The global population is growing incredibly quickly, and the UN estimates it could reach nine billion by 2030. Kathryn Goodenough and Daren Gooddy argue that the geosciences are essential to making sure the world's population can support itself while minimising environmental damage. We rely on natural resources from the ground - aggregates for roads and buildings; oil and coal for transport and energy; rare metals for new technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels; and water, the basis of life on Earth. But what will we need in the future? And how will our needs change in response to developments in politics, technology and social and economic growth? How can we make sure our natural resources are used sustainably? To try to answer some of these questions, and understand the priorities for the geosciences in the future, BGS has put together a Science Futures Team. The team developed a set of four possible, contrasting future scenarios, based on two important variables: how fast the Earth system changes and whether nations are cooperating or competing. The scenarios are based on our current knowledge of the most important issues likely to affect people's lives over the next 20 to 30 years. To illustrate them, let's look at some graduate scientists of the future and see how their lives might look under each scenario. Read More
Contrails warm the world more than aviation emissions The innocuous white vapour trails that criss-cross the sky may not be as harmless as they look. In fact, they might have contributed to more global warming so far than all aircraft greenhouse gas emissions put together...
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Why we suffer
A report by Mansi Choksi
In a dim room atop the Prempuri Adhyatma Vidya Bhavan in Mumbai, surgeon-seeker Shantanu Nagarkatti's stories transported a group of city dwellers to a higher plane of spiritual consciousness. Nagarkatti shared episodes from the Yoga Vashishtha, of Rama's realisation that illness, physical and mental, arises from a deep conflict within oneself. Sage Valmiki's Ramayana documents Rama's journey from being a seeker to becoming a maryada purshottam — 'possessor of the qualities of an ideal person.' In the Yoga Vasishta, Sage Vashishtha tells Prince Rama the story of the enlightenment of Leela. "This story is for those who have lost a dear one, who live in pain and for those of us who are plagued by the anxiety of anticipatory loss," said Nagarkatti. Leela was the beautiful wife of King Padma — a fair, wise and kind man regarded as the 'lotus of his race'. They were deeply in love. Often, she would be overcome with fear, when she would think of the possibility of losing him. The fear became so overpowering that it sometimes prevented her from enjoying his company and even the present moment. Leela called on all the wise men in her court to find a solution to her problem. They advised her to engage in tapasya, fasting and meditation so that goddess Saraswati could show her the way. She chanted for days in secrecy and finally Saraswati appeared. "She asked the goddess for two boons: first, that she would appear each time Leela called her and second, that when Padma's soul left his body, it would not leave the room they shared," recounted Nagarkatti. Decades later, Padma passed away. As Leela sat next to his lifeless body, she was overcome by sorrow. Read More
In a dim room atop the Prempuri Adhyatma Vidya Bhavan in Mumbai, surgeon-seeker Shantanu Nagarkatti's stories transported a group of city dwellers to a higher plane of spiritual consciousness. Nagarkatti shared episodes from the Yoga Vashishtha, of Rama's realisation that illness, physical and mental, arises from a deep conflict within oneself. Sage Valmiki's Ramayana documents Rama's journey from being a seeker to becoming a maryada purshottam — 'possessor of the qualities of an ideal person.' In the Yoga Vasishta, Sage Vashishtha tells Prince Rama the story of the enlightenment of Leela. "This story is for those who have lost a dear one, who live in pain and for those of us who are plagued by the anxiety of anticipatory loss," said Nagarkatti. Leela was the beautiful wife of King Padma — a fair, wise and kind man regarded as the 'lotus of his race'. They were deeply in love. Often, she would be overcome with fear, when she would think of the possibility of losing him. The fear became so overpowering that it sometimes prevented her from enjoying his company and even the present moment. Leela called on all the wise men in her court to find a solution to her problem. They advised her to engage in tapasya, fasting and meditation so that goddess Saraswati could show her the way. She chanted for days in secrecy and finally Saraswati appeared. "She asked the goddess for two boons: first, that she would appear each time Leela called her and second, that when Padma's soul left his body, it would not leave the room they shared," recounted Nagarkatti. Decades later, Padma passed away. As Leela sat next to his lifeless body, she was overcome by sorrow. Read More
Canyon Ranch founder practices what he preaches
By CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN
