The horizontal border of the grid near the bottom of the image is over 100 miles long. There's nothing else like it in the region.

Click here to see a larger picture.




Now, I know that some freak geological formations can resemble purposeful structure. This seems to be an extreme case however. And very large, roughly 13,000 square miles according to the Google Earth "ruler".
A discussion has begun already over at the Google Earth forums on this feature, several people have stumbled on it apparently, like me, since the release of Google Earth 5.0 featuring the ocean floors. If you have any thoughts on this, post comments here.


Update Feb 20: This feature is catching a lot of attention... see "Has Atlantic Been Found Off The Coast of Africa?"


What else may await further armchair exploration? As the data sets become more fine-grained, determined explorers are certain to find things of interest. I found some sunken dock structures and ships in an ancient megalithic port, now submerged. (In shallow waters near some coastal areas the imagery is good enough to see these details underwater).

Remember that the imagery used in Google Earth, Mars, and Sky, has not yet necessarily been seen by humans, let alone examined in detail; discoveries are happening already, and many more await... have you looked into the Google Sky deep-field yet?



Related updates:

Dutch schoolteacher finds new class of astronomical object with Galaxy Zoo
Hanny's Blog / Galaxy Zoo blog discussion
GalaxyZoo

Google Earth reveals fish trap made from rocks 1,000 years ago off British coast

Obamanos!

We did it! And after a decade of obstruction and denial, we will finally have in Washington a smart, future-oriented administration which will be an ally in the urgent effort to get our civilization on a path to a sustainable future. With support from the grass roots all the way up to the White House, we as a society will be able to move ahead very quickly, and none too soon, considering the looming threats. This is a time to celebrate, and also to redouble our efforts on the ground and in support of the coming Obama administration.
Obama's announced plan: In the short term, tap every available national resource to reduce our dependence on foreign oil as quickly as possible, while rescinding tax breaks for Big Oil and using the money to provide energy rebates to consumers. For the long term, a crash program to develop alternative energy technologies rapidly, providing millions of non-outsource-able jobs, so that in the next decade the US is energy independent and a leader in the coming green boom.

(see more Obama video statements on energy and environment here.


"Hopes soared in Europe on Wednesday for renewed momentum toward global cooperation on climate change following the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States..." (story)