Mel Zuckerman and I are seated on the deck of Canyon Ranch Miami Beach while an ocean breeze tousles our hair and a turquoise ocean taunts us. Zuckerman's glowing skin and trim upper body make him look much younger than 83. It's obvious he has embraced the lifestyle he envisioned when he transformed the fitness and spa industry with his posh Canyon Ranch retreats. I ask Zuckerman about the wellness revolution, figuring he would be thrilled about his role in kick-starting it a few decades ago. His answer surprises me. "There's still a disconnect between what we know we should do and putting it into action," he says. True, I admit to him. Most of us know we should be exercising and focusing on prevention, but we claim we're too busy. Then, we plunk ourselves in front of our television sets and snack on junk food while we boost the ratings of reality TV. Many Americans resolve each January to eat healthier, exercise more or get regular check-ups in the new year. Nearly 60 percent of people drop their resolutions by the six-month mark, according to studies by University of Scranton psychology professor John Norcross. Read More
Mel Zuckerman and I are seated on the deck of Canyon Ranch Miami Beach while an ocean breeze tousles our hair and a turquoise ocean taunts us. Zuckerman's glowing skin and trim upper body make him look much younger than 83. It's obvious he has embraced the lifestyle he envisioned when he transformed the fitness and spa industry with his posh Canyon Ranch retreats. I ask Zuckerman about the wellness revolution, figuring he would be thrilled about his role in kick-starting it a few decades ago. His answer surprises me. "There's still a disconnect between what we know we should do and putting it into action," he says. True, I admit to him. Most of us know we should be exercising and focusing on prevention, but we claim we're too busy. Then, we plunk ourselves in front of our television sets and snack on junk food while we boost the ratings of reality TV. Many Americans resolve each January to eat healthier, exercise more or get regular check-ups in the new year. Nearly 60 percent of people drop their resolutions by the six-month mark, according to studies by University of Scranton psychology professor John Norcross. Read More
2012 Author Sounds Off on Recent Disasters
by David Seaman This is my second interview with Daniel Pinchbeck, influential author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl and Breaking Open The Head, which detailed his exploration of shamanic initiation rituals around the world.
You're the "2012" Mayan prophecy expert -- it's certainly starting to feel a bit like the lead-up to a doomsday scenario, isn't it? Japanese citizens within 25 km of the damaged nuclear reactor are being exposed to a year's worth of radiation every single hour, ocean water is getting contaminated, and now the US has basically entered into a third military conflict overseas. Is any of this in line with what they predicted?
I don’t know if I am an “expert,” even though I have studied this area and written about it. Yes, sadly, all of this fits the prophecies of the classic Maya and other indigenous cultures perfectly. “Earth changes” – earthquakes, volcanoes, etc - are part of the predictions. Also, the indigenous people believe that humanity will be forced to confront our treatment of the world and one another. We will need to change direction as we experience the destructive effects of our technologies. We believed we could rise above nature: now we are learning that we have to be symbiotic with it.
According to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation myth which is dramatized in my film 2012: Time for Change, the end of this 5,100+ year “Great Cycle” and the start of the next are a time of destruction, regeneration, and creation. We are seeing an acceleration of all three as we move through this threshold. If the prophecies have validity, it is going to get more intense over the next year. Ultimately, humanity is being presented with a choice: it is not about an exact date but a window of opportunity. Read More
2012 apocalypse rumors are crazy [This article definitely presents another point of view.--L.] This past year, there have been a large number of disasters and conflicts springing up across the globe. It seems like far more than usual. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, uprisings in the Middle East, and a failing economy are just a short list of the total number of disastrous events taking place across the globe...
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Earth's Outer Core, Rotation, Surface Air Temperature May Explain Climate Change
Those included in the study were Jean Dickey and Steven Marcus from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, along with Olivier de Viron, from the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France. It is well known that an Earth day consists of 24 hours, which is the time it takes for the Earth to make one full rotation. Over a year's time, seasonal changes occur due to energy exchanges between fluid motions of the Earth's atmosphere, the oceans and solid Earth itself, which changes the length of a day by about 1 millisecond. In addition, the length of a day on Earth can vary over longer timescales such as interannual timescales (two to 10 years) or decadal timescales (10 years).
But Earth’s oceans or motions of its atmosphere cannot explain the variances in the length of day over longer timescales. Instead, longer fluctuations are explained by the flow of liquid iron within Earth's outer core, which interacts with the mantle to determine Earth's rotation. This is also where the Earth's magnetic field originates, and because researchers cannot observe the flows of liquid iron directly, the magnetic field is observed at the surface.
Studies have shown that this liquid iron "oscillates in waves of motion that last for decades," and have timescales that resemble long fluctuations in Earth's day length. At the same time, other studies have shown that long variations in Earth's day length are closely related to fluctuations in Earth's average surface air temperature. Read More
Tsunami Was More Than 77 Feet High At Its Peak "A tsunami wave that hit a coastal city in Iwate Prefecture after the March 11 massive earthquake is estimated to have reached 23.6 meters in height, a government-commissioned field survey by the Port and Airport Research Institute showed Wednesday," Kyodo News reports.That's 77 feet, 5 inches. Or, about the height of a six- or seven-story building...
The 2012 Shift-- Eat Clean
By Holly Noonan
We are on the cusp of a new era of consciousness on the planet. The whole hub-bub about 2012 is about this shift. It's a transition from masculine to feminine consciousness, meaning those humans (men or women) who resonate with the earth's unfolding creative, dynamic, careening, ever-changing life force, will be better prepared for a future that holds a tremendous amount of change in the next 50 years.
A major determining factor on whether you will be one of the clear-minded, flexible, sensitive creatures who rides the universal flow or one of the clamped-down, stuck, recalcitrant, comfort-seekers is....of course.... THE FOOD YOU EAT.
I have noticed both a decline and a crescendo of human consciousness in America. (Have you?) The primetime network TV shows seem to be getting more crass, more violent or vulgar and yet... the artists and visionaries and healers I know are galloping over their life-hurdles at an apparently accelerating rate. The news gets ever-bleaker from around the world, and yet quantum physicists are agreeing with the Dalai Lama. (and Einstein might have too.) Read More
Earth Hour aims for hope in darkened world Lights will go out around the world Saturday with hundreds of millions of people set to take part in the Earth Hour climate change campaign, which this year will also mark Japan's earthquake and tsunami...
We are on the cusp of a new era of consciousness on the planet. The whole hub-bub about 2012 is about this shift. It's a transition from masculine to feminine consciousness, meaning those humans (men or women) who resonate with the earth's unfolding creative, dynamic, careening, ever-changing life force, will be better prepared for a future that holds a tremendous amount of change in the next 50 years.
A major determining factor on whether you will be one of the clear-minded, flexible, sensitive creatures who rides the universal flow or one of the clamped-down, stuck, recalcitrant, comfort-seekers is....of course.... THE FOOD YOU EAT.
I have noticed both a decline and a crescendo of human consciousness in America. (Have you?) The primetime network TV shows seem to be getting more crass, more violent or vulgar and yet... the artists and visionaries and healers I know are galloping over their life-hurdles at an apparently accelerating rate. The news gets ever-bleaker from around the world, and yet quantum physicists are agreeing with the Dalai Lama. (and Einstein might have too.) Read More
Earth Hour aims for hope in darkened world Lights will go out around the world Saturday with hundreds of millions of people set to take part in the Earth Hour climate change campaign, which this year will also mark Japan's earthquake and tsunami...
We are not primarily rational creatures
Emotion, not rationality, rules our world - something policymakers should learn. So says David Brooks, who uses fiction to illustrate cognitive science
Where did the idea for your book The Social Animal come from?
It came from covering policy failures as a journalist. For example, one factor in the financial crisis were regulations that assumed bankers made decisions rationally. Also, in education, we in the US have spent 30 years just reorganising the bureaucratic boxes of our education system. These failures were based on a false view of human nature, which is that we are rational individuals who respond in straightforward ways to incentives.
In the cognitive sciences, however, they have come up with a different and more accurate view of human nature. My book is an attempt to put this together and capture the implications it has for the rest of us: how to do education, business and policy.
Is there one insight from the cognitive sciences that really stands out for you? I guess there are three. The first is that most of our thinking is below the level of awareness and that these processes are very different from the linear and logical processes of consciousness.The second is that we are not primarily rational creatures. Emotion is the foundation of reason and you have to pay close attention to instant emotional responses: that is what tells us what we value. Read More
Raising consciousness Amid the political turmoil engulfing the Arab world, it is easy to lose our sense of direction. These trying times are the perfect opportunity to read Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose”. A new earth refers to the rising of an awakened consciousness, a necessary transformation as the world is faced with radical changes and a chain of insurmountable problems...
